(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES – Brazilians reelected Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva as president, defeating the center-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, putting the breaks on a regional shift toward closer ties with Israel.

The current president, a left-wing leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party), obtained 51.79% of the valid votes, while Bolsonaro received 48.21%.

Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, had pledged a close diplomatic partnership with Israel and cultivated ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Lula has become a critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Bolsonaro said he did not accept the election results, although it is not clear how he could challenge them.

In January 2024, Lula’s government endorsed South Africa’s decision to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. A month later, Lula compared Palestinian suffering in Gaza to Hitler’s murder of the Jews, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Israel. Brazil’s Jewish umbrella organization, CONIB, publicly condemned the comparison as a distortion that offended the memory of Holocaust victims and their descendants.

The remarks were also criticized by the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires. Sen. Bolsonaro promised a big shift toward Israel when he spoke on June 28, 2026, in Buenos Aires in a meeting with Jewish leaders. “In 2027, Brazil will not only once again have an ambassador to Israel, but will also take the step of moving its embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” he said.

That night he also lauded the 120,000 Jews in Brazil, saying, “They are men and women who rank among the brightest in Brazilian medicine, industry, science, culture and business.”

After Bolsonaro finished ahead of Lula in the first round on Oct. 4, Netanyahu sent a message the following day on X: “Congratulations @FlavioBolsonaro on yesterday’s vote and good luck in the final. I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil. Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”

Since 2023, several Latin American countries have strengthened ties with Israel, in some cases reversing policies adopted by their predecessors, among them:

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut said it would proceed with a planned fall trip for sixth graders at a Jewish camp in Massachusetts as planned this week, despite pressure from a Muslim advocacy organization over the camp’s Israeli symbols and Israel-related programming.

CAIR Connecticut, the state chapter  of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, objected to the trip, saying that programming at Eisner Camp in Great Barrington “incorporates connections to Israel,” the chapter’s board chair Farhan Memon wrote in a letter to Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones dated Oct. 13.

The four-day Greenwich Schools field trip was organized by the Outdoor Classroom project, which works with seven locations in New England, including Eisner. Four of the camps are affiliated with Christian organizations, and two have no religious affiliation. With its clients, Outdoor Classroom coordinates nature-related learning programs for kids.

Memon wrote that some parents in Greenwich had viewed a video and photos of previous school events at Eisner and “identified Israeli flags and yellow ribbons prominently displayed in spaces used during school visits.”

“At the very least, spaces used by Greenwich students on any school trip should be free of national and political displays,” Memon wrote.

Eisner director Paul Isserles said in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “We welcome Outdoor Classroom to use our camp facilities. Throughout the year many outside organizations rent our facilities for various programs. URJ Eisner Camp is proud to have an Israeli flag displayed for our camp programs.”

When it comes to visiting groups, “Frankly, we are not regularly asked to do anything to remove those symbols or to cover them,” said Union for Reform Judaism president Rabbi Rick Jacobs in a telephone interview with JTA. “Because to be honest, we wouldn’t.”

Answering Memon’s letter on Oct. 14, Jones wrote in an email that her school district “acknowledges that individuals and families have vastly different views regarding global events” and that it intends to “provide an inclusive and safe educational environment for all Greenwich Public School students, including when they are on field trips under our care.”

She added that she had “made it clear to a few families that we will not take a political or religious stand.” JTA has seen both the CAIR letter and the email response.

CAIR Connecticut did not respond to JTA’s query.

CAIR’s national website says the organization promotes interfaith dialogue and “condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.”

The Reform movement founded the 600-acre camp in 1958 as the Joseph Eisner Camp Institute for Living Judaism. It is located in the Berkshire Hills south of the town center of Great Barrington.

It is one of more than a dozen of the movement’s overnight camps in the North America. Many of those camps are rented throughout the year by groups that have nothing to do with Judaism, URJ’s Rabbi Jacobs said. “If a group rents the camp, they come up with their own agenda,” he said.

He added, “There are flags and other symbols of Judaism and of Israel in our camps, and we’re proud of that.”

Some parents had raised concerns about the venue as early as March. CAIR urged the district to stop using the camp in the Oct. 14 letter.

Removing decorations from the camp would not be enough, he said, noting that parents were upset after seeing promotional material about Eisner bringing Jewish campers to visit Israeli army bases under the Gadna, an Israeli military youth program.

A July 2019 post on Eisner Camp’s website says a group of participants in its Israel trip chose Gadna, stayed at an army base, practiced drills and learned to shoot at a target.

“URJ Eisner Camp participants who go to Israel have not participated in Gadna since 2023,” camp director Isserles said in a statement provided to JTA. “Our Israel programming at camp and in Israel is focused on Jewish identity, community, education, and connection to Israel.”

What CAIR is saying is that “A Jewish institution can be an unfit place for public-school children because it is visibly Jewish and identifies openly with Israel,” wrote blogger and Eisner alumnus Rabbi Jeff Salkin in his “Unfiltered” Substack on Oct. 19.

“A Jewish institution should not have to hide its Jewish identity to count as a fit place for other people’s children. You would not ask a church camp to remove a cross, or a Muslim camp to take down a crescent. A standard that demands such hiding makes Jewish identity itself the problem,” Salkin wrote.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — JERUSALEM — On Oct. 27, Yael Chernyvsky, 18, from Ramat Hasharon in central Israel, plans to cast her ballot for the first time.

“I’m voting so we can change the future of this country,” the teen told Jewish Telegraphic Agency earlier this month. She was entering a Tel Aviv auditorium where some of Israel’s top politicians were about to address more than 1,000 first-time voters, including many in pre-military programs.

