(JTA) — The photo spread swiftly after a student posted it on social media: Eight California high schoolers were lying on their school’s football field, their bodies arrayed in the shape of a swastika.

Alongside the picture was a quote from Adolf Hitler, threatening the “annihilation of the Jewish race.”

The incident at Branham High School in San Jose began on Dec. 3 and has roiled the local Jewish community in the days since, as the wrenching saga has ignited suspensions, recriminations and alarm from around the world.

The photograph and the response to it were first reported by J. Jewish News of Northern California.

“We don’t want to see hatred,” Cormac Nolan, a Jewish Branham senior, told the local Jewish newspaper. “We don’t want to see the idolization of one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the Earth. We don’t want someone who spews out hatred like this on our campus.”

The school’s student newspaper reported that the students involved had been suspended, and that dozens of other students walked out to protest the incident.

The San Jose Police Department told J. that it is investigating the incident, and the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, said the school was working with the Anti-Defamation League and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a local antisemitism advocacy group, “to ensure that we receive appropriate support and guidance as we work to repair the harm that’s been done to our community.”

Silbergeld told J. that she felt pressure to learn from the incident.

“I’ve been in education for a long time and have seen, sadly, lots of incidences of oppression and hate toward many groups,” she said. “I think that we always have a responsibility as schools to do what’s right and to take action and learn from the experiences of other other schools and other incidents as a way to hopefully eliminate actions like what we’ve experienced.”

The incident is not the first time Branham High School has faced controversy over antisemitism on its campus. In April, the California Department of Education ruled that the school had discriminated against its Jewish students by presenting “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum.

It is also not the first instance of a “human swastika” roiling a school community. In 2019, nine middle schoolers in Ojai, California, also arranged themselves in a “human swastika” and faced disciplinary measures from the school.

Exactly what possessed the Branham students to do what they did is not clear. But psychologists told the J. that the teen years are a peak moment for transgressive behaviors that may or may not reflect deep-seated biases.

“It’s a developmental time where you’re doing new things, you’re trying new things, you’re making mistakes, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to get laughs and likes,” Ellie Pelc, director of clinical services at the Bay Area’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services, told the newspaper. “And you often do so in some hurtful or harmful ways that you don’t always have the capacity to think through in advance.”

The photo was met by condemnation by California State Sens. Scott Wiener, who wrote that antisemitism was “pervasive & growing” in a post on Facebook, and Dave Cortese, who said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident in a statement.

“What happened at Branham High School was not a joke, not a prank, and not self-expression — it was an act of hatred,” wrote San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a post on X. “The fact that this was planned and posted publicly makes it even more disturbing.”

By Tuesday, the uproar had sparked a response from district leaders. In a post on Facebook, Robert Bravo, the superintendent for the Campbell Union High School District, wrote that the district “will respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.” (Displaying a Nazi swastika on the property of a school is illegal in California.)

He added that the school district considered the incident an instance of “hate violence” based on California state education code, which allows for suspension or expulsion in such cases.

“Our response cannot be limited to discipline alone,” continued Bravo. “We are committed to using this incident as an opportunity to deepen education around antisemitism, hate symbols and the historical atrocities associated with them.”

The antisemitic post comes two months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a statewide office assigned to combatting antisemitism in California public schools. The office, which is the first of its kind in the country, was met with praise from local Jewish advocacy groups while some critics warned it could chill academic freedoms.

Marc Levine, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Central Pacific region, called the incident “repulsive and unacceptable” in a statement on X. The incident was also condemned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, which wrote in a statement that it had been working with the school about “how to ensure an effective response.”

The Bay Area Jewish Coalition also issued a statement on Tuesday, writing that the antisemitic act had “shaken Jewish families across Northern California and beyond.”

“We hope that what happened at Branham serves as a wake-up call for California and for the rest of the country to take the antisemitism crisis seriously and reverse the trend through real, meaningful action and long-term change,” the statement continued.

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(JTA) — Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, who taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over three decades and left an indelible mark on generations of rabbis and Jewish scholars, has died.

Diamond died Thursday at 73, following several years battling multiple forms of cancer.

Born in 1952, Diamond received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and rabbinical ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University from 1968 to 1977.

But it was at JTS, the Conservative flagship in New York City, where Diamond earned his doctorate in Talmud and was the Rabbi Judah Nadich Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, that his talents for mentorship and teaching flourished.

