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There are 240 hostages in Gaza. One is Uriel Baruch.
Uriel Baruch works in construction, selling sand and other supplies to contractors. At his wedding in Jerusalem six years ago, guests danced until 3 a.m. He is 35 years old, a fan of techno music, and the sort of person who invites someone dining alone in a restaurant to join his table.
For his son Ofek’s 5th birthday yesterday, there was a blue-and-white balloon arch, a mural featuring a life-size unicorn and many, many cakes.
The only thing missing was Baruch. He has not been home since Oct. 7, when Israeli officials believe he was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova Music Festival.
“We are wearing the shirts with pictures of Uriel — we want him to stay with us, so we have the pictures on the shirts,” Baruch’s father-in-law, Dan Anteby, told me.
“We prepare ourselves for everything. I hope he will come back alive, but you don’t know.”
I’d never heard or seen Baruch’s name until last Sunday, when I covered a vigil for the hostages in Montclair, the New Jersey suburb where I’ve lived since 2016.
Local Israeli ex-pats spent more than three hours meticulously setting a long Shabbat-themed table on the street I walk down to get to the train into the city, between two cafes where I sometimes meet friends for breakfast. The plastic plates and goblets were taped down in case of wind. There were bottles of grape juice, candles, fresh red roses and 240 empty chairs, each with the photo, name, age and nationality of a hostage believed held in Gaza.
The kids’ places had highchairs and sippy cups.
The idea of these displays — whether at the Tel Aviv art museum or the Lincoln Memorial — is to shock viewers with the staggering number of innocent people who were abducted. It is effective but also overwhelming. I walked slowly around the table before the vigil began, trying to absorb the information on each of the 240 KIDNAPPED signs, trying to imagine each individual’s story. But the faces blurred together in my mind; I couldn’t remember the names.
Then the organizers handed out wallet-sized cards, each with a single hostage’s picture, name and age on one side, and a short prayer on the other. Rabbi Elliott Tepperman, who leads the Reconstructionist synagogue in town, urged us to each tuck our card into a pocket or tack it up on a bulletin board, to stick it in the frame of a bathroom mirror or carry it in our wallet.
To learn whatever we could about the person — and to tell others about them.
“Our tradition teaches that every human life is holy — that to take a single life is to destroy the world, and to save a single life is to save the world,” Tepperman said, referencing one of the most cited lines from the Talmud.
“Keep these cards in the way you might treat a sacred text,” he added. “It might not be possible to think about all 240, but to think about this one person, to pray the prayer. To do what we can to save that person and that world.”
My card said Uriel Baruch, 35 years old, kidnapped by Hamas.
He is the third of four sons who grew up in Tiberias, Kfar Saba and Jerusalem. He is the father of two boys; the older one, Shalev, is 7. And he is the husband of Rachel, a hairdresser who also works as a secretary at the catering company where Anteby, her father, is a chef. She has not been to either job since Oct. 7.
“She stopped crying,” Anteby told me, because she has run out of tears. “She is doing nothing, nothing. She is waiting at home. And looking for him.”
Nobody is even sure Uriel Baruch is in Gaza.
He went to the all-night desert dance party in Kibbutz Re’im with a neighbor. Around 9:30 or 10 a.m. on what Israelis now call Black Shabbat, Anteby said, the family saw videos on social media showing Baruch’s car — “and his friend dead inside the car.”
“And we saw Uriel on the ground, but we don’t know if he’s alive, dead, shot, not,” he told me. “It’s very short,” he said of the video clip. “We saw him near the car on the ground. Later, he disappeared.”
For the next 11 days, Anteby said, “nobody tells us nothing.” Uriel’s brothers and Rachel went “to all the hospitals in Israel,” he said, imagining — hoping — that he might be lying in one of them, unconscious and without identification.
“In the north, in the south, in the west, in the east,” Anteby said. “In Beersheva, in Ashkelon, in Ahdod, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, all the hospitals, to look, maybe he’s there.”
He was not.
Eleven days after the attack, Anteby said, the army finally called, and then came to see the family. They had identified the body of the friend Baruch had been with. They’d found no blood on the road next to the car where Baruch had been lying, so they thought he was alive. But there were no photos or video showing him being taken.
The officials said Baruch was “missing,” not that that was news. Another week passed, Anteby said, before Baruch was officially added to the list of the kidnapped. Remember when the numbers kept going up?
