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With Oct. 7 on their minds, Jewish teens head to gathering of thousands with renewed sense of priorities
When 18-year-old TJ Katz was elected last February to be international president of BBYO after four years of deep involvement with the Jewish youth organization, the New Jersey teen was exceedingly excited.
Serving as the face of a movement that reaches over 70,000 teens in 62 countries, Katz told an interviewer, put him in a unique position “to tangibly impact the lives of thousands of people.”
After graduating high school, Katz deferred admission by a year to the University of Florida to focus on his role as BBYO’s so-called Grand Aleph Godol — top leader — just as the organization was on the threshold of celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Then came Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and the ensuing surge in antisemitic and anti-Israel ferment.
“My inbox was flooded with hundreds of emails from teens genuinely ready to unite and do what they can to help,” Katz said of the response to Oct. 7. “There has never been a more monumental time to unite.”
Now BBYO is preparing for its International Convention (IC), to be held this year in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 15-19. Over 3,700 teens will come together for the largest annual Jewish teen gathering in America not only to herald the 100th year of BBYO, known years ago as the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, but to find support, strength and solidarity at a challenging time. Many teens come to IC from communities where they are among the only Jews.
This won’t be the first major national gathering of BBYO teens since Oct. 7. Thousands of BBYO teens from around the country joined the over 250,000 participants at the March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on November 14, 2023.
“As I walked into the rally, I immediately began seeing friends from around the country,” Josh Danziger, a high school senior from Houston, wrote in The Shofar, a BBYO online publication. “Jewish teens overcame differences in background, practice, and belief because of an authentic love for Am Yisrael.”
In a sign of the concerns that were occupying the minds of Jewish teens even before Hamas’s attack on Israel, Danziger launched a Jewish Security Alliance with other BBYO teens last year. The impetus was the 2022 attack at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, by a gunman who took several people hostage. The alliance trains young Jews across the country to prepare for potential antisemitic threats, anti-Israel harassment, physical violence or an active shooter situation. Danziger and some of his BBYO peers also formed an Antisemitism Response Club to bring teens together for discussions and events.
“I feel a responsibility to my people,” Danziger said. “I want my peers to know what to do. As Jews, we have a religious obligation to protect and take care of our community.”
Shortly after Oct. 7, BBYO’s CEO, Matt Grossman, embarked on a multicity listening tour to understand how Jewish teens were feeling, what resources they needed, and where they see their role in building a hopeful and secure Jewish future.
“While on the listening tour, I was particularly interested in hearing how teens’ lives have changed since the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel,” Grossman said. “This was not a political discussion but a human and emotional one.”
Among the things Grossman heard was how important it is for Jewish teens to be with Jewish peers at a time when they are feeling particularly isolated.
“Being in an environment with other BBYO teens is like a breath of fresh air,” said Denver teen Jacob Malek. “When you go into a meeting, you don’t have to worry about who you tell you’re Jewish; you can just be you. You don’t have to think about what if someone else thinks of you differently because you’re Jewish; being Jewish is the reason that you guys are together.”
BBYO put together a resource page on its website with webinars, articles, and special events to help parents and teens respond effectively to antisemitism and hate in their communities, schools, and on social media. Together with the Anti-Defamation League, BBYO also created a joint website for teens to report antisemitic incidents.
“As a teen-led organization, one of the things we always have to measure is what we talk about and think about and how we lead BBYO as a movement even in difficult times,” Grossman said. “Jewish teens will never be alone because they have BBYO. And that’s an amazing gift.”
BBYO was founded on May 3, 1924 as the Jewish teen group Aleph Zadik Aleph by a group of 14 young Jewish men in Omaha, Nebraska. Twenty years later, an assembly of young women founded B’nai B’rith Girls, and together the two organizations eventually became BBYO. It now has more than 725 chapters and an alumni network of over 400,000.
Hundreds of BBYO teens at the March for Israel rally in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2023. (BBYO)
Due to unprecedented demand to attend, IC 2024 will be the largest-ever convention in BBYO’s history. Over 5,500 attendees representing 46 countries are expected, including teens, donors, parents, alumni, educators and influencers.
