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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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Germany takes a step back to its Nazi past — and Donald Trump is cheering them on
What a role reversal.
Since the start of his second term as president, Donald Trump has looked like he’s been following the playbook of Adolf Hitler and other despots. But now Germany is becoming like Trump’s America.
The Sunday election results in Saxony-Anhalt state were a victory not just for the Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD, but also for Trumpism. As Trump’s powers are cracking in the US because of high prices and the unpopular war against Iran, the American president’s brand has not only taken root in Germany’s former communist region, but is threatening to spread across the country.
“Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly.”
“MGGA!!!,” Trump wrote at the end of his post, apparently meaning “Make Germany Great Again.”
MAGA’s influence is plain to see on social media videos posted in the run-up to the Saxony-Anhalt election, in which the AfD came alarmingly close to winning enough votes to form a government on its own, which would have been the first time since the Nazi era that an extreme-right party has taken over the leadership of a German state. The videos show AfD followers saying racist things about immigrants and the superiority of white people, that there’s too much emphasis on the Nazi years and German history needs to be told more positively, and calling for an end to funding “anti-German art,” whatever that might mean, among a host of other stands that mirror those of MAGA.
Sally Lisa Starken, a freelance German journalist and bestselling author who has been chronicling the AfD, posted an Instagram video of an AfD “family festival” in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt.
“The whole time I felt like I was at a Trump event. The AfD has quite consciously learned from the MAGA movement,” said Starken, who has also covered Trump rallies in the US.
AfD merchandise was everywhere, including t-shirts bearing the photo of Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate in the Saxony-Anhalt election, and the man who would become leader of the state if the party is able to find a partner willing to join in a coalition government.
As is the case with Trump, there’s a cult of personality surrounding the 35-year-old Siegmund. People at the family festival stood in line for two hours to have their picture taken with him. Just before the Saxony-Anhalt election, the cover of the newsmagazine Der Spiegel called him “the most dangerous man in Germany.” Taking a page from Trump, Siegmund used the cover’s mug shot-style photo in his election campaign.
As with Trump, people of all shapes, sizes, ages and backgrounds attend these AfD gatherings, but they’re probably even whiter than at Trump’s rallies. And like Trump, Siegmund sounds like a huckster who knows how to grab the attention of people who feel like they’ve been left behind.
The AfD has become especially strong in former Communist East Germany at least partly due to German reunification, which occurred in 1990. The economy in the eastern region has never caught up with that of the wealthier west, unemployment is high, wages are comparatively low. There’s a feeling among many in eastern Germany that reunification hurt them, rather than helped them.
Reunification also triggered an explosion of neo-Nazi violence against foreigners, a scourge that continues to the present day. Resentment against foreigners soared in 2015, when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to waves of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria, a fateful decision that lifted the AfD from a fringe group of extremists to a party to be reckoned with — at first just in the eastern states like Saxony-Anhalt, but now across the country.
In last year’s federal elections, the AfD doubled its share of seats in the Bundestag, the German parliament. As a growing number of Germans have felt ignored by the mainstream parties — the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left — the AfD has surged ahead to become Germany’s largest opposition party.
Among those who attend AfD rallies are diehard neo-Nazis, many sporting tattoos with symbols and slogans banned by law because of their association with the Third Reich. Instagram videos from party gatherings show AfD followers saying that Hitler was a great man and Germany could use another leader like him, and only people with pure German blood deserve to be citizens.
Last year, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, classified the AfD as right-wing extremist.
“The ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of the people prevailing within the party is incompatible with the free democratic order,” the agency said in a statement at that time.
That judgment didn’t stop the AfD from seeking legitimacy abroad — or from finding it. Close links between the Trump administration and the AfD go back to the start of Trump’s second term.
It started with JD Vance’s address in February 2025 to the Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting of American government officials with our purported European allies. Vance shocked the conference by coming to the defense of extremist parties like the AfD. Since the defeat of the Nazis, Germany’s mainstream political parties have maintained a “firewall” that keeps them from cooperating with extremist parties. In his speech to the security conference, Vance essentially accused Germany’s mainstream parties of authoritarian behavior by shutting out the AfD.
“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” Vance told the European leaders.
On that same trip, Vance added insult to injury by meeting with the head of the AfD, Alice Weidel.
Olaf Scholz, who was chancellor at that time, defended the firewall against the AfD, saying the party trivializes Nazi atrocities. He basically told Vance to mind his own business.
“Where our democracy goes from here is for us to decide,” Scholz said.
At the center of the fraternal relationship between the AfD and MAGA is Elon Musk, the man who insists the stiff-arm gesture he gave at a rally celebrating Trump’s second inauguration was not the Hitler salute, although it sure looked like it. Just a few days later, Musk made a virtual appearance before a gathering of 4,000 at an AfD campaign rally in Halle.
“I think you really are the best hope for Germany,” Musk told the AfD followers. “It’s good to be proud of German culture and German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”
Musk added that there is “frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that.”
After the AfD’s success in the Saxony-Anhalt election, Musk wrote on X: “Well done!”
The AfD’s election shocker in Saxony-Anhalt has certainly caught the world’s attention — something that probably would not have happened were it not for Germany’s Nazi past.
Nonetheless, it feels like we have lost sight of a very important fact.
As we worry about the prospects of right-wing extremists increasing their power in Germany, politicians with virtually the same ideologies — xenophobes, white supremacists, racists and bigots — are already in the halls of power or positions of influence in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in America.
And there’s something positive to be said about Germany.
Unlike the Trump administration, Germany investigates, prosecutes, and sends to prison far-right would-be insurrectionists, instead of freeing and rewarding them.
The post Germany takes a step back to its Nazi past — and Donald Trump is cheering them on appeared first on The Forward.
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For Orthodox women, or those who find men in yoga studios ‘gross,’ a refuge in Brooklyn
It’s Friday morning in Hasidic Crown Heights, just two blocks away from the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, and we are doing cat-cows. In cat pose, I hunch my back and pull my chin to my chest, letting gravity pull my ponytail to the ground. In cow, I pull my shoulders back, look up, and scan the room. For some, this class at Vessel Studios is a final meditative moment before a hectic day of shopping, cooking, and otherwise preparing for Shabbat. But as I look around, it’s impossible to tell which of my fellow cows is Orthodox and which is not. Save for the headscarves that some of the Hasidic women are wearing, heathens and believers alike are dressed in more or less matching uniforms of leggings and sports bras.
Ordinarily, this class would be taught by the owner of the studio, Riki Rosenthal, but she is extremely pregnant and has thus joined as a participant rather than a teacher. A Crown Heights native, Rosenthal grew up Hasidic and took her first yoga class when she was 19, an age where wearing leggings at the Crunch Gym in Prospect Heights without a skirt on top still felt like a rebellious act. Now, she identifies as a “non-frum Lubavitcher” — a phrase that captures the dual reality that she no longer conforms to an Orthodox lifestyle, but still identifies strongly with the culture in which she grew up.
“Chabad supersedes being religious in a way; it’s a culture that I will always connect to,” she said. Aside from a stint in Manhattan in her 20s, she has never lived anywhere other than Crown Heights. By founding a yoga studio that caters to women only, she has created a space where students, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof, can exercise without the influence of men, whether for tznius, for the sisterly environment, or simply because, like Rosenthal, they believe “yoga studios with men are gross.”
In September 2020, 12 years after she took off her skirt to work out at Crunch, at a time when many studios were still closed because of COVID, Rosenthal started teaching yoga in her apartment. Two years later, she opened Vessel in the basement of a townhouse on Eastern Parkway. Signing a lease for her own studio was a big move, she said, but “there’s this part of being Chabad that makes you feel invincible.”
The studio has a soothing, sage green aesthetic, small lamps placed around the room provide soft lighting, and instructors often burn incense. There’s even a drawer with extra tichels — headscarves — in case anyone forgot theirs (though recently it had been emptied in anticipation of heavy rain and possible flooding, and hadn’t been restocked when I visited).
Rosenthal sometimes hears from would-be yoginis wanting to know if yoga is “kosher.” She feels unqualified to answer that question, especially since she “doesn’t totally subscribe to kosher.” Still, what she teaches is an Americanized brand of yoga that goes light on the Sanskrit, so that students don’t feel like they’re committing the sin of worshipping a false idol. “None of my teachers really talk about any of the yogic deities,” she said. “I try to keep it very neutral because I don’t really want to piss anyone off.”
Still, here on Eastern Parkway, as our Friday morning class comes to a gentle close, our instructor, Rachel Sherman, ends it with a “namaste” along with a “Shabbat shalom.”
For Sherman, who grew up Reform in Dallas, teaching yoga at Vessel has challenged the stereotype of Hasidic women — at least, Lubavitcher women — as quiet and demure. “A lot of my students speak, like, five languages. Most of them have careers,” she said. She admires what she views as their extreme confidence: “Total beginners will come to yoga and go straight to the front row,” she said. “No one’s afraid to tell me if they hate the incense, or if they need the temperature of the room different, and as someone who leans a little more people-pleasy, I appreciate a straight shooter.” She said she’s also impressed by how quickly women start doing yoga again after giving birth.
Maia Levy, a member of the Crown Heights Lubavitch community, was a near-total beginner when she started coming to Vessel. She said she wasn’t intimidated, though; she understood quickly that Vessel was the kind of place where “everyone is at their own pace” and “if you need to be in child’s pose for, like, 20 minutes, that’s fine.”
Earlier this year, Levy gave birth to her first child. She attended prenatal yoga at Vessel while pregnant, and returned to class a mere six weeks after giving birth. Sure, she might spend a little more time in child’s pose than before, but in a women’s-only yoga studio in a community that puts a heavy emphasis on motherhood, no one bats an eye. “I was, like, itching to get back,” she said.
The post For Orthodox women, or those who find men in yoga studios ‘gross,’ a refuge in Brooklyn appeared first on The Forward.
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The measles outbreak and the skepticism about vaccines
אַ פּאַציִענט מײַנער אין מײַן קליניק האָט מיר געװיזן אַ בילד פֿון אַ פּלימעניק מיט אַ מאָדנעם אױסשיט. „קען דאָס זײַן מאָזלען?“ האָט ער געפֿרעגט, אומבאַרויִקט. מיט פֿינף יאָר צוריק, מיט צװײ יאָר צוריק, װאָלט איך אים געזאָגט אַז דאָס איז שיִער נישט אוממעגלעך. הײַנט אָבער לײענט מען קאָשמאַרן װעגן קינדער װאָס שטאַרבן אַװעק פֿון אַ קראַנקײט װאָס האָט פֿריִער געהאַלטן בײַם עלימינירט װערן. װאָס איז געשען?
אין די שפּעטע 1950ער און פֿריִע 1960ער יאָרן, זײַנען צװײ מאָל אַזױ פֿיל קינדער געשטאָרבן פֿון מאָזלען װי פֿון פּאָליאָ. די ערשטע פּראָבע פֿון אַ מאָזלען־װאַקצין האָט מען אַדורכגעפֿירט אין 1960. אַז מע קוקט אױף דער דאָזיקער טאַבעלע, אונטן, זעט מען אַז די צאָל פֿאַלן זײַנען היפּש אַראָפּגעפֿאַלן בײַם אַדאָפּטירן דעם װאַקצין. (מע קען אױך פֿאַרגלײַכן מיט בריטאַניע, װוּ דעם װאַקצין האָט מען אײַנגעפֿירט מיט אַ 20 יאָר שפּעטער, און די צאָל פֿאַלן איז געבליבן מער װײניקער אַ הױכע ביז דעמאָלט, אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט די פֿש״אַ.)
הײַנט זעט מען װידער מאָזלען: נישט נאָר די בולטסטע סימנים דערפֿון — דעם אױסשיט װאָס הײבט זיך אָן אױפֿן קאָפּ און גײט װײַטער אַראָפּ, ביז די פֿיס, אָדער די בלױלעכע פּינטעלעך אױף דער אינעװײניקסטער הױט פֿון מױל — נאָר אױך די סכּנות װאָס זײַנען גאַנץ רעאַל כאָטש קומען פֿאָר װײניקער, מוח־אינפֿעקציעס און טױט. אין 2023 זײַנען געװען 58 פֿאַלן מאָזלען אין די פֿאַראײניקטע שטאַטן; אין 2024 — 285; אין 2025 — 2,289, און אין 2026, ביזן 27סטן אױגוסט — 2,903 פֿאַלן.
אין 2025 זײַנען דרײַ קינדער אין אַמעריקע געשטאָרבן פֿון מאָזלען, און ביז איצט אין 2026 זײַנען צוויי קינדער געשטאָרבן, כאָטש די טראָמפּ־אַדמיניסטראַציע, בײַנאַנד מיט דער דירעקטאָרין פֿון פֿעדעראַלן סי־די־סי, עריקאַ שוואַרץ, האָבן אָפּגעמעקט יענעם ציפֿער פֿון פֿעדעראַלן װעבזײַטל.
די סיבות פֿאַר װאָס מע װאָלט געװאָלט באַהאַלטן יענעם ציפֿער דעקן זיך מיט די סיבות פֿאַרן נעגאַטיװן צוגאַנג צו װאַקצינען װאָס הערשט אין דער איצטיקער רעגירונג. װאָס אַן אמת, כאָטש מע האָט ליב צו באַשולדיקן דעם פּרעזידענט אין אַנטי־װאַקציניזם, איז אַזאַ צוגאַנג אױך אַ סך מער פֿאַרשפּרײט אין אַנדערע לענדער. אױך אין קאַנאַדע שטײַגט די צאָל פֿאַלן מאָזלען און דעם אַנטי־װאַקציניזם שטיצט מען מער אין דער עפֿנטלעכקײט. הײסט עס אַז טראָמפּ, און דער נעגאַטיװער צוגאַנג פֿונעם געזונט־סעקרעטאַר ראָבערט קענעדי לגבי װאַקצינען, זײַנען נאָר סימפּטאָמען פֿון אַ ברײטערער גלאָבאַלער טענדענץ.
בכלל װילן אַ סך הײַנטיקע רעגירונג־פֿירער איבער דער װעלט אײַנצױמען די מאַכט און דעם גרײך פֿון דער מלוכה. זײער טענה גײט אין דעם, אַז די מלוכה מישט זיך כּלומרשט צו פֿיל אַרײַן אינעם לעבן פֿון מענטשן. דאָס איז געקניפּט און געבונדן מיט אַן אַזוי־גערופֿענעם פּאָפּוליזם. אַזעלכע אָנפֿירערס װילן שטיצן „דאָס פֿאָלק“ קעגן „דער עליטע.“
צום באַדױערן רעכנט „די עליטע“ אַרײַן מענטשן װאָס זײַנען יאָ מומחים אין געװיסע געביטן װאָס דאַרפֿן יאָ אַ ספּעציאַליזירטן צוגאַנג. און „דאָס פֿאָלק“ װאָס די דאָזיקע אָנפֿירערס שטיצן איז אָפֿט מאָל נאָר דער טײל פֿאָלק װאָס שטיצט יענע פֿירערס. (מע זעט נישט קײן איניציאַטיװן פֿון די דאָזיקע אַנטי־װאַקצין־רעגירונגען צו שטיצן אַנדערע אַספּעקטן פֿון עפֿנטלעכן געזונט. פֿאַרקערט, די קאַמפּאַניע לטובֿת געזינטערע שפּײַזן פֿון קענעדי איז מערסטנס אַן אופֿן צו באַשלדיקן יחידים אין זײערע דיִעטעטישע טעותן.)
די דאָזיקע אידעאָלאָגיִעס העלפֿן דערקלערן פֿאַר װאָס „פּאָפּוליסטישע“ אָנפֿירערס אין אַ צאָל לענדער טרעטן אַרױס קעגן דאָקטױרים, קעגן פֿאָלקסגעזונט, קעגן װאַקצינען, נאָר פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט, ניצן זיי יאָ די מאַכט פֿון דער מלוכה זיך אַלײן צו באַרײַכערן און באַשיצן.
די דאָזיקע טענדענצן שפּיגלען זיך אױך אָפּ אין די מײנונגען נישט בלויז פֿון די פֿירערס, נאָר אױך פֿון סתּם מענטשן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר. יעדע װאָך זע איך אַ סך פּאַציענטן אין מײַנע קליניקן אין באַלטימאָר װאָס זײַנען סקעפּטיש לגבי װאַקצינען אָדער זײַנען אַקטיװ דערקעגן.
פֿאַר װאָס װיל מען זיך נישט װאַקצינירן? װעגן דעם האָט מען אַדורכגעפֿירט אַ צאָל שטודיעס, נאָר אױף אײן פֿוס איז װיכטיק צו דערקענען אַז דאָס נישט װאַקצינירן זיך מײנט נישט אַז מע װיל נישט. דאָס לעבן איז קאָמפּליצירט, אַ סך פֿאָדערונגען קאָנקורירן איינע מיט דער צווייטער, און אױב מע דאַרף פֿאָרן צום דאָקטער, אין אַ געװיסער שעה, און צאָלן אַפֿילו בלױז אַ פּאָר דאָלער, קען דאָס אױך זײַן אַ מניעה. (שטעל זיך פֿאָר אױב מע האָט קלײנע קינדער אױך, אָדער עס פֿעלט אַ טראַנספּאָרט־מיטל, אָדער די ריכטיקע שפּראַך.) מיט אײן װאָרט, מענטשן טוען וואָס ס׳איז זיי גרינגער.
אָבער עס זײַנען אױך דאָ מענטשן װאָס זײַנען נישט זיכער אַזױ צי אַזױ װעגן װאַקצינען, זײ פֿילן זיך אין אַ קאָנפֿליקט. מע האָט נישט קײן צוטרױ צו דער רעגירונג, מע האָט מורא פֿאַר די בײַ־עפֿעקטן (װאָס עקזיסטירן יאָ), מע האָט זיך אינאָפֿרמירט מיט פֿאַלשע ידיעות.
אַ בײַשפּיל װאָס קער אינטערעסירן די פֿאָרווערטס־לײענערס איז אַנשי שלומנו, די חסידישע קהילות אַרום דער װעלט, װוּ װאַקצין־סקעפּטיציזם איז אױך אַן ענין. כאָטש מע זאַמלט נישט קײן דאַטן אין די אַמעריקאַנער צענזוסן באַזירט אױף רעליגיע, קען מען זען, למשל, פֿון די מאַפּעס בײַם ניו־יאָרקער געזונט־דעפּאַרטמענט, אַז אין די געגנטן װיליאַמסבורג און באָראָ־פּאַרק, למשל, איז דער פּראָצענט װאַקצינירטקײט װײניקער.
די סיבות פֿאַר װאָס טײל חסידים זײַנען נישט איבערצײַגט צו װאַקצינען זײערע קינדער זײַנען ענלעך אױף סיבות פֿון אַנדערע אַזעלכע איבער דער װעלט: אַ שטײַגנדיקן אומצוטרױ צו דער רעגירונג אין אַ תּקופֿה פֿון עקאָנאָמישער און געזעלשאַפֿטלעכער אומזיכערקײט.
װען עס רעדט זיך וועגן געזונט־באַשלוסן, פֿאָלגט מען אָפֿט מאָל נישט די עצה פֿונעם דאָקטער, נאָר גיכער וואָס עס זאָגט אַ קרובֿ אָדער אַ גוטער־פֿרײַנד. אױב עס מאַכט זיך אַ שװעריקײט אָדער אַן אומבאַקװעמלעכקײט אַרום װאַקצינען, קען געמאָלט זײַן, אַז מע װעט נאָכמאַכן די מענטשן װאָס מע קען פּערזענלעך און מיט װעלכע מע פֿאַרברענגט אַ סך צײַט.
מעדיצינישער עטיקערס הײבן אַרױס די װיכטיקײט פֿון „פֿרײַען אױסקלײַב“ װעגן געזונט־באַשלוסן, נאָר אַ סך פֿירעכצן װאָס זײַנען אָנגענומען אין אונדזערע געזעלשאַפֿטן און קהילות זײַנען נישט גוט דורכגעטראַכט — אַרײַנגערעכנט פֿירעכצן װאָס שטיצן דעם עפֿנטלעכן געזונט. דאָס טראָגן שיץ־פּאַסן, למשל, אָדער דאָס פֿאָרן פּאַמעלעכער ווי די מאַקסימאַלע גיכקײט, אָדער דאָס נישט רײכערן אין עפֿנטלעכע ערטער, דאָס פֿאַרזיכערן געזונטע שפּײַזן און װאַסער־קאַנאַליזאַציע — דאָס אַלץ זײַנען דערגרײכונגען פֿון פֿאָלקס־געזונט װאָס זײַנען באַזירט אױפֿן מבֿינות פֿון רעגירונג־עקספּערטן, נישט יחידישע באַשלוסן װאָס מע דאַרף װידער נעמען יעדן טאָג פֿון דאָס נײַ.
ווען מע לעבט אין אַ געזעלשאַפֿט דאַרף מען, פֿאַרשטייט זיך, אָננעמען געװיסע אַחריותן לטובֿת דעם כּלל. װען איך װאָלט געדאַרפֿט איבערצײַגן אַלע מײַנע פּאַציענטן אײנציקװײַז װעגן װאַקצינען װאָלט געװען אוממעגלעך צו דערגרײכן די באַשיצונג װאָס מע דאַרף פֿאַר דער גאַנצער באַפֿעלקערונג. לאָמיר האָפֿן אַז דעם עפֿנטלעכן געזונט, באַזירט אױף װיסנשאַפֿטלעכע פֿאַקטן, װעט אונדזער געזעