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Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism
(JTA) – For days, students and police at Cleveland State University had been trying to figure out who stole a banner belonging to a campus Palestinian rights group.
The banner, which belonged to the student group Palestinian Human Rights Organization, read “CSU Solidarity for Palestinian Rights” and was illustrated with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip collectively emblazoned in the Palestinian flag. A dove holding an olive branch appeared on top of the image.
Then, on Jan. 19, police charged their top suspect: a local Orthodox rabbi, whose presence on campus had become all too familiar. A few days later the man confessed to the theft on Instagram, announcing that he had stolen the banner from the school’s student center “as an act of civil disobedience.”
“This incitement to annihilation of Israel should have never been permitted at CSU,” Rabbi Alexander Popivker, a 46-year-old Cleveland Heights resident whose neighborhood is six miles from the school, wrote on social media accompanied by a picture of the flag he stole.
It was far from Popivker’s only recent run-in with local university students.
A former Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Naples, Italy, who now works in the Cleveland area as a handyman and part-time rabbi for a Russian-speaking Jewish community, Popivker has become known around town as a vigilant and omnipresent pro-Israel advocate. He can often be spotted counter-protesting at local pro-Palestinian demonstrations, or putting on displays of his own, with his wife Sarah on hand filming every contentious encounter.
One major theme of his protests, and his worldview, as he explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Palestinians and Nazis are the same thing.”
For the last year, Popivker had been making weekly trips to Cleveland State, occasionally accompanied by other students or community members, to give public demonstrations that elaborate on that idea — sometimes with the aid of swastika-emblazoned props. In the early going, the university provided him with police protection and said his visits to campus were protected by free speech laws.
But he also sought out students online and in-person whom he deemed to be “brainwashed” by anti-Zionist messaging. One such online campaign against a law student prompted the student to file an order of protection against Popivker last fall, an order supported by a prominent Jewish dean at the university. Popivker promptly violated the order by returning to campus.
Cleveland State University main campus, Cleveland, Ohio. (Getty Images)
In late January, university authorities had enough. They arrested Popivker and, following a hearing, declared him persona non grata on campus, banning him from the university grounds for at least two years. Popivker has also been banned from nearby Case Western Reserve University, where he had advocated before focusing on Cleveland State.
In the midst of a nationwide university climate in which pro-Israel advocates claim Jewish students face regular antisemitic harassment for their real or perceived Zionist beliefs, here was a documented case of the opposite: a Jew and outspoken Zionist, who has no affiliation with the schools at which he advocates, accused of harassing anyone he perceived as a threat to Israel, including students who had never sought him out directly.
The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has spoken out numerous times against Popivker and praised university police for arresting him; a petition the group backed, labeled “Stop harassment on campus” and mentioning Popivker by name, has garnered close to 700 signatures.
Jewish groups, including civil rights groups, have been less forthcoming about situation. Hillel International declined to comment for this story, and the directors of Cleveland’s regional American Jewish Committee and Jewish Community Relations Council offices did not return requests for comment. Jewish on Campus, a nationwide university antisemitism watchdog group that tracks what it defines as anti-Zionist social media harassment of Jewish students, also did not return a request for comment.
Jared Isaacson, the executive director of Cleveland Hillel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the center was “not very familiar with this story.” Cleveland Hillel coordinates Jewish student life at a consortium of Jewish universities including Cleveland State and Case Western, where its student center is located, as well as at least one other school where Popivker has made his presence on campus known in some form.
But, Isaacson said, “Cleveland Hillel is deeply committed to countering antisemitism and hate in all forms, and we believe that no student — Jewish or otherwise — should ever feel threatened or intimidated because of their identity.”
Popivker says he has support from the New York-based Lawfare Project, which bills itself as an “international pro-Israel litigation fund.” He told JTA that the organization “is watching over my cases and providing guidance.”
In a statement, the Lawfare Project called Popivker “a Jewish civil rights activist” but did not confirm that it is backing him, saying only that the group is “currently reviewing the matter.”