Anteby, who is 60, said Baruch is more like a son than a son-in-law, always asking if he can help the older man with things around the house. He recalled the vacations he takes the young family on every year to a hotel on the Sea of Galilee. He said Baruch once told him he cannot handle seeing blood.
And he told me this story: About a week before the attack, before the start of the Sukkot holiday, Uriel and his brother Ohad — who was visiting from his home in New York — went to a restaurant for dinner, and saw a woman sitting alone. Uriel went over to the woman and asked why she was alone. The woman said she was celebrating her birthday.
“He said, ‘Alone?’ She said, ‘Yes, this is my life,’’’ the father-in-law recounted. “He said, ‘No, you’re not alone.’ He said come to my table. He got a cake for her, they sang ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ she said thank you and cried.”
Ofek, Baruch’s son, was also not alone for his birthday. Volunteers poured into Giv’at Ze’ev, a settlement of about 20,000 people a few miles from Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, to make the party and dozens of children attended. There was a bouncy house, music, games, bundles of snacks adorned with Ofek’s picture, and a cake with a picture of Noa Kirel, an Israeli pop star who placed third in Eurovision last spring with a song called “Unicorn.”
Anteby said Kirel herself was coming to sing to Ofek this weekend.
It will be hard to top this birthday. Unless, when Ofek turns 6, Uriel is there to celebrate with him. No unicorns necessary.
Uriel Baruch’s son, Ofek, celebrated his 5th birthday this weekend. Courtesy of Dan Anteby
The post There are 240 hostages in Gaza. One is Uriel Baruch. appeared first on The Forward.
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Clark University Adopting BDS Measures Pushed by Student Government
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone during a demonstration held on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
The student government of Clark University in Massachusetts is enacting a series of policies based on the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — despite their failing to receive the support of the majority of the student body.
According The Scarlet, the university’s official campus newspaper, the Undergraduate Student Council (CUSC) will enforce student clubs’ “compliance” with BDS, which includes coercing them, under the threat of defunding, into purchasing goods exclusively from vendors the BDS movement deems acceptable. This effort reportedly has the support of the university’s office for Student Leadership and Programming, as it has supplied student clubs with “tax-exempt vouchers” for making purchases while CUSC orders their leaders to “regularly check the BDS Movement’s website to ensure compliance.”
So far, The Scarlet added, only the university’s food vendor, Harvest Table, has resisted CUSC’s edicts, arguing that it has no “political stance” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or any issue. However, it was still forced to go along, The Scarlet said, having agreed to “buying from local vendors and providers to better comply with the movement.” It is not yet clear how the BDS policies have affected the university’s kosher vendors.
BDS proponents in the CUSC await the endorsement of the university administration, but it has not come, The Scarlet reported.
The university’s president, David Fithian, as well as its dean, Kamala Keim, reportedly held a meeting with members of the pro-BDS party during the summer to “begin charting a path toward divestment,” but they have not corresponded with them since. Additionally, Clark University’s board of trustees has declined a formal request for a discussion on BDS — which aims to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state, by crumbling its national security, alliances, and economy.
The Algemeiner has reached out to Clark University for comment for this story.
Several CUSC Equity and Inclusion Representatives — Molly Joe, Jordan Alexandre, Melissa Bento, and Stephen Gibbons — told The Scarlet in a statement which alluded to conspiracies of Jewish influence and control that their efforts, despite achieving some successes, have been stymied by hidden forces.
“We as representatives have limited power so long as those above us are unwilling to change,” the group said in a statement to the paper. “We, like you, are only students navigating an opaque and bureaucratic system that is designed to protect certain interests. Our goal will only be achieved if enough of us are unwavering and persistent.”
CUSC’s actions were, on paper, mandated by a spring referendum which asked students if they want the university to divest from Israeli companies and those that do business with it and apply BDS to campus dining options. Eighteen percent of the student body, or 772 students, ultimately “participated” in voting, a phrase CUSC has stressed, and of them an average of 658.6 students, just 15.8 percent of students, voted to approve those items. Even fewer students voted to approve two more on mandating clubs to “adhere” to BDS and initiating a boycott of Amazon. However, in its public statements, CUSC has manipulated student enrollment data to describe BDS as the expressing the will of the students, intentionally excluding from its count the number of graduate students who were enrolled at the university during the 2023-2024 academic year.
For months, CUSC has employed double-speaking in discussing the student body’s reaction to the BDS movement, saying at once that enthusiasm for it is “overwhelming” while also acknowledging that the referendum saw “low voter turnout” and “low engagement numbers.” It has never addressed its disenfranchising 84.2 percent of the student body, which includes the Jewish students who will be affected by the imposition of a political movement which is widely denounced for being antisemitic.
Clark University Hillel, a chapter of the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, has already denounced CUSC’s polices.
“While it may not have been the intention of CUSC and the student body, there are serious consequences of adopting this referendum,” the group said in April, following the vote. “BDS referenda claim to be about changing university policy, but they ultimately discourage dialogue, normalize extreme hatred of Israel, and empower the targeting of Israeli students and those for whom Israel holds cultural or personal significance.”
It continued, “We will not allow Israeli-affiliated products to be banned from the Kosher Kitchen and we will not tolerate our funding being bound to BDS Movement principles. We will do everything in our power to ensure that discriminatory practices are not implemented on our campus.”
The BDS movement is threatening to take hold at other universities.
Yale University will soon hold a student referendum on the issue of divestment from Israel, an initiative spearheaded by a pro-Hamas group which calls itself the Sumud Coalition (SC). According to the Yale Daily News, students will consider “three questions” which ask whether Yale should “disclose” its investments in armaments manufacturers — “including those arming Israel” — divest from such holdings, and spend money on “Palestinian scholars and students.”
The paper added that a path for the referendum was cleared when a petition SC circulated amassed some 1,500 signatures, or “roughly 22 percent of the student body.” Despite that over three-fourths of Yale students did not sign the petition, its proponents — including a representative of the Yale College Council (YCC), an ostensibly neutral body — have taken to describing it as “so popular.” The final vote could wind up being even less representative of the opinion of the student body, as it only has to be approved by “50 percent or more of respondents” who constitute “at least one third of the student body.” Should that happen, Sumud Coalition will — as has happened at Clark University — claim victory and forward the results to Yale University president Maurie McInnis, with a note claiming that SC has received a mandate from the people.
Beyond ideological concerns, the BDS movement could wreak havoc on the financial health of the schools which adopt it. JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), published a report in September showing that colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to its demands.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Clark University Adopting BDS Measures Pushed by Student Government first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Cautions Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Close but Not Finalized as Truce Announcement Expected Imminently
Israeli tanks are being moved, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in the Golan Heights, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
A ceasefire to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah is close, but an agreement has not yet been achieved, according to the US State Department.
“We don’t believe we have an agreement yet. We believe we’re close to an agreement. We believe that we have narrowed the gaps significantly, but there are still steps that we need to see taken. We hope that we can get there,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing on Monday.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby expressed similar sentiments.
“We’re close,” he told reporters, but “nothing is done until everything is done.”
Miller and Kirby’s comments came not long after a senior Israeli official told Reuters that Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist group that wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon.
Reuters also reported on Monday that US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to announce a ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel within 36 hours, citing four senior Lebanese sources. The US and France have been seeking to broker a truce for months.
The news cite Axios reported separately that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, citing a senior US official.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has declined to comment on reports that both countries had agreed to the text of a ceasefire agreement.
Hezbollah has been launching barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israel from neighboring Lebanon almost daily since Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of the Jewish state from Gaza to the south.
The relentless attacks from Hezbollah have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes in the north, and Israel has pledged to ensure their safe return.
Israel had been exchanging fire with Hezbollah but drastically escalated its military operations over the last two months, seeking to push the terrorist army further away from the border with Lebanon.
Diplomacy has largely focused on restoring and enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s withdrawal to north of the Litani River (around 30 km, or 19 miles, from the Israeli border) and the disarmament of its forces in southern Lebanon, with the buffer zone under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces.
Israel has insisted on retaining the right to conduct military operations against Hezbollah if the group attempts to rearm or rebuild its infrastructure — a stipulation that has met resistance from Lebanese officials, who argue it infringes on national sovereignty. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has said Israel would maintain an ability to strike southern Lebanon under any agreement.
Retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi — who leads the Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group of former military commanders — recently warned The Algemeiner that any deal must include Iran’s “full exit” from Lebanon and Israel’s freedom of action to prevent any future build up of Hezbollah. Otherwise, he added, the agreement would be “devastating” for the Jewish state.
Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bou Saab, told Reuters the proposal under discussion would entail an Israeli military withdrawal from south Lebanon and regular Lebanese army troops deploying in the border region, long a Hezbollah stronghold, within 60 days.
He added that a sticking point over who would monitor compliance with the ceasefire was resolved in the last day, with an agreement to set up a five-country committee, including France and chaired by the United States.
