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Tikvah Fund, conservative think tank, to open ‘classical’ Jewish day school in New York City
(JTA and New York Jewish Week) — The Tikvah Fund, a Jewish conservative think tank, is launching a Jewish day school that will aim to give students an education that emphasizes “the majesty of Western civilization.”
Emet Classical Academy, whose name is Hebrew for “truth,” will open next fall on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with a sixth grade and aims to run through high school. It will be led by Rabbi Abraham Unger, a political scientist and former professor who currently leads a Tikvah program for middle schoolers.
An email announcement said the school would be “small and selective.” Tikvah already offers a range of education initiatives inside and outside of existing schools, promoting the same set of values that will drive the school.
The announcement of the school comes at a time when conservatives have taken aim at elite educational institutions — including but not limited to universities. Those critics have accused some universities and public and private schools of teaching children to “hate America” and creating a hostile environment for Jews, in part through diversity and equity programs and instruction about racism in the United States.
Emet’s website says the school will offer a curriculum based on “the perpetuation of Jewish, Zionist, and American exceptionalism.”
“First, we wanted to create a school with very clear founding principles: the pursuit of excellence in every academic and cultural field, the formation of confident Jews and civic-minded Americans, and the preservation of the best of Western civilization,” Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen wrote in an email announcement Tuesday.
“Second, we are living in a moment of great Jewish awakening in America,” he wrote. “Many Jewish families and students feel the weight of Jewish history and American exceptionalism more deeply than ever. We hope that Emet will be an oasis of Jewish excellence that helps renew American culture.”
The school arrives at a time when rising concerns about antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war may be inducing Jewish families to consider schools where their children will not be in the minority. It also comes exactly three years after the Jewish writer and editor Bari Weiss, who has been a leading critic of elite institutions, tweeted a call for a school just like it.
Referring to a college with a curriculum built around the “great books” of Western Civilization and two non-Jewish elite private schools, Weiss tweeted, “If @tikvahfund started a school with a St. John’s style curriculum in NY or LA I think they could charge more than a Dalton or a Harvard-Westlake and still be massively oversubscribed.”
At the time, conservative discontent about education was mounting. Months later, a father of a student at the Heschel School, a prestigious Manhattan Jewish school, went public about pulling his child over “woke” instruction that he said taught her that she held “white privilege.” (The school said he left for financial reasons.)
Emet won’t cost as much as those elite private schools: Its website says tuition for the 2024-2025 school year will be $36,000 — tens of thousands of dollars less than other private and Jewish schools in the city.
Emet’s website says it will be able to accommodate children who previously attended Jewish day schools as well as children with no background in Jewish education. Children from families of all Jewish denominations and practices will be welcome, the school says.
Paul Bernstein, the CEO of Prizmah, a nonprofit that supports Jewish day schools, declined to comment on Emet specifically but said the school’s arrival reflects a growing interest in Jewish education.
“Families across North America are appreciating Jewish day schools more and more,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We are experiencing growing enrollment in our schools, as a result of which a number of new schools are opening and others are expanding their intake.”
The advertised curriculum at Emet departs from that of other Jewish day schools in New York and beyond. Alongside Hebrew, students will study Greek and Latin. Classical music and art history are among the “core subjects.” Students also have the option of studying “Military History & Grand Strategy.”
That is all part of the “classical” education model that has gained favor among conservatives in recent years, including with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a vocal critic of progressive ideologies, who has vowed to import the model to his state. Proponents of classical education say it centers values and skills that have been wrongly deemphasized by progressive educators. Its critics charge that it advances a nostalgic worldview that gives short shrift to women, people of color and non-Western voices that deserve a place in the contemporary canon.
Both sides say the model is deeply entwined with Christian ideals, with some advocates saying it is inappropriate to advance irreligious versions of classical schools. Hillsdale College, a Christian college in Michigan that is a driver of conservative thought, has launched or worked with dozens of schools across several states.
Emet Classical marks the first prominent experiment in a Jewish version of the model. Its board includes Ruth Wisse, an emerita Harvard professor and prominent Jewish conservative thinker, Bard College professor Walter Russel Mead and Wilfred McClay, a professor at Hillsdale.
“[W]e believe that history’s future leaders — in law and business, politics and statesmanship, science and religious life — benefit from a truly classical education,” Cohen wrote. “America needs a Jewish classical school.”
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The post Tikvah Fund, conservative think tank, to open ‘classical’ Jewish day school in New York City appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Police Arrest 3 Following Red Paint Vandalism, Smashed Glass at Israeli Embassy in the Netherlands
The scene on Aug. 12, 2025, after vandals struck at the Israeli embassy in The Hague. Photo: Israel Foreign Ministry
Law enforcement in The Hague has apprehended three suspects following vandalism at the Israeli embassy on Tuesday morning.
