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At Stanford, a committee to address antisemitism is roiled by Jewish infighting
(JTA) – Ari Kelman spent the entire Hanukkah party looking over his shoulder.
A professor of Jewish studies at Stanford University, Kelman attended this year’s Stanford Hillel party traumatized by what he’d experienced the past few days on campus. People he didn’t know had declared themselves to be his enemy and had just successfully pushed him to resign from his role co-chairing the school’s committee to fight antisemitism — a committee he himself had lobbied the school’s president to form.
“I spent the night looking around the room, feeling suspicious of the people who are in the room — the people in the Jewish community of Stanford, that I am a member of, and have been a member of for more than a decade,” he recalled. “That was a bad feeling.”
That suspicion was born of attacks on Kelman from a range of voices to his right, including a Jerusalem Post columnist, anonymous students quoted in another publication and a group of alumni co-chaired by Kfir Gavrieli, a three-time Stanford alumnus and footwear CEO who advocated ousting Kelman from the committee’s leadership. Both Kelman and Gavrieli are Jewish, both care about Jewish life at Stanford and both say there’s an imperative need to fight antisemitism on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war.
But for Gavrieli and the sizable bloc of the Stanford Jewish community he says he speaks for, elements of Kelman’s past activism led him to believe that Kelman wouldn’t be an effective steward of the fight against antisemitism. At a moment when so many of the antisemitism allegations concerned debate over Israel, Gavrieli zoomed in on Kelman’s past links to non- or anti-Zionist groups. “There was a rich history of very concerning indicators,” he said he concluded.
The episode underscores how — even at a moment when polls show that the vast majority of American Jews are concerned about reports of rising antisemitism — differences in worldview and strategy have impeded efforts to combat it. Stanford is one of several elite schools that have aimed to address hostility toward Jewish students by forming an advisory committee on antisemitism. But now the committees themselves, and their members, have come under increasing scrutiny from activists who fear they will succumb to the same university culture that allowed antisemitism to fester on campuses in the first place.
“I was experiencing panic attacks trying to represent a community that did not want me to represent them,” Kelman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “So I stepped down.” In a university release Friday announcing his departure from the committee, Kelman chalked it up to “pockets of Stanford’s Jewish community that strongly opposed my leadership on the committee.”
The committees have been formed after students, faculty, donors and other stakeholders of universities accused campus administrators of doing too little to safeguard their Jewish students in the face of antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Administrators hope such committees — generally made up of a mix of faculty, alumni and students — can help coordinate productive responses to the challenge of antisemitism on campus.
But committees at Stanford and other schools have since faced a challenging landscape. In mid-November, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill announced an antisemitism committee at her school “to better understand how antisemitism is experienced on campus.” Weeks later, she resigned after a congressional hearing where she and the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology declined to say that calls for the genocide of Jews constituted harassment.
Rabbi David Wolpe also stepped down from Harvard’s antisemitism committee after the hearing. Wolpe said the body was ill-equipped to address “the task of educating a generation, and also a vast unlearning.”
By contrast, Kelman believes he was forced out of a committee he himself had pushed for, and whose mission he believed in. After Oct. 7, Stanford was the site of several widely reported incidents of antisemitic behavior in conjunction with the war: A professor reportedly forced Jews and Israelis to stand in a corner of class; “Long Live the Intifada” was scrawled in sidewalk chalk near the site of a pro-Israel vigil; and students unfurled banners calling for Israel’s destruction. A campus sit-in that seeks to pressure the university to divest from Israel has continued for over a month. Its organizers recently met with the president and provost.
“After the 7th, you saw on our campus what you saw on lots of other campuses, which was people on the political left saying things, chanting things, tweeting things, supporting things that were calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, that were actively antisemitic, that were sort of violent, that were callous,” Kelman said. He specifically cited instances of students chanting “From the river to the sea,” a phrase associated with Palestinian liberation that many Jews have interpreted as a call for genocide.
A general view of the buildings of the main quadrangle and Hoover Tower on the campus of Stanford University, Oct. 2, 2021. (David Madison/Getty Images)
This wasn’t Kelman’s first rodeo with antisemitism at Stanford. In 2021, he’d led a task force investigating claims that the school discriminated against Jewish applicants in the 1950s, prompting the university to issue an apology. Afterward, Kelman joined the school’s newly formed Jewish Advisory Committee, whose mandate was, at first, broader than simply fighting antisemitism. One of its issues, he said, was “how do we get it so that Orthodox Jewish kids can get into their dorms on Shabbat without using electronic key cards?”
On Nov. 13, Stanford announced that its Jewish Advisory Committee would have a new subcommittee focused on ways “to combat antisemitism at Stanford, to enhance safety and support, and to build community.” It would include the Stanford Hillel director and a Jewish chaplain at Stanford, several current and emeritus professors — including Kelman — and Jewish undergraduate and graduate student representatives.