The group, which frequently files lawsuits on behalf of students who allege antisemitism on their campuses, said in a statement to JTA that the order of protection was a “double standard” that “should be alarming to anyone who cares about the fight against Jew-hatred.”
Lawfar recently settled a multi-year lawsuit with San Francisco State University over student reports of antisemitic harassment on campus stemming from anti-Zionist activists disrupting an event featuring the mayor of Jerusalem. The settlement compelled the university to hire a coordinator of Jewish student life.
Popivker will have his work cut out for him if he fights the charges. He had exhibited “behavior detrimental to the university community” by stealing the Palestinian banner and separately affixing an Israeli flag to university property, Matthew Kibbon, Cleveland State’s associate vice president of facility services, wrote in the university’s decision declaring him persona non grata.
The rabbi “was not banned for the content of his speech, but how he chose to exercise it,” a Cleveland State spokesperson told JTA in a statement. The university also provided JTA a list of recent campus police interactions with him, including the initial Jan. 11 report of the banner’s theft; Popivker’s visit to campus on Jan. 18, during which police advised him that the student’s order of protection did not permit him to be there; and his return visit on Jan. 25, during which he was arrested.
From Popivker’s perspective, he is simply speaking out on Israel’s behalf for a campus that has a large pro-Palestinian activist presence but few Jewish students. (There are fewer than 200 Jewish undergraduates on Cleveland State’s campus out of 11,784 students, according to Hillel International.) His goal is to educate, he says, informed by his status as a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union. And he believes he is being targeted by local pro-Palestinian activists, who, he said, have gone after his kippah and Israeli flags.
“I never attacked anyone. I never raised my hand up to anyone,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying that he was motivated by civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. “I’m going to a public university. I’m staying in the free speech zone. And I raise awareness about what’s going on. There’s a bunch of students that have become my friends that come to study with me regularly.”
One of those students, senior Tyler Jarosz, told JTA he became friends with Popivker after seeing him visiting campus to advocate for Israel. Not knowing much about Jews or Israel himself — “I thought Israel was a very peaceful state,” Jarosz said — the student was taken with Popivker’s demonstrations and said he learned a great deal from them.
“He didn’t just lecture me like a teacher would,” Jarosz said. “He was actually very engaging. He asked questions.”
Jarosz said he never witnessed the rabbi harassing anyone on campus, and said he always tried to engage people in peaceful dialogue, despite what he described as harassment directed at him by some Muslim students. He recalled one Popivker visit to campus for Israel’s independence day, when the rabbi was offering falafel to students, and said he witnessed one student throw the falafel back at him and threaten to “rape” him.
Other students tell a different story. One campus paper, the Cauldron, reported that the rabbi has targeted visibly Muslim and Arab students on campus, demanding to know their views on Israel. Popivker “makes me wary of coming into campus,” a student member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organization group told the Cauldron. “I’m forced to be on constant edge and take the longer way to class in order to avoid him.” Another student told a different campus newspaper, “It’s almost as though he deliberately looks for Palestinian individuals just to target them.”
The chair of the law school’s National Lawyers Guild student chapter told the Cleveland Jewish News that their group’s efforts to engage Popivker in reasonable dialogue failed when he began using “racial slurs and insulting language.”
A swastika Alexander Popivker drew on a Palestinian scarf (alleged by some students to be a keffiyeh, or ritual Muslim prayer scarf) while mounting a pro-Israel demonstration on the campus of Cleveland State University. Popivker then shared the image to his Instagram, Feb. 3, 2023. (Screenshot)
In images from one Popivker demonstration, the rabbi can be seen drawing a swastika with a Sharpie marker on what the Cauldron reported was a keffiyeh, a scarf worn by Arabic men, but which Popivker told JTA was a Palestinian scarf with no spiritual significance. He has also yelled phrases including “Palestinians are Nazis” and “Palestinians are the KKK,” and constructed a stage with images further linking Palestinians to Naziism, according to reports. Popivker’s own Instagram videos show him approaching groups of students to argue about Israel as he films them, calling some of them “terrorists” when they go after his flags. One of his video captions mentions “a Middle Eastern looking student.”
