(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Vice President JD Vance’s recent claims that the U.S. is Israel’s “only powerful ally” left in the world.

When asked on Fox News Sunday what his reaction was to Vance’s remarks, which came as Israeli ministers criticized the framework deal signed by the U.S. and Iran to end hostilities, Netanyahu replied, “I respect JD Vance. We have a very good relationship, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that he says.”

“I have to point out this: Donald Trump is a great, the greatest friend we ever had in the White House, and I stand by that completely,” Netanyahu continued. “Secondly, we have some other friends, like a small country called India, you know, it has 1.4 billion people, and boy, do we have a tremendous support there.”

Netanyahu added that Israel also has the support of “many others,” but did not elaborate on which countries he was referring to.

“The relations are not quite as they appear, and we have, we have many, many friends, and I have to tell you, we also take care of our friends, especially the Christians in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister also dismissed the claim that there was any rift between the United States and Israel regarding the deal with Iran, telling Fox that he and President Donald Trump were “set on the same goal.”

“President Trump is the leader of the United States. He does what’s good for America. I’m the leader of Israel, the one and only Jewish state. I do what’s good for Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, we see eye to eye, but as any, in any family, in any close friendship, there are sometimes differences of opinion, and we discuss them openly.”

Netanyahu also said that he and Trump have “common objectives” regarding the U.S. deal with Iran.

“We want to see Iran give up its nuclear weapons program. We want to see the nuclear enriched material removed. We want to see the enrichment sites for nuclear material dismantled,” Netanyahu said,  adding, “as long as I’m prime minister, Iran will not have nuclear weapons.”

On Saturday, Trump told Axios that Netanyahu had requested a meeting at the White House and said that the pair gets along “very good” and that the Israeli leader “knows who the boss is.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Netanyahu pushes back on Vance’s claims that US is Israel’s ‘only powerful ally’ appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Hundreds of people affiliated with the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, in a July 4 show of force by the group founded by a veteran of a landmark 2017 far-right rally that featured an antisemitic chant.

The marchers in Washington wore masks and some carried Confederate flags, according to reports and video from the scene. At times, they chanted “Reclaim America!” — a rallying cry channeling the group’s nativist agenda.

While Patriot Front’s public activities mostly center on its anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ agenda, the Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly cited the group, founded in 2017, as the largest purveyor of antisemitic materials in the United States.

One of the group’s signature slogans, which members displayed on a banner in Washington in 2023, is “No Zionists in Government.”

The previous year, the group’s internal communications, obtained and leaked by an independent media collective, showed that some members used Nazi slogans and that one member was accepted on the basis of an application in which he declared that the “biggest threat to America is Jewish domination over the world.” Group leaders criticized how the chat logs had been obtained but did not challenge the veracity of their contents.

In a statement on Sunday, the ADL called Patriot Front “the most visible white supremacist group operating in the U.S. today” and noted that its previous public rallies had been much smaller.

“The size of the march is concerning,” the ADL said about the Saturday rally.

Patriot Front’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, was a leading participant in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which attendees chanted “Jews will not replace us” while carrying burning torches. The chant refers to an antisemitic conspiracy theory positing that Jews are engineering mass immigration in order to displace white people. Rousseau later testified that he heard the chant but thought attendees might have been saying “you will not replace us.”

The 2017 rally fueled criticism of President Donald Trump, who did not immediately comment on it and then placed blame on “both sides” while condemning the display of “hatred, bigotry and violence.” It also animated the presidential run of Joe Biden and spurred a successful lawsuit against the rally’s organizers by an advocacy group called Integrity First for America, whose leader, Amy Spitalnick, is now CEO of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs.

“Patriot Front is an offshoot of one of the white supremacist groups we (successfully) sued for orchestrating the Charlottesville violence,” Spitalnick said in a JCPA statement on Sunday. “They are emboldened because their extremism has been wholly normalized by the administration and others.”

Trump has not commented publicly on this weekend’s Patriot Front march, which took place during festivities to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday. A top administration official did not directly answer when CNN’s Dana Bash asked him whether he would urge Trump to denounce the group.

“What they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told Bash, who is Jewish and has made antisemitism a focus of her recent coverage. “But one of the foundational principles of the United States, which makes democracy messy, is free speech.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Hundreds of Patriot Front members march in Washington on July 4, alarming Jewish groups appeared first on The Forward.

