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Israeli expats who organized to protest Netanyahu’s government are now mobilizing to ‘save Israel’
(New York Jewish Week) – In mid-September, a group of Israeli activists projected a message in all capital letters onto the headquarters of the United Nations reading, “Don’t believe crime minister Netanyahu.”
About a month later, the same activist group projected another all-caps message onto the same building. But instead of targeting Israel’s leader, it displayed the photos of some of the country’s youngest and oldest citizens.
“3 year-old Avigail,” read one message, above the photo of a smiling girl. Similar messages followed, depicting the photos, names and ages of Ariel, age 4; Carmela, age 80; and Yaffa, 85. Beneath every photo was the caption “Kidnapped by Hamas.”
Both projections were the work of expatriate Israeli protesters who have organized and gained national attention over the past year. But as of two weeks ago, their cause has changed.
Originally, the activists gathered to protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his effort to weaken Israel’s judiciary, organizing protests and heckling Israeli officials when they visited the city. But after Hamas’ devastating Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which terrorists killed and injured thousands, and took more than 200 captive, the activists quickly pivoted — repurposing their tools and connections to support Israel’s war effort, aid its vulnerable populations and advocate for the release of the hostages.
“We’re all just thinking about our families and we have sleepless nights and we’re doing whatever we can,” said Shany Granot-Lubaton, a prominent Israeli activist in New York who previously worked in progressive political organizing in Israel. The protest group she helps organize, UnXeptable, has changed its motto from “Saving Israeli Democracy” to “Saving Israel.”
“We know many people who were slaughtered and kidnapped and raped and it’s in our closest circles. We have kids, we used to be their guides at scouts, who were kidnapped and killed,” she said. “As Israelis, being far away from home right now is devastating and we all just want to do something to help.”
For Granot-Lubaton’s family, as for many Israelis, the devastation is personal. Her husband, Omer Lubaton-Granot, found out last Wednesday that four of his relatives are among the captives; two more were murdered in the massacre. He is running an advocacy campaign for the hostages in New York — part of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a larger coordinated effort with activity in Israel and around the world. Israelis have taken an active role in the grassroots “Kidnapped in Israel” project that pastes flyers of hostages on city streets.
“It’s a whole family, and we thought that all six of them are gone, then the family realized that four of them are hostages and held by Hamas, and two of them, the bodies were identified a couple days ago,” he said regarding his captive relatives, adding that despite the initial shock and horror of captivity, it was a small relief to find out some had survived. “It’s not good, but it’s better.”
So far, the activists say they have raised around $1.2 million, in addition to sending supplies to soldiers and civilians, staging rallies, providing services and community to Israelis in the U.S. and organizing efforts aimed at freeing hostages held by Hamas.
The protesters’ mobilization in New York and other international cities parallels the approach of the protest movement in Israel, which brought hundreds of thousands to the streets earlier this year to protest the judicial overhaul. Since Oct. 7, the movement has set aside that fight to focus on relief work — delivering services and supplies to those in need. Granot-Lubaton said her NYC-based group and others in the United States, which coordinate with the Israeli groups, is a “sidekick” to their efforts. American Jewish organizations have also been crucial partners, she said.
Israeli expatriates established branches of the protest movement in dozens of cities in North America and have learned to navigate the intricate landscape of American Jewish organizations and formed ties with many of those groups — connections that proved crucial in rapidly launching a major relief effort in the United States.
“It was very easy to transform because we know how to mobilize people, we know how to reach people,” Lubaton-Granot said. “We know how to organize events, we know how to raise funds.”
Left: A message against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is projected onto UN Headquarters ahead of his appearance at the UN General Assembly in September 2023. Right: An image of a kidnapped Israeli boy is projected onto UN Headquarters after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023. Israeli expatriate activists projected both messages. (Courtesy)
In one aid operation that began at the war’s outset, the U.S.-based protesters sent four tons of supplies to Israeli soldiers who found that they lacked essential equipment as the military called up 300,000 reservists.