“This is what dangerous incitement and lies against Israel look like,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on X, alongside an image of the crime featuring splatters of blood-like red paint and a broken window. “This incitement against Israel has already claimed the lives of two workers of the Israeli Embassy in the US, and in the Netherlands itself, this resulted in a pogrom against Israelis just a few months ago. This incitement must be confronted with the full force of truth.”
The ministry was referring to how, in June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a national Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
That incident came months after Israeli soccer fans were brutally assaulted in Amsterdam after watching a European League match. During the premeditated and coordinated violence on Nov. 7, 2024, the Israeli fans were chased with knives and sticks in several locations around the city, run over by cars, physically beaten, and some were forced by their attackers to say “Free Palestine” to avoid further assault. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” who went “Jew hunting.”
Modi Ephraim, Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands, called this week’s crime a “cowardly act” and “yet another illustration of the dangerous consequences of rising hatred and incitement.”
Ephraim said that “diplomats must be able to carry out their work safely and unhindered at all times. The police have arrested suspects. We are confident that the Dutch authorities will take all necessary measures to prevent such attacks in the future.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) released a statement on X following the attack: “Make no mistake: this is an act of intimidation, the result of two years of incitement against Israel. We are left wondering: Where were the Dutch police? Where were the security forces tasked with protecting diplomats in The Hague? This grievous breach of security is unacceptable.”
Pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs said following the crime that “these vile actions must be universally condemned.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Global 100 survey of antisemitism levels around the world — updated Jan. 14 — the Netherlands is one of the least hateful countries with 8 percent of the population harboring elevated antisemitic views (agreeing with at least 6 common antisemitic stereotypes.) This places the Netherlands as the nation with the fourth lowest rate of antisemitism on the planet.
On Nov. 22, 2024, the Dutch government announced plans to increase security funding at Jewish institutions by €1.3 million ($1.5 million) annually, establish an antisemitism task force, and research the root causes of hate against Jews in order to develop “instruments to make young people and adults more resilient and that can lead to changes in attitudes and behavior.”
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Local Governments in US Pass Measures to Address Antisemitism as Anti-Jewish Crimes Mount
A friend organized a vigil for Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, both Israeli embassy workers who were allegedly murdered by an anti-Israel activist, in Washington, DC on May 22, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Local governments in two states which annually hold the negative distinction of being listed in the highest ranks of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “Antisemitic Incidents By State” report recently took major steps towards combating anti-Jewish hatred.
In Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb outside the city of Chicago, the City Council unanimously passed an ordinance on Monday, voting 7-0, to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — becoming the first city government in Illinois to do so. According to the Jewish civil rights group, StandWithUs, the definition will be applied to “employment and anti-discrimination” policies.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
“Antisemitism is surging — across the world, across our nation, and right here in Highland Park,” StandWithUs director of policy outreach Peggy Shapiro said in a statement on Monday. “This legislation is a critical first step in the fight against the rise of antisemitism nationwide. In order to combat this hatred, we must first clearly define it. Highland Park’s adoption of the IHRA definition is especially significant, given its location within the greater Chicago area, which has recently experienced a staggering 58 percent increase in antisemitic hate crimes.”
Just two months ago, Highland Park saw a disturbing incident in which an antisemitic letter threatening violence was mailed to a resident’s home. So severe were its contents that the FBI and the Illinois Terrorism and Intelligence Center were called to the scene to establish that there was no imminent danger. Later, the local government shuttered all religious institutions as a precautionary measure.
On Monday, Highland Park City Council member Annette Lidawer said the city is now better equipped to respond to antisemitism, adding, “Not only do we condemn all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism, but we can now identify such behavior in order to combat it and to teach others to do the same.”
In Massachusetts, in which the ADL recorded the fifth most antisemitic incidents in the US in 2023, a Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism (SCCA) convened by the state legislature on Friday endorsed a spate of recommendations offered for combating antisemitism in the K-12 public school system.
According to the SCCA, Jewish students and educators both have been subjected to “hate, bullying, harassment, and discrimination.” It recommended holding lessons on “antisemitic tropes and myths,” creating news programs for the observance of Jewish American Heritage Month, and facilitating the reporting of antisemitic incidents with a new, statewide reporting system.
“As a state, Massachusetts is committed to doing everything we can to address antisemitism,” Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kimberly Driscoll said on Tuesday in a joint statement. “That starts in our schools. If we want to combat antisemitism and protect the members of our Jewish community, it starts with educating our children, building a better understanding of the Jewish experience, and making it clear that antisemitism has no place in Massachusetts.”