Chernyvsky, who is studying in an army preparation program in the Negev, blames the current right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the country’s problems.

So she said she will vote for one of the opposition parties in the “change bloc,” which seeks to oust Netanyahu, who has been in office since 2009 except for a brief period in 2021-2022.

Chernyvsky had not decided which party she will vote for, but she said it will “probably” be either the Democrats led by Yair Golan or Yashar led by Gadi Eisenkot.

“We’ve basically had the same government for 20 years, and I genuinely think it’s corrupt. Why has this war been going on for three years? Why did it take two years to return the hostages? Why does the government give so much money to Haredi Jews who don’t work and don’t serve in the army?”

Chernyvsky is one of the estimated 640,000 Israelis aged 18 to 22 eligible to vote in Tuesday’s election, according to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). Comprising nearly 10% of the electorate, their votes could determine as many as 12 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

“Israel is a young country with a high birth rate,” said Tammy Hoffman, head of the education policy program at the IDI, which co-sponsored the young voter event with the Yigal Allon Center. “If their turnout is high, as our research suggests, first-time voters will make a difference.”   

In May, Hoffman and her colleagues surveyed potential young first-time Jewish and Arab voters about their attitudes and political engagement. Across Israel’s population groups, 80% to 95% said they would “definitely” or be likely to vote. Secular Jewish youth expressed the highest level of certainty regarding participation, while 87% of Arabs said they intend to vote.

It’s a higher percentage than in the U.S., where the youth turnout in the 2024 presidential election was only 47%, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

More than four-fifths of respondents to the IDI survey described the opportunity to vote as either “fairly meaningful” or “very meaningful,” with particularly strong responses among traditional and religious Jewish youth.

A separate poll of 18-year-old to 22-year-old potential first-time voters for the Ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth news outlets also revealed high motivation: 67% of respondents said they were certain they would vote, while another 19% thought they would.

In both polls, national security and the cost of living were top priorities for both Jews and Arabs. Hoffman wasn’t surprised.

“For the past several years, they’ve lived in an unstable environment during their adolescence. They were in junior high during COVID, they witnessed the judicial reform protests, and of course Oct. 7. They are worried about their future.”

While the Hamas attack affected every Israeli, the fact that so many first-time voters are either serving in the Israel Defense Forces or will do so in the near future could influence how they vote.

Jewish Israeli voters of all ages have moved rightward politically over the past couple of decades, Hoffman noted.

“But military service doesn’t necessarily lead you to a nationalist stance,” Hoffman emphasized. “It can do the opposite: It can bring up questions about the war and its goals.”

Arab Israelis, meanwhile, haven’t shifted rightward, but they are more eager to vote in this election than previous elections, reflecting their growing engagement in Israeli society, Hoffman said.

In a Sept. 23 N12 poll, 74% of young people described their political views as right-wing or center-right, while 23% identified as left-wing or center-left. If the election were held at the time the poll was taken, 16% of respondents would vote for Eisenkot’s Yashar party and 14% would vote for Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Despite the assumption that the majority of Jewish youth will vote for right-wing and far-right parties, Hoffman said, mock elections at high schools around the country show a different picture.

She said the majority of students voted for Eisenkot’s Yashar party and Beyachad, led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid from the opposition Change bloc, and “some for Netanyahu’s [right-wing] Likud, but not a lot for [Itamar] Ben-Gvir,” who heads a far-right party.

Omer Gross from Jerusalem, who graduated from high school in June and is now in an army-prep program in the Golan, plans to vote for the Religious Zionist party led by far-right politicians Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin.

“I don’t really agree with what Smotrich has been doing in Gaza,” he said, referring to Smotrich’s objective to reestablish the uprooted Jewish settlements in Gaza and incentivize Palestinian emigration from the strip, “but I support what he does in the territories” – the West Bank. “We need a strong, secure Israel.”

Tomer Shiloh from Herziliyah, who attends the same Golan Heights program as his friend Omer, has different plans.

“I’m voting for the ‘Change’ bloc, for Gadi Eisenkot or Naftali Bennett,” the 18-year-old said.

If it were up to Shiloh, the next government would require Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, young men to serve in the IDF, as he will do next year. He wants the next government to lower Israel’s high cost of living.

“I want the people who run this country to have good values and to do what’s best for the country and not for themselves,” the teen said.

Sgt. M is a 22-year-old office worker doing his first stint of reserve duty following the conclusion of his mandatory army service. He says ensuring that all Israelis serve the country either in the IDF or through National Service is at the top of his election priority list. But he will be voting for the left-of-center Democrats party mostly for economic reasons.

“Did you know that most university students have to work while they study to pay for tuition, books, food and housing?” the reservist, who requested anonymity due to IDF regulations, said as he traveled home by train from his army base. “I wanted to start studying right after finishing the army, but between the cost and reserve duty, that’s impossible,” he said.

Speaking from his home in the northern Israeli city of Shef-Amra, Khalel Alaa Sabeh, 18, said he plans to vote for an Arab party that will prioritize addressing resource gaps in the Arab community.

“I want to see more money allocated to the Arab community,” he said, noting that historically, Arab municipalities have received less government funding than Jewish municipalities. “But most of all, I want our families to be safe. There’s a lot of crime in the Arab sector and the Netanyahu government isn’t doing enough to stop it.”

Sabeh, who plans to start university next year, said he is urging his friends to show up to vote on Oct. 27.

“I want to see change in this country, and if Netanyahu wins we’ll have four more bad years.” Yet whatever the outcome on Election Day, he said, “I won’t leave the country. This is my land, this is my home.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Who are the first time voters who could sway Israel’s election? appeared first on The Forward.