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‘The world can see that we are together’: March for Israel attendees say they delivered a powerful message
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hannah Kaplan, a senior at Tiffin University in northern Ohio, can identify exactly one other Jew in the school’s student body of approximately 3,000. There are also a few Jewish professors, but no Hillel.
She says she’s felt lonely since Oct. 7, when Hamas’ attack on Israel killed 1,200, sparked a brutal war in Gaza to depose the terror group and led to a reported spike in antisemitism across the United States. Kaplan, who has relied on her lacrosse team for comfort, says there aren’t many pro-Palestinian protests on her campus — but she’s also feeling the absence of Jews.
So she got a seat on a bus leaving from Ohio State University and took the seven-hour ride to Washington, D.C., for what ended up being perhaps the largest Jewish gathering in American history on Tuesday — the pro-Israel rally on the National Mall.
“It’s important for me to be around people who I really associate with, and can identify with a community,” Kaplan said. “I’m so pumped and so ecstatic that so many Jewish students and so many Jewish people were able to come out in support today. It makes me feel like we really have a strong community. It makes me feel hopeful.”
The pull Kaplan felt — to be around many, many other Jews at an uncertain time for both Israel and American Jewry — was shared by attendees across the hundreds of thousands who filled the grassy expanse in the nation’s capital for two hours on Tuesday afternoon. Dozens of people who spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency mentioned their support for Israel when they described what they hoped to hear at the rally. But mostly, they said, they were excited to be in a crowd of their own.
“When I heard about this rally, I felt it was so important to come and bring my daughter so that we can be here and stand with everyone,” said Marnie Atias, who flew with her 15-year-old from Milwaukee. Another daughter moved to Israel shortly before the Oct. 7 attack and works at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Arias added, “The world can see that we are together.”
Marnie Atias and her 15-year-old daughter flew from Milwaukee for the March for Israel, Nov. 14, 2023. (Ben Sales)
The crowd was a mix of young and old, with a large proportion of Orthodox attendees, in part a reflection of the decision by Jewish day schools and universities to cancel classes and bus students, and in some cases their families, to Washington. Clusters of men gathered outside the event before it started for afternoon prayers.
Politically, attendees seemed to reflect the broad pro-Israel tent that the organizers had hoped for, with right-wing demonstrators standing in the same crowd as a “Peace Bloc” organized by progressive Jewish groups. Signs mostly declared broad support for Israel, opposition to antisemitism, a call to free the hostages or condemnation of Hamas. Many held the hostage posters that have become a common sight in cities across the world, with more strewn in spots across the Mall.
A few signs made a “hummus/Hamas” pun, favoring the Middle Eastern chickpea paste while opposing the Middle Eastern terror group. Many people wore or waved flags that were half-American and half-Israeli. At least one person went a step further, wearing a tripartite flag that was one-third Israel, one-third United States and one-third Ukraine.
There were also some Jewish demonstration mainstays. A group from the activist anti-Zionist Hasidic group Neturei Karta protested outside the event’s security barricade. Emissaries of the Chabad Hasidic movement roved around the crowd, seeking men who could put on tefillin, the prayer article worn daily by many observant Jews. A man sold Israeli flags ($10 each) from a cart, along with pins with messages such as “Go to Hell Harvard” — a reference to recent accusations that the university has not done enough to fight antisemitism — and “F— Iran” over a picture of former President Donald Trump.
There were also a significant number of Christians at the rally (and much to the chagrin of the liberal groups present, conservative evangelical Pastor John Hagee spoke from the stage). Kaylee Santalucia and her parents left Buffalo, New York, at 2:30 am, representing their church, on the Buffalo Jewish Federation’s bus to Washington. She said she felt God would play a role in saving Israel.
“I am feeling uplifted, hopeful, that we can come together and stand for Israel and just be supportive,” Santalucia said. She said she hopes to see “an end to the slaughter that Hamas is doing.”
But the vast majority were Jews. One man, from Toronto, made a sweatshirt that read, in all caps, “THANK YOU PRESIDENT BIDEN FOR YOUR MORAL CLARITY,” below a picture of the president. He stood on a chair, arms outstretched, one hand waving an Israeli flag and the other an American flag as he advanced a message that even some right-wing Jews have espoused about the Democratic president in the wake of Oct. 7.
Zach Mammon of Toronto made a shirt thanking U.S. President Joe Biden for his support for Israel and wore it to the Washington march, Nov. 14, 2023. (Ben Sales)
“His stance is seen around the world,” said the man, Zach Mammon. “He knows that, and we know that around the world.”
A couple who flew from Atlanta was decked out in all manner of Zionist apparel: Eric Fox wore a blue-and-white scarf on top of a T-shirt bearing the likeness of Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism. His wife Julie Fox wore a blue shirt with a white Star of David and an American-Israeli flag as a cape.
They said they were motivated in part to counter the images of mass rallies held by Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish group that brought thousands to a demonstration at the U.S. Capitol weeks ago.
“Just to show what the Jewish point of view really is instead of what’s been shown on TV as far as Jewish Voice for Peace,” Julie Fox said. “That doesn’t represent most of us.”
She added, “We want our hostages back and we want Hamas gone and I don’t really think there is a way to have a two-state solution, unfortunately.”
Orna Tussia, left, and Devorah Selber, Israelis living in Philadelphia, hold posters showing the hostages held by Hamas during the March for Israel in Washington, D.C., Nov. 14, 2023. (Ben Sales)
Not far away, Carol Berkower wore a shirt from the liberal Israel lobby J Street that identified her as pro-Israel as well as pro-Palestinian. The group advocates vocally for the establishment of a Palestinian state. She said she owned the shirt before Oct. 7 but read it again before putting it on and decided she still agreed with it.
But she said she hadn’t come to the rally from her home in Baltimore to convince anyone. Rather, what brought her was concern for her cousin who lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz ravaged by Hamas. Berkower’s daughter is also a student at the University of Rochester, and Berkower wanted to be part of a large crowd showing solidarity with Jewish college students.
“I think we’re all together,” she said of the rallygoers. “Everyone I know in Israel is traumatized right now so I’ve been doing everything I absolutely could to stand for it.”
Another mother of a college student, Sarah Rubel from Westville, New Jersey, has a son at Tulane University, which was recently the site of an altercation between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters. She said she isn’t scared — she’s taking her cues from him, and he feels fine — but does feel sad, and felt a need to stand in solidarity with other Jews.
“I want all of Israel to see that we all support them,” she said.
Some protesters did come advocating for a specific set of goals. Orna Tussia and Devorah Selber, Israelis who live in Philadelphia, carried huge posters with the pictures of the hostages held by Hamas. Selber’s cousin is among them. They said they came to raise awareness for the hostages and to push for a large-scale prisoner exchange that would bring the hostages back in exchange for all of the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
“Israel and all of the world should see that it happened, this tragedy occurred, and we have hostages, there are still families there, we want them back as fast as possible,” Tussia said, “Bring back the captives, and then we’ll deal with the rest. First of all, bring back the captives.”
David Lender, at center, traveled with classmates from the University of Delaware to the March for Israel, Nov. 14, 2023. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
For David Lender, a sophomore at the University of Delaware who comes from an Israeli family, the rally was an opportunity to support his people. He arrived in Washington with a bus of about 20 other students from his school.
“Israel is my everything — it’s my home, it’s my family, it’s my people,” he said. “What I want people to understand the most — and this is a point that I’ve heard echoed throughout the rally, even from people just walking around — is that Hamas and the Palestinian people are two very different entities and I don’t want people to conflate one with the other.”
Eytan Saenger, a first-year student at Binghamton University, originally had a test scheduled the day of the march in Washington.
“But then I was like, ‘When else do I have the opportunity to stand with hundreds of thousands of people and stand here against the antisemitism that’s going on both across the country and on college campuses?’” he told JTA. “Fortunately, my campus has a lot of Jews — but even where sometimes I’m the only Jew in a class or something like that, I will know that I’m part of a greater people that can come together for each other in times of need, and hopefully also in times of strength.”
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The post ‘The world can see that we are together’: March for Israel attendees say they delivered a powerful message appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Netanyahu Says Ready to Implement Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Biden Announces Truce to Begin Wednesday
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he was ready to implement a ceasefire deal with Lebanon and would respond forcefully to any violation by Hezbollah, declaring Israel would retain “complete military freedom of action.”