Local government policy has come into focus as Jewish civil rights groups implore lawmakers to take concerted action against antisemitism in their communities.
On Friday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) launched the Jewish Policy Index (JPI), a “first interactive tool of its kind” for evaluating the efficacy of policies that US states have adopted to combat antisemitism.
JPI has already identified both positive and negative trends. Nine states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia — have all passed legislation to address a surge of antisemitic discrimination and violence across the country, earning a JPI designation as “Leading States.” But, the ADL noted, 41 other states failed to merit the distinction.
The distribution of the first JPI ratings forms a bell curve, with most states, 29, clustered in the middle, having been classified as “Progressing States” which have adopted “some key pieces of the policy agenda” the ADL recommends. Twelve received the poorest mark, “Limited Action States,” for showing “little systematic effort to address antisemitism through policy.”
The ADL and its partners say the JPI can facilitate democratic action which “empowers residents” to challenge their states to fight antisemitism with vigor.
“Jewish communities know that if we are to flourish through difficult times, we must mobilize to fight antisemitism,” Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America, said in a statement. “The most important responsibility of government is keeping its citizens safe. The Jewish Policy Index is an important tool to help inform and advance how state governments respond to antisemitism and protect their Jewish communities.”
The advent of JPI comes on the heels of harrowing new FBI statistics which reveal the extent to which violent antisemitism has become a pervasive occurrence in American life.
While hate crimes against other demographic groups declined overall last year, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
Additionally, a striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims, the second most targeted religious group, were victims in 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Man Arrested Following Antisemitic Assault in Montreal Park
Montreal, Quebec. Photo: Taxiarchos228/ Wikimedia Commons.
Canadian Jewish leaders have leveled criticism at law enforcement for the response to an attack against a Jewish man on Friday which resulted in the arrest of a 24-year-old suspect on Monday.
The Jewish Community Council of Montreal released a statement by its executive director, Rabbi Saul Emanuel, about the apparent hate crime in a Montreal park.
“The arrest of the man who brutally attacked a Jewish father in front of his children last Friday afternoon is welcome, but it is far from enough. The disgraceful reality is that it took SPVM [the Montreal Police Service] nearly an hour to respond to the initial call for help,” Emanuel stated. “An hour — after a violent hate crime committed in broad daylight against a man whose only ‘offense’ was being visibly Jewish. That delay is not a minor lapse. It is a dereliction of duty.”
Emanuel called this delay “a signal, intentional or not, that when Jews are targeted, urgency is optional.” He asked “if this attack had been against another community, would police have taken nearly sixty minutes to arrive? The question answers itself, and the truth is as infuriating as it is dangerous.”
The SPVM said it had “spared no effort to locate the suspect” and that it continued an investigation “to shed full light on the circumstances of this criminal act.” The SPVM thanked citizens “who contributed to this outcome by sending us information that facilitated the suspect’s location.”
B’nai Brith Canada also released a statement about the arrest in which it further critiqued law enforcement’s response to the crime.
“During the assault, which occurred in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension area, the suspect is alleged to have beaten a visibly Jewish man in front of his children, tossing the victim’s kippah into a nearby fountain,” the organization noted. “The Montreal police did not mention the victim’s Jewish identity in its announcement of Monday’s arrest, nor the fact that his kippah was thrown into a fountain.”
Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy, said that “omitting such critical facts does a disservice to the public and gives the impression that the authorities are tone-deaf to the crisis Jews in Montreal are facing on a daily basis. With the situation continuing to devolve, Jewish Canadians need leaders to pay more than mere lip service to antisemitism. We need all levels of government to take clear and unequivocal positions on combating this scourge of hate.”
Emanuel emphasized the broad impact of the crime.
“This was not just an assault. It was a public act of antisemitic humiliation designed to terrorize an entire community. Every minute the attacker remained at large was another minute in which he could have harmed someone else,” Emanuel said. “Montreal police failed to treat this for what it was: a violent hate crime that demanded an immediate, overwhelming response. Now the justice system has one job: to ensure this man pays the maximum legal price for his actions. No plea bargains. No soft sentencing. No excuses about ‘first offenses’ or ‘mitigating circumstances.’ He should have the book thrown at him with both hands. Anything less will embolden every coward who thinks they can lay hands on a Jew in this city without consequence.”
Emanuel warned that “our community will not forget this failure. We will not accept it. And we will not stop demanding answers until Montreal police explain why a father could be beaten in front of his children, have his kippah ripped from his head and thrown into a fountain, and still wait nearly an hour for the protection he is owed as a citizen of this city.”
Canada has experienced a steep surge in antisemitic hate crimes following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.