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Sheryl Sandberg joins Jewish women in calling out lack of concern about sexual assault of Israelis
(JTA) — In a world divided over the Israel-Hamas war, Sheryl Sandberg — the former Meta COO and author of “Lean In,” the bestselling book about women’s equity in the workforce — offered up an idea that she thought could bring everyone together.
“No matter which marches you are attending — or if you are attending none at all; no matter which flag you are flying — or if you are flying none at all; no matter what religion you practice — or if you practice none at all, there is one opinion that everyone can agree on: Rape should never be used as an act of war,” she wrote on Monday in a graphic and emotional op-ed for CNN. Sandberg posted a video to Instagram on Monday with a similar message.
That Sandberg felt the need to make the argument reflects the simmering resentment felt by many Israeli and Jewish advocates over widespread skepticism or even rejection of claims that Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women during their assault on Israel on Oct. 7. The response she got on social media — including on the platforms she helped create — underscored their anxiety.
“[A]nd so where’s the evidence?” reads the most-liked reply on Instagram which, alongside Facebook, is part of Meta. (Sandberg left the company last year after 14 years.)
Whether women were raped during the Hamas assault has been debated since the attack occurred, when video emerged of Hamas terrorists bundling an Israeli woman with what appeared to be blood on her pants into a vehicle in Gaza. Since then, Israeli police, military investigators and emergency responders have gathered testimony from people who witnessed sexual assault on Oct. 7 and documented evidence of assaults on the bodies of some who died.
Israeli police said they have “multiple witnesses for several cases” of sexual abuse, but did not disclose the number of witness testimonies or active sexual assault cases being investigated, the Times of Israel reported. Police also have video evidence, testimony from interrogations, and photographs of victims’ bodies that suggest sexual assault took place on Oct. 7, according to the report.
Yet six years after the #MeToo movement aimed to change the global conversation about believing women, some say the silence — or worse, open disbelief — about what happened to Israeli women suggests that progress has been uneven.
“It was not called out to the extent it should have been,” Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council for Jewish Women, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And organizations that have long spoken out against sexual assault and against war crimes seem to have been comfortable being silent as this happened to Israeli women.”
The Me Too International movement in its initial statement on the war on Nov. 13 said that the organization “recognizes that sexual violence often functions as a weapon of war and imperialism” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, without mentioning the sexual violence that had occurred in Israel. A clarifying statement sent out two days later specifically mentioned the sexual violence experienced by Israeli women in October.
“We received some feedback from survivors asking for clarity about our statement,” the updated MeToo statement said. “We stand unequivocally with ALL survivors of sexual violence in this moment, including Israeli women who have given horrific accounts of gender-based violence in the last month.”
Some are reserving particular outrage for UN Women, the United Nations’ women’s organization that has issued multiple statements and reports about the state of Palestinian women and children in Gaza since Oct. 7, but has not issued any reports about sexual violence against Israeli women during that time.
“In their silence, these organizations have rendered themselves irrelevant,” Rotem Izak, an Israeli journalist at Yediot Ahronot and Ynet, wrote in an essay condemning UN Women for staying silent on sexual violence perpetrated against Israelis.
“Not because they shouted the cry of the Gazan women who pay with their bodies and lives for the deeds of Hamas. This is a fact; a painful fact,” Izak said. “However, ignoring the crimes of October 7 that led to this terrible war is an additional form of violence.”
Late last month, NCJW and more than 140 other women’s groups also called on UN Women to condemn the Hamas attack and “do everything in their power to expose and recognize these atrocious and horrific acts of violence against women and girls and to bring the release of all hostages immediately.”
Katz said it had been painful just to make the ask.
“We shouldn’t have to convince people who claim to be our friends and allies that raping Israelis is wrong,” she added. “Using rape as a tool of war is something that we should all agree is bad. The end, full stop. The fact that the United Nations and UN Women haven’t been able to say that is egregious.”
Entrepreneurs Danielle Ofek and Nataly Livski launched a petition last week that has so far collected a quarter-million signatures criticizing UN Women. Called “#MeToo_UNless_UR_A_Jew,” the campaign seeks to provide a voice for the women still held hostage or missing in Gaza. The associated hashtag has also trended on X, formerly known as Twitter.
While the UN group has not addressed the rape allegations, others have gone further and openly cast doubt on them. In Canada, a letter calling on a political leaders to stop broadcasting “the repeated and unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence” drew thousands of signatories. One of them was the head of a campus sexual assault center who was subsequently fired.
Sandberg, who is Jewish and had previously expressed pain over Oct. 7 and its aftermath, said her decision to make the video statement on Instagram was fueled by understanding just how widespread such dismissal had become.
“We have come so far in believing survivors of rape and assault in so many situations, yet this time, many are ignoring the stories that these bodies tell us about how these women spent the last moments of their lives,” Sandberg wrote in the CNN op-ed. “Not loudly condemning the rapes of October 7 — or any rapes — is a massive step backward for the women — and men — of the world. The ground gained was hard-fought and must not be lost.”
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The post Sheryl Sandberg joins Jewish women in calling out lack of concern about sexual assault of Israelis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.