In a television address, Netanyahu said he would put the ceasefire accord to his full cabinet later in the evening. The more restricted security cabinet had earlier approved the deal by a majority of 10 ministers to one.
“Israel appreciates the US contribution to the process, and reserves the right to act against any threat to its security,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The accord was brokered by the United States and France and was expected to take effect on Wednesday.
“We will enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation. Together, we will continue until victory,” Netanyahu said in his television address.
Netanyahu said there were three reasons to pursue a ceasefire: to focus on the threat from Iran, which backs the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah; replenish depleted arms supplies and give the army a rest; and to isolate Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that triggered war in the region when it attacked Israel from Gaza last Oct. 7.
“In full coordination with the United States, we retain complete military freedom of action. Should Hezbollah violate the agreement or attempt to rearm, we will strike decisively.”
Netanyahu said Hezbollah — which wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon and is allied to Hamas, another Iran-backed Islamist group — was considerably weaker than it had been at the start of the conflict.
“We have set it back decades, eliminated … its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets and missiles, neutralized thousands of fighters, and obliterated years of terror infrastructure near our border,” he said.
“We targeted strategic objectives across Lebanon, shaking Beirut to its core.”
US President Joe Biden was set to deliver remarks at the White House at 2:30 pm EST (1930 GMT).
ISRAEL RAMPS UP AIRSTRIKES
Despite the diplomatic breakthrough, hostilities raged as Israel dramatically ramped up its campaign of airstrikes in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, with health authorities reporting at least 18 killed.
There was no indication that a truce in Lebanon would hasten a ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, where Israel is battling Hamas.
The Lebanon ceasefire agreement requires Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon and Lebanon’s army to deploy in the region, officials say. Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the border south of the Litani River.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the Lebanese army would be ready to have at least 5,000 troops deployed in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw, and that the United States could play a role in rebuilding infrastructure destroyed by Israeli strikes.
Not everyone in Israel supports a ceasefire. Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a right-wing member of Netanyahu’s government, said on social-media platform X the agreement does not ensure the return of Israelis to their homes in the country’s north and that the Lebanese army did not have the ability to overcome Hezbollah.
“In order to leave Lebanon, we must have our own security belt,” Ben-Gvir said.
Israel demands effective UN enforcement of an eventual ceasefire with Lebanon and will show “zero tolerance” toward any infraction, Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Tuesday.
In the hours before the announcement, Israeli strikes smashed more of Beirut’s densely-populated southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. The Israeli military said one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds, killing at least seven people and injuring 37, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel issued its biggest evacuation warning yet, telling civilians to leave 20 locations. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into Israel.
Israel has dealt Hezbollah massive blows since going on the offensive against the group in September, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders, and pounding areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Over the past year, more than 3,750 people have been killed in Lebanon and over one million have been forced from their homes, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.
Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.
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 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 before drastically escalating its military operations over the last two months, seeking to push the terrorist army further away from the border with Lebanon.
The post Netanyahu Says Ready to Implement Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Biden Announces Truce to Begin Wednesday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Islamic Group CAIR Ordered by Federal Judge to Reveal Funding Sources
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been ordered by a US federal judge to reveal its funding sources, potentially opening up the controversial group, some of whose leadership had early connections with organizations linked to Hamas, to further scrutiny.
US Magistrate Judge David Schultz ordered CAIR to open its books following an unsuccessful attempt to countersue a former employee for defamation, the New York Post first reported on Monday night. Schultz asserted that information regarding the organization’s financial history and assets were within “scope of permissible discovery.”
CAIR originally filed a lawsuit against former chapter leader Lori Saroya, accusing the ex-employee of engaging in “defamation” against the organization by exposing its alleged ties to terrorist groups and funding by foreign governments. After CAIR eventually dropped its lawsuit in January 2022, Saroya slapped the organization with a lawsuit of her own, accusing the group of defaming her character.
