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From grief to rage, American Jews are struggling with how to feel about the conflict in Israel
(JTA) – Not knowing what else to do this week, Julia Starikovsky posted some pictures of herself in Israel on social media.
Like other American Jews, Starikovsky, a 25-year-old psychology doctoral student at Northwestern University, was shocked and horrified by the devastation wrought by Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. She is planning to get married in Israel next fall, and has close friends who moved to Israel. Yet she still thought to herself, “What does this have to do with me?”
It was only when she saw a prompt on Instagram that called for young Jews to share photos of themselves in Israel for “solidarity” that Starikovsky felt she had permission to make it, in some small way, about her. She shared photos of herself with her friends and fiance in Israel, hoping to provide a more human face to the ongoing tragedy.
She didn’t know at the time that the prompt had been a coordinated effort by Birthright Israel to promote pro-Israel sentiment on social media amid concerns about criticism stemming from Israel’s military response in Gaza. One Israel-based Birthright marketing executive, Noa Bauer, described the social media push to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as a publicity campaign that Israel would need “in the coming days and weeks when there’s probably going to be more casualties.”
Bauer added, referring to Birthright’s American alumni, “I think that they owe us as Jews, and as human beings, to give their thoughts.”
Yet Starikovsky, a Birthright alum, didn’t see her support as transactional. She’s also trying to hold space in her heart for other forms of grief. “You can support Israel; you can also support Palestinian children. The two are not exclusive of one another,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve been hesitant in posting about Israel, but I’m also making sure that I recognize the other innocent civilian lives that are lost in this whole entire war.”
Within a deeply polarized discourse about Israel among American Jews, Starikovsky joins many in the relatively quiet middle: seared by grief, worried about what comes next, and not quite sure how to reconcile the two.
Prominent Jewish voices occupied the headlines this week calling, on one side, for Gaza to be flattened into a “parking lot” (Rep. Max Miller, the Jewish Republican from Ohio) and, and on the other side, for a total ceasefire (the left-wing groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, which staged several mass protests, including at the U.S. Capitol). But between those poles lie many more people in Starikovsky’s shoes, just trying to make sense of a moment that seems to defy it — and potentially more difficult moments on the horizon.
“It’s terrible that Israelis are being killed. It’s also terrible that civilian Palestinians are being killed,” said Lisa Young, a self-described “Conservadox” Jew who spoke to JTA at a Chabad-Lubavitch pro-Israel event in New York City. Young said she has friends who used to live in Gush Katif, Israeli settlements in Gaza that were evacuated, along with all of Israel’s troops, in 2005.
“Unfortunately, Israel has to defend itself,” she said. “It’s a small country. They only want peace. They don’t want to attack and kill innocent lives. But they don’t have a choice but to respond to what’s happening amongst their people.”
An Instagram post made by Julia Starikovsky, an alum of Birthright Israel, in response to a Birthright prompt to share photos of herself in Israel in “solidarity,” Oct. 12, 2023. (Courtesy of Julia Starikovsky)
The wrestling took center stage last Shabbat as congregations across the country were packed with Jews bucking social media rumors of a “day of jihad” and seeking spiritual guidance for the long road ahead. Rabbis are expected to continue addressing the crisis this weekend from their pulpits.
Some liberal rabbis spoke of the need for a looming, difficult, but necessary, war to safeguard the Jewish state, or ceded their sermon times to Israelis who made similar points.
“From my experience there are no winners at war. All sides are losers,” said Israeli-American Josh Berkovitz, a former Israeli soldier and pro-Israel activist, in a speech to Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the largest Reform congregation in the country. “But this time, this war is about the very existence of the Jewish homeland, Israel. We have to win. There is no alternative.”
Others pressed their congregants to understand Israel’s motivations for military action while also maintaining empathy for the human toll. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York City’s Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation, called Israel’s campaign against Hamas “a just and moral war — one we didn’t choose, but now can’t avoid.” She also urged her congregation to “not equate Hamas with the Palestinian people” and to “mourn the death of all innocent lives.”
Some have gone further. “Killing thousands of Palestinian civilians will not bring back the Israeli civilians who are so bitterly and excruciatingly mourned,” Congregation Beth Elohim’s Rabbi Rachel Timoner said during her sermon in Brooklyn last week.
