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Pro-Israel Influencer Discusses Jewish Identity After Oct. 7, How to Think About US Election as a Progressive Zionist
Lizzy Savetsky and her three children Stella (11), Juliet (10), and Ollie (3). Photo: Abbie Sophia
Every year, millions of Diaspora Jews visit the State of Israel to see family, pray at the Holy sites, and experience life in the world’s only Jewish state. It is an excursion which brings one’s Jewish identity into focus and connects her to the distant past, when the Jewish people escaped bondage in Egypt to found “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”
So it was that on Oct. 6, pro-Israel social media influencer Elizabeth “Lizzy” Savetsky — along with her husband, Ira, three children, and parents — were in the city of Jerusalem at the King David Hotel. They were in “amazing spirits” and there to celebrate Sukkot and Simchat Torah, which would see their youngest son, Ollie, receive his first haircut in accordance with the Orthodox tradition Upsherin. He had just turned three years old.
“I remember the day so well. My youngest daughter does a weekly torah parshah, a little one-minute torah lesson she does every week, and I remember filming it at the hotel and that she was talking about Simchat Torah. Also, I have all these pictures on my phone from Oct. 6. We were all dressed up so nice and really trying to put our best foot forward,” Savetsky told The Algemeiner in a series of interviews this month.
“And there’s nothing like being at the King David Hotel on Friday night before Shabbat or a holiday, because of the energy of all the different Jews coming together to, in this case, bring in both,” Savetsky continued. “Just running into people all over, friends and followers, from across the world made me feel so connected to my people and my land. I had never been more in love with Israel and in love with being a Jewish person. I was feeling so intensely connected to my people and my land.”
The trip was, she explained, a “normal” one like others the family had taken before, and while Israelis were then engaged in a polarizing debate over a series of judicial reforms proposed by the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the state of affairs was not unusual for Israeli politics as Savetsky knew it. Her first introduction to the nation’s tempestuous disputes over its future came in 1995, just months after her 10th birthday, when an extremist assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to protest the Oslo Accords, a series of ambitious agreements which aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for good.
The peace process ultimately failed at creating a permanent resolution to the conflict, but on Oct. 6, it seemed to many observers that the embers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were flaming out with time. Israel had just three years earlier entered into the Abraham Accords — normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan — and the United States was investing immense energy in brokering what could have a historic normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia that was not preconditioned by the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“And then of course, Oct. 7 happened,” Savetsky told The Algemeiner.
On that morning, Ira Savetsky took the couple’s middle daughter to synagogue while Lizzy remained at the hotel with their eldest daughter, Stella, to finish getting ready for what she knew would be “a long service.” Feeling restive for being delayed by her mother’s morning routine, Stella stepped outside their room and heard “sirens going off” and someone say that a “fire drill” was taking place. She immediately reported the news to her mother.
“I said there are no drills in Israel, and I knew immediately that something was very wrong. And just after she said that, the hotel loud speaker came on and said everyone in the hotel needed to immediately report to the south staircase and into the bomb shelter,” Savetsky recounted. “When we got to the staircase, it was just complete chaos and panic. There was woman behind me in a towel because she had just come out of the shower. Nobody knew what was going on.”
There was an indication of danger that morning, but Ira had refused to believe his own eyes. While walking to synagogue, he thought he saw a rocket being intercepted over Jerusalem, which he deemed an impossibility. Because it was Shabbat, he did not have his smartphone, preventing him from checking for news updates. After being reunited back in the bomb shelter, two Armenian tourists visiting Israel for the first time did have their phones and relayed to Lizzy and Ira “spotty details” of an attack “by land, sea, and air.” Lizzy panicked.
“I was trying to understand what that meant. By land, you mean they came in by foot? There were terrorists in the country by foot?” she told The Algemeiner. “And then, one of the other first reports we heard was that a solider had been kidnapped. That was shocking, and we were enraged hearing that. Little did we know just how horrible the attacks were. By the time that Shabbat ended on the evening of the 7th, we knew a lot more.”
Elizabeth Savetsky was born in August 1985 in Fort Worth Texas, a community she described as pertinaciously “conservative.” However, she embraced the egalitarianism and openness of the progressive movement, which was the basis of her worldview when she arrived on the campus of New York University in the fall of 2003 to study fashion. To this day, she supports abortion rights, gay marriage, and other core tenets of the US Democratic Party.
“I only became more liberal, more radicalized, as one does on a college campus. But of course, at the time, there wasn’t protests happening against Israel nor raging antisemitism, and once those two things started to surface I started to do my digging,” she said.