The committee — created alongside one for Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities on campus — has already planned out around 30 listening sessions with Jewish and Israeli members of campus. There are currently no Israelis on the committee, though the school says it is working to recruit them.
Kelman soon faced backlash. An anonymous email, a version of which was forwarded to JTA, circulated among Stanford Jews detailing several issues with Kelman. Referencing the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and a leading anti-Zionist organization, the email declares that “Ari has a long history of alignment with BDS and Jewish Voice for Peace positions and activists.”
Soon prominent alums began attacking him in social media posts, and on Dec. 11, an article in Jewish Insider quoted anonymous student critics of his.
Kfir Gavrieli speaks at the press conference for a shipment of 3,000 L.A. produced face shields at LA County + USC Medical Center on April 14, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Presley Ann/Getty Images for Emergency Supply Donor Group)
Outside of the article, one of the most vocal critics was Gavrieli, the founder and CEO of the ballet footwear company Tieks. He earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees at Stanford and had been waging a parallel fight against antisemitism at the school in the wake of Oct. 7. Following the Hamas attack, he co-founded Stanford Against Hate, a group of Jewish and Israeli Stanford business school alums who circulated an open letter calling on the university to take concrete action against antisemitism.
The group also includes executives at LinkedIn and Google. Its letter makes eight demands of the university, including that it adopt a definition of antisemitism composed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that includes some criticism of Israel. The group also demanded that the campus ban rallies “that celebrate, glorify, or condone terrorist attacks or the destruction of Israel or that promote antisemitism.” And it called on the administration to meet with Jewish and Israeli students on a regular basis.
Kelman shares some of the group’s stated goals, but Gavrieli and others in his camp decided that a Kelman-led committee would exacerbate their concerns over antisemitism rather than alleviate them. In particular, Kelman opposes the IHRA antisemitism definition, which critics have accused of chilling pro-Palestinian campus activism.
In addition, Kelman co-authored a 2017 paper finding that Jewish college students at the time reported “low levels of antisemitism” and generally felt safe on their campuses. And he previously served as a faculty advisor for Open Hillel, a now-inactive organization that pushed Hillel International to relax its policies forbidding partnerships with groups that endorse boycotting Israel. In 2017, a member of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace served as counsel for an amicus brief that Kelman signed onto.
On Dec. 11, Gavrieli linked to the Jewish Insider article in a tweet lambasting his alma mater — and Kelman.
“You’ve done even less than Harvard and Penn to protect Jewish students, and your Antisemitism Committee is chaired by Ari Kelman who’s aligned with JVP and antisemitic groups and is opposed to the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” Gavrieli posted on X, formerly Twitter, tagging Stanford’s account.
Gavrieli added, in all caps, “HE DOES NOT REPRESENT US.”
“We know that ideologically we’re not aligned with him,” Gavrieli told JTA. “I know people who we’re comfortable with, and I know who we’re not comfortable with.”
Kelman rejects the idea that he doesn’t take campus antisemitism seriously.
“It’s a total waste and a distraction,” he said. “I wrote papers in 2017 — like, really? You’re going to spend all week, you’re going to spend all this kind of energy doing that? How about actually saying, ‘Hey, there’s real problems. Let’s try to figure out ways to solve them,’” he said. “So stupid, right? Call me an antisemite, call me an anti-Zionist, call me a turncoat, it’s such a waste — so stupid. I feel like I’m 5 years old.”
He said he has never been affiliated with JVP, adding, “If I was, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but I’m not and haven’t been.”
The antisemitism committee members don’t appear to share Gavrieli’s discomfort. Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, the director of Stanford Hillel, called the concerns about Open Hillel a “red herring.”
“The heart of the matter is something else altogether,” Kirschner wrote in an email to JTA, without offering details. She added, “I think the work of the committee is incredibly important, and I am sorry that Ari stepped down.”
Gavrieli was one of a number of public critics to take aim at Kelman. The conservative Jerusalem Post writer Caroline Glick called Kelman “a self-hating Jew” and the online watchdog group StopAntisemitism posted, “Exactly WHY every University should adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. When you can define what you’re fighting, people like Ari Kelman can’t sidestep or deny it’s actually happening.”
Kelman claims that no critic of his ever approached him directly about their concerns. But Gavrieli said there had indeed been attempts from his camp to talk to him — and added that the fact that Kelman was unaware of the level of animosity toward him was further evidence he should not be chairing the committee.
In the end, Gavrieli decided that nothing Kelman could say — not even his past work pushing Stanford to respond to antisemitism — could make up for his past stances on Israel.
Last week, Kelman told the committee he would be stepping down. Not even a direct appeal from the school’s interim president, Richard Saller, could convince him to stay. Saller said in a statement that Kelman had “the full confidence of the president, provost, and committee membership.”
