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North Carolina Democratic Party Muslim Chair Says Zionists Are Nazis, and a ‘Threat to Humanity’
In May, Students for Justice in Palestine poured red paint which resembles spilled blood on the steps of the South Building, an office for administrative staff and the chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo: UNCSJP/Screenshot
Elyas Mohammed, president of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s (NCDP) Muslim Caucus, recently posted on social media, “Zionists = Modern day #Nazis.”
Mohammed, also a member of the NCDP’s State Executive Committee (SEC), posted, “#Zionists are a threat to #Humanity.” He has publicly referred to Israel as “IsraHell.”
The Muslim Caucus was founded in 2024, is in the review process, and seeking final approval by the party.
Jibril Hough, first vice president of this same caucus, publicly said, “Zionism is a branch of racism/white supremacy and must be fought with the same intensity.” He has described Zionists as the “worst of humanity.”
Numerous leaders and members of the NCDP are out of step with the Democratic Party’s platform, which expresses its support for Israel nearly 30 times, prominently leading with an endorsement of Israel as “a Jewish and democratic state.”
I contacted NCDP leadership for comment on Mohammed’s posts, including Governor Josh Stein and his Communications Director; State Party Chair Anderson Clayton; and First Vice Chair Jonah Garson. None responded.
The NCDP’s acquiescence and silence concerning the extreme and hateful remarks made by some of its leaders about Israel is anticipated at this point. The NCDP has been targeting Israel for years instead of focusing on statewide issues. For example, on Saturday, June 28, 2025 — during Shabbat — the NCDP’s State Executive Council passed six anti-Israel resolutions.
Rather than publicly clarify these actions, the NCDP quickly removed information about the resolutions from public view. This decision, or coverup, has left many with the impression that the party is attempting to bury the issue. Before the resolutions were taken offline, I made a copy.
One of the resolutions that passed, titled “Resolution for Democratic Unity,” actually claimed that Israel had taken “Palestinian hostages.”
Just a few months after this resolution passed, Mohammed shared a grotesque post on Facebook, suggesting that the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 could or should be considered “prisoners of war.” The post continued, “If they [the hostages] were CIVILIANS, ISRAEL IS GUILTY OF A WAR CRIME FOR PLACING THEM THERE.”
Many Democrats have left the party over its obsessive focus on Israel. Former Raleigh City Council member Stefanie Mendell recently switched her party affiliation to Unaffiliated, telling me:
While in my heart I am a Democrat, after the anti-Israel resolutions passed at last year’s NC Democratic Party convention, I am no longer comfortable being associated with the party. I feel like they bent over backwards to focus negatively on Israel when there were so many more critical issues that North Carolinians care about — the cost of living, education, healthcare, etc. I will vote for, campaign for, and support individual Democrats, but I will no longer contribute to the party itself until and unless they stand up to this extremist fringe that seems more intent on virtue signaling than on electing people who can positively impact the people in our state.
According to the NCDP Plan of Organization, SEC members, such as Mohammed, are expected to uphold the values of the Code of Conduct.
The “Code of Conduct for the North Carolina Democratic Party Officers and Leaders” clearly states that leaders are expected to act in ways that do not “negatively impact other members … or the party’s reputation” and “to be sensitive to other people’s feelings.” When communicating electronically, the Code of Conduct encourages leaders to ask, “Am I acting in the party’s best interest?”
Leaders are also asked to consider, “Is what I am doing in line with our Plan of Organization and the Spirit of the Party Platform?”
According to a document recently posted to the NCDP’s website, “The Muslim Caucus is being recommended for Conditional Approval until the Summer SEC Meeting.”
I firmly believe that the Muslim community, as with any religious group, should be robustly represented and included in government and political parties. The question I ask is: What will the North Carolina Democratic Party do concerning caucus leaders who are making hateful and divisive statements that contribute to Democrats leaving the party?
Lisa Jewel, president of the NC Democratic Jewish Caucus, told me:
We understand that Mr. Mohammed is resigning his position as Chair of The NCDP Muslim Caucus. It is our hope that, under its next Chair, as the Muslim Caucus works its way through the approval process — and beyond — it will pivot its focus and efforts, to uplifting democracy here in North Carolina.
Last summer, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, and former Democratic Gov. and senatorial candidate Roy Cooper expressed their opposition to their party’s anti-Israel resolutions. It is now the moment for Democratic Party leaders at the state level to announce a reset and reclaim the party from the divisive, anti-Israel extremists within it.
The North Carolina Democratic Party needs to decide if they want to represent all Democrats in the state or just those Democrats who hate Israel.
Peter Reitzes writes about antisemitism in North Carolina and beyond.
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The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration
ס׳האָט זיך לעצטנס געשאַפֿן אַ נײַער סאָרט לייענקרײַז דורך פֿייסבוק, וווּ מע לערנט תּורה אויף ייִדיש צוזאַמען.
אינעם לייענקרײַז, וואָס הייסט „די ייִדישיסטישע ישיבֿה“, לייענט מען חומש מיט רש״י — סײַ אויפֿן אָריגינעלן לשון־קודש סײַ אויף ייִדיש־טײַטש. „די גרופּע איז אָפֿן פֿאַר אַלע מינים מענטשן,“ האָט דערקלערט דער לינגוויסט און ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט לייזער בורקאָ, וועלכער האָט אָרגאַניזירט די גרופּע. „פֿרויען און מענער, ייִדן און נישט־ייִדן, געי און ׳גלײַך׳. נײַע תּלמידים דאַרפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ייִדיש גוט, אָבער זיי דאַרפֿן נישט האָבן קיין תּורהדיקן הינטערגרונט.“
די גרופּע טרעפֿט זיך יעדן דינסטיק דורך פֿייסבוק. נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, שטעלט זיך אין קאָנטאַקט מיט בורקאָ, אויפֿן אַדרעס leyzertag@gmail.com אָדער דורך פֿייסבוק.
