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Belgian City Accused of Antisemitism for Banning Israeli Athletes From International Frisbee Tournament

People walk at a square where Israeli flags are displayed, amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, July 16, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes

The Belgian city of Ghent and organizers of an international frisbee tournament are being accused of antisemitism and discrimination after an Israeli delegation of athletes was prohibited from participating in or even being present at the competition that started this week.

A delegation of Israeli boys and girls aged 13 to 17 are in Belgium to compete in the Under-17 European Championship Frisbee Tournament in Ghent that was scheduled to start on Tuesday and run until Aug. 10 at the Blaarmeersen, a sports and recreation park in the city. A total of 33 Israeli athletes traveled to Belgium to compete in the open and mixed divisions of the tournament, which will feature teams from 11 countries.

The city of Ghent had moved all of Israel’s matches in the tournament to the Moerkensheide sports park in the municipal of De Pint, amid security concerns about the presence of Israeli athletes at the Blaarmeersen. However, anti-Israel activists vandalized the Moerkensheide on Monday night, spray-painting buildings in the park with the message “BOYCOTT ISRAHELL NOW!” After Monday night’s vandalism at Moerkensheide, the mayor of De Pint rescinded permission to have the Israeli delegation compete at the sports park.

In a statement posted on the official Instagram account of the Israeli Flying Disc Association, the Israeli delegation said that on the opening day of the tournament, early in the morning and mere hours before the athletes were ready to compete, they were informed that the entire Israeli delegation has been banned from the competition following the vandalism that took place the night before and because of “fear of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.” The Israeli athletes believe the decision was made because of “local antisemitism.”

“It makes no sense that 15-year-old players and players can’t play the sport they love so much because of politics and antisemitism,” they said in a released statement.

The Israel Flying Disc Association said in a separate statement: “We are mad. We are mad because we see this as a political decision and not a security related one. Our security detail repeatedly say that there is no risk in us coming to any of the fields. We are mad because the tournament was so eager to take up a role in preventing a team in participating or spectating the tournament, just because of their nationality, which is discrimination by definition.”

The European Ultimate Federation (EUF) and European Flying Disc Federation (EFDF), both of whom are organizing the tournament, announced on Tuesday that Ghent authorities made the decision to ban the Israeli delegation “given the current local and international unrest, threats and recent incidents.” They added that authorities have concerns “of high risk disturbance of public order, a significant threat and the inability to guarantee safety at the event if all teams were to participate as planned.”

The city of Ghent announced that it “prohibits the participation of the Israeli delegation” and “the presence of the Israeli delegation” in the Under-17 European Championship Frisbee Tournament. The city also said it forbids “any references related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (such as flags, clothing, inscriptions, pamphlets, etc.) during the tournament due to safety risks, aiming to prevent potential escalation.”

All matches on Tuesday, which was supposed to be the first day of the tournament, were postponed until Wednesday at the Blaarmeersen.

The EUF and EFDF said they were “disappointed to have to make this sad announcement” but, nevertheless, they “must respect and follow the instructions given by the authorities and we must ensure that safety for all our participants, players, volunteers, and spectators is our number one priority.”

“EUF and EFDF recognizes this situation is sad, disappointing, and unfortunate, and we know that all players have come to Ghent to focus on playing Ultimate, to make new friends, and to create memories to last a lifetime,” the federations said. “We ask each and every participant, our Ultimate Community and all supporters to respect this decision and to show good Spirit both on and off the field to continue to promote Youth development within our sport.”

The Israel Flying Disc Association criticized tournament organizers, as well as Ghent authorities, for the decision.

“We are sad because we need to spend this morning explaining to 15-year-old boys and girls why the sport they love so much and is a sport that accepts anyone, from any race and origin, is having a competition where one specific nationality is not allowed to participate, and still the competition continues,” the association said. “Moreover, it is absurd that the Ghent police won’t do anything to make sure the event is secured and safe for everyone but will be there to ensure that no Israeli — 15-year-old girls and boys would be able to even get into the event.”

“The event organizers are even preventing us from arriving at the venue to contest the decision. This is exactly the opposite of Ultimate as a sport that communicates disagreements. This is discrimination,” the statement continued.

A municipal decree by Ghent states that in light of the “current precarious situation in the Middle East, in particular the conflict between Israel and Palestine … there is a high risk of disturbance of public order following the presence of an Israeli delegation at a public event” and also a “significant terrorist threat.”

“The presence and participation of the Israeli delegation in this tournament is a threat to public order and safety of the participants involved. For the sake of the aforementioned security problems, it is therefore absolutely necessary for the organizer to remand the Israeli delegation from the tournament,” the decree further stated, while additionally noting that “people and organizations” oppose Israel’s participation in the tournament because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Ghent ruled that because of the open nature of the Blaarmeersen and its vastness, “safety cannot be guaranteed” at the park and “the areas can neither be shielded nor secured.”

“In addition, there is no security from the organization on site, nor are security measures currently being provided,” the city decree stated. It also mentioned other concerns that the city has, like the fact that the tournament is open to the public and expected to attract a large number of attendees. The decree additionally lists several anti-Israel protests, demonstrations, and vandalisms that have taken place in Ghent in the past year “resulting in a lot of disturbances and calamities.”

The city said all these reasons “show undeniably that the probability is very real that there will be actions if an Israeli team participates in a European championship, with all the consequences that entails. Taking this into account, it is clear that the public order and safety of the spectators and participants cannot be guaranteed if the tournament were to take place on the Blaarmeersen in the presence of an Israeli delegation.”

A number of Jewish groups condemned the decision to ban the Israeli delegation from the frisbee tournament, including the World Jewish Congress (WJC).

“Prohibiting Israelis from an international frisbee tournament highlights a troubling trend of xenophobia in sports,” WJC said in a statement shared on X/Twitter. “This move by the European Ultimate Federation should be unequivocally rejected. It undermines the principles of fairness and inclusivity and contradicts the core values of sportsmanship. Not allowing Israelis to play because THEY face security threats appeases those who might commit aggression and represents a total failure of to protect the victims of such bigoted threats.”

The Combat Antisemitism Movement said the “horrendous, spineless decision hands a win to the terrorists and their supporters.”

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) called the move “blatant discrimination.” The AJC said: “We are shocked that Israel’s National Ultimate Frisbee team, already victims of anti-Israel vandalism, has now been banned from the European Youth Ultimate Championship in Belgium ‘for their own safety.’ This is blatant discrimination! Jewish athletes should never be excluded due to antisemitism. Host countries must stand up to bigotry, not reward it.”

The post Belgian City Accused of Antisemitism for Banning Israeli Athletes From International Frisbee Tournament first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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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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