Cleveland State increased its safety protocols as a result of Popivker’s activities, locking some additional entrances around campus. But much of his activities have been online, too.
Last fall Popivker trained his attention on a law student who was involved with campus Palestinian rights groups and had made some anti-Israel posts online, including sharing an image of a child whom pro-Palestinian groups claimed had been a victim of an Israeli bombing, and sharing a socialist group’s post quoting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Documents show that Popivker emailed and called the student’s employer and law school seeking to have her disciplined for her beliefs, writing among other things that she was a “mouthpiece of terrorism and racism against Jews.” He also made Instagram posts targeting her. In response, the student filed for and received the order of protection against him, which Popivker later claimed was unwarranted because he had never met the student in person.
In its statement to JTA, the Lawfare Project homed in on this sequence of events, saying that Popivker’s decision to email the student’s school and employer about what he believed to be antisemitic social media posts was “a tool routinely used by civil rights activists to fight discrimination.”
Popivker asked Jarosz to send a letter attesting to his character for the order of protection hearing, which he did. “Alex understands and respects everyone of every background that he comes across,” the student wrote in his letter. “I have personally witnessed the demonization they have done of him.” Speaking to JTA weeks later, Jarosz said the court case was “bogus,” but said he was unaware of the emails, social media records and phone transcripts reviewed by JTA showing that Popivker had contacted the student’s employer and school.
At the order of protection hearing, a transcript of which Popivker sent to JTA, a key witness who advocated for the restriction was law school dean Lee Fisher, a former attorney general and lieutenant governor of Ohio. Fisher is Jewish.
“We share a hatred of antisemitism,” Fisher told Popivker during the hearing, according to the transcript. The dean also identified himself as “pro-Israel, very much so.” But Fisher made clear he was critical of Popivker’s activities on campus. Asked by Popivker about a specific social media post the student had made, Fisher responded, “Even if she made a mistake by posting it, it did not warrant the kind of reaction I believe that you had.”
Fisher had also met with Popivker previously, in a session mediated by a local rabbi who was a friend of Popivker. “I told him that I was concerned for the health and safety of our students,” the dean said during the hearing. He had implored Popivker to stop his campus activities, but the rabbi refused.
It’s the initial order of protection, which Popivker said had already effectively banned him from campus, that the rabbi says he truly opposes. He saw it as evidence that “they were basically working together with Palestinians” to “cover up the fact that they have an antisemitic group that openly propagates a destruction of Israel.” Popivker visited campus several times after receiving the order of protection but was permitted to stay with only a warning from campus police, Jarosz recalled.
This state of affairs lasted until the rabbi stole the Palestinian student group banner to, he said, “shine a light on this antisemitism.” Popivker described to JTA how he entered the student building, walked up to the third floor where he knew the banner was, and used scissors to remove it and take it with him: “Clip, clip, clip.” He was subsequently thrown in jail — his second such stint in Cleveland for pro-Israel activities, he said, criticizing local law enforcement for not providing him with kosher food while he was behind bars.
Outside of campus, Popivker is active in other areas. Last year, he organized a GoFundMe to support the family of a former classmate of his who was killed by an Islamic State supporter in a terrorist attack in Beersheba, Israel. He also applied to fill a January vacancy on the Cleveland Heights city council, but later withdrew his application.
After being barred from Cleveland State University, Rabbi Alex Popivker took to holding his anti-Palestinian protests on a street outside a local casino. (Courtesy Popivker)
While Popivker may preach nonviolence, his social media activity points to more radical ideologies, as well. On Instagram, he has shared an image of the flag of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist Jewish group that advocates violence against enemies of Jews, founded by convicted terrorist Rabbi Meir Kahane, as well as an image with a logo of Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Israeli group that has in the past been accused of inciting violence against Israeli human rights groups. Popivker told JTA he is not a member of either group, but that “if I think it’s aligned with what I believe in, I’ll share it.”
Popivker says that, for now, he’s done with his brand of “civil disobedience” and won’t be making his weekly visits to Cleveland State’s campus. “I do have five wonderful boys and a loving wife, and as much as Cuyahoga [County’s] jail is an educational experience in life in many ways, I do not want to go there every week,” he said.
Instead, days after his arrest and campus ban, Popivker posted a photo of himself with an Israeli flag to social media — this time outside a casino a mile away from campus.
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The post Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marks four months in office, a new survey of New York City’s Jewish voters suggests he has done little to ease concerns among a community that overwhelmingly did not support his election and remains uneasy about his handling of antisemitism and Israel.
A Mercury Public Affairs poll of 665 Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election found that 58% rate his performance as “poor” or “fair,” compared to 32% who say “excellent” or “good.” Among the 18% who described his performance as “fair,” a majority — 56% — said they disapprove, while 24% approve.
The poll sponsored by The Jewish Majority, an advocacy group led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman, was conducted from Feb. 17 to 28 in English and Yiddish via landline and cell phone. The sample has a reported margin of error of plus or minus 3.7%. It included a diverse cross-section of the city’s Jewish electorate: 30% Orthodox; 32% Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist; and 20% unaffiliated.
The results published Sunday underscore a political reality that has shadowed Mamdani since taking the helm of the city that is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the U.S. He won just 26% of the Jewish vote in the 2025 election, compared to 55% for Andrew Cuomo and 8% for Curtis Sliwa, according to the poll. His support was strongest among younger voters ages 35-44 (34%) and unaffiliated Jews (42%). He drew just 7% among Orthodox voters.
Antisemitism and Israel loom large
A central tension in Mamdani’s relationship with Jewish groups has been his effort to separate his views critical of Israel from his repeated commitment to protect Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani, who rose to power aligned with pro-Palestinian activism, has so far declined calls from Jewish leaders to acknowledge the community’s connection to Israel more directly. That comes into sharper focus now as the Jewish community marks Jewish American Heritage Month. Mamdani is not expected to march in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue on May 31, a choice likely to reinforce perceptions of that distance. This year’s parade theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”
Last month, Mamdani vetoed a City Council bill requiring safety plans for protests near schools, while allowing a separate measure protecting houses of worship to become law. Mamdani said he shared concerns raised by progressive groups and labor unions that the legislation could impact their ability to organize and potentially limit demonstrations, particularly on campuses. He also faced backlash from Zionist Jewish organizations on his first day in office after revoking executive orders tied to antisemitism and campus protests.
At the time the poll was taken, an overwhelming 84% of respondents said they had supported the Council’s initial proposal to establish a safe perimeter around houses of worship to prevent harassment and intimidation, while preserving First Amendment rights. Only 7% opposed it.
According to the survey, 82% of respondents said they are concerned about the rise in antisemitism in New York City, and 58% said they believe the increase is linked to the normalization of anti-Zionism.
A majority — 61% — said Mamdani’s refusal to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the Intifada” has emboldened pro-Hamas protesters. Nineteen percent disagreed.
Mamdani stands firm
The Jewish Majority spearheaded an open letter during the mayoral election, signed by more than 1,100 Jewish congregational leaders opposing what it described as “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization” among figures like Mamdani.
Four months in, Mamdani is showing little sign of changing course, sticking with the coalition that brought him to power even as many Jewish New Yorkers say their concerns remain unresolved.
“I am deeply committed to protecting Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani told the Forward last week. “It’s part of a commitment to ensure that public safety is delivered for each and every New Yorker. And I also believe that as we deliver that public safety, as we show an absolute rejection of antisemitism across the five boroughs, we can also do these things while protecting our fundamental constitutional rights.”
The post Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds appeared first on The Forward.
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After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum
(JTA) — As Rae Ann Kaylie sat on her mother’s couch in the wake of her death, the Judaica felt overwhelming.
Over 50 menorahs adorned the shelves. A dozen seder plates had been meticulously hung alongside a trove of Jewish art on each wall. And countless dreidels, kiddush cups and shofars filled every corner of the 1,100-square-foot home in Rockville, Maryland.
There were so many hamsas hanging near the entrance, Kaylie joked, “Whoa, Mom, what on earth? Like, how much evil eye do we have in here?”
For 35 years, Kaylie’s mother, Deborah Brodie, had amassed a collection of over 200 Jewish ritual objects, which she had used as a hands-on classroom for her Hebrew school students with special needs. Among the collection, Brodie had also obtained a Torah from Ebay, which her students used to practice for their b’nai mitzvah.
“She wasn’t the one who was like, ‘Oh, don’t touch it. You’re going to break it,’” Kaylie said. “She was like, ‘Touch it, here, take a bunch,’ you know what I mean, and that was really cool about her entire collection.”
Brodie — known as “Bubbie Cookie” to her family — had not built the collection alone. Her longtime partner, Jay Brill, whom she met through a Washington Jewish Week personals ad in 1986, was alongside her throughout the journey, traveling with her to all 50 states to sell Jewish jewelry and a computerized Hebrew-learning program they created together.
Over the years, the couple attended both B’nai Shalom and Shaare Tefila Congregation, two Conservative synagogues in Olney, Maryland. Toward the end of their lives, they attended Chabad of Olney, whose rabbi officiated their funerals.
But after Brodie, 76, and Brill, 74, died in February just 19 days apart, Kaylie said she and her family were faced with a painful question: What would happen to the couple’s lifetime of Jewish devotion in their absence?
“We all picked something we wanted, but then, you know, you don’t want to sell it, you don’t want to make any money off of it,” Kaylie said. “It was just trying to figure out, like, what can we do to further her passion, her vision?”
The answer, Kaylie said, arrived through Instagram.
Earlier this month, Kaylie sent a simple message to Nick Fox, who operates a social media series titled “Millennial Inheritance,” writing, “Hey, you want to see a lot of menorahs?”
Since October, Fox has documented dozens of inheritance stories across his social media channels, featuring people grappling with their late parents’ vast collections of Breyer Horse figurines, salt and pepper shakers and Christmas decorations.
But while Fox said the mission of his page is not necessarily to help people find homes for inherited collections, Kaylie’s story felt different.
As he viewed images of Brodie and Brill’s home, Fox, who is Catholic, said that he immediately flashed back to childhood memories attending his classmates’ bar mitzvahs and receiving souvenir hamsas from their trips to Israel.
“It was the fact that she was actively grieving and really had no idea what to do, and I think the fact that I was raised how I was, where I was, that I had a knowledge of what this stuff was and what it meant,” Fox said.
Just days later, Fox posted a short video for his 200,000 followers featuring snippets of the sprawling collection along with a call to help find it a permanent home that would “love it the way Rae Ann’s mom did.”
As the post garnered hundreds of comments offering ideas for the collection’s future and tributes to Brodie’s contributions to Jewish education, it was also making its way through Washington’s Jewish community.
The morning after the post, Jonathan Edelman, the collections curator for the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum, said he woke up to dozens of messages from people urging the museum to find a home for the collection.
“It was so meaningful that so many people in the broader community, and who have never stopped in our museum, tagged us and said, you know, this should be the home of this sort of wild story and this amazing collection,” Edelman said.
By the following weekend, Edelman had travelled to Brodie’s home to meet with Rae Ann to view the collection himself. But even after seeing Fox’s post, Edelman said he was unprepared for what awaited him inside.
“It was incredible, floor-to-ceiling Judaica like I’d never seen in anyone’s home before,” Edelman said. “It wasn’t just thrown on a shelf. It was so thoughtfully laid out. I mean, she had seder plates and hanukkiot hanging on the wall, which is no easy task to do…it felt like a museum quality display. It was really impressive.”
Edelman quickly reported back to the museum, which opened in June 2023, telling them that he believed he had stumbled upon an “incredible opportunity” to launch its inaugural education collection.
Now, the Capital Jewish Museum has plans to house the entirety of Brodie and Brill’s collection in its second-floor education and program space, the Community Action Lab, where visitors will be able to interact with the Judaica firsthand, just as Brodie encouraged her students to do in her home.
