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In Haifa, a university serves as a base for Arab-Jewish coexistence — and a place to tackle global problems
HAIFA — On a recent chilly morning, six Israeli Druze women gathered in a room at the University of Haifa library to discuss the joys and frustrations of living in a modern, Jewish, largely secular country.
Chatting in Arabic and Hebrew, many of the women, all students at the university, spoke about the challenges of balancing their traditional Druze identity with their modern Israeli aspirations.
“I spend two hours each way to come to school. But my education is so important, I’d do it even if I spent 10 hours a day,” said Walaa Bader, 20, an Arabic literature and music major from Horfeish, a Druze village of some 6,000 souls near the Lebanese border.
Adan Bader, 22, said she became secular four years ago in part to focus on her studies.
“I was a religious girl, but our religion doesn’t encourage young women to study,” she said. “At this stage of my life, I wasn’t ready for a full commitment to my religion.”
The get-together was part of a series of weekly meetings organized by Yael Granot, director of social engagement at the University of Haifa’s student dean office. It’s part of the university’s larger social and educational mission: to serve Israel’s Arab population and build bridges between Israeli Arabs and Jews.
Aside from being a world-class center for higher learning with over 18,000 students, the university runs various coexistence programs to facilitate dialogue and mutual respect between Jewish and Arab students. One is the Jewish-Arab Community Leadership Program, which facilitates dialogue and multicultural social interaction through joint community projects.
“In addition to creating scientific knowledge, our main mission is the expansion of professional opportunities for all members of society,” University of Haifa President Ron Robin said when he began his tenure as president. “We embrace the rich tapestry of communities that make up Israeli society.”
Approximately 40% of the university’s students are Arabs, including some 300-400 Druze women. Druze constitute an Arabic-speaking faith group with some 150,000 adherents in Israel, most of whom live in highly conservative villages in northern Israel. About 70% of all Arab students at the University of Haifa are women.
“We’re very proud to be Druze, and very proud to be Israeli,” said Bader. “But we are doubly marginalized because, even within the Arab minority, we’re not Muslims. And the Basic Law puts a question mark on our sense of belonging to Israeli society,” she said, referring to a 2018 law enshrining Israel’s identity as a Jewish state that many Arab Israelis complained relegated them to second-class status.
Granot sees her role as helping the Druze students balance their personal backgrounds with their academic and professional interests. The Druze women in her group recently created mentoring groups for Druze teenagers to encourage them to pursue higher education.
This approach is part and parcel of the university’s mantra of “thinking locally and acting globally.”
Druze high school students discuss “soft skills” with University of Haifa student mentors during a weekly meeting in the northern Galilee village of Horfeish, Israel. (Amal Merey)
On the local level, the university is trying to create a new broad and inclusive middle class. Its campus, located in a part of Israel with significant Jewish and Arab populations, strives to serve as an oasis of coexistence. Among the university’s joint community projects is Hai-fa Innovation Labs, a start-up incubator whose programs focus on social innovation and impact entrepreneurship.
On the global level, this university located on the Carmel mountains with sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea has a strong research focus on the environment. At the university’s Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, scientists are studying how to improve seawater desalination — a major source of Israel’s water supply. Among the elements most critical to sustainable desalination, experts say, are ensuring the quality of drinking water while reducing byproducts of the desalination process. The school is actively monitoring these issues to protect Israel’s coastal and marine environments and provide guidance globally for how to replicate successes worldwide.
The university’s Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies is partnering with the Scripps Center for Marine Archeology at the University of California San Diego to investigate the long-term impacts of climate change and rising sea levels in the eastern Mediterranean.
Students and scientists at the Charney school are exploring the viability of using ocean plants as sustainable food sources to meet the needs of the globe’s rapidly expanding human population.
As the university celebrates its 50 th year, it has aligned its academic strategic plan with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at eliminating poverty, hunger and discrimination worldwide.
On a concrete level, the university has mounted a $150 million fundraising campaign to build infrastructure, expand research areas and update its technology.
Back in Granot’s group, students are figuring out their own ways to effect change.
“We put a great emphasis on providing tools for social entrepreneurship and letting students work and find their own voice for social change,” Granot said.
In one initiative, the group asked 15 local Israeli municipalities to identify a cause or problem they’d like the students to tackle.
In Acre, a city in northern Israeli that saw violence break out between Arabs and Jews during Israel’s 2021 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, 10 students — five Arabs and five Jews — worked together to map out challenges. They came up with a plan in which Jewish and Arab youth in Acre would create joint tours in Hebrew and Arabic for local schools. The students get about $2,850 each for their participation and are expected to volunteer 140 hours a year. The tours are expected to begin in the coming months.
The university also has enlisted two institutions, Beit HaGefen and the Boston-Haifa Partnership, for a project in which students are encouraged to utilize their creativity, activism and aspirations to design initiatives and opportunities for shared spaces in Haifa. In the program, 15 students of diverse backgrounds — native-born Israeli Jews, Arabs, Christians and Druze, as well as new immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Ethiopia — meet on Tuesdays with local entrepreneurs while conducting tours of Haifa.
“Our main objective is to get them to know their city, with all its challenges and complexities, and make them into active citizens working toward social change,” Granot said. “Even people born here don’t really understand the richness of this city. We’d like them to experience that.”
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J Street says Israel should fund its own defense
J Street, the progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace political advocacy, is shifting its stance on defensive U.S. military aid to Israel as a growing number of Democrats, including some of the congressional candidates it endorsed this year, call for ending such assistance.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s longtime president, said in a lengthy post on Monday that the organization is now advocating for phasing out direct financial support for arms sales to Israel when the current $38 billion 10-year memorandum of understanding between the two countries expires in 2028. He called it “a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-Israel security relationship,” citing “the war in Gaza, rising extremist Jewish terror in the West Bank and the US-Israel war with Iran.”
Also stressing that “the US-Israel security relationship remains a central pillar of American policy in the Middle East,” Ben-Ami added that joint research and technological investment “should continue” and that the U.S. should continue to sell short-range air and ballistic missile defense capabilities to Israel. However, “all future Research and Development agreements with Israel must include genuine cost-sharing and aim to produce defense items that both countries plan to field.”
Ben-Ami’s post includes this statement, in boldface: “The goal of this reassessment is to advance the broader American interest of a more stable and prosperous Middle East that includes both Israelis and Palestinians living in security and freedom.”
U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome first started under the Obama administration in 2011. J Street’s acceptance of the position for candidates appears aimed at navigating divisions among congressional Democrats as Democratic Party voter views swing against Israel and influential progressive figures in the congressional delegation, most conspicuously Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who previously backed missile-defense funding, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, join calls to end all military aid to Israel.
Other members and candidates in the party still back Iron Dome funding from the U.S. seek to condition offensive weapons sales on Israel’s compliance with human rights and international law.
Brad Lander, a Jewish challenger to Rep. Dan Goldman, said last week he would oppose any additional U.S. aid to Israel, arguing the country is in violation of human rights and international law.
Last week, Brad Lander, a Jewish Democrat running for Congress who has described himself as a liberal Zionist, on Friday joined the calls for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, while adding that “Israel should have access to purchase it with their own funds.” Lander, who has been “primary approved” to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman of New York — who is the official J Street pick in the race — told the Forward he did not coordinate his announcement with the group’s, which came after his.
Democrats are already taking legislative action. The Senate is expected to vote on Wednesday on two measures — filed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel — to restrict at least $660 million in weapons sales to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — supported a similar pair of resolutions to block weapons transfers. J Streets urged members to vote in favor. In the House, the Block the Bombs Act, which would restrict certain offensive arms sales to Israel, currently has 60 sponsors.
J Street’s red line
Ben-Ami maintained that J Street’s updated stance to end grants, known as the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, aligns with calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, to gradually “taper off” U.S. military aid to Israel over the next decade until it reaches zero. “This reform would normalize the relationship and place Israel in the same category as other capable allies that purchase U.S. defense equipment without subsidy,” Ben-Ami said.
Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s senior vice president and chief policy officer and previously an aide to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said the organization will still support the sale of Iron Dome components and other missile defense systems as long as it’s consistent with U.S. law and aligns with U.S. policy objectives and interests.
The strategy reflects a broader shift in politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights have become a litmus test for progressive candidates. Recent polls showed the tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.
J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns
Speaking with the Forward during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. last month, Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.
A recent poll commissioned by the organization found that 70% of American Jews support placing some conditions on military assistance, including 26% who favor halting aid altogether.
The departure from the long-standing bipartisan consensus backing unconditional military support for Israel has drawn criticism from some Israel supporters.
Joel Rubin, a national security expert and a former Obama administration official who was the founding political and government affairs director at J Street in 2008, called it a “major shift” that “undermines” pro-Israel organizational support for the U.S.-Israel security assistance relationship and also “puts more pressure” on Democrats to oppose aid to Israel. “J Street is playing with fire regarding the US.-Israel relationship,” he said. “It’s much easier to tear down a relationship than it is to build one up.”
The post J Street says Israel should fund its own defense appeared first on The Forward.
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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he made his first All-Star team and guided the Portland Trail Blazers to their first winning season in five years.
But in spite of his team’s social media campaigning, this year’s award seems most likely headed to the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, whose 20 points-per-game more than doubled last year’s average. Sportsbooks made Alexander-Walker an overwhelming favorite to win, and while I would debate the merits — Avdija also raised his assist numbers, had a bigger role on his team and made a more difficult leap — I can’t really argue the odds.
Anyway, with the regular season over, Deni is onto more important things — starting Tuesday night, when his Blazers take on the Phoenix Suns in the biggest game of his career to date. The winner of Tuesday’s Play-In (10 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) advances to the one place Avdija’s never been in his six seasons: the NBA Playoffs.
At stake is more than just Avdija’s drought of 425 games without a playoff appearance — the fifth longest streak of any active player. It’s also the 10 years Israeli fans watched Avdija’s Jewish countryman Omri Casspi play without seeing him in the postseason. Casspi’s 588 games with seven different teams are the fourth-most without playing in the playoffs in NBA history (and the most of any player born after 1950). An ignominious record, indeed.
As Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Israeli-born journeyman TJ Leaf, who is not Jewish, made the playoffs as recently as 2021. And others have pointed out that Casspi’s team made the playoffs in 2014, but he did not play. But Avdija himself seems to regard this as a possible breakthrough.
“First taste of the playoffs — I think ever for an Israeli player,” he said — last year, before the Blazers barely missed the Play-In.
If the Blazers do end the Jewish Israeli playoff curse, it will be thanks to Avdija, who’s answered every call for the franchise this season. In two critical late-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers — their rival for the 8th playoff seed — Avdija led all players in scoring both times, including 35 points April 10 as Portland grabbed hold of the 8-seed.
Avdija’s work will be difficult against Phoenix, which in Dillon Brooks employs one of the stingiest wing defenders in the Association. Avdija was one of the best in the league at drawing fouls — he was third in the NBA in free throw attempts — and the game may depend on how closely the referees officiate contact. As for prior experience, Avdija only played one full game against the Suns this year, scoring 19 points in a 17-point loss; Portland split the other two matchups.
Because they secured the 8-seed, the Blazers will have a second chance at making the playoffs even if they lose. The winner of Wednesday night’s Clippers-Golden State Warriors matchup will face the loser of Blazers-Suns. Two chances to win one, and make (Jewish) Israeli hoops history.
The post Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater. appeared first on The Forward.
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German Court Drops Antisemitic Motive in Attack on Jewish Student, Sparking Outcry Over Reduced Sentence
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
More than two years after the brutal attack on Jewish student Lahav Shapira, a German court has acquitted the perpetrator of antisemitic-motivated charges and handed down a reduced sentence, in what appears to be yet another case of the justice system in Europe dismissing antisemitism as a driving factor in violent crime.
On Monday, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced Shapira’s 25-year-old classmate to two and a half years in prison for aggravated assault, delivering a lighter punishment than the one handed down during the initial ruling last year.
However, the court found no antisemitic motive behind the attack, overturning the previous ruling that had concluded otherwise, a decision that has prompted outrage and renewed criticism over how such cases are interpreted and prosecuted.
The court found there was not enough evidence to establish that the accused had expressed antisemitic views prior to the attack, and that investigators’ discovery of anti-Israel material and a pro-Palestinian map in his apartment could not be definitively tied to him or any of his family members.
Shapira strongly condemned the verdict, describing it as a reversal of perpetrator and victim, and expressed hope that the public prosecutor’s office would appeal so the case could be reconsidered “by competent people.”
“What other motive could there have been?” 33-year-old student Shapira said when leaving the courtroom. “I’m annoyed; it’s sad.”
The attack took place in February 2024, when Shapira was out with his girlfriend and was recognized by a fellow student of Arab descent who confronted him over posters he and other students had placed around the university regarding Israeli hostages taken during the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
As the argument escalated, Shapira was knocked to the ground with punches and kicked in the face, suffering a complex midface fracture and a brain hemorrhage.
During the first trial, the public prosecutor’s office argued that “Shapira was attacked because he is Jewish and stood up against antisemitism.”
Even though the accused admitted to the assault in both trials, he consistently denied that it was motivated by antisemitism.
Shapira has also tried unsuccessfully to force the Free University of Berlin (FU) to offer stronger protection against antisemitic discrimination. However, the Berlin Administrative Court rejected his lawsuit against the university as inadmissible.
This latest case is by no means the first in Europe to raise alarm bells among the Jewish community, as courts have repeatedly overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, fueling public outrage over what many see as excessive leniency.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
In one of the latest incidents, unknown perpetrators defaced a home over the weekend in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district with a swastika and the slogan “Kill all Jews,” prompting an investigation by the State Security Service.
Last week, an Israeli restaurant in the German city of Munich was attacked when assailants smashed multiple windows and threw pyrotechnic devices inside in what authorities suspected was an antisemitic assault.