As some American Jews cite feelings of personal connection to the Hamas attacks as justification for supporting Israel’s actions, others who have direct connections to them are calling for the opposite. Cliel Shdaimah’s grandmother Ditzah Heyman, the widow of a Holocaust survivor, was seen in a video being taken hostage by the terror group. Yet Shdaimah’s family has been advocating against further Israeli military action in the media.
“I cannot and will not stand with violence, let alone when it is done in my family’s and other’s name,” Shdaimah told JTA via email. In addition, she said, her family is concerned that a lack of intelligence around the hostages’ location and condition means their health and safety could be jeopardized by Israel’s military incursion. (Hamas released two American hostages late Friday.)
Shdaimah urged American Jews “to not allow their love for Jews or Israel be poisoned by terror, not let Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian sentiments mar their compassion for human beings.”
Other progressive American Jews feel horrified simultaneously by the Hamas massacre, responses from the left blaming Israel for the crisis and Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Naomi Levison, 27, a social worker in Colorado who is active with a progressive Jewish collective called Denver Doikayt, is also still close with what she describes as the “very Zionist” community in Atlanta where she grew up and attended Jewish day school and summer camp. Her social media feed, she estimates, is 80% from her Atlanta and Young Judaea Israel gap-year communities, and she’s distressed by what she sees there.
“It’s been really devastating, and I feel a lot of complex emotions,” she told JTA. “I have a lot of loved ones in Israel. I lived in Israel. So I’m grieving what happened last Saturday.”
Yet pushes from Jews, and Jewish organizations like Birthright, to keep supporting Israel as a means of managing such grief are falling flat for her. “It feels as though our grief is being weaponized,” she said. “I’m also, at the same time, horrified how Israel is — I want to say ‘retaliating,’ I guess — and how a lot of my Jewish community is defending these actions and this violence.”
She specifically cited Israel’s decision early on to cut off food, electricity, fuel and water to Gaza, which she said is “clearly targeting civilians.”
“I feel really isolated from within the Jewish community,” she said. “And isolated from people who aren’t in the Jewish community who don’t understand the grief we’re feeling.”
Lily Lester contributed to this report.
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The post From grief to rage, American Jews are struggling with how to feel about the conflict in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Switzerland has moved to shut down the Geneva office of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed aid group, citing legal irregularities in its establishment.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
With a subsidiary registered in Geneva, the GHF — headquartered in Delaware — reports having delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
According to a regulatory announcement published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) may order the dissolution of the GHF if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Swiss decision to shut down its Geneva office.
“The GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland … and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered branch,” the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities gave the GHF a 30-day deadline to address legal shortcomings or risk facing enforcement measures.
Under local laws and regulations, the foundation failed to meet several requirements: it did not appoint a board member authorized to sign documents domiciled in Switzerland, did not have the minimum three board members, lacked a Swiss bank account and valid address, and operated without an auditing body.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these vehicles are more neutral.
Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort.
The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
The post Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Key US Lawmaker Warns Ireland of Potential Economic Consequences for ‘Antisemitic Path’ Against Israel
US Sen. James Risch (R-ID) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Washington, DC, May 21, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch (R-ID) issued a sharp warning Tuesday, accusing Ireland of embracing antisemitism and threatening potential economic consequences if the Irish government proceeds with new legislation targeting Israeli trade.
“Ireland, while often a valuable U.S. partner, is on a hateful, antisemitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering,” Risch wrote in a post on X. “If this legislation is implemented, America will have to seriously reconsider its deep and ongoing economic ties. We will always stand up to blatant antisemitism.”
Marking a striking escalation in rhetoric from a senior US lawmaker, Risch’s comments came amid growing tensions between Ireland and Israel, which have intensified dramatically since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Those attacks, in which roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage, prompted a months-long Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has drawn widespread international scrutiny. Ireland has positioned itself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s response, accusing the Israeli government of disproportionate use of force and calling for immediate humanitarian relief and accountability for the elevated number of Palestinian civilian casualties.
Dublin’s stance has included tangible policy shifts. In May 2024, Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state, becoming one of the first European Union members to do so following the outbreak of the war in Gaza. The move was condemned by Israeli officials, who recalled their ambassador to Ireland and accused the Irish government of legitimizing terrorism. Since then, Irish lawmakers have proposed further measures, including legislation aimed at restricting imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, policies viewed in Israel and among many American lawmakers as aligning with the controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
While Irish leaders have defended their approach as grounded in international law and human rights, critics in Washington, including Risch, have portrayed it as part of a broader pattern of hostility toward Israel. Some US lawmakers have begun raising the possibility of reevaluating trade and diplomatic ties with Ireland in response.