Tali Reiner Brodetzki, an Israeli activist in Philadelphia, was inspired by seeing supporters of Ukraine’s war effort organize Amazon “wish lists” after Russia invaded last year. She asked colleagues from an Israeli combat veterans’ protest group, Brothers and Sisters in Arms, to tell her what the soldiers needed, and began spreading the word about a wish list of her own.
Volunteers responded by buying 80,000 flashlights, 100,000 olive green T-shirts, socks, ceramic body armor, tourniquets and dressing for trauma wounds. The equipment was sent to a volunteer’s house on Long Island near John F. Kennedy Airport, packed into duffel bags and sent as overweight baggage on El Al flights. Activists from Brothers and Sisters in Arms collected the supplies at Ben Gurion Airport and distributed them to troops.
“We got a call from a mother crying her heart out” after her son was shot, said Granot-Lubaton, who assisted with that initiative. “He’s in the hospital and he got a bullet, but the vest we sent saved his life.”
Many Israelis who live in New York and across the United States have flown to Israel to fight in the reserves, and some of those reservists — in addition to medics — arrived on flights organized by an UnXeptable chapter in the Bay Area, led by activist Offir Gutelzon. And some Israeli families who were in the United States on vacation have opted to stay for the meantime. The activists are helping to organize programs for children of the reservists and those here temporarily, assisting new arrivals in gaining admission to Jewish day schools and enlisting kosher restaurants to help out with food deliveries for families.
One of the main ways the protest groups have communicated with and mobilized followers is via Whatsapp groups, and those groups have proven crucial for crowdsourcing support during the past two weeks. One woman was eight months pregnant when her husband went to the reserves, leaving her alone in the city. She was able to access health insurance and find other support through the activist network. A recent request for Hebrew-speaking psychologists in New York who could treat trauma also elicited a long list of recommendations. Some Israelis who were stranded in the city have been able to find temporary free lodging.
Some of the activist programs aim to bring Israelis, including children and their parents, together on the weekends. An event on Oct. 14 at the Manhattan JCC drew more than 300 people, and a David Broza concert on Sunday drew hundreds to B’nai Jeshurun, an Upper West Side synagogue. Many Israelis feel out of place in New York, where life continues as usual, despite the trauma and hardship back home. The Israeli and American Jewish communities have also responded differently to the war, Granot-Lubaton said.
“American Jews, they speak about the war in this very frightening way,” she said. “They’re doing ceremonies, lighting candles, but the Israeli kids in the schools are getting freaked out about it because their fathers are out there and it makes them afraid, so the way we talk about it is very different.”
Now that the immediate needs of troops have been mostly met, the activists hope to aid the communities in Israel’s south that were hardest-hit by Hamas’ atrocities, including by helping fund mental health services. Organizers also hope to support Israel’s economy, which is also battered by the war, by buying aid supplies from local stores rather than U.S. suppliers. That aid effort comes alongside an American Jewish fundraising drive that has directed hundreds of millions to Israel since Oct. 7.
The war has also led to new ties between the Israeli activists and American Jews who opposed their previous anti-government demonstrations. Reiner Brodetzki, the Philadelphia activist, said a group of religious Jews opposed to the protest movement had dropped by her house to borrow her Israeli flags and megaphones to use in their own pro-Israel demonstration.
“It’s amazing to see how people who would not talk to us previously, and had a lot of criticism about us protesting outside of Israel against the Israeli government, how they want to work with us now,” Reiner Brodetzki said. “They understand that we love Israel and we’re supporting Israel and now we’re in this fight together.”
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Northwestern University Touts Progress on Addressing Campus Antisemitism Amid Federal Scrutiny
Signs cover the fence at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect.
Northwestern University on Monday touted its progress in addressing the campus antisemitism crisis, issuing a statement containing a checklist of policies it has enacted since being censured by federal lawmakers over its handling of pro-Hamas demonstrations which convulsed its campus during the 2023-2024 academic year.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the statement said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and across the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which regulate peaceful assembly on the campus.
