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A comet is streaking across towards our solar system — is it an omen for Jews?
A newly tracked interstellar comet, which has been dubbed 3I/ATLAS and is likely to pass the sun, Jupiter, Mars and Venus this autumn, but nowhere near Earth, has sparked some unexpectedly Jewish reflections.
Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor of astronomy, has posited that comets and space debris might be products of extraterrestrial intelligence and has theorized that there is a 60% likelihood that 3I/ATLAS is an extraterrestrial construction. Loeb has also informed the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston that the Messiah may well be extraterrestrial in origin.
Elsewhere, Loeb has suggested that after the arrival of extraterrestrials on Earth, “old religions might die and new religions might be born,” implying the possible end of Judaism, as one of the old-time religions.
The professor has stated that he is “very proud” of Jewish tradition because “there’s a lot of wisdom in it,” which might be seen as a neat understatement. But at the same time, in a blog he has declared that because the earth is no safe haven for Jews, it might be a good idea to move to outer space, where there are no lethal proprietary struggles of the Middle East type nor any antisemitism.
In any case, the way the solar system is developing, within 7.6 billion years, astronomers tell us, the sun will swell into a red giant and vaporize the Earth. To sidestep this fate, Loeb hints that Jews might kvell for trillions, instead of mere billions, of years by relocating to a distant planet, any one of untold numbers currently uninhabited.
This notion, although meant perhaps only half-seriously, overlooks the Jewish tradition of earth as a potentially blessed place for Jews, however long the blessing lasts. The biblical Book of Isaiah uses the term Beulah (from the Hebrew word for married) to refer to the land of Israel after its restoration, a symbolic state of being in a blessed covenant with God on earth, not in outer space.
At the same time, Loeb has cautioned that extraterrestrial visitors might have malign motives and earthlings would not be able to oppose them; on the other hand, ETs might also be nicer and better than humans. Last month, Loeb claimed that, since interstellar visitors “must have survived” for billions of years, they might follow the principle of “survival of the kindest.”
Justifying his assertion that roaming extraterrestrials seeking earthly contacts might be benevolent, Loeb stated: “Lonely people do not engage in blind dates if they believe that their dating partners are likely to be serial killers,” going on to observe that such interstellar wandering lonely hearts are “motivated to seek partners if they believe that kindness is abundant on the dating scene.”
Whatever the eHarmony aspect of intergalactic dating might be, the concept of visitors from outer space who are kind to Jews and others is contradicted by Loeb’s repeated claims that interstellar comets could also be espionage vehicles with menacing intent. These dire predictions have worried some readers, while annoying fellow astronomers who have called them mere distractions, implying that the time spent denying Loeb’s much-publicized, highly improbable theories might be better used for further research.
Still, Loeb is far from the first to associate Yiddishkeit with extraterrestrial phenomena — the tradition goes back at least as far as the vision of a chariot-like structure with four wheels described in the Bible’s Book of Ezekiel, symbolizing God’s omnipresence, omniscience and mobility.
The 17th century cult leader Abraham Miguel Cardozo saw faces in the moon, including the False Messiah Sabbatai Zevi and the mystic Isaac Luria. More recently, the Jewish psychiatrist John Mack, also affiliated with Harvard, investigated unproven claims of alien abductions, including one made by an Israeli woman who, under hypnosis, recalled a former 13th century life as an Arab merchant famed for justice and benevolence.
These and other examples have been examined by David Halperin, an expert on Jews and UFOs, who alludes to the eminent American Jewish astronomer Carl Sagan, who was open-minded about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but concluded that as yet, no purported discoveries had been proven scientifically.
In a recent blog post, Loeb, who has previously likened his detractors to those who dismissed Galileo, Madame Curie, and the Wright Brothers, compared himself to a Jewish child prisoner in Theresienstadt concentration camp who drew idealized images of a “better world” rather than the grim reality of a Nazi jail. Loeb noted that he and others who dream “of a better world than Earth” might “guide [humanity] to the promised land” by encountering aliens.
Whatever one thinks of these comparisons, Jews have long sought and found extraterrestrial inspiration in earthly phenomena, and the wisest scientific mavens, including Sagan and others, have remained temperate, whether or not such theories turned out to be factual. May the same turn out to be the case with 3I/ATLAS.
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The post A comet is streaking across towards our solar system — is it an omen for Jews? appeared first on The Forward.
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Tlaib Condemns Israel for Retaliatory Strikes Against Hamas After Staying Silent on Gaza Ceasefire
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most vocal opponents of Israel in the US Congress, has condemned the Jewish state for supposedly continuing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza after remaining silent on the recent ceasefire agreement between Jerusalem and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Tlaib lambasted Israel on X on Sunday, saying that the “apartheid regime” has continued “raining down” missiles on Gaza despite striking a ceasefire agreement days prior. She insinuated that Israel has used the ceasefire agreement as cover for carrying out a slaughter campaign against the Palestinian people and urged the US federal government to impose sanctions to the Jewish state.
“The genocidal apartheid regime is once again raining down bombs across Gaza and calling it a ‘ceasefire.’ They will never stop until there’s a total arms embargo and economic sanctions. The US must stop the genocide,” Tlaib posted.
On Sunday, Israel launched a wave of strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza after two Israelis soldiers were killed in a Palestinian attack.
Notably, Tlaib remained largely silent regarding the ceasefire and hostage-release deal to halt fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that went into effect last week. Tlaib did not release a statement acknowledging the release of Israeli hostages on any of her official platforms.
Tlaib has also been a fierce critic of Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group, relentlessly accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians in Gaza. Tlaib has also accused Israel of attempting “ethnic cleansing” and erecting an “apartheid” regime in Gaza and the West Bank.
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‘We Stand Together’: UK Professors Call Out Harassment of Jewish Colleague Who Served in IDF
Illustrative: London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
Hundreds of professors on Tuesday signed a petition calling for the end of an antisemitic hate campaign aimed at driving a Jewish Israeli professor from his job at City St. George’s, University of London because he served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the 1980s.
The professor, Michael Ben-Gad, has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine, the petition says. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.
“Regardless of diverse views on the recent Gaza war and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we deplore any campaign that seeks to intimidate and drive out lecturers because they are Israeli, Jewish, or members of any other group,” the professors’s petition says. “Academics and students have a right to go about their work at any university without facing harassment.”
It continues, “Attacks of this kind are intimidating, particularly to Jewish students, and set a precedent under which others could be targeted in the future. We wish to make clear to what appears to be a small, if very vocal, group that their mobbing tactics will not succeed. We stand together in support of Professor Ben-Gad and his personal and intellectual freedom as an academic.”
City Action for Palestine is one of London’s most notorious anti-Zionist groups, convulsing higher education campuses across the city with pro-Hamas demonstrations which demonize pro-Israel Jews, attack policies enacted to combat antisemitism, and amplify the propaganda of jihadist terror organizations. Ben-Gad is not its only victim, as the group has targeted Members of Parliament, the Union of Jewish Students, and City University London president Anthony Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the child of a Holocaust survivor.
Jews employed in higher education in Europe and America face an escalating climate of hate and intimidation.
Around the globe, in Alameda County, California, a professor is suing the University of California, Berkeley, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim the university’s own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation. According to court documents, a hiring official allegedly concluded that an Israeli professor working in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies would be unpalatable to students and faculty after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Dr. Yael Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation into Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance.
At George Washington University, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) issued an ominous warning to a professor who created a proposal to resettle residents of Gaza outside of the Palestinian enclave and remake it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism.
“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.
“The reason for the eviction is: your active role in incepting the genocide and planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” SJP’s message continued. “Your disgusting plan for the complete destruction and foreign occupation of Gaza and the colonial ‘re-education’ of Palestinians.”
Denouncing Pelzman as an “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”
In September, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), released survey results showing that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it.
Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent).
“Colleges and universities are meant to be open, safe, learning environments where faculty and students alike feel comfortable sharing ideas and having open discourse,” AEN executive director Miriam Elman said in a statement. “It’s disturbing, but perhaps unsurprising, that Jewish and Zionist faculty on campuses across the country are experiencing antisemitic hostility and retaliation for their beliefs.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Qatar, Turkey’s Expanding Roles in Gaza Could Strengthen Hamas Infrastructure, Experts Warn
Heavy machinery operates at a site where searches for deceased hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct, 7, 2023, attack on Israel are underway amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
As the fragile ceasefire in Gaza appears to hold, experts are warning about the expanding roles of Qatar and Turkey in reconstruction and post-war efforts, amid concerns that their involvement could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
Last week, Qatar’s Minister of International Cooperation, Mariam bint Ali al-Misnad, announced new operations in the Gaza Strip to remove debris and restore infrastructure.
“As part of assistance to Gaza, the State of Qatar has commenced debris removal operations and opening of primary routes,” al-Misnad said in a press conference.
“The goal is to restore hope and return life to its normal course,” the Qatari official continued. “We take pride in belonging to a nation that makes humanity an obligation.”
Joining several world powers, Qatar has welcomed the US-backed peace plan aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, pledging to support reconstruction efforts in the war-torn enclave and to advance the next steps in ceasefire negotiations.
Alongside the United States and regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the two-year conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
Amid Qatar’s ongoing reconstruction efforts in Gaza, experts have warned that the heavy mechanical equipment might do more than clear debris and build roads, potentially aiding Hamas in restoring its terrorist infrastructure.
According to Natalie Ecanow, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Qatar’s involvement in the ceasefire plan is concerning, largely because of its decades-long relationship with Hamas.
“Qatar has long been a political and financial patron of Hamas and has previously signaled that it’s OK with the terror group surviving to rule another day. That’s incompatible with the Israeli and American position,” Ecanow told The Algemeiner.
As Doha begins debris removal operations in the enclave, Hamas has reportedly requested “specialized equipment” to recover the remains of deceased Israeli hostages, some of whom the Islamist group says cannot be retrieved without such machinery, for transfer to Israel as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal.
Ecanow also argued that Qatar only intensified its push for reconstruction and ceasefire efforts after Israel’s Sept. 9 strike against Hamas leaders in Doha, which exposed the country’s vulnerability and prompted it to move quickly on the deal.
“The ceasefire is on shaky ground, which isn’t wholly surprising,” Ecanow told The Algemeiner. “At the end of the day, Hamas is a terrorist group that has repeatedly shown little regard for ceasefire deals.”
“It’s also important to remember that the hostage release was only one part of a multi-phase plan for Gaza. There were almost certain to be roadblocks along the way,” she continued.
Meanwhile, Israel is also concerned about Turkey’s potential influence in Gaza after the war, given its role as a major international backer of Hamas and its openly hostile stance toward the Jewish state.
On Monday, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli rejected any possibility of Turkey playing a role in US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “is a sworn enemy of Israel and the West, a jihadist in a suit,” Chikli said.
“We will not tolerate a Turkish presence, not on our northern border and not on our southern border,” the Israeli official continued, referring to Israel’s borders with the Gaza Strip to the south and Syria to the north.
“May Allah, for the sake of His name… destroy and devastate Zionist Israel.”
This sentence was not uttered by a Hamas or Hezbollah leader, It was said in a public prayer on March 30, 2025, by the President of Turkey @RTErdogan.
Erdogan is a sworn enemy of Israel and the West,… https://t.co/cH5usZWj9Z
— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) October 20, 2025
Last week, Erdogan joined several Arab countries in pledging support for Trump’s Gaza peace plan, vowing to help manage post-war efforts in the enclave.
Among other initiatives, Turkey has committed to deploying search and rescue teams to Gaza to recover the bodies of slain hostages, who are to be returned to Israel as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal, and to support reconstruction across the enclave.
Under Trump’s plan, Turkey is also expected to join a multinational task force responsible for overseeing the ceasefire and training local security forces.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly rejected Turkey’s participation in the International Stabilization Force, calling it a “red line.”
Turkey, a longtime backer of Hamas, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel on the international stage, even going so far as to threaten an invasion of the Jewish state and calling on the United Nations to use force if Jerusalem failed to halt its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Erdogan has frequently defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he describes as Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, while erroneously accusing Israel of committing genocide.
As part of his long history of anti-Israel rhetoric, Erdogan has also falsely accused the Jewish state of running “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu to Hitler multiple times before.