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Ann Arbor school board endorses call for ceasefire in Israel and Gaza
ANN ARBOR, Michigan (JTA) – The school board in this city endorsed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war early Thursday morning, more than five hours after convening for a meeting was expected to be contentious.
The vote made Ann Arbor Public Schools one of the only school districts in the United States to adopt such a stance, three months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel ignited a war in Gaza and fierce debates in public bodies across the United States.
Several last-minute amendments tweaked the resolution’s language to note that the board has a “limited role in international affairs” and call for the “release of all hostages and unrestricted humanitarian aid at the levels recommended by the United Nations for the Palestinian people.” Another tweak condemned “discrimination against any individual based on personal background whether Israeli or Palestinian.”
The final version, after prodding from Jewish community members, also condemns both antisemitism and “anti-Jewish racism.”
The changes were enough to tilt the board to favor the resolution, which only three of the seven members had said before the meeting that they were committed to support. Four members backed the resolution, while one person voted against it, down from two who had said they planned to.
Two others abstained — a move that one board member said was not encouraged, but which another said was essential because the board was taking a stand on something outside its purview. Applause and cries of “Thank you” broke out in the high school auditorium after the motion passed.
“I’m very disappointed,” Eileen Freed, head of the Ann Arbor Jewish federation, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the vote. “At the crux of it, it’s a political play. … The people who were pushing for this wanted to see the words ‘ceasefire.’ They were not focused on the needs of the students.”
Ceasefire calls have been a frontier of tensions across the United States since the early days of the war. Proponents say calling for a ceasefire represents a powerful symbolic stand against Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Critics of the calls — including Israeli leaders and many Jewish leaders in the United States — say they effectively deny Israel the right to defend itself.
Eileen Freed, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, delivers public comments opposing a ceasefire resolution at a local school board meeting, Jan. 17, 2023. (Andrew Lapin)
At least one other school district has officially called for a ceasefire, the New Haven Unified School District in California’s Bay Area, as has Randi Weingarten, the progressive Jewish leader of the American Federation of Teachers union who also sits on the board of the liberal Zionist group J Street. Weingarten tweeted earlier this month that she believed it was “well past time for a ceasefire agreement.”
The vote capped a contentious period for Ann Arbor, a progressive Michigan community with sizable Jewish and Arab populations. The Ann Arbor City Council passed its own ceasefire resolution last week. The local Council on American Islamic Relations has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Department of Education against the district, alleging that a middle school counselor called a student a “terrorist.”
And at the University of Michigan, the president halted two planned student government votes about Gaza, saying that they had stoked fear in the community. Meanwhile, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested after storming an administration building, causing the Board of Regents this week to pass new free-speech rules.
For the local school board, the ceasefire vote followed a month of debate that occupied members even as they conducted a superintendent search and contended with longstanding equity issues. Both topics were raised briefly but not tackled at the board meeting; one member, making an unsuccessful case to table the resolution, said the tensions over Israel and Gaza were scaring away high-quality superintendent candidates.
“Where else have I heard people told, ‘Stay in your place’?” Jeff Gaynor, a Jewish board member who supported the resolution, told JTA before the meeting. He then quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “The time is always right to do what is right.”
Gaynor and Rima Mohammad, a Palestinian board member whose term as president coincidentally ended during the meeting, were the most vocal advocates of a ceasefire. The two issued a joint statement in the days after the Oct. 7 attacks reading, “We stand together, as a Jew and a Palestinian, in the interest of our common humanity.”
During the meeting, Gaynor said his Jewish background led him to call for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza.
“During my five years of Hebrew School leading up to my bar mitzvah, I donated money to plant trees in Israel. Much of my moral compass is based on what I learned during sermons in synagogue every Saturday morning,” he said, adding, “I will not defend Hamas; it is not an agent for peace. Neither is Netanyahu’s government.” (During the public comment period, one Jewish speaker called Gaynor a “shonda,” the Yiddish word meaning shame.)
“I hope we continue the dialogue,” Gaynor told JTA after the motion passed. “There’s a lot of repairing to do, a lot of empathy to be had.” Asked what he thought of the resolution’s final wording after the amendments, he said, “It was fine.”
Mohammad argued sharply against the resolution to table the resolution, saying that doing so would harm families like hers and communicate to those who argued for the resolution in public comments that their voices do not matter.