Over the course of five days, the convention, whose theme is “Forever Young,” aims to shape the narrative of how teens combat antisemitism, embrace democracy, and fuel their enthusiasm for making a difference in their communities and worldwide, according to organizers. The teens will hear from and meet inspiring speakers, get leadership skills training, serve the local community, learn together, celebrate Shabbat and have access to exclusive music performances.
A Museum of BBYO and the election of the 100th board of Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) and the 80th of B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG) will honor the movement’s history.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Debbie Shemony, BBYO’s senior vice president for marketing and communications. “It will impact the attendees in ways we can’t even imagine yet.”
Over the course of 2024, BBYO chapters in cities around the world will host large-scale centennial celebrations, and the movement will launch an initiative for teens to log a collective 100,000 hours of community service.
For many attendees, IC is a much-anticipated reunion with their peers. Teens who have participated in the summer leadership and travel program offered by the organization can reconnect with friends from around the country – and sometimes the globe.
Last summer, Emma Gornstein, a high school junior from Ardsley, New York, participated in both a chapter leadership training institute at BBYO’s summer home in Starlight, Pennsylvania, and a BBYO Passport travel experience to Central Europe.
“They were amazing experiences and I learned so much,” said Gornstein, who has been active in BBYO since eighth grade. “I’m looking forward to a lot of reunions at IC.”
Even if IC is one of your first experiences with BBYO, she said, “the energy there is contagious and you are bound to make at least one friend.”
Rabbi Daniel Septimus, a former BBYO international president who is now the CEO of Austin’s Jewish community center, Shalom Austin, said the movement is a terrific framework for connecting Jewish teens locally, regionally and globally, and bringing them together for leadership opportunities.
“BBYO is doing an incredible job of really teaching the value of K’lal Yisrael, of Jewish peoplehood, and that we are all bound to each other,” Septimus said.
His daughter, high school sophomore Talia Septimus, represents the third generation of the family’s involvement in BBYO.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Talia said. “I love that my grandparents and parents had their own ways of being involved in BBYO, yet I can take my own path.”
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The post With Oct. 7 on their minds, Jewish teens head to gathering of thousands with renewed sense of priorities appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘Valid For All Countries Except Israel’
US passport. Photo: Pixabay.
JNS.org – There’s an unwritten rule among governments in many Muslim countries—when things go wrong at home, turn on the State of Israel.
Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in Asia, provides the latest example of this tactic. Last week, the authorities in Dhaka announced that they were reintroducing what is essentially a disclaimer on the passports issued to its citizens: “Valid for all countries except Israel.” That shameful inscription was abandoned in 2021 by the government of recently ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, although it was never followed up with diplomatic outreach to Israel, much less recognition of the Jewish state’s right to a peaceful and sovereign existence.
The rationale for the move in 2021 was that Bangladeshi passports had to be brought up to date with international standards. However, the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has apparently canceled out that imperative.
“For many years, our passports carried the ‘except Israel’ clause. But the previous government suddenly removed it,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Nurus Salam, passports director at the Department of Immigration, told the Arab News. Somewhat disingenuously, he added: “We were used to seeing ‘except Israel’ written in our passports. I don’t know why they took it out. If you talk to people across the country, you’ll see they want that line back in their passports. There was no need to remove it.”
It’s been 25 years since I was in Bangladesh, where I spent several months as a BBC consultant assisting with the launch of the country’s first private TV news station. One of the aspects that struck me profoundly—in contrast to Salam’s claim that the people want their passports to preclude travel to Israel—was the lack of hostility towards Israel among the many Bangladeshis I met and worked with, and I have no reason to believe that this attitude has fundamentally shifted. Most Bangladeshis are consumed by their own country’s vast problems, and the distant Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not impinge in any way on the resolution of those.
When I told people that I was Jewish, had family in Israel and had spent a great deal of time there, the most common response was curiosity. For the great majority, I was the first Jew they had ever met, and they eagerly quizzed me about the Jewish religion, often noting the overlaps with Islamic practices, such as circumcision and the prohibition on consuming pork.
“What is Israel like? What are the people like?” was a conversation I engaged in on more than one occasion. I remember with great affection a journalist called Salman, a devout Muslim who invited me to his home for an iftar meal during Ramadan. Salman was convinced that there were still a couple of Jews living in Bangladesh, and he combed Dhaka trying to find them so that he could introduce me (he never succeeded because there were no Jews there, but I appreciated his efforts.) I also remember members of the Hindu community, who compose about 8% of the population, drawing positive comparisons between Bangladesh’s Indian-backed 1971 War of Independence against Muslim Pakistan and Israel’s own War of Independence in 1947-48.
To understand why Bangladesh has taken this regressive decision requires a hard look at its domestic politics. In August of last year, the government of Sheikh Hasina—the daughter of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the dominant political figure over the past 30 years—was overthrown following a wave of protest against its well-documented corruption, discriminatory practices and judicial interference. Her downfall was accompanied by a surge of sectarian violence against Hindu homes, businesses and temples, with more than 2,000 incidents recorded over a two-week period. In the eyes of many, Hindus were associated with Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Party, and the violence against them suggested that Islamist positions were making headway in a country that flew the banner of secular nationalism in its bid to win freedom from Pakistani rule.
The passport decision can be viewed in a similar light: Bangladesh asserting its identity as a Muslim country standing in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Islamic world’s pre-eminent cause, at the same time as breaking with the legacy of Sheikh Hasina’s rule. Yet that stance will not alleviate the fiscal misery of Bangladeshi citizens, with more than one in four people living below the poverty line. Nor will it address the chronic infrastructure problems that plague the country’s foreign trade, or tackle the bureaucracy and red tape that crushes entrepreneurship and innovation.
In short, supporting the Palestinians brings no material benefits for ordinary Bangladeshis, who would doubtless gain from a genuine relationship with Israel that would introduce, among many other advantages, more efficient water technology to counter the presence of arsenic and the lack of sanitation that often renders Bangladesh’s large reserves of water unusable and undrinkable.
Even so, ideology and Muslim identity may not be the only explanations for the Bangladeshi decision. It can also be seen as a gesture towards Qatar, the wealthiest country in the Islamic world, which has artfully cultivated trade and diplomatic ties with a slew of less developed countries, Bangladesh included. Last year, Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, paid a two-day state to Bangladesh that showcased Doha’s contributions in the form of bilateral trade worth $3 billion as well as millions of dollars in Qatari grants for school and higher education. Such largesse on the part of the Qataris is a critical means of ensuring that governments in Bangladesh and other Muslim nations stay away from the Abraham Accords countries that have made a peace of sorts with Israel.
Bangladesh is not, of course, the only country to prevent its citizens from traveling to Israel or denying entry to Israeli passport holders. A few days after the Bangladeshi decision, the Maldives—another Muslim country that enjoys close relations with Qatar—announced that Israelis would no longer be permitted to visit. None of these bans is likely to be lifted as long as Israel is at war with the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Iran’s regional proxies and the Iranian regime itself.
The ripple effects of that war—antisemitic violence in Western countries, cold-shouldering of Israel by countries without a direct stake in the conflict—will continue to be felt. None of that changes the plain fact that this remains a war that Israel must win.
The post ‘Valid For All Countries Except Israel’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US, Iran Set for Second Round of Nuclear Talks as Iranian FM Warns Against ‘Unrealistic Demands’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a deal could be reached during Saturday’s second round of nuclear negotiations in Rome if the United States does not make “unrealistic demands.”
In a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Araghchi said that Washington showed “partial seriousness” during the first round of nuclear talks in Oman last week.
The Iranian top diplomat traveled to Moscow on Thursday to deliver a letter from Iran’s so-called Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, briefing Russian President Vladimir Putin on the ongoing nuclear talks with the White House.
“Their willingness to enter serious negotiations that address the nuclear issue only, without entering into other issues, can lead us towards constructive negotiations,” Araghchi said during the joint press conference in Moscow on Friday.
“As I have said before, if unreasonable, unrealistic and impractical demands are not made, an agreement is possible,” he continued.
Tehran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable, despite Washington’s threats of military actions, additional sanctions, and tariffs if an agreement is not reached to curb the country’s nuclear activities.
On Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program” — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Tehran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”
During the press conference, Araghchi also announced he would attend Saturday’s talks in Rome, explaining that negotiations with the US are being held indirectly due to recent threats and US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“Indirect negotiations are not something weird and an agreement is within reach through this method,” Araghchi said.
He also indicated that Iran expects Russia to play a role in any potential agreement with Washington, noting that the two countries have held frequent and close consultations on Tehran’s nuclear program in the past.
“We hope Russia will play a role in a possible deal,” Araghchi said during the press conference.
As an increasingly close ally of Iran, Moscow could play a crucial role in Tehran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, leveraging its position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018.
Since then, even though Tehran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the UN’s nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – has warned that Iran has “dramatically” accelerated uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level and enough to build six nuclear bombs.
During the press conference on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that “Russia is ready to facilitate the negotiation process between Iran and the US regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.”
Moscow has previously said that any military strike against Iran would be “illegal and unacceptable.”
Russia’s diplomatic role in the ongoing negotiations could also be important, as the country has recently solidified its growing partnership with the Iranian regime.
On Wednesday, Russia’s upper house of parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Iran, strengthening military ties between the two countries.
Despite Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapon development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
The post US, Iran Set for Second Round of Nuclear Talks as Iranian FM Warns Against ‘Unrealistic Demands’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Reps. Dan Goldman and Chris Smith Issue Statement Condemning Shapiro Arson Attack As ‘Textbook Antisemitism’
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) holds a rally in support of US Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic presidential election campaign in Ambler, Pennsylvania, US, July 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Rep. Chris Smith (D-NJ) issued a statement condemning the recent arson attack against Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as a form of “textbook antisemitism.”
“Governor Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania and has nothing to do with Israel’s foreign policy, yet he was targeted as an American Jew by a radicalized extremist who blames the Governor for Israel’s actions. That is textbook antisemitism,” the statement read.
Shapiro’s residence, the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, was set ablaze on Sunday morning, hours after the governor hosted a gathering to celebrate the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Shapiro said that he, his wife, and his children were awakened by state troopers knocking on their door at 2 am. The governor and his family immediately evacuated the premises and were unscathed.
Goldman and Smith added that the arson attack against Shapiro serves as “a bitter reminder that persecution of Jews continues.” The duo claimed that they “strongly condemn this antisemitic violence” and called on the suspect to “be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Pennsylvania State Police said that the suspect, Cody Balmer set fire to Shapiro’s residence over the alleged ongoing “injustices to the people of Palestine” and Shapiro’s Jewish faith.
According to an arrest warrant, Balmer called 911 prior to the attack and told emergency operators that he “will not take part in [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” and demanded that the governor “stop having my friends killed.”
The suspect continued, telling operators, “Our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Balmer later revealed to police that he planned to beat Shapiro with a sledgehammer if he encountered him after gaining access into his residence, according to authorities.
He was subsequently charged with eight crimes by authorities, including serious felonies such as attempted homicide, terrorism, and arson. The suspect faces potentially 100 years in jail. He has been denied bail.
Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel. In the days following Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Shapiro issued statements condemning the Palestinian terrorist group and gave a speech at a local synagogue. The governor also ordered the US and Pennsylvania Commonwealth flags to fly at half-mast outside the state capitol to honor the victims.
Shapiro’s strident support of the Jewish state in the wake of Oct. 7 also incensed many pro-Palestinian activists, resulting in the governor being dubbed “Genocide Josh” by far-left demonstrators.
US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) chimed in on the arson attack Thursday, urging the Justice Department to launch a federal investigation, claiming that the incident could be motivated by antisemitism.
Schumer argued that the arson attack targeting Shapiro, who is Jewish, left the Pennsylvania governor’s family in “anguish” and warned that it could serve as an example of “rising antisemitic violence” within the United States. He stressed that a federal investigation and hate crime charges may be necessary to uphold the “fundamental values of religious freedom and public safety.”
Thus far, Shapiro has refused to blame the attack on antisemitism, despite the suspect’s alleged comments repudiating the governor over his support for Israel. The governor has stressed the importance of allowing prosecutors to determine whether the attack constitutes a hate crime.
The post Reps. Dan Goldman and Chris Smith Issue Statement Condemning Shapiro Arson Attack As ‘Textbook Antisemitism’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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