“My beloved teacher, a precious mentor and friend to countless Jewish leaders, Rabbi Eliezer Diamond z”l, has departed this world for the next,” wrote Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a scholar in residence and rabbi for the UJA-Federation of New York, in a post on Facebook. “His wisdom changed the course of my rabbinate many times over, something I know to be true for many others.”

Over his long career as a highly respected Talmud scholar, Diamond published a chapter on the rabbinic period in the “Schocken Guide to Jewish Books,” as well as entries in the “Reader’s Guide to Judaism” and “The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception.” In 2003, he published his only book, “Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture,” with the Oxford University Press.

Diamond retired from JTS after the fall 2024 semester. In March during the previous semester, his legacy at the school was celebrated in a program titled “Diamonds of Torah: Honoring Rabbi Eliezer Diamond’s Teaching.”

“Generations of students have been profoundly impacted by his teaching, while his writings on prayer, asceticism, and issues of environmental law and ethics have influenced so many in the wider Jewish world as well,” wrote Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor of JTS, in a statement announcing his retirement.

On Facebook, where Diamond frequently posted photos of his wife, Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, five children and numerous grandchildren, he also documented his health struggles, providing deeply personal and rabbinic testimonies of his experience.

After hearing a grim prognosis in August 2024, Diamond posted, “I am not a statistic; I am a distinct human being, Eliezer Ben-Zion, son of Yehuda Idel and Chaya Golde. No one can know what the Shekhina’s plan is for me. What I do know is that She does not want me to live in the shadow of death but rather to bask in the radiance of life.”

As news of his death spread on Friday, many of Diamond’s former students and friends eulogized him on social media, many of them calling attention to Diamond’s legendary kindness.

Rabbi Ben Goldberg, a former student of Diamond and the rabbi of Congregation KTI in Port Chester, New York, wrote on Facebook that Diamond had “passed on to the supernal yeshiva, where I imagine he will be as beloved as he was in all of the places he taught in this world.” He recalled his time in Diamond’s classes at JTS where, he wrote, it was clear to all that Diamond “cared deeply about his students.”

“More than anything about Talmud, I’ll remember him writing lengthy (and unnecessary) notes of apology for saying something in class that might have been hurtful (which of course, it wasn’t),” Goldberg wrote.

Michael Rosenberg, another former student of Diamond who now serves on the faculty of the Hadar Institute, recalled meeting with Diamond in 2023 where the pair had a conversation that remained with him.

“That conversation was filled with pearl after pearl — about parenting, teaching, being in relationship,” wrote Rosenberg in a post on Facebook. “I am a better parent and teacher because of that conversation, and I am so sad that I will not get to follow up with my teacher and rabbi.”

Beyond his teaching at JTS, Diamond also previously taught at Stern College, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, the 92nd Street Y, several Ramah camps and the now-defunct Solomon Schechter High School.

Diamond was also a longtime resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, and congregant of Congregation Beth Sholom, where he regularly held a Torah study session on Shabbat afternoons.

“Rabbi Diamond’s wisdom (and hazzanus [singing]) were matched only by his wit,” wrote David Spielman, who was had Diamond as a high school teacher, in a post on Facebook. “A devout Brooklyn Dodgers fan, he once chastised someone for wearing a Yankees cap, saying it was inappropriate attire for Minyan. He would also say that Ebbets Field would be rebuilt ‘Bimharah b’yamainu.’ Rabbi Diamond will be remembered for that wit, wisdom, and perseverance now that his suffering is finally over.”

Beyond the numerous eulogies that have been written for him on social media, Diamond’s prolific reflections on life and faith endure.

“What draws me back to Hashem, if not to my life as a whole, is Psalm 23 גם כי אלך בגי צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for you are with me,’” wrote Diamond in his last post on Facebook. “Wherever I am, God is there too. I hope that I will return home soon.”

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The central message of the United States’ new National Security Strategy should shake the foundations in Jerusalem: Under the Trump administration, the complex web of values-based diplomacy and global American leadership has been replaced by a Hobbesian vision of constant competition for resources based on self-interest alone.

In such a bleak landscape, the relationship with Israel, once deeply rooted in shared values and a foundational American commitment, is now based on interests also. The Middle East section of the strategy describes the security of Israel as an interest alongside the countries of the Gulf and other Arab nations.