In total, 122 people signed up to speak at the meeting, including the head of the local Jewish federation, which opposed the ceasefire call and said it had “created a hostile atmosphere” in the district; several Jewish parents who said they felt hurt by the resolution; and representatives of the Detroit chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
Jewish opponents of the resolution carried signs reading “Focus on Education” and “Slippery Slope,” while pro-Palestinian supporters held placards reading “Stop Funding Genocide” and “We Are Against U.S. Military Aid to Israel.”
“We feel marginalized, we feel scared,” Josh Rubin, a Jewish parent in Ann Arbor, said during his public comment period, adding that he and his family were planning to move away because they no longer felt safe sending their children to school.
Several times, two longtime local pro-Palestinian activists were reprimanded but not removed for interrupting speakers, insulting board members, and attempting to start chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”; others cheered or booed speakers on both ends of the debate.
Voices opposing the resolution were outnumbered by the pro-Palestinian speakers and supporters, including several district teachers who signed a petition supporting the resolution; some Palestinian-American students; a Palestinian district parent who said many of his relatives had been killed in Gaza; and a speaker who played an audio clip of what they said were children inside a hospital in Gaza being bombed.
“This is not helpful to anyone,” Marla Linderman Richelew, a Jewish local civil rights attorney and past president of the parent-teacher association of one of the high schools, told JTA before rising to speak against the resolution. Her daughter, she said, had been the victim of antisemitic bullying in the district when students filmed themselves telling her the Holocaust never happened, and she says the school district told her they didn’t have enough resources to address it.
“I think we are just confused. I think we’re all trying to figure out what to do and how to deal with this conflict that we did not even know we had,” she said about Jews in Ann Arbor. She added, “I think it’s going to be a learning experience for all of us.”
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The post Ann Arbor school board endorses call for ceasefire in Israel and Gaza appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Harvard Launches New Academic Partnerships With Israel Amid Trump Funding Fight
Harvard University president Alan Garber attending the 373rd Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University has announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions, a move which appears aimed at reversing an impression that the institution is ideologically anti-Zionist and content with antisemitic discrimination being an allegedly daily occurrence on its campus.
As first reported by The Harvard Crimson, Harvard will hold a study abroad program, in partnership with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for undergraduate students and a postdoctoral fellowship in which Harvard Medical School faculty will mentor and train newly credentialed Israeli scientists in biomedical research as preparation for the next stages of their careers. The campus paper — which in 2022 endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel — said the programs constitute a “dramatic expansion of the university’s academic and institutional ties to Israel.”
Speaking to the Crimson, Harvard vice provost for international affairs Mark Elliot trumpeted the announcement as a positive development and, notably, as a continuation, not a beginning, of Harvard’s “engagement with institutions of higher education across Israel.” Elliot also said Harvard is planning “increased academic collaboration across the region in the coming years.”
The new partnerships with Israel come only months after Harvard paused its relationship with a higher education institution located in the West Bank. They also coincide with the university’s titanic legal fight against the federal government to reclaim over $3 billion worth of taxpayer-funded research grants and contracts the Trump administration impounded to pressure school officials into a process of rehabilitation and reform that will see it discontinue a slew of practices conservatives have cited as causing campus antisemitism, as well as the hollowing out of American values.
Since that first step, the Trump administration has continued backing Harvard into a corner.
In June, the Trump administration issued it a “notice of violation” of civil rights law following an investigation which examined how it responded to dozens of antisemitic incidents reported by Jewish students since the 2023-2024 academic year.
Sent by the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, it charged that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a deluge of racist and antisemitic abuse following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, which precipitated a surge in anti-Zionist activity on the campus. It concluded with a threat to cancel all federal funding for Harvard.
Amid this policy offensive, interim Harvard president Alan Garber held a phone call with major donors in which he “confirmed in response to a question from [Harvard Corporation Fellow David Rubenstein] that talks had resumed” but “declined to share specifics of how Harvard expected to settle with the White House.”
Garber “did not discuss how close a deal could be,” the Crimson reported, “and said instead that Harvard had focused on laying out the steps it was already taking to address issues that are common ground for the university and the Trump administration. Areas of shared concern that have been discussed with the White House included ‘viewpoint diversity’ and antisemitism.”
In a new conciliatory move reported by the Crimson, Harvard closed its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, packing up the staff and transferring them to what will become, the Crimson said, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” It added that Harvard has “worked to strip all references to DEI … from their websites and official titles.”
Harvard will continue dealing with the fallout of its campus antisemitism problem for the foreseeable future.
Earlier this month, it was sued by a Jewish student who claims that he was exposed to antisemitic abuse because the university refused to intervene and correct a hostile environment even as his bullies’ misconduct escalated to include violence.
The mammoth complaint, totaling 124 pages, lays out the case that the university miscarried justice in the aftermath of two students’ public assault on recent Harvard Business School graduate Yoav Segev during the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year — just weeks after the Oct. 7 massacre — by refusing to discipline them and even rewarding them the university’s highest honors.
Segev endured a mobbing of pro-Hamas activists led by Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard before encircling him and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as he struggled to break free from the mass of bodies which surrounded him. Video of the incident, widely viewed online at the time, showed the crush of people shoving keffiyehs — traditional headdresses worn by men in the Middle East that in some circles have come to symbolize Palestinian nationalism — in the face of the student, whom they had identified as Jewish.
“This malicious, violent, and antisemitic conduct violated several university policies — such as its anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies — and it prompted criminal charges,” the complaint says. “No one doubts for a second that Harvard would have taken swift, aggressive, and public actions to enforce its policies had the victim been one of Harvard’s ‘favored’ minorities … Harvard’s antisemitic discrimination against Mr. Segev is far more sinister than inaction and indifference. Harvard did everything it could to defend, protect, and reward the assailants; to impede the criminal investigation; and to prevent Mr. Segev from obtaining administrative relief from the university.”
It continues, “Harvard’s antisemitic intent is obvious. Several of its faculty publicly supported the attacker and tried to blame the victim (because, the faculty said, his Jewish presence was ‘threatening’ to other students). And, of course, hundreds of rabidly anti-Israel students disrupting campus life pressured the Harvard administration. Ultimately, and shamefully, the university kowtowed to the antisemitic mob it had allowed to take over its campus.”
Alleging violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, breach of contract, and conspiracy to deny civil rights, the suit demands all relevant recompense, including damages and the reimbursement of attorneys’ fees.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hezbollah Chief Rejects Disarmament Amid US and Lebanese Pressure, Accuses Washington of Aiding Israel
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has once again rejected calls for the Lebanon-based terrorist group to disarm, saying such demands only serve Israel’s interests amid mounting pressure from the United States and the Lebanese government.
“Those who call for us to surrender our weapons are practically asking us to hand them over to Israel. We will not submit to Israel,” Qassem said in a televised speech on Wednesday.
“The US is destroying Lebanon in order to help the Zionist enemy [Israel],” he continued.
Washington and Beirut have engaged in multiple rounds of negotiations in recent weeks over a US proposal to fully disarm the Iran-backed terrorist group, which for years as held significant political power in Lebanon.
The latest proposal calls for Hezbollah to be fully disarmed within four months in exchange for Israel halting airstrikes and withdrawing troops from its five occupied posts in southern Lebanon.
“The US wants to use Lebanon as a tool to implement its own greater Middle East scheme,” Qassem said during his speech.
“The US is complicit in Israel’s violations of the ceasefire and is fueling tensions among Lebanese factions,” the terrorist leader continued.
Washington’s proposal initially called for the Lebanese government to pass a cabinet decision committing to Hezbollah’s disarmament — a step the US is now actively pushing for before resuming talks on ending Israeli military operations.
Despite growing diplomatic pressure, the Lebanese terrorist group has repeatedly rejected demands to surrender its weapons.
“Resistance in Lebanon has proved to be one of the pillars of state construction. Hezbollah’s weapons will be used to protect Lebanon against the Zionist enemy,” Qassem said. “All those who demand Hezbollah’s disarmament are serving the Israeli plot. The resistance will never agree to hand over its weapons to the Zionist enemy.”
Qassem also argued that increasing demands for Hezbollah’s disarmament are driven by Israel’s fear of the Islamist group and accused US special envoy Thomas Barrack of protecting Israeli interests at the expense of Lebanon’s security.
“Israel will not be able to defeat us, and it will not be able to take Lebanon hostage,” he said.
Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s attacks on northern Israel — which they claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas amid the war in Gaza.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.
Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.
Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — decrying “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
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France Demands Probe Into Refugee Vetting Process as Gazan Expelled by Top University Over Antisemitic Posts
A flag is flown during a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
A Palestinian from Gaza studying at the prestigious Sciences Po Lille has been expelled after French authorities discovered hundreds of antisemitic social media posts, including praise for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and calls for the murder of Jews.
The episode has led ministers in the French government to demand answers and push for an investigation into the vetting process that allowed the Gazan student to enter France in the first place.
After receiving a scholarship, 25-year-old Nour Atalla arrived in France earlier this year, planning to begin her law and communications studies at the Institute of Political Science in Lille, northern France.
She is one of 292 Gazans admitted to the country with support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following a court ruling that opened the door for Gazans to seek refugee status based on their nationality.
On Wednesday, the university announced it had revoked Atalla’s enrollment after hundreds of her past antisemitic and violent social media posts went viral, sparking widespread condemnation from political leaders and members of the local Jewish community.
In several of these posts, she glorified Hitler, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, called for the execution of Israeli hostages and the killing of Jews, and expressed support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“The content of these posts directly contradicts the core values of Sciences Po Lille, which actively opposes all forms of racism, antisemitism, and discrimination, as well as any incitement to hatred toward any group,” the university said in a post on X.
Le contenu de ces publications entre en contradiction frontale avec les valeurs portées par Sciences Po Lille, qui lutte contre toute forme de racisme, antisémitisme et discrimination, ainsi que contre tout type d’appel à la haine, contre quelque population que ce soit.
— Sciences Po Lille (@ScPoLille) July 30, 2025
In one post, Atalla shared a video of Hitler giving a speech about Jews, writing. “Kill their young and their old. Show them no mercy … And kill them everywhere.”
In another post shared on Oct. 7, 2023, she wrote, “We must do everything we can to match the bloodshed — as much as possible.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 hostages, and perpetrated widespread sexual violence during their Oct. 7 onslaught, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
After the posts went viral, French politician Matthias Renault of the far-right National Rally party condemned Atalla’s antisemitic views and called on Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to revoke her asylum status.
“These repeated views pose a serious threat to French society,” Renault said.
In a statement on X, Retailleau announced that he had ordered legal action to be taken against Atalla and “immediately requested the closure of this hateful account.”
“A Palestinian student, admitted to our country through a procedure beyond our Ministry’s authority, made statements that are entirely unacceptable and deeply concerning,” the French official posted.
“There is no place for Hamas sympathizers in our country,” he continued.
Présente sur notre territoire, en raison d’une procédure d’entrée pour laquelle notre ministère n’est pas compétent, une étudiante palestinienne a tenu des propos inacceptables et inquiétants.
J’ai immédiatement demandé de faire fermer ce compte haineux, et donné instruction au… https://t.co/uONrjoEekl
— Bruno Retailleau (@BrunoRetailleau) July 30, 2025
Philippe Baptiste, the French minister responsible for higher education and research, expressed similar outrage, noting he referred to the matter to law enforcement for potential prosecution.
“France does not have to welcome international students who advocate for terrorism, crimes against humanity, and antisemitism,” he said on X. “Whether they come from Gaza or elsewhere, international students holding or relaying such statements have no place in our country. Nor on our territory. Within the government, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that the case of the Palestinian student welcomed at Sciences-Po Lille, who relayed statements of extreme gravity on social networks, is handled with the utmost firmness. I have already referred the matter to the Public Prosecutor under Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.”
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called for an investigation into the screening process that allowed Atalla to enter the country.
“A Gazan student making antisemitic remarks has no place in France,” he posted. “The screenings carried out by the competent services of the relevant ministries have clearly not worked. I have requested that an internal investigation be conducted to ensure this cannot happen again under any circumstances.”
Like many countries around the world, France has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The growing wave of anti-Jewish hatred is fueled in part by a rapidly expanding Muslim population from the Middle East and North Africa — a result of ongoing migration trends in France.
The local Jewish community in France has consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron announced last week that the country will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September — part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” — and is now urging other nations to join this initiative.
Israeli officials have condemned such a move, calling it a “reward for terrorism.”
The decision came after Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia officially recognized a Palestinian state last year, claiming that such a move would contribute to fostering a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and promote lasting peace in the region.
Following France’s announcement, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
However, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told his cabinet on Tuesday that Britain will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the “appalling situation” in Gaza.