As America celebrates its 250th birthday on July 4, the Forward celebrates the 166th birthday of its founder and first editor, Abraham Cahan on July 7. The socialist newspaperman founded the Yiddish-language newspaper known then as Forverts in 1897 to help Jewish immigrants navigate life in their new home.

To celebrate, we’re highlighting letters to the editor from fifth graders at Guggenheim Elementary, a public school in Port Washington, New York, who argue that Cahan’s life and encounters with antisemitism in Europe helped shape his life and legacy in America and continue to inspire Americans today to stand up against injustice and hate.

More than 20 students wrote the letters as a class assignment during Jewish American Heritage Month. The Forward selected excerpts from a handful of the submissions.

“A lot of what kids are absorbing today is coming from social media and things that are not necessarily accurate,” said Amanda Bromberg, the parent who created the lesson plan. “So we just wanted to make sure that they were from a young age exposed to positive contributions of Jewish Americans.”

Cahan’s life and legacy

Born in 1860 in Tsarist Russia, Cahan came of age in a society where Jews faced severe restrictions on where they could live, travel, study and work.

“Just imagine, being told you have to live in just one place and you can’t move anywhere else just because you’re Jewish. That would be awful, right?” fifth-grader Maggie wrote. “Well, that’s what Abe went through.”

“Cahan was treated very poorly in his old home,” classmate Eli added. “He didn’t feel safe there.”

Conditions further deteriorated after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. Jews were falsely blamed for his murder, triggering a wave of pogroms. Cahan, who had become involved in Russia’s Revolutionary movement as a teenager, came under suspicion. Police raided his home searching for radical literature, prompting Cahan, then 21, to immigrate to the United States.

“His experience in Europe toward Jews was terrible, so when he came to America, that influenced him to change the ways Jews are treated,” fifth-grader Lyla wrote.

Life in New York brought a new set of challenges. Several students noted how Cahan had no ego about learning English, studying the language as an adult among schoolchildren on the Lower East Side.

“He wanted to learn English so bad, so he learned in a classroom with people that were around 14 while he was 22,” classmate Sydney wrote. “This must have been awkward and embarrassing, but he took the only chance he had to learn.”

Cahan then used his knowledge to help other newcomers in the New World. He worked in a cigar rolling factory by day and gave English-language lectures on socialism to fellow immigrants by night.

“Even when he was still learning English, he decided that some people needed more help than he did,” Mayim wrote. “So he took on tutoring them while working day and studying night and somehow finding time to assist people in need of help.”

“He wanted for everyone to get education: old and young, big and small, rich or poor,” Sydney added.

Ask Abraham

In 1897, Cahan founded the Yiddish Forverts. Beyond reporting the news of the day, the paper became a practical how-to guide for life in America. One of its most beloved features was the “Bundle of Letters,” or “Bintel Brief” in Yiddish, an advice column where readers asked for guidance on everything from romance and money troubles to labor disputes.

“Soon he added a section called a ‘bundle of words.’ That made it so readers could ask questions,” student Kaeli wrote. “It worked so well: He helped so many people!”

“He showed people to do things the American way, so that when they came they wouldn’t feel confused or lost,” Mayim wrote.

Cahan’s advice could be blunt. One man wrote that he wanted to marry a woman, but he could not stop fixating on a single flaw: a dimple in her chin.

“The tragedy is not that the girl has a dimple in her chin but that some people have a screw loose in their heads!” he replied.

Other letters reflected harsher realities of immigrant life. One unemployed man wrote that he had “no strength to continue” and pleaded, “Please comrades help me do not let me die this way.”

Cahan answered with characteristic practicality and empathy, directing him to a social services agency, assuring readers “they will not let him starve.”

The Forverts also fought for workers’ rights, boosting labor unions, raising money for striking workers and advocating for workplace safety regulations.

“Abe helped by speaking up for the rights of immigrants, workers and the poor,” Mallory wrote.

That mix of traditional journalism, practical guidance and social advocacy helped the newspaper build a devoted readership. By the 1920s, the Forverts had become enormously influential, with a daily circulation approaching 300,000 — surpassing that of The New York Times at the time.

Cahan remained the paper’s editor until his death in 1951, at age 91. But the fifth graders saw Cahan’s legacy as one that still endures.

“The Forward is still helping people around the world today,” fifth grader Juliana wrote, “all because of what Abe Cahan taught us.”

Student responses were lightly edited for spelling and grammar.

The post Happy 166th birthday, Abraham Cahan! Fifth graders write about the Forward founder’s legacy appeared first on The Forward.