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Alleged bus driver boycott snarls 900 Detroit Jews’ trek to DC Israel rally
(JTA) — Four hours after Tuesday’s historic pro-Israel march in Washington, D.C. ended, Jennie Levy had expected to be touching down back in Detroit, after a long but fulfilling day standing shoulder to shoulder with Jews from around the country in support of Israel.
Instead, her delegation of 900, organized by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, was hungry, disappointed and nowhere close to home. Many members had missed most if not all of the rally because of what the federation said was a “malicious walk-off of drivers” hired to ferry them between the airport and National Mall. Now, their return flight was delayed as a result, too.
“The buses that were hired to take over 900 participants from Dulles International Airport to the site of the march failed to appear, delaying the arrival of many in our group,” read a statement from the Detroit federation that was circulated by the Jewish Federations of North America. “We have learned that this was caused by a deliberate and malicious walk-off of drivers.”
The incident was a rare blemish on an otherwise successful day for the march and its attendees. Organizers estimate 290,000 people turned out, making the march one of the biggest Jewish gatherings in U.S. history, and people successfully made the trip from all over the country .
The snafu stood out so notably that it was mentioned during the rally itself, called in part to counter the anti-Israel demonstrations that have taken place in many places since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel and elicited a military response. William Daroff, the executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and one of the organizers of the event, said on stage that “antisemitic bus drivers refused to drive participants to the rally.” Daroff added that the federation told him the bus company had promised to take action against the drivers.
Levy, who works at a hospital and whose husband is Israeli, woke up at 6 a.m. Tuesday for a flight chartered by the Detroit federation. She traveled with a friend for the rally because she thought it was important for the Detroit Jewish community to “be there in full force,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The three planes chartered by the federation landed at Dulles International Airport at around 11 a.m., leaving plenty of time for the delegation to board buses and make the 26-mile drive to the National Mall by the rally’s start time of 1 p.m.
But around a third of the buses never showed.
Mark Miller, the senior rabbi at Temple Beth El in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, told JTA that “all that we knew at the time was something about the buses,” possibly a security issue.
Two hours went by, with the three planes stranded on the Dulles tarmac. Because the flights were privately chartered and the passengers did not pass through a TSA checkpoint before boarding, they were not permitted inside the airport.
Then the news started to trickle out from federation staff, who told the people on board that drivers from the bus company the federation had hired were staging a sickout, where workers call out sick as a form of protest — or as Levy put it, they “refused to drive Jews to the rally.” Miller said he thought it was just a rumor at first, but then the federation confirmed it with its statement.
The statement said the federation was “deeply dismayed by this disgraceful action” but noted that not all Detroit attendees were affected. “Fortunately, many were able to travel to the march and we are grateful to the drivers of those buses that arrived,” it said.
Dennis Bernard, a former head of the Detroit federation and the chair of JFNA’s security and antisemitism committee, was aboard one of the planes and read the statement aloud to the other passengers. In a video shared with JTA, Bernard, speaking into the plane’s public address system, said “unfortunately this falls right in my lap,” before presenting the statement as “official talking points.” The video cuts off before Bernard shares additional information that he had said was confidential.
David Kurzmann, the senior director of community affairs at the Detroit federation, told reporters at a late-night press conference that the private bus company, whose name he said he did not know, informed them that some of the drivers called in sick once they became aware of the assignment.
Kurzmann said he considered the incident to be “an act targeting the Jewish community” that prevented people from exercising their right to protest but, when pressed by a reporter, stopped short of calling it antisemitic.
Levy said the mood on the planes on the way to Washington had been one of excitement and pride, with passengers singing the Israeli national anthem and “Am Yisrael Chai” and chanting the Jewish travelers’ prayer. But once things were delayed, the vibe shifted as organizers were noticeably stressed and scrambling to devise a backup plan, Levy said.
After around two hours, the delegation’s organizers had arranged for makeshift shuttles, which allowed many of the 900 people to make it to the rally, though one full plane’s worth of people didn’t get to the event at all.
Miller said he arrived at the rally around 2:30 p.m., and Levy said she got there at 3 p.m. That was when the event was scheduled to end, though it ran until closer to 4 p.m.
Then because of the unexpected delay in the morning, Levy said the plane’s crew had “timed out,” or exceeded federally mandated work limits, and was not allowed to begin the route back to Detroit until 2:30 a.m. — leaving the delegation waiting for several hours outside the airport. Some in the group hadn’t eaten all day, Levy said on Tuesday evening.
Miller said the incident was not only an inconvenience for rally-goers from his area but possibly “an indication of a much larger problem, which could lead to worse consequences,” including violence.
“We can’t pretend it’s not real, this antisemitism,” Miller said. He added, “On a day like today, where we had a large and enthusiastic group who was proud to be there … for this to be the reason we couldn’t get there just speaks to the reality of what is happening all around us, that antisemitism is real.”
Miller said that while the main focus of the day should still be still the rally and its enormous turnout, “we would be remiss not to have this [incident with the buses] as part of the story of today, too.”
For Levy, the incident offered a stark reminder of why she had decided to travel to Washington in the first place.
“The Jewish community in the United States already feels very helpless and sad about everything going on,” Levy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I’m scared too, to know that antisemitism is so close to me.”
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The post Alleged bus driver boycott snarls 900 Detroit Jews’ trek to DC Israel rally appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Italian Port Blocks Arms for Israel as Worker Protests Mount
Illustrative: Demonstrators participate in a pro-Palestinian protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, on Nov. 23, 2024. Photo: Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
The Italian Adriatic port of Ravenna on Thursday refused entry to two trucks said to be carrying arms to Israel, as protests mount among Italian dockworkers and other labor groups against the offensive in Gaza.
The center-left mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, told reporters the port authority had accepted the request from him and the regional government to deny access to the lorries carrying explosives en route to the Israeli port of Haifa.
“The Italian state says it has blocked the sale of arms to Israel but it is unacceptable that, thank to bureaucratic loopholes, they can pass through Italy from other countries,” Barattoni said in a statement.
He did not provide details on where the containers had come from or provide evidence of their contents.
Similar action to block arms shipments to Israel has been taken by dockworkers in other European countries such as France, Sweden, and Greece.
Ravenna’s decision reflects growing mobilization in Italy against Israel‘s military campaign and in support of an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to the Palestinians.
A spokesperson from the Israeli embassy in Rome said they did not have sufficiently detailed information about the case and so declined to comment. Israel‘s government sometimes accuses Europea nations of bias against it and swallowing propaganda by the Hamas terrorist group whom it is fighting in Gaza.
On Friday Italy’s largest trade union body, the CGIL, will hold a national half-day strike and marches in Rome and other cities, while on Sept. 22 two other unions will halt work and try to block activity in the large ports of Genoa and Livorno.
“We won’t let a single pin through the port,” said Riccardo Rudino from the Calp dockers’ union in Genoa.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The CGIL said its protests were aimed at generating pressure on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government “to suspend all commercial and military cooperation agreements with Israel, lift the humanitarian embargo, and recognize the State of Palestine.”
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday Italy would support EU sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and Israeli ministers who have made “unacceptable” comments on Gaza and the West Bank, and was open to considering trade sanctions.
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Israeli Tanks, Infantry Advance in Gaza City Offensive as Enclave Hit by Telecoms Blackout
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during a military operation, in Gaza City, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj
Israeli tanks were advancing on Thursday in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city center, while internet and phone lines were cut off across the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to further escalate imminently.
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas where most of the population is sheltering.
In separate developments, Israel attacked Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon, while two Israelis were killed at Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, in what the Israeli military called a “terror attack.”
INFANTRY, TANKS, ARTILLERY ADVANCING TOWARDS INNER CITY
Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said Israeli forces had been operating in the periphery of Gaza City for several weeks but since the night of Monday to Tuesday large numbers of troops had begun moving towards the inner city.
He said a combination of infantry, tanks, and artillery was advancing, backed up by the air force, and that it was a gradual process that would increase as time went on.
“The strategy right now is to defeat Hamas and apply pressure on Hamas, which can lead to a deal or can lead to rescue missions [to free hostages],” Shoshani told Reuters on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.
A total of 48 hostages captured during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, remain in Gaza and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.
Hostage families have been imploring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the offensive on Gaza and instead negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to free their loved ones, but Netanyahu says military victory will bring them home.
The armed wing of Hamas said on Thursday the hostages were distributed throughout the neighborhoods of Gaza City.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means you will not receive any captive, alive or dead,” it said in a written statement.
MANY FLEEING AMID TELECOMS BLACKOUT, MANY MORE STAYING PUT
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement that its services had been cut off “due to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced on Aug. 10 it intended to take control, but a greater number are staying put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent encampments.
The military has been dropping leaflets urging residents to flee towards a designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the territory, but aid agencies say conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine, shelter, and basic hygiene.
The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that critical shortages of blood in Gaza hospitals could see key services grind to a halt within days.
FAMILIES WITH BELONGINGS EVACUATE TOWARDS THE SOUTH
Along the coastal road, an unbroken column of every type of vehicle from carts and beaten-up cars to vans designed to carry goods was moving south, heavily laden with mattresses, gas cylinders, and entire families perching on their belongings.
“We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this, barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on the edge of a rickety trailer being pulled by a car.
The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
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Syria’s Foreign Minister in Washington, a First in 25 Years
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, July 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/Pool
Syria’s foreign minister arrived in Washington on Thursday, the first official visit at that level in more than 25 years as the US makes a pro-Damascus policy push, lifting sanctions and mediating between the new Islamist rulers and Israel.
Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani will meet US lawmakers to discuss the lifting of remaining US sanctions on his country, Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying by Axios. Two sources familiar with the trip confirmed the visit to Reuters.
It comes after some senior US diplomats focused on Syria were abruptly let go from their posts amid Washington‘s pivot, as the US seeks to integrate its longtime Syrian Kurdish allies with the central administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The United States has also been mediating between Israel and Syria. Sharaa, who is due to visit New York next week for the UN General Assembly, said negotiations to reach a security pact with Israel could yield results “in the coming days.”
The United States had placed crippling sanctions on Syria since 2011 after former President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia, cracked down protests against him that triggered an almost 14-year civil war.
After he was toppled by Sharaa’s forces in a quick sweep in December, Washington and Damascus have been working to warm up ties, with US President Donald Trump announcing that he would move to lift the sanctions after meeting Sharaa in May.