“In closing, although Northwestern has made significant progress in the fight against antisemitism on campus, the university remains vigilant and will continue to do what is necessary to make our campus safe,” the statement concluded. “Importantly, the fight against antisemitism is NOT [sic] a zero-sum game. All members of our communities on campus — all religions, races, national origins, genders, sexual orientations, and political viewpoints — deserve to feel safe and know that our rules will be enforced to protect them against hate, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. Northwestern is committed to this principle.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Northwestern University struggled for months to correct an impression that it coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May 2024 encampment.
University president Schill denied during a US congressional hearing held that year that he had capitulated to any demand that fostered a hostile environment, but his critics noted that part of the deal to end the encampment stipulated his establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, creating a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by students of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim descent, and forming a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
The status of those concessions, which a law firm representing the civil rights advocacy group StandWithUs described as “outrageous” in July 2024, were not disclosed in Monday’s statement.
Northwestern University is not the only school creating distance between itself and the anti-Zionist movement, a step many colleges have taken in response to US President Donald Trump’s vowing to cut the flow of taxpayer funds supplementing their budgets should they refuse to crackdown down on illegal protests and antisemitism. Following the Trump administration’s cancelling of over $400 million in federals contracts and grants awarded to Columbia University, former interim president Katrina Armstrong proposed a list of reforms the school would agree to undertake — in areas ranging from undergraduate admissions to campus security — to restore the funds.
Armstrong later resigned from her position, saying in a statement which explained the decision that she wishes to return to her role as executive director of the university’s Irving Medical Center, as well as several other positions she holds.
Meanwhile, Harvard University recently fired a librarian whom someone filmed ripping posters of the Bibas children, two babies murdered in captivity by Hamas, off a kiosk in Harvard Yard and denounced him as “hateful.” Additionally, it paused a partnership with a higher education institution located in the West Bank, a move for which prominent members of the Harvard community and federal lawmakers had clamored in a series of public statements. The Trump administration initiated a review of $9 billion in taxpayer funds it receives anyway, prompting interim president Alan Garber to defend Harvard’s handling of the issue.
“For the past fifteen months, we have devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism,” Garber said. “We have strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them. We have enhanced training and education on antisemitism across our campus and introduced measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security.”
Northwestern University is in the Trump administration’s crosshairs too. It is one of 60 universities being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over its handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
“The department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in March. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Pressure Mounts on UN Members to Block Reappointment of Controversial Anti-Israel Official
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations is facing growing pressure to block the reappointment of Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has an extensive history of using her role to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the terrorist group Hamas’s attacks against the Jewish state.
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to reappoint Albanese for another three-year term on Friday, despite calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Since taking on the role of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, Albanese has been at the center of controversy due to what critics, including US and European lawmakers, have described as antisemitic and anti-Israel public remarks.
In the months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, across southern Israel, Albanese accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
She has also previously made comments about a “Jewish lobby” controlling America and Europe, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and stated that Hamas’s violence against Israelis — including rape, murder, and kidnapping — needs to be “put in context.”
Last year, the United Nations launched a probe into Albanese for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
In the past, she has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and that they give her “hope.”
On Monday, US Rep. Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC, Ambassador Jürg Lauber, to express his strong opposition to Albanese’s reappointment.
In the letter, Mast claimed that Albanese has failed to act “in an independent capacity with a professional, impartial assessment, and maintain the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.”
“Ms. Albanese unapologetically uses her position as a UN special rapporteur to purvey and attempt to legitimize antisemitic tropes, while serving as a Hamas apologist,” the letter read.
“In her malicious fixation, she has even called for Israel to be removed from the United Nations while likening Israel to apartheid South Africa,” Mast wrote in a letter signed by six fellow lawmakers. “Regrettably, Ms. Albanese’s rhetoric has perverted the very institution and its foundational principles in which she was appointed to serve.”
Governments worldwide, including France, the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, have condemned her statements as antisemitic and urged that she not be given another term in her role.
Last month, 42 members of the French Parliament publicly urged the government to oppose Albanese’s reappointment, arguing that it “would send a regrettable signal to victims, human rights defenders, and states committed to credible multilateralism.”
This week, British Labour Member of Parliament David Taylor also objected to Albanese’s reappointment, saying “there is no place for such alleged antisemitism on the international stage.”
“Albanese’s response to the largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century was to describe it as ‘a response to Israel’s oppression,’” Taylor told the Jewish Chronicle. “She described Israel as being a ‘settler colonial conquest.’”
“Making statements of this nature in a UN capacity is abhorrent and does so much damage to communities already torn apart by horrific violence, going against everything the United Nations stands for,” Taylor said.
Human rights groups and NGOs have also campaigned to prevent the anti-Israel rapporteur from receiving a second term.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, has organized a petition against her reappointment, which has garnered over 83,000 signatures.
Last month, Maram Stern, executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC urging him to reject the renewal of Albanese’s mandate, citing what she described as the UN official’s history of anti-Israel animus and antisemitic statements.
“Ms. Albanese has repeatedly made public remarks that propagate harmful antisemitic tropes, question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and employ rhetoric that undermines the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the letter read. “Her persistent lack of objectivity and failure to uphold a balanced and impartial approach required of her as special rapporteur compromises her credibility as an independent expert.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also urged UN Members to reject Albanese’s second term, saying she “has systematically demonstrated a troubling pattern of conduct and expression that is incompatible with the responsibilities, neutrality, and integrity expected of a UN special rapporteur.”
“Her actions not only betray the victims of terrorism and antisemitism but also are a stain on the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the AJC wrote in a letter.
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Three Jewish Coaches Lead Teams in NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four
Florida Gators head coach Todd Golden and Auburn Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl talk before the game as Auburn Tigers take on Florida Gators at Neville Arena in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
The men’s 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four bracket includes four No. 1 seed teams, three of which have Jewish coaches who will lead the way in the two national semifinals taking place on Saturday.
Auburn University Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl has contributed Auburn’s success in the NCAA in part to God and his Jewish faith. He described Israel as the “ancestral homeland for the Jewish people” and called for the release of American-Israeli Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity at a post-game conference last month. He also took the Auburn team on a trip to Israel, where they made stops at the Western Wall and Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
The Tigers will compete on Saturday in the NCAA Tournament Final Four against the Florida Gators whose Jewish coach, Todd Golden, is an Israeli citizen who previously played two years professionally for Maccabi Haifa in Israel.
In 2009, Golden was co-captain of the USA Open Team, coached by Pearl, that won gold at the Maccabiah Games, which is an international multi-sport event for Jewish and Israeli athletes. Golden has been the coach of the Tigers for two seasons, but prior to that he was the assistant coach at Columbia, the head coach at San Francisco, and even worked under Pearl. Golden was director of basketball operations for the Auburn staff for the 2014-15 season and was promoted to assistant coach for the 2015-16 campaign.
Duke and Houston also play each other on Saturday in the Final Four. The head coach of the Duke Blue Devils, Jon Scheyer, also formerly played in Israel and holds Israeli citizenship. He played professionally for Maccabi Tel Aviv from 2011-12. In October 2023, not long after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Scheyer commented on the conflict and said in part: “My heart breaks for the people in Israel — that have hostages, American lives that are taken, mourning loved ones.” Scheyer is leading Duke to the Final Four in only his third year as head coach.
The Houston Cougars – the fourth men’s team competing in the Final Four – do not have a Jewish coach, but they have a player who was born in Israel and played for Israel’s national youth squad. Guard Emanuel Sharp, who is the son of Derrick Sharp, was part of Israel’s under-16 national basketball team and also played for Maccabi Tel Aviv for over a decade.
This year’s Final Four have a combined record of 135-16. Since seeding began in 1979, this is only the second time in history that all four No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. It previously happened in 2008. Larry Brown was the last Jewish coach to win the NCAA Tournament when he led Kansas to the victory in 1988.
The 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four begins on Saturday, with two national semifinals taking place at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and ends on Monday with the national championship.
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