Risch’s warning is one of the clearest indications yet that Ireland’s policies toward Israel could carry economic consequences. The United States is one of Ireland’s largest trading partners, and American companies such as Apple, Google, Meta and Pfizer maintain substantial operations in the country, drawn by Ireland’s favorable tax regime and access to the EU market.
Though the Trump administration has not echoed Risch’s warning, the remarks reflect growing unease in Washington about the trajectory of Ireland’s foreign policy. The State Department has maintained a careful balancing act, expressing strong support for Israel’s security while calling for increased humanitarian access in Gaza. Officials have stopped short of condemning Ireland’s actions directly but have expressed concern about efforts they see as isolating Israel on the international stage.
Ireland’s stance is emblematic of a growing international divide over the war. While the US continues to provide military and diplomatic backing to Israel, many European countries have called for an immediate ceasefire and investigations into alleged war crimes.
Irish public opinion has long leaned pro-Palestinian, and Irish lawmakers have repeatedly voiced concern over the scale of destruction in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation.
Irish officials have not yet responded to The Algemeiner’s request for comment.
The post Key US Lawmaker Warns Ireland of Potential Economic Consequences for ‘Antisemitic Path’ Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Condemns Iran’s Suspension of IAEA Cooperation, Urges Europe to Reinstate UN Sanctions
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar at a press conference in Berlin, Germany, June 5, 2025. REUTERS/Christian Mang/File Photo
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Wednesday condemned Iran’s decision to halt cooperation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog and called on the international community to reinstate sanctions to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency),” Saar wrote in a post on X. “This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.”
Last week, the Iranian parliament voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA “until the safety and security of [the country’s] nuclear activities can be guaranteed.”
“The IAEA and its Director-General are fully responsible for this sordid state of affairs,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X.
The top Iranian diplomat said this latest decision was “a direct result of [IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi’s] regrettable role in obfuscating the fact that the Agency — a full decade ago — already closed all past issues.
“Through this malign action,” Araghchi continued, “he directly facilitated the adoption of a politically-motivated resolution against Iran by the IAEA [Board of Governors] as well as the unlawful Israeli and US bombings of Iranian nuclear sites.”
The Parliament of Iran has voted for a halt to collaboration with the IAEA until the safety and security of our nuclear activities can be guaranteed.
This is a direct result of @rafaelmgrossi‘s regrettable role in obfuscating the fact that the Agency—a full decade ago—already…
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 27, 2025
On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian approved a bill banning UN nuclear inspectors from entering the country until the Supreme National Security Council decides that there is no longer a threat to the safety of its nuclear sites.
In response, Saar urged European countries that were part of the now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal to activate its “snapback” clause and reinstate all UN sanctions lifted under the agreement.
Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), this accord between Iran and several world powers imposed temporary restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
During his first term, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and reinstated unilateral sanctions on Iran.
“The time to activate the Snapback mechanism is now! I call upon the E3 countries — Germany, France and the UK to reinstate all sanctions against Iran!” Saar wrote in a post on X.
“The international community must act decisively now and utilize all means at its disposal to stop Iranian nuclear ambitions,” he continued.
The time to activate the Snapback mechanism is now!
I call upon the E3 countries- Germany, France and the UK to reinstate all sanctions against Iran!
Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy…— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 2, 2025
Saar’s latest remarks come after Araghchi met last week in Geneva with his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and the European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas — their first meeting since the Iran-Israel war began.
Europe is actively urging Iran to reengage in talks with the White House to prevent further escalation of tensions, but has yet to address the issue of reinstating sanctions.
Speaking during an official visit to Latvia on Tuesday, Saar said that “Operation Rising Lion” — Israel’s sweeping military campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities — has “revealed the full extent of the Iranian regime’s threat to Israel, Europe, and the global order.”
“Iran deliberately targeted civilian population centers with its ballistic missiles,” Saar said at a press conference. “The same missile threat can reach Europe, including Latvia and the Baltic states.”
“Israel’s actions against the head of the snake in Iran contributed directly to the safety of Europe,” the Israeli top diplomat continued, adding that Israeli strikes have set back the Iranian nuclear program by many years.
The post Israel Condemns Iran’s Suspension of IAEA Cooperation, Urges Europe to Reinstate UN Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.