Saroya’s lawyer, Jeffrey Robbins, told the Post that CAIR will be forced to “turn over evidence about everything from fundraising practices, such as having raised money from foreign sources and concealed it; whether it deceived donors; whether it mismanaged donor money; whether it retaliated against employees or threatened to retaliate against employees for raising concerns about sexual harassment or the like.”
Shultz, a Minnesota district judge, cited how the organization claimed that its former employee “falsely implied CAIR received funding from foreign governments and terrorists when she stated CAIR accepted ‘international funding through their Washington Trust Foundation.’”
The judge asserted that “discovery into these matters is proportionate to the needs of the case.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves been embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
Awad was referring to the blockade that Israel and Egypt enforced on Gaza after Hamas took control of the Palestinian enclave in 2007, to prevent the terrorist group from importing weapons and other materials and equipment for attacks.
About a week later, the executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles office, Hussam Ayloush, said that Israel “does not have the right” to defend itself from Palestinian violence. He added in his sermon at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City that for the Palestinians, “every single day” since the Jewish state’s establishment has been comparable to Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
The post US Islamic Group CAIR Ordered by Federal Judge to Reveal Funding Sources first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Massachusetts Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening to Kill Jews, Bomb Synagogues
A woman walks past the US Department of Justice Building, in Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Al Drago
The US Department of Justice has secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews, according to a new announcement by the agency.
Over several months, John Reardon, 59, called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023 and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.
Reardon has declined to contest the federal government’s case against him and pled guilty on Monday to stalking, threatening “force” to obstruct religious freedom, and transmitting threats “in interstate commerce.” He faces up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.
“This defendant’s threats to bomb synagogues and kill Jewish children stoked fear in the hearts of congregants at a time when Jews are already facing a disturbing increase in threats,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “No person and no community in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fueled violence. The Justice Department is committed to using the full force of our investigative and prosecutorial authorities to root out these threats and ensure that all people are protected in the expression of their faith.”
FBI Boston Field Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen added, “When John Reardon threatened to kill members of the Jewish community and bomb places of worship, the FBI and our partners immediately mobilized. After all, you cannon call and threaten people with violent physical harm and not face repercussions. People of all races and faiths deserve to feel safe in their communities. With today’s guilty plea, John Reardon is now a convicted felon.”
Reardon’s conviction came amid a record surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes across the US following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Earlier this month, for example, law enforcement officials convicted a white supremacist who repeatedly vandalized a synagogue in Eugene, Oregon during spree of hate in 2023.
Motivated by antisemitism, Adam Edward Braun, 34, graffitied the Temple Beth Israel synagogue twice in September 2023, spraying “1377” for its resemblance to “1488,” a reference to Adolf Hitler and a white nationalist slogan. He came back several months later to vandalize the glazing of the synagogue’s entrance. However, he abandoned that activity after spotting a surveillance camera and opted to graffiti “white power” elsewhere on the grounds.
In addition to prison, Braun faces a maximum $100,000 fine, the total amount of which will be determined when he is sentenced in February by US District Court Judge Michael J. McShane. He has agreed to “pay restitution in full to the victim.”
In late September, federal prosecutors helped convict a gunman who shot two Jewish men as they exited a synagogue in Los Angeles.
Jaime Tran, 30 — an affiliate of the “Goyim Defense League” hate group — had gone on an antisemitic shooting spree in February 2023, attempting to murder two Jewish men in the Pico-Robertson section of Los Angeles. Prior to the crimes, Tran called Jews “primitive” and told a former classmate, “Someone is going to kill you, Jew” and “I want you dead, Jew.” According to the Justice Department, he even described himself as a “ticking time bomb,” broadcasting his murderous ideation to all who knew him.
Tran pled guilty in June to four charges the Justice Department described as “hate crimes with intent to kill” and “using, carrying, and discharging a firearm” in the commission of an act of violence. His sentencing of 35 years ensures that he will not again be free until the year 2059.
“After two years of spewing antisemitic vitriol, the defendant planned and carried out a two-day attack attempting to murder Jews leaving synagogue in Los Angeles,” Garland said at the time. “Vile acts of antisemitic hatred endanger the safety of individuals and entire communities, and allowing such crimes to go unchecked endangers the foundation of our democracy itself.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Massachusetts Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening to Kill Jews, Bomb Synagogues first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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