The post The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration appeared first on The Forward.
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A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall
(JTA) — When David Freedman discovered a long-forgotten photo album in his parents’ Montreal basement last year, he found nearly 100 pages of century-old photographs from his grandfather’s year in British Mandate Palestine, capturing Jerusalem street scenes, market stalls and holy sites.
The photographs were not only century-old and in near-perfect condition, but included figures who would later become central to Jewish medical and political history, among them Israel’s future first president Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem ophthalmologist Abraham Ticho, malaria researcher Israel Kligler, future British prime minister Winston Churchill and Herbert Samuel, Britain’s first high commissioner for Palestine.
David Freedman said he knew he had “struck gold” when he found the album, which had been untouched for decades. “I realized in disbelief I was looking at extraordinary images of Jerusalem,” he said.
Though Freedman said the album showed his grandfather’s “passion for skillful, impromptu photography,” it was images of a site that epitomizes endurance that are having the broadest impact.
Freedman’s pictures of the Western Wall has inspired a public appeal by the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, which is asking people to look through old albums and attics for photographs, postcards and other visual material that could help expand the historical record of Judaism’s holiest site.
The request comes ahead of a major exhibition opening in 2027 marking 60 years since the 1967 Six-Day War brought the wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, under Jewish control for the first time in nearly two millennia.
Although the Western Wall is now one of the most photographed sites in the world, museum curators say the visual record of earlier decades remains surprisingly fragmented, with many of the most intimate images likely still tucked away in private collections and family albums.
“The Western Wall, the Kotel, in its simplest form, is a structure of ancient stones. Yet its true meaning has never resided in the stones alone — it has been shaped and elevated by the countless individuals who have stood before it over the centuries,” Eilat Lieber, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in a statement.
Next year’s exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall” and curated by Shimon Lev and Yael Brandt, will be the first large-scale exhibition dedicated entirely to the Western Wall, the museum said, and will trace its transformation over nearly 2,000 years. It will be one of the major exhibitions staged by the Tower of David Museum since it reopened in 2023 after a $50 million renovation of its ancient citadel complex.
The wall, the exposed section of an ancient retaining wall around the Temple Mount, the site of the biblical Jewish temples, has long been Judaism’s most sacred places of prayer and pilgrimage. From 1948 until the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Jews were barred from going there.
Among its most iconic images was David Rubinger’s photograph of three Israeli paratroopers standing at the wall shortly after its capture, looking upward in a mixture of awe and disbelief. The picture was taken 59 years ago this week.
Abraham Orkin Freedman, a Canadian physician and Zionist activist, took his photographs before the site was so contested. He arrived in Palestine in July 1920, just as Britain was replacing military rule with a civil administration, and stayed until 1922, serving during that period as managing director of Hadassah Hospital. His grandson David, also a doctor, said the album’s timing gives it much of its historical value, with photographs that capture people in the streets, as well as the terrain and buildings of Jerusalem during the nascent years of the British Mandate.
Among the images Freedman uncovered, the one that struck him most was a photograph of women praying side by side with men at the oldest part of the Western Wall, a scene far removed from the gender-separated prayer sections at the site today. The question of mixed-gender prayer at the Wall remains politically charged, with a recent High Court order to advance the egalitarian section followed by Knesset moves to strengthen Chief Rabbinate control over prayer at the site.
After recognizing the album’s significance, Freedman met with his family who decided collectively to give it to the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum for safekeeping, research and public access. Freedman said the family was proud the album had found “a new home, not many meters from where my grandfather once stood.”
Lev said he hoped the appeal would bring more discoveries like Freedman’s into public view, expanding the visual record of the Western Wall beyond official archives.
“There is something profoundly moving in the moment when an intimate private photograph transcends its original purpose and becomes an important historical testimony,” Lev said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall appeared first on The Forward.
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5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances
(JTA) — Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Tuesday that an 18-year-old man has been charged in connection with the March arson attack that destroyed four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer emergency service.
Subhan Ahmed, a British national, was charged on Monday with “assisting an offender” in connection with the arson.
The ambulances were set ablaze in the early morning of March 23 in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in London. The incident spurred increased patrols in Jewish communities.
The charge is the latest development in an investigation being led by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit.
Four others have already been charged in connection with the attack.
Three British nationals — 20-year-old Hamza Iqbal, 19-year-old Rehan Khan and 18-year-old Judex Atshatshi — along with a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani national were all charged in April with “committing arson, destroying or damaging property, and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.”
The four have remained in custody ahead of a trial planned for January. Ahmed, meanwhile, was released ahead of a June 16 court date.
The ambulance arsons came at the early edge of a wave of incidents that have put London Jews on edge and induced the city’s police force to step up their presence in Jewish communities. The incidents have included multiple incendiary devices placed near synagogues as well as the stabbing in April of two Jewish men in Golders Green. The Metropolitan Police reported last week that antisemitic hate crimes in the capital rose 72% in May.
Following the announcement of Ahmed’s charge, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish organization, thanked the police and the Crown Prosecution Service “for their ongoing work investigating this attack and other arson incidents targeting the Jewish community.”
It added in a statement, “These are very serious allegations, and it is right that those responsible are being held accountable.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances appeared first on The Forward.