After graduation, Savetsky treaded an unusual path to becoming a pro-Israel activist. She found several jobs in “the fashion PR [public relations] world” and had moderate success with maintaining a blog, a popular form of writing on what was still, in the mid-2000s, a nascent internet. But Americans were reading less, she explained, and she shifted her focus to emerging social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, which allowed her to exhibit her fashion sense and connect with followers who were making celebrities out of everyday people overnight. Her Jewishness and support for Israel were present on her social media pages, but not, she noted, pronounced.
Then in May 2021, Hamas fired 1,700 rockets into Tel Aviv, killing 17 people and wounding hundreds of others. Anti-Zionists seized the opportunity to flood social media with a barrage of posts which, in addition to promoting ancient antisemitic tropes, vowed to lead a movement for Israel’s destruction. To Savetsky’s dismay, many of the influencers leading the charge were progressives and Democrats she had considered “allies.” Their anti-Zionism and classifying Jews as “white colonists” and “oppressors” prompted a convulsive upending of her long-held beliefs and the way she engaged her social media followers.
“It was the first time as a social media influencer that I had seen being demolished online, and I had this realization that there was this secondary war happening in the digital space,” Savetsky said. “We had always seen the demonization of Israel in the legacy media, but this was new for me and I had literally no idea what to do. You know, there was no manual on how to be a social media advocate.”
Savetsky began recording a series of short video clips about Israel, Zionism, and the war — “Stories” — and posting them on Instagram. She lost thousands of followers but gained hundreds of thousands more. Such is her reach today that when The Algemeiner first encountered her at a rally held near George Washington University in May, she was surrounded by a crush of students clamoring for photographs and conversation.
However, fame has complicated Savetsky’s life by widening the circle of people to whom she is accountable. Earlier this month, she announced to her 350,000 followers her intention to vote for former US President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election, a decision prompted by yet another unprecedented year for America, Israel, and the world. Doing so unleashed volleys of insults as well as accusations of fascism, fraud, and betrayal. Her decision was not, she told The Algemeiner, cavalier. The events of Oct. 7 left a “permanent mark” in her memory, and one of the first things she did after regaining access to her phone on that day was update her followers about the attack, which was a way for Jews who were in Israel to communicate and share news with the Diaspora in real time.
For Savetsky, the Democratic Party’s hesitation both to denounce the anti-Zionist movement’s blaring antisemitism and to support Israel’s latest war with Hamas is an outrage, but that does not mean, she emphasized, that she endorses Trump’s character or is ignorant of his questionable associations. She explained that she did not have a conversion experience but a realignment of her political priorities, of which Israel is “number one.” She remains conflicted about Trump but believes that his policy toward Israel will be superior to anything implemented by a Kamala Harris administration.
“Israel is my priority, and Republicans and I will never align on everything. I am pro-choice, I am pro-gay marriage, I am very much a liberal valued person, but then again, I don’t believe that the Democratic Party is upholding my liberal values either because it has become so extreme,” she told The Algemeiner. “As voters, we have to prioritize what’s most important to us. And right now, I fear for our and my children’s survival as Jews.”
Asked about Trump’s November 2022 dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes and recent news that Donald Trump Jr. was scheduled to appear at an event with Candace Owens — from which Owens was later removed for reasons that may not have been related to her alleged promotion of antisemitism — Savetsky said: “I called all of that out, and this is why I always say that we can’t put our faith in a human being. I don’t know if I can trust any of them, but what choices do we have?”
She added, “This is not a choice that I want to make, but it’s a choice I have to make, because I’m not pleased with a lot of things about either of them. I don’t necessarily like Donald Trump, and I wouldn’t have dinner with the guy. But he’s the better choice.”
Determined not to make Oct. 7 their children’s last memory of Israel, the Savetsky family once again made a pilgrimage to Israel this month. While waiting for their flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport, their second eldest child, Juliet, celebrated her 10th birthday, which the airport staff announced over the intercom at midnight. Seven hours were shaved off the day because of their traveling to a different time-zone, but she did not complain “too much,” Savetsky said. They were all happy to be going back.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Pro-Israel Influencer Discusses Jewish Identity After Oct. 7, How to Think About US Election as a Progressive Zionist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Imam at New Orleans Terrorist’s Local Mosque Says Jews ‘Like to Take Control of the Economy’
A member of the National Guard Military Police stands, in the area where people were killed by a man driving a truck in an attack during New Year’s celebrations, in New Orleans, Louisiana, US, Jan. 2, 2025. PHoto: REUTERS/Octavio Jones
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the man who according to law enforcement perpetrated the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, lived in Houston near a mosque led by a radical imam who preached that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler killed Jews because “they like to take control of the economy.”
The connection has raised questions about the ideology of Jabbar, a US Army veteran who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group. The FBI revealed on Thursday that Jabbar acted alone and that on the morning of the truck ramming attack, in which at least 14 people were killed and dozens more were injured, he posted several videos on social media saying he supported ISIS. An ISIS flag was also found on the trailer hitch of the rented vehicle involved in the New Orleans attack. In one of his recordings, Jabbar revealed that he initially intended to hurt his friends and family, but changed plans because he wanted to bring attention to the “war between believers and the disbelievers.”
Amid heightened concern about the threat of Islamist terrorism, observers are noting that Jabbar may have been radicalized at Masjid Bilal, a mosque in the northern Houston community where he lived. According to footage published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Thursday, Imam Eiad Soudan, leader of the Masjid Bilal mosque in Houston, told congregants in November 2023 that Jews seek to “control the economy” across the world and that Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust to mitigate Jewish economic power. Soudan also argued that Europe only supports Israel as a means to prevent Jews from migrating into their countries.
Eiad Soudan, Imam of Houston Mosque Where New Orleans Attacker Worshiped: Jews Seek to Control the Economy Wherever They Go, That’s Why Hitler Killed Them; Europeans Support Israel Because They Don’t Want Jews Back in Their Countries (Archival) pic.twitter.com/AFXc7cIC82
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 2, 2025
“Why does the whole world want them to stay in Palestine?” he said. “Because if they don’t stay in Palestine, they will go back to their countries, and those people, unfortunately, have one problem — well, they have many problems, but that’s one of the main problems — they like to take control of the economy. Everywhere they go, whatever is the rule, as long as they get to the goal, the means don’t matter.”
Although Masjid Bilal is reportedly located a few minutes walk from Jabbar’s residence, the extent of his connection to the mosque is unknown.
According to law enforcement, Jabbar was fatally shot by police when he exited his truck and opened fire after driving his vehicle into a crowd of New Year’s revelers.
On Thursday, New York Post reporter Jennie Taer led a tour of Jabbar’s purported home, which had been raided by the FBI. The residence contained a variety of harmful chemicals, including bottles of sulfuric acid. The tour also revealed a “work station” with tools located in a presumed bedroom. A closet within the home also contained a keffiyeh, a traditional headscarf worn by Palestinians that has become known as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause and opposition to Israel.
Jabbar’s brother, Abdur Rahim-Jabbar, told Fox News that his sibling was likely radicalized by an extremist interpretation of Islam.
Experts have warned of a rising global terror threat in the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Last May, experts explained to The Algemeiner that “lone wolf” terrorists inspired by ISIS and al Qaeda could carry out attacks on US soil, incensed by the ongoing war in Gaza and inspired by terrorist violence abroad.
“As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a time when I’ve seen so many different threats, all elevated, all at the same time,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in April.
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‘Join Hezbollah and Kill Jews’: Pennsylvania Man Indicted on Terrorism Charges
Members of Hezbollah carry the coffin of Hezbollah member Abbas Shuman, who was killed in southern Lebanon amidst tension between Israel and Hezbollah, during his funeral in Baalbek, Lebanon, Oct. 23, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Alfiky
A grand jury has federally indicted an American who absconded to the Middle East with the intention of joining Hezbollah — the Iran-backed Shia terrorist organization based in Lebanon — the US Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
The action affirmed the veracity of evidence that Jack Danaher Molloy, 24, had “attempted to provide material support and resources” to Hezbollah both in and out of the US, operating in his home state of Pennsylvania as well as in Syria and Lebanon between August and December 2024.
The venture ultimately proved unsuccessful, however, as Molloy — a dual citizen of Ireland and former active duty soldier for the US Army — was, according to the department, rejected by his would-be terrorist colleagues. They reportedly told him that “the time was not right” for his enlistment.
Molloy eventually returned to the US, where he made additional overtures to Hezbollah by contacting people online, some of whom lived in Lebanon. Throughout this time, he proclaimed himself to be pathologically antisemitic.
“Molloy, also allegedly expressed his hatred toward, and promoted violence against, Jewish people,” the Justice Department said. “Molloy’s alleged animus towards Jews was also evidenced by multiple images and and videos on his electronic devises and the usernames he chose for his social media and email accounts, including the username “K—EKILLER313″ on the social media platform X.”
It continued, “In one alleged WhatsApp exchange with a family member, Molloy agreed that his ‘master plan was to join Hezbollah and kill Jews.’ And while he was residing in Upper St. Clair, Molloy also allegedly visited a website detailing the possible incarceration location of Robert Bowers, who carried out the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue shooting during which he murdered 11 Jewish worshippers.”