Nabih Berri, the Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese parliamentary speaker, has been leading the Iran-backed terrorist group’s mediation efforts.
Miller told reporters that US officials are pushing hard for a ceasefire but the final steps to reaching a deal can be the toughest.
“Oftentimes the very last stages of an agreement are the most difficult because the hardest issues are left to the end,” Miller said. “We are pushing as hard as we can.”
The post US Cautions Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Close but Not Finalized as Truce Announcement Expected Imminently first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Media Lambast Casting of Israelis in Netflix’s Upcoming Biblical Movie ‘Mary’
Scene from Netflix’s show “Mary.” Photo: Screenshot
Palestinian media outlets have castigated the new biblical epic “Mary” coming to Netflix next month because of the film’s Israeli cast, falsely accusing Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” against Palestinian Christians.
Netflix announced earlier this month the coming release of “Mary,” which according to a synopsis provided by the streaming giant “tells the story of one of history’s most profound figures and the remarkable journey that led to the birth of Jesus.”
Notable in the cast are Noa Cohen in the titular role as Jesus’s mother and Ido Tako as her husband Joseph — two Israeli actors under the spotlight in a large-scale production depicting Jewish life during a period when Jews were the primary ethnic group of the region.
Director DJ Caruso previously defended casting Israeli actors for the roles.
“It was important to us that Mary, along with most of our primary cast, be selected from Israel to ensure authenticity,” he told Entertainment Weekly last month.
Nonetheless, the castings were met with derision among anti-Israel activists on social media and elsewhere upset with the choice of selecting Israeli actors. Critics called for a boycott of the film, claiming that Mary and Joseph were “Palestinian” despite them being Jewish and living in modern-day Israel.
Among those expressing outrage was Quds Media Network, the self-described “largest independent youth Palestinian news network,” which lambasted the production, publishing an article tying “Mary” to what it called the “ongoing genocide of Christians in Palestine.”
The article, quoting Father Abdullah Julio of the Melkite Greek Catholic Monastery in Ramallah, alleged that one of Israel’s goals is “the eradication of Christian presence in the region.”
On Aug. 3, Julio filmed a statement on TRT Arabic mourning Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, calling him “a martyr of our Palestinian people and nation.”
In its recent article, Quds Media Network cited the deaths of Christian residents of Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war as evidence of “ongoing violence and Christian persecution,” and included a note to readers that “Israelis are not native to Palestine, the birthplace of Jesus.”
Both Jews and Christians boast an age-old presence in the southern Levant — a land sacred to both faiths and central to their peoples’ histories. The early Jewish people underwent an ethnogenesis in the region as a monotheistic people who formed a united kingdom in the late Bronze Age (around 1000 BCE), and remained the primary civilization there until their dwindling numbers under Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic persecution in the early medieval period.
During the Roman period, Jesus — an Aramaic-speaking Jew from the Galilee in modern Israel, then Roman Judea — led a sect of Judaism that would morph into modern Christianity in the decades following his storied execution. Palestinian Christians (culturally Arab local Christians who identify with Palestinian nationalism) likely represent the oldest continuous Christian community, as descendants of the first converts during the Roman occupation.
Genetic studies have confirmed the relationship of both Jewish diaspora groups and Palestinians of all faiths to Iron Age peoples of the region. Likewise, Jews and Palestinian Arabs each claim competing indigenous status, based on a combination of continued settlement and a culture inextricably connected to the Land of Israel.
Critics of “Mary” on social media maintained “Jesus was Palestinian,” or “a Palestinian Jew,” seemingly conflating residency in ancient Judea with Palestinian nationalism — which emerged much later in the early 20th century as a local expression of pan-Arabism and was hostile to local Arabic-speaking Jews (who consequently allied themselves with Zionism) from its outset.
Anti-Israel activists also cited the fair olive complexion of Cohen and Tako as evidence of their foreignness, ignoring that many Palestinians look similar and that skin tone does not necessarily equate to ancestry or claim to territory.
Palestinian Christians’ numbers in the West Bank and Gaza have dwindled in the past decade, from 11 percent of the Palestinian population in 1922 to 1 percent in 2017.
Meanwhile, in Israel proper, where Christians compose 6.9 percent of the Arab minority, they are among the best educated and most successful of Israel’s citizens.
“Mary,” which was shot in Morocco, is set to air on Dec. 6 to a wide audience.
The post Palestinian Media Lambast Casting of Israelis in Netflix’s Upcoming Biblical Movie ‘Mary’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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