Kelman will remain an advisor on the committee and told JTA he still corresponds regularly with its members.
“I want them to succeed,” he said. “I hope they don’t enter the headwinds that I did.”
As for Gavrieli, he commended Kelman for recognizing he could not do the job anymore but said his group still has concerns about other members who remain. (Multiple committee members told JTA its lineup has not yet been finalized.) He said that his group would continue to pressure the university to instead appoint members who more closely align with their views.
“The composition of the committee speaks volumes about the root of the problem here. And we can’t have people on them who share the ideologies that created the problem in the first place,” Gavrieli said. “I don’t want to suggest that these people share antisemitic ideologies. It’s that they share ideologies with an institution that allowed things to get this bad.”
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The post At Stanford, a committee to address antisemitism is roiled by Jewish infighting appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says
Jews of Pride members are seen marching in the Pride parade 2025, part of LGBTQ+ community’s Midsumma Festival. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.
Anti-Israel activists in the LGBTQ+ community are subjecting Zionist Jews to extreme levels of discrimination, including expulsions from major progressive groups and even physical assault, according to a new report by the nonprofit A Wider Bridge.
The release of the report — titled “Unsafe Spaces: Addressing Antisemitism Against LGBTQ+ Jews and Ensuring Pride Safety” — comes as LGBTQ community members across the Western world observe Pride Month, a period of festivities which celebrate the expansion of social and legal rights that have allowed gays to live more freely and authentically than ever in human history. For pro-Israel Jews, however, Pride Month 2025 is a challenging moment, as anti-Zionism has creeped into and crowded out many queer spaces which once welcomed them with open arms.
From online forums to the streets, the maltreatment and “erasure” of Jewish queer identity is severe, the report explains. Eighty-two percent of LGBTQ Jews have reported being expelled from social media channels or harassed on them, A Wider Bridge noted.
Earlier this year, NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza. Last year, the NYC Dyke March came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to mass killings occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Also in 2024, the Dyke March Committee formally barred “Zionists” from participating in the Pride March, and during the event Jews were attacked and heckled after being seen wearing the Star of David on their clothing. That same year, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in the Brooklyn borough of New York City refused to hold a screening party for the Eurovision talent competition due to the participation of an Israeli contestant.
Forced, mass exiles are taking place in response to this new reality, the report added. Forty-three percent of queer Jews say they are leaving online forums; 40 percent abstain from participating in LGBTQ social events; and 30 percent said their decision was driven by precipitous deterioration of the manner in which they are treated. The only conclusion to draw, the report said, is that the Pride movement is “no longer universally safe or inclusive.”
“What we have found since Oct. 7 and what the report points to is that the explosion of antisemitism that the whole Jewish community has experienced has in some ways grown even more exponentially in the LGBTQ community,” Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge and former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “What we’re seeing around now as Pride marches and organizations put on their celebration s is institutional discrimination and outright boycotts.”
Eger went on to note that antisemitism in LGBTQ communities is all the more distressing due to the outsized contributions, legal and political, which Jewish gays and lesbians have made towards fostering a society that is more inclusive of non-heteronormative identities and relationships.
“Look at who were the early leaders of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US, was a Jewish man. Edith Windsor, who brought one of the first marriage equality cases that we won at the Supreme Court, and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who won it — these are LGBTQ heroes, not just LGBTQ ‘Jewish’ heroes and heroines,” Eger continued. “So, for LGBTQ Jews to be continually shut out of these spaces is paralyzing, shocking, and horrifying, and LGBTQ Jews are asking where is their home.”
She added, “These are difficult times, but together, the whole Jewish community, including the LGBTQ part of the Jewish community, can stand strong and be resilient in the face of all this, just as the Jewish people have done throughout our history. We have the tools within our tradition to keep us strong and to help us educate. And yes, I believe so much, as a rabbi, that we can and must help change the world for the better. That’s what we are called to do as the Jewish people.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, recorded incidents of antisemitism in the US continue to increase year over year, breaking all previous annual records.
In 2024, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit, there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, creating an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly thirty years since the ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“Hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” said Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A court in the United Kingdom on Thursday sentenced Hussein Altamimi, 22, and Ali Alanzi, 30, to prison sentences of eight months and seven months respectively, for charges stemming from an incident at London’s Western Marble Arch Synagogue in November 2024, according to British media.
The two men received convictions for yelling at four Jewish worshipers such phrases as “Jews aren’t welcome here,” “you don’t belong here,” and “f—king Jew.” They also repeatedly screamed “free Palestine.”
The incident grew violent when Altamimi hit one victim’s arm to try and prevent her from filming the abuse. Alanzi also hurled liquid from an alcoholic drink toward one person. When police arrived to arrest the pair, he assaulted one of the officers.