Hezbollah had been at war with Israel from October 2023, when the terrorist group began launching rockets at the Jewish state in solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, until November 2024, when a ceasefire was reached to halt fighting in northern Israel and neighboring Lebanon. Molloy’s activities coincided with a surge in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, during which the former intensified air strikes and launched ground operations in Lebanon, pummeling Hezbollah’s leadership and weapons stockpiles.
Molloy now faces a slew of charges, both for providing “material support” for a terrorist organization and lying to the FBI about it, which happened when agents questioned him at the Pittsburgh International Airport in October 2024. If convicted, he could serve up to 28 years in prison.
US federal law enforcement officials have been actively investigating and securing convictions against antisemitic extremists.
In one such case resolved last month, a Jordanian expatriate, Hashem Younis Hashem Hnaihen, who was federally charged in August for attacking an energy facility and threatening to bomb businesses that he deemed supportive of Israel, pleaded guilty to his crimes, which included vandalizing small businesses in Orange County, Florida, and leaving “Warning Letters” addressed to the US government in which he vowed to “destroy or explode everything here in America. Especially the companies and factories that support the racist state of Israel.”
Later, he breached an energy facility in Wedgefield, Florida, where he “smashed” scores of solar panels and damaged other “electronic equipment.” The spree of infrastructure sabotage lasted “for hours,” the Justice Department added, destroying $700,000 worth of technology. In early July, Hnaihen left a final warning letter at an industrial propane gas distribution depot located in the city of Orlando., according to federal prosecutors. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department arrested him on July 11.
On Dec. 20, Hnaihen conceded to the federal government its case against him, pleading guilty to “four counts of threatening to use explosives and one count of destruction of an energy facility.” His plea also contained a promise to “make full restitution” to his victims, a debt he will likely repay by working a job in prison, where he stands to spend as many as 60 years.
Additionally, in October, federal prosecutors helped convict a gunman who shot two Jewish men as they exited a synagogue in Los Angeles.
Jaime Tran, 30 — an affiliate of the “Goyim Defense League” hate group — had attempted to murder two Jewish men in the Pico-Robertson section of Los Angeles in February 2023. Prior to the crimes, Tran called Jews “primitive” and told a former classmate, “Someone is going to kill you, Jew” and “I want you dead, Jew.” According to the Justice Department, he even described himself as a “ticking time bomb,” broadcasting his murderous ideation to all who knew him.
After declining to fight the federal government’s case against him, Tran pled guilty in June to four charges the department described as “hate crimes with intent to kill” and “using, carrying, and discharging a firearm” in the commission of an act of violence. His sentencing of 35 years ensures that he will not again be free until the year 2059.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Biden Discussed Striking Iran Nuclear Facilities if Tehran Dashes for Bomb: Report
US President Joe Biden addresses rising levels of antisemitism, during a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US President Joe Biden recently discussed plans for a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities prior to his Jan. 20 departure from office if the Iranian regime makes substantial progress toward a nuclear weapon, according to a new report.
In a meeting “several weeks ago,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented Biden with a variety of options to decimate Iran’s capabilities to generate nuclear weapons, Axios revealed on Thursday.
Biden was not presented with new information during the secret meeting, which was reportedly conducted for the purpose of “prudent scenario planning” on how the US should respond to Iran ramping up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
No decisions were made during the meeting, and there are currently no active discussions inside the White House about possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Axios reported.
Some members of Biden’s team have argued that the combination of Iran’s increased nuclear activity and its weakened military state due to Israel’s war against its terrorist proxies has given Washington an opportunity to strike the regime.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, the Israeli military has decimated key pieces of Iran’s proxy network in the Middle East — most notably Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel also set back Iran’s ballistic missile production and extensively damaged its air defense system with an October strike against Iranian military targets.
The Israeli military campaign has, according to experts, left Iran particularly vulnerable at home and hindered the regime’s ability to project power across the Middle East.
However, many observers fear that Iran may opt to break out toward a nuclear weapon in order to bolster its deterrence. Sullivan expressed that concern last month.
“If you’re Iran right now and you’re looking around at the fact that your conventional capability has been reduced, your proxies have been reduced, your main client state has been eliminated, [Syrian leader Bashar al] Assad has fallen, it’s no wonder there are voices saying: ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now,’” he told CNN.
Some experts have argued such statements indicate more of a willingness by the US to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities preemptively than ever before.
“By saying this, the current administration, which has previously been reluctant to attack Iran, is signaling concern and suggesting that the US might have to act,” Professor Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told The Media Line. “There is more willingness now in the US to act preemptively.”
It is unclear whether Biden’s team has discussed the prospect of striking Iranian nuclear sites with the incoming Trump administration, which is expected to adopt a tougher overall posture toward Iran.
Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported earlier last month that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.
The UK, France, and Germany said in a recent statement that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
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