The museum also plans to photograph the collection so it is accessible online, and lend individual pieces to schools and organizations in the area for educational use.
“When I heard her mother’s story, you know, we were doing the same thing. Our goal was Jewish education, and she did it as an individual, we’re doing it as an institution,” Edelman said. “It means so much for us to honor her mother’s memory by doing the work that she dedicated her life to…it feels particularly special.”
But while Fox said he was not surprised by the outpouring of support and suggestions from the Jewish community, he said other Jews that inherit large quantities of Judaica should not look to Kaylie’s story as a roadmap.
“This is absolute best-case scenario, but it also makes it so very unique, because there aren’t going to be a lot of collections that museums usually are going to take on,” Fox said, adding that people should not assume that inheritances will find a place in a museum.
Instead, Fox said he encouraged people that inherit Jewish collections to consult their local Jewish community centers or synagogues to see if they might have a use for them.
“In the case of someone having a tremendous amount of Judaica, I think the best way would be to tap into your network, first, talk to people that you know that are in your community,” Fox said. “And then if it goes nowhere, then you have every right to, you know, if you’re looking to sell it, or if you’re looking to donate it, I think the big ask would be, what would your relatives want done with that stuff?”
Rachel Steinhardt, a California resident who organized a large-scale Judaica drive for people impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires last year, recommended that people who find themselves with inherited Judaica they cannot keep turn to local Facebook groups or Judaica rehoming communities such as L’dor V’dor Judaica or Heritage Judaica.
“New Judaica is great, but people definitely value something that has been touched and loved and appreciated over the years…you want something that has a little soul in it,” Steinhardt said. “So I think that even something that’s not of value, other people can appreciate that it has been loved and want to acquire it.”
Reflecting on Fox’s decision to spotlight her mother’s collection, Kaylie said that he had been a “guardian angel.”
“He didn’t have to do that, and really, it’s because of him that we’re able to have my mom’s legacy be how we could have wanted it,” Kaylie said.
Edelman said he expects the collection to be installed in the museum sometime this summer, where it will be displayed alongside a plaque honoring “Bubbie Cookie” and “Zayde Jay,” names the couple were referred to by their families.
For Kaylie, imagining the future museum visitors handling her mother’s kiddush cups and menorahs felt like “exactly how she would have wanted it.”
“When we lost Bubbie Cookie, we said the legend of Bubbie Cookie was over,” Kaylie said. “And now, for the legend and the legacy to move on, I mean, it’s unreal. It’s, I have no words, I can’t even articulate it. It’s just amazing.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum appeared first on The Forward.
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British Green Party candidate tweeted about killing Zionists from Anne Frank parody account
(JTA) — A candidate in the United Kingdom’s Green Party is under fire after posting under that social media handle “thereal.anne.frank” that “every single Zionist” should be killed, marking the latest antisemitic scandal to hit the party in a matter of days.
Two other candidates have been charged with spreading hate online in relation to anti-Israel social media posts, while the party’s Jewish leader, Zack Polanski, is fending off allegations of deep-seated antisemitism.
The latest scandal came after the Jewish News revealed that in a series of posts on Threads, Tina Ion, a Green party candidate in Newcastle, referred to “Zionists” as “vermin” and “rats” and posted an image of an industrial shredding machine, which she called a “Zionist juicer.” She also referred to “Jewish Nazis” as “money grubbing thieves” who “have built mountains of money over centuries,” according to the newspaper.
The profile photo for the account, titled “thereal.anne.frank,” featured an image of a young woman wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headscarf. In one post referencing the image, Ion allegedly wrote that it was used “because Ann Frank wearing a keffieh pisses Zionists off.”
Ion’s rhetoric, which was first surfaced by Labour party activist Steve Cooke, was quickly condemned by a host of Green Party lawmakers, who wrote in a joint statement posted on X Friday that the party was “reviewing our vetting processes.”
“We are appalled by the racist material written and shared by Tina Ion,” the statement read. “We are anti-racists and are clear that antisemitism has no place in our party or society. We do not support her candidacy.”
Ion defended her posts in a statement posted on Facebook, writing that “isolated fragments” of her statements had been used to “distort” her core values and that she “absolutely reject any accusation of antisemitism.”
“My criticism is not directed at an ethnicity or a religion; it is directed at a political ideology and a set of state actions,” Ion wrote. “The common denominator among those I criticise – from Zionist Jewish hardliners to Western supporters and our own government – is not their culture, but their active support for what the International Court of Justice has deemed a ‘plausible risk of genocide.’”
She added, “I acknowledge that in moments of raw, unshielded grief, witnessing live-streamed images of children being torn to pieces, I have used dehumanising language toward those supporting these acts.”
Ion is not the only Green Party candidate facing scrutiny for posting antisemitic content online.
Sabine Mairey and Saiqa Ali, who are both running for seats in the Lambeth borough of London, were detained by the Metropolitan police Thursday “on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online,” an offense under the UK’s Public Order Act. Mairey and Ali were taken into custody for questioning.
Mairey posted an image on Facebook with text that read, “Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge,” according to a screenshot from The Telegraph. The post referenced Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a U.S. citizen and Lebanese immigrant who drove an explosives-laden truck into a synagogue in Michigan in March, shortly after losing several of his family members to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Ali has shared an image on Instagram of an armed man wearing a Hamas headband, together with the slogan, “Resistance is freedom,” according to another screenshot.
Other Facebook posts by Ali, which have now been deleted, allegedly claimed that 9/11 was a “false-flag attack” engineered by Israel. She also allegedly posted an image of a serpent marked with a Star of David choking the Earth, and a caricature of a Jew with the caption, “We went through the Holocaust, and now we get to kill everyone, forever!”
The arrests came hours after the stabbing of two Jewish men in London’s heavily Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green, which police are investigating as terrorism. London has also recently seen a string of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites. And in October, a man drove his car into people gathered outside a synagogue in Manchester and fatally stabbed one man.
The left-populist Green Party seized major gains in recent months, riding issues that have animated the global left — including affordability, the environment and widespread anger over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Polanski, the party’s Jewish leader who hopes to topple the Labour government’s power in local elections next week, has accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of complicity in “the very obvious genocide in Gaza.”
Amid the Green Party’s sudden growth, it has faced mounting scrutiny over its candidates. Polanski admitted during the selection process that vetting was a “real challenge” for the Greens, though he has since said he has confidence in “99%” of his candidates.
Several other candidates have been accused of making antisemitic comments. A candidate in Newcastle, Philip Brookes, said in a Facebook post about Gaza that it “takes serious effort not to be a tiny bit antisemitic.” Aziz Hakimi, a candidate in Camden, has shared content blaming “Zionists” for 9/11 and claiming that Israel orchestrated an arson attack on ambulances owned by the Jewish charity Hatzolah in Golders Green. Other candidates have posted comments that appeared to sympathize with the Hamas attack on Israel or promote tropes about the global influence of Jewish people.
The deputy leader of the Greens, Mothin Ali, privately told the Greens for Palestine group that candidates who were accused of antisemitism should seek “serious legal advice,” The Times of London reported. Ali suggested a “class action” against his own party over its handling of suspensions as “they’re coming after more and more people.”
Polanski has said that some of his candidates were falsely accused of antisemitism because they challenged the Israeli government or supported Palestinians.
“It is really important that we do not conflate genuine antisemitism with legitimate criticism of an Israeli government which is committing war crimes,” Polanski told the BBC, adding that complaints of antisemitism were taken seriously.
“Where you have 4,500 candidates, to have a handful of cases I would say is not some kind of big scandal,” he said.
Polanski has also accused Starmer of weaponizing fears about antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel. “We’ve got into a bizarre situation in this country where a non-Jewish prime minister is attacking the one Jewish leader on a case of antisemitism,” he told The Guardian.
Since the nomination deadline for the upcoming elections has passed, even if parties withdraw support from candidates, their names cannot be legally removed from ballots even if they are suspended.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post British Green Party candidate tweeted about killing Zionists from Anne Frank parody account appeared first on The Forward.