The court convicted both men of four counts of religiously aggravated public order offenses and religiously aggravated assault. Alanzi also received a conviction for attacking the officer and will endure an additional 12 weeks’ incarceration due to a previous suspended sentence.
On Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) described its reaction to the hate crime prosecutions on X in one word: “Vindicated.”
Altamimi also faced additional charges and guilty verdicts related to a July 2023 incident which included racial abuse and striking a police officer.
“The CPS is working closely with the police to tackle hate crime, making sure that perpetrators who target victims because of their religion, race, sexuality, gender identity, or disability are brought to justice,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Anna Hindmarsh said following the trial. “We know that hate crimes have a significant impact on victims and the wider community, and we will continue to support victims and witnesses who come forward to report any examples of hate crime they have experienced.”
The convictions against Altamimi and Alanzi are part of a historic surge in antisemitic acts in the United Kingdom.
The UK experienced its second-worst year for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high, according to a report released in February.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing it recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, a drop of 18 percent from the 4,296 in 2023. These numbers compare to 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
In the 12 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, CST counted 5,583 antisemitic incidents in the UK, an increase from 204 percent from the same period the previous year.
Many of the incidents involved violence targeting the Jewish community.
Last month, On May 26, a group of six or seven men attacked three Jewish boys at the Hampstead Underground Station in North London, requiring hospitalization for one. CAA said that “this report is yet another stark reminder of the growing threat facing Jewish communities, including children.”
Another antisemitic assault occurred in Manchester in February, when an unidentified individual hit a Jewish man with what was believed to be a bottle, shattering the victim’s glasses.
The heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney saw an antisemitic act last week when vandals targeted a Jewish-owned investment firm, smashing its windows and splashing red paint. The group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the crime, as it had done previously for similar acts at the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund headquarters and the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
“This should be treated as [an] antisemitic incident without any doubt. [The owners] are visibly Jewish people; the people who run the business and this business itself have nothing to do with Israel,” said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of Jewish security service Shomrim’s branch in Stamford Hill.
Days earlier, residents of Brighton in southeastern England discovered antisemitic vandalism at a memorial created to honor the victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.
“There have been over 40 attacks on the site including vandalism, theft, and graffiti. The abuse has been relentless,” Heidi Bachram, who volunteers to maintain the memorial, told The Jewish Chronicle at the time. “It’s shocking that grief for innocents is met with such violence. The hate won’t stop us, and every night, a different victim’s story will be told [at the memorial]. We will never let them be forgotten.”
In April, according to prosecutors, Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, attempted to climb a wall outside of the Israeli embassy in London while carrying a “martyrdom note.”
Prosecutor Kristel Pous said that Albadri told police that he wanted to “do something to send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war.”
The Israeli embassy stated in response to the foiled attack that “we thank the British security forces for their immediate response and ongoing efforts to secure the embassy.” It vowed that “the embassy of Israel will not be deterred by any terror threat and will continue to represent Israel with pride in the UK.”
The post Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism
A protester holds a sign that reads, ”From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” during a pro-Palestinian emergency demonstration outside the Consulate General of Israel in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2025. Photo: Reginald Mathalone via Reuters Connect
The 2025 Israel Summit in Dallas, Texas has been indefinitely postponed in response to what organizers described as intensifying threats of terrorism.
Prior to the cancellation, the event was expecting over 1,000 attendees. The Israel Summit had already undergone a last-minute venue change due to mounting safety concerns. The gathering, scheduled for June 9–11, was set to feature prominent voices from both the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel communities.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who had been scheduled to speak at the event, commented on the cancellation on social media: “This is what America looks like in 2025. A peaceful pro-Israel gathering with more than a thousand participants had to be scrapped because of threats from violent extremists.”
Ten days prior to this year’s event, local police and intelligence officials in Dallas alerted organizers that the gathering had been upgraded to a “high-threat event.”
According to Josiah Hilton, host of the Israel Guys show, which was scheduled to co-host the event with HaYovel, the organizers had to produce “a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The organizers then moved the Israel Summit to a facility in an isolated area of Kenneth, Texas. However, the event was forced to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Jewish Voice for Peace, a pair of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organizations, revealed its location to their followers.
“[T]he Genocide Summit had to change plans last minute in desperation due to them claiming to be ‘under attack.’ The reality is they understand DFW’s commitment to confronting the extremist ideology that is Zionism,” Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas wrote on Instagram.
However, the organizers stated that they are going to hold the pro-Israel event “in the near future,” and vowed to “come back bigger and stronger, with more people.”
Hilton said that the cancellation reflects “the growing normalization of antisemitic threats and anti-Israel extremists, which are fueling intimidation and silencing voices of support for Israel across the United States.”
The cancellation of the Israel Summit also reflects growing concern regarding potential violence against supporters of the Jewish state. Last month, two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lipschinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were murdered while exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Then this past Sunday, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people and a dog.
The post Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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