“The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are, while working together on areas of common interest,” the document says.

Past American administrations, including Republican ones like the two Bush presidencies, believed in spreading democracy – and in this context prized Israel as a fellow democracy, and indeed the only real one in the Middle East. Moreover, democracy and shared values, along with Israel’s special relationship with the U.S., were critical to Israel receiving the economically invaluable associate member status in the European Union in the 1990s.

The current document chides predecessors for trying to spread democracy to countries where it doesn’t fit and seems to value values not at all. So it is no surprise that there is no mention of the 2008 commitment – codified in law – to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge (which even has been dignified with an oft-used acronym, the QME).

The main concern, however, is the basic posture of the document, which places the supreme emphasis on interests and not values.

“The affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests. Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest,” the document argues. “They allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own.”

The departure from every administration in the post-War era is clear and overt. Yet the implications for Israel have gone almost unnoticed for two reasons.

First, more sweeping changes have sent shockwaves throughout the world. Russia and China, which were not truly singled out as direct threats, can be relieved. But Europe absorbed a series of broadsides, from fantastical and quasi-racist notions that it will become majority non-white (described as “non-European”), to encouragement of its far-right parties that aim to break up the union and attacks on its efforts to regulate tech (which is annoying Elon Musk, who absorbed a $140 million fine a few weeks ago for X’s digital skullduggeries).

Second, in Israel, which should be worried and aware of the change, there is infantile adoration for President Trump based on the patently false notion that he is a huge friend.

Trump is not a friend of Israel; he is a friend of Netanyahu. Why? Because both men embody the same populist-nationalist worldview: They believe in elected autocracy where the government is all-powerful, they share a disdain for liberalism, and they use external threats — fabricated, exaggerated, or distorted — to confuse and manipulate the public. It is no accident that Trump is drawn more to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin than to Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky: Putin has succeeded in turning an entire country into an absolute dictatorship. This is a model that many right-wing populists around the world quietly admire. Netanyahu is no different.

Trump tried to help Netanyahu at key electoral junctures with U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and by moving the embassy to Jerusalem. But Trump’s true foreign policy — as now revealed in the administration’s most official document — points to something entirely different: The moment Israel does not serve an immediate self-interested need, it becomes simply one ally among many.

It is true that the document is non-binding, and Israel still has other agreements and arrangements in place. But the new NSS faithfully tracks with Trump’s dog-eat-dog worldview. His willingness, for example, to ignore the QME was on vivid display last month when he agreed to sell Saudi Arabia the same level of F35s as Israel, joking with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in televised comments from the White House that Israel won’t be happy with that.

In the past, U.S. support for Israel might have been connected also to electoral victory and especially fundraising from Jewish donors – but that too is changing as support for Israel plummets among the U.S. public, especially among the far-right isolationist wing, and among American youth, because of the country’s brutality in the Gaza war and the generally illiberal posture of the Netanyahu government.

When the American vision of foreign policy is stripped of its moral foundation — a foundation that shaped the post-World War II global order — Israel is in a particularly precarious position. For years, Washington’s unwavering support was built not only on shared interests but on an idea: a shared Western identity, a liberal democracy standing against oppressive forces. Contrary to what many in Israel believe, Democrats carried this banner no less, and perhaps more, than Republicans. They understood the value of the region’s only democracy, even when it faltered.

But Israel abandoned the Democrats with surprising ease. Netanyahu led a dangerous gamble: full alignment with the Republican Party, based on the belief that interests and sympathy among Trumpists were stronger. Yet a partnership based on anti-Muslim animus and global populism is not a values-based alliance, and therefore it is easily discarded.  Israel may be left depending on the support in the U.S. of evangelical Christians, which comes with its own complications.

In an environment where America views the world as an endless struggle for material power, and has little interest in discouraging authoritarians or standing up for shared values, Israel’s position weakens dramatically.

The new U.S. strategy makes it clear more than ever: The cards Netanyahu placed on the table were dangerous from the outset. Instead of safeguarding the bipartisan alliance with Washington — the alliance that has been Israel’s ultimate pillar of support — he made it dependent on one side of the political map, and that side no longer believes in shared values or commitments to democracies. When everything is transactional, nothing is assured.

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