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Jewish schools to colleges: Don’t recruit our students unless you can guarantee their safety
(JTA) — Any college or university that wants to recruit students from two Modern Orthodox schools in New Jersey will now have to prove it can keep Jewish students safe, according to announcements from the schools.
Torah Academy of Bergen County, a boys school in Teaneck, and Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls, located just blocks away, each told families on Friday that they were enacting new requirements for colleges that seek to meet with students on campus, a regular component of the college search process.
A third school in the area told families on Monday that it was “reevaluating our relationships with college admissions officers” but had not yet settled on any policy changes.
The announcements offer a concrete indication that antisemitic incidents on U.S. campuses following Hamas’ attack on Israel Oct. 7 and Israel’s military response could affect how some Jewish students decide where to go to college.
The incidents are unfolding at precisely the time that high school seniors must complete their college applications, and they add to a preexisting sense of unease among some U.S. Jews about the status of Jewish students on college campuses.
“We feel strongly that we cannot continue to invite college representatives to speak to our students as they have in the past,” TABC head of school Rabbi Shlomo Stochel and associate principal Rabbi Steven Finkelstein wrote in an email outlining new requirements for on-campus recruitment. “Your son’s physical and emotional welfare is too important to us.”
Going forward, the TABC and Ma’ayanot administrators wrote, recruiters and college representatives must now bring “a statement from their university leadership detailing their plans to protect and maintain the safety and security of our graduates on their campuses as Jews.”
The announcement comes in the wake of multiple antisemitic incidents on college campuses nationwide, including an eruption of violence at a pro-Palestinian rally at Tulane University; a situation where Jewish students were barricaded inside a library at Cooper Union during a pro-Palestinian protest; and most recently, where death threats were made against Jewish students at Cornell Sunday evening, specifically targeting the kosher dining hall.
Colleges and universities have also drawn criticism over their public statements about the violence in Israel, with prominent Jewish donors in a few cases vowing to cut off institutions that they said insufficiently condemned Hamas or allowed antisemitic sentiment to flourish.
The climate has so alarmed the Biden administration that the U.S. Education Department has given itself two weeks to create and present a plan to combat the wartime spike in campus antisemitism.
The goal of high schools’ policy change is to increase pressure on the universities to act, the TABC letter says.
“It is our hope that our collective stance in prioritizing the safety of our students will compel universities to address the severity of the current situation,” it says. “Those who cannot or will not accede to our valid and just request will not be welcome here.”
The moment coincides with when high school seniors must make decisions about where to apply to college. Many universities use Nov. 1 — Wednesday — as an early decision deadline, meaning that students who apply by that date and are accepted are obligated to attend.
The New Jersey schools chose to send the emails ahead of that deadline, according to Rabbi Josh Kahn, the rosh yeshiva of TABC. Almost all of the school’s graduates head to Israel for a year and then to Yeshiva University, the Modern Orthodox flagship in Manhattan, though others enroll at other colleges with large Jewish populations including New York University and the University of Maryland.
Kahn said his school isn’t trying to close its doors to college recruiters.
“Our goal actually really is for our students to be able to go to college. The entire Jewish community’s goal is that our students should be able to go to the university campus and feel safe. That’s all we want,” he said. “We’re not looking to not allow colleges on to recruit from our campus. So we would like to do everything we can to help colleges ensure that our students will be safe.”
Ma’ayanot said that in addition to asking college representatives to provide assurances about students’ safety, it would also work with its own students to factor the campus climate about Israel into their post-graduation plans.
“We are working to educate our students about the Israel climate on various campuses,” said the school’s letter, signed by four administrators including Head of School CB Neugroschl. “Just as a thriving observant Jewish community is a vital factor, it is crucial to make sure that a college is a safe place for Jewish and pro-Israel students. It is our hope that our collective efforts will help students make wise and informed choices about their future.”
Paul Bernstein, the CEO of Prizmah, the North American network for Jewish day schools, said the school’s demands are appropriate.
“Safety for Jewish college students is paramount, and colleges should be able to demonstrate how they would enable students to live a full and active Jewish life on their campus, without fear or threat,” Bernstein said. “Jewish day school alumni are proud leaders in Hillel and other programs on campus, in support of positive Jewish living and Israel. We expect college administrations to ensure that is true not only at a time of war, but in years to come for future students.”
Other Orthodox high schools in a broader network are still discussing how to approach the college admissions process, according to Kahn, who said a meeting is planned on the topic.
Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, Modern Orthodox schools also in Bergen County, told families on Monday that they were rethinking admissions practices as application deadlines neared.
Head of School Eliezer Rubin said in a letter to families he believed that “universities have allowed a toxic ideology to fester, and that ideology manifests as raging, aggressive and overt anti-Semitism.” He named four schools — Cornell, Cooper Union, Tulane and Columbia — where recent incidents had induced fear for students’ safety.
“They believe that they could take our families for granted. … We need to dissuade them from the notion that they are entitled to our children by mere virtue of the fact that they are prestigious institutions,” Eliezer Rubin wrote. “The privilege is for these universities to educate our students, not the other way around. It is just that: a privilege. Not a right.”
Rubin concluded, “Put simply: If a university cannot keep our students safe, we cannot in good conscience send them there.”
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Roger Waters Defends Hamas, Claims There’s ‘Filthy Lies’ and ‘No Evidence’ of Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
Piers Morgan, left, and Roger Waters discussing Israel and Hamas on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters defended the Hamas terrorist organization for perpetrating the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel in a combative interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan on Tuesday.
Waters, a longtime critic of Israel who has been widely accused of antisemitism, also rejected the use of the term “terrorism” to describe the attack, in which 1,200 people were murdered and some 250 others were taken as hostages by Hamas. Most of the victims were civilians.
“To kill a civilian is a war crime,” Waters, 80, said about the Oct. 7 attack during an appearance on the talk show “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” When Morgan asked him if it’s considered “terrorism” as well,” Waters replied, “Well, to use the word ‘terrorism’ is really dangerous and difficult. You have to remember that the people fighting on behalf of Palestine liberation have a legal and moral, not just a right, they have a right to fight back against the oppressor.”
He added: “If someone invades your country, kicks all the people out of their home, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years, you have an absolute right to armed resistance against that invader.” When asked if Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, Waters replied, “probably.”
Rogers further denied there is proof that Hamas terrorists raped some of its victims on Oct. 7, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, including testimonies from former hostages.
“All the filthy disgusting lies that the Israelis told after Oct. 7 about burning babies and women being raped — No they weren’t,” he claimed. Morgan shot back, “Actually women were raped. It’s been established by the United Nations. There is extensive evidence of assault and rape.” But Waters repeatedly replied, “You can say anything you want [but] there is no evidence.”
“All those piles of cars that were destroyed by Apache missiles from helicopters… Hamas didn’t have helicopters,” Waters added, referring to the site of the Nova music festival in Israel where Hamas murdered more than 350 party-goers on Oct. 7.
The tension between Morgan and Waters escalated when the singer questioned Hamas’ abduction of infants and seniors on Oct. 7. Talking about now 1-year-old Kfir Bibas, who at nine months old was the youngest Israeli abducted on Oct. 7 along with his mother and four-year-old brother, Waters falsely claimed that the child has been released in a hostage exchange. Morgan corrected him, saying that the child has not been released, but an annoyed Waters replied, “Piers, you may or may not be making it up — I know you believe nonsense that you’re told by ZAKA or people who have made up tons of lies about Oct. 7.”
ZAKA is a volunteer-led rescue and recovery organization that assisted with the collection of bodies of victims from the Oct. 7 attack so they could be buried in accordance with Jewish law.
Waters repeatedly refused to condemn the Oct. 7 attack, telling Morgan, “I’m not going to have this conversation.”
“I condemn the killing of civilians, always. Whoever does it,” he said. “I condemn war crimes. If Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, I condemn it.” Waters reiterated a claim he made earlier this year that it was impossible to know what really took place on Oct. 7, because “Israelis won’t allow any real investigation,” he told Morgan.
Morgan told the singer that Hamas terrorists were open about what they did on Oct. 7 and even broadcasted live footage on social media during the attack. Waters went on to say, “I’m not saying that part of the Palestinian resistance movement didn’t cross that wire fence into what’s called Israel. I’m not saying that didn’t happen. What I’m saying is, there’s all this talk about, ‘Does Israel have a right to defend itself?’ Why didn’t Israel defend itself that morning? Why did they wait seven hours before they started machine-gunning everyone?”
Waters, who has repeatedly denied accusations that he’s antisemitic, also defended a video he previously published on YouTube in which he told Israelis to “go back to Eastern Europe or the United States or wherever you came from.” He said in the clip that Israelis who chose to stay in their homes would be “welcome” in a new Palestinian state.
Commenting on the video, Waters told Morgan: “I am in tears over Gaza every morning when I wake up. I’m only 80 years old, I have never experienced the genocide of a whole people in front of my eyes happening every day.” He said what’s happening to the Palestinians in Gaza now during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is “a disgusting, awful crime” akin to what Jews experienced during World War II. He also accused Israel of currently carrying out the “extermination of the indigenous people of Palestine” and committing a “genocide” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At various stages of the interview, Waters began talking out loud to himself, urging himself to calm now and not let Morgan get him riled up or angry. He also talked to Morgan during the interview about the “Israeli lobby” and Israeli “war machine” being “very powerful” and critical of him in the past. He additionally called Israel “oppressors” and “torturers,” and Zionism a “failed experiment.” Numerous times he accused Israel of “committing genocide” in Gaza, additionally claiming that the Jewish state aims to “killing every single Palestinian.”
“They’re not gonna kill every Palestinian, obviously,” Morgan cut Waters off by saying.
“Oh, they’re not? Well they’re trying to,” Waters replied.
“No,” Morgan clarified, “they’re trying to kill every member of Hamas.”
An utterly frustrated Waters then looked straight into the camera and told viewers, “The oppressor, the stare of Israel, is committing genocide on a whole people. Some of the people, in the prison where the genocide is being committed, resisted the genocide on Oct. 7 and some people in Israel were killed. And I feel for them and their families. But let’s not forget where this started … It’s one set of people trying to steal a whole land from another set of people.”
When Morgan asked him to respond to accusations of him being antisemitic, Waters said, “I’m not antisemitic even very faintly. You know who would know if Roger Waters were an antisemite? Roger Waters would know, because I would have feelings about Jews!”
Last year, an explosive documentary showed fellow musicians detailing Waters’ long record of anti-Jewish barbs. In one instance, a former colleague recalled Waters at a restaurant yelling at the wait staff to “take away the Jew food.”
Morgan tweeted about his interview with Rogers, saying, “I interviewed Pink Floyd star @rogerwaters yesterday, after calling him ‘the world’s dumbest rock star’ and a ‘complete and utter moron.’ It went as well as could be expected.”
Watch Waters and Morgan’s full interview below.
The post Roger Waters Defends Hamas, Claims There’s ‘Filthy Lies’ and ‘No Evidence’ of Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Hamas Groups Planning to Crash Fourth of July With Riotous US Protests
Illustrative: A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
Pro-Hamas groups are planning to disrupt Fourth of July celebrations marking US Independence Day in Philadelphia and New York City with “All Out for Gaza” protests, demonstrating again an ideological link between their anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism.
“Philly, mark your calendars: July 4,” said an announcement circulated on social media by two groups, The Philly Palestine Coalition (PPC) and CodePink, the latter of which has ties to the virulent antisemite Louis Farrakhan through its proxy Linda Sarsour and has itself promoted antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control.
The Philly Palestine Coalition, meanwhile, came under national scrutiny in December when it organized what lawmakers and other government officials described as an antisemitic demonstration targeting a restaurant owned by American–Israeli Michael Solomonov, making outlandish accusations against the famed chef and the Jewish state. The group has a history of backing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and ridiculing victims of Hamas’ violence.
The two groups made clear in their latest social media announcement that Thursday’s planned demonstrations won’t just be protests against Israel but the US as well.
“For the past 9 months, this country’s continued to support, fund, and oversee this ongoing genocide and warmongering all over the world,” the announcement continued, referring to the US government’s overall backing of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“This July 4th, join us as we stand with the resistance and support Palestine, not AmeriKKKa!” the post continued, combining “America” with the infamous acronym of the Ku Klux Klan. “We don’t celebrate the legacy of genocide, colonialism, and slavery that July 4th symbolizes but struggle for true liberation for all.”
The post concluded with emojis of the Palestinian flag.
The Philadelphia protest will take place in Rittenhouse Square, while the New York City protest will take place in Union Square, located in the Manhattan borough.
Similar to far-right, white nationalist organizations, CodePink has, through its campaigns and social media activity, attempted to undermine the legitimacy of the state by spreading falsehoods about the foreign policy objectives of the US and its allies, including Israel, which it has spuriously accused of committing a genocide in Gaza and manipulating US elections.
One of CodePink’s board members is lawyer Huwaida Arraf, an anti-Zionist activist who has shared on social media atrocity propaganda manufactured by Hamas to misrepresent Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories. He was also the co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that was linked to terrorists in a 2004 investigation conducted by the FBI.
CodePink publicly boasts ties to other groups linked to terror, including American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an advocacy group that, according to a landmark report published last year by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian territories.”
In 2019, CodePink defended US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) saying that support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins, baby,” an evocation of antisemitic tropes concerning Jewish influence through money. In a statement posted to its website, the organization accused Jews of attacking “people of color,” a tactic that has been appropriated by far-right groups to defend minority public figures of color who embrace and traffic in antisemitic conspiracies.
“Everyone who works in Washington, DC knows that when an elected official crosses AIPAC [the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization in the US], it uses its enormous power to exact revenge,” CodePink said. “We are seeing it now as they try to destroy a brand new, inspirational congresswoman: Ilhan Omar. We won’t stand for it again. Every moment that we allow false accusations of anti-Semitism [sic] to dominate the national conversation, we ignore the actual issues … The pro-Israel lobby has been looking for any reason to attack Ilhan Omar, but don’t let them dictate the terms of the debate.”
The Philly Palestine Coalition (PPC) was the principal orchestrator of illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, according to an investigative report by The Washington Free Beacon, demonstrations which resulted in dozens of antisemitic incidents, vandalism, and hate speech.
At the University of Pennsylvania, protesters, students, and non-students who were sent there by PPC vandalized a statue of Benjamin Franklin. At Drexel University, during the time of PPC’s involvement in protests, the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Jewish Life was vandalized, with the perpetrators removing large channel letters spelling out Perelman’s name from a brick structure bearing the building’s name.
A month later, Drexel University was pushed into lockdown when the PPC-backed group “Drexel Palestine Coalition” (DPC) set up an encampment and flooded it with non-students. DPC then demanded that the school adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and “terminate” its Hillel and Chabad chapters.
“These organizations must be replaced by non-Zionist Jewish ones that in no way support the ongoing genocide, occupation, or apartheid in Palestine,” DPC said in a statement posted on social media.
DPC also demanded that the university abolish its police, grant amnesty to any protester charged with violating school rules, and reduce the salary of the university’s president John Fry by “60 percent.” Footage of their demonstration showed some aggressive behavior, including the dismantling of police barricades.
“Since Oct. 7, we have seen pro-Hamas activists abuse the First Amendment to rationalize their support for terrorism under the guise of ‘free speech,’ turning America on its head by spreading anti-American values,” Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “With July 4th around the corner we are now seeing yet again another egregious attempt by pro-Hamas groups, including CodePink, to subvert our democracy by presenting anti-democratic values as ‘democratic’ but instead showing their roots in an ideological nexus of Marxism, Communism, and antisemitism.”
He continued, “The continuous attempt to push their unbridled defenses of Hamas in every aspect of American life is part of a consistent strategy to marginalize and exclude Israelis and Jews from the American zeitgeist as a pretext for increasingly crude antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Pro-Hamas Groups Planning to Crash Fourth of July With Riotous US Protests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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CNN Fires Hamas-linked Gaza Freelancer Exposed by HonestReporting
CNN announced Wednesday that it would no longer use a Gaza freelancer, whose ties to Hamas were exposed by HonestReporting.
Abdel Qader Sabbah photographed himself with a senior Hamas leader, served in a Hamas-run body to which he also provided work, praised terrorists, and shared anti-Israeli propaganda online, an HonestReporting investigation revealed.
Throughout the Israel-Hamas war, CNN has given a prominent platform to news reports by Sabbah, who has also worked for the Associated Press, and the exposure of his links to the terror group casts a long shadow over the network’s vetting procedures and journalistic standards.
“This freelance journalist has provided material used in stories for us and other outlets over the past nine months, during which time our own journalists have been barred from entering Gaza independently,” a CNN spokesman told HonestReporting. “We have reviewed this material carefully and are comfortable that it meets our standards. However, we were not aware of this individual’s historical social posts and recognize that they are highly offensive. In light of this, we will no longer be using his material going forward.”
Sabbah is the 11th journalist reassigned, suspended, or fired due to HonestReporting since August 2022.
The following details are based on a survey of Sabbah’s social media activity, predominantly on Facebook, where his connections and bias have been hidden in plain sight.
Abdel Qader Sabbah’s Links to Hamas
Sabbah, who describes himself on Facebook as a freelance journalist, director, and photographer, has proudly shared posts showing he had connections to Hamas figures and institutions run by the terror group.
In 2018, he posted a selfie taken with none other than senior Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar, who had called for world domination with “no Zionists.”
In the photo, the two men are seen smiling, and the post caption reads in Arabic: “This morning, with commander Abu Khaled Al-Zahar, literature teacher…”
Sabbah — whose Facebook bio mentions “military service” in 2013 — also posted a photo of himself wearing the uniform of the “General Training Directorate,” a body that’s officially under the Palestinian Authority’s police and Interior Ministry. In Gaza, however, these government agencies are de facto run by Hamas.
In 2013, then Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh paid an official visit to the training directorate, where he scrutinized an honor guard and “praised the role of the General Directorate … in developing and qualifying the cadres of the Ministry of Interior and National Security.”
It appears that Sabbah also provided work to the Hamas-run body. In March 2023, he boasted online about making a promotional video for the Directorate’s academy, which according to MEMRI, trains members of Hamas’ security apparatuses. His video was shared on the official page of the Hamas-run interior ministry.
Anti-Israeli Propaganda
But Sabbah did not just share personal posts and selfies on his social media. He also regularly praised terrorists, shared propaganda videos by Hamas’ armed wing, and expressed anti-Israeli slurs.
In 2014, he praised as a “hero” Hamas suicide bomber Izz A-Din Al-Masri, who had blown himself up in a Jerusalem restaurant in 2001, killing 16 people, including children.
Sabbah’s praise came as Israel returned the terrorist’s body to the Palestinian Authority 13 years later.
And in 2013, he posted a commemoration photo for Hamas’ “Khan Younis martyrs:”
Sabbah also had no qualms about sharing media censorship instructions during the 2021 conflict with Israel. One of the guidelines he had shared read in Arabic: “Not filming the sites of the fighters, and the places where rockets and mortar shells are launched.”
A few days earlier, he shared a post that read in Arabic: “May God curse the raped Zionists.”
And in April 2023, six months before Hamas’ deadly October 7 massacre in southern Israel, he posted — with green and black heart emojis — a propaganda video by the group’s armed wing, titled “Ready.”
No Due Diligence?
We asked CNN whether it did a background check of Sabbah before hiring him, keeping in mind that there are only two bad answers to this question:
Yes, which means the network knowingly uses biased reporters.
No, which means the network hasn’t done its due diligence.
Their answer indicated the latter.
The network disturbingly said it was “comfortable” with Sabbah’s agenda-driven work, which included faulty reports on the non-existent Gaza “famine” or on the death toll of Gazan journalists, without mentioning that some were affiliated with Hamas and other proscribed terror organizations
We have asked and not yet received answers to the same questions from AP, which according to its database used Sabbah’s photos from Gaza in October-November 2023. These included destroyed buildings and wounded Palestinians in a hospital. It’s unclear whether Sabbah still works for the agency.
What’s clear is that someone like Abdel Qader Sabbah cannot be considered an objective journalist. His posts expose him as a Hamas mouthpiece, at best, or a serviceman affiliated with a proscribed terror group, at worst.
A respectable news outlet should not trust his reports, let alone pay him for them.
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post CNN Fires Hamas-linked Gaza Freelancer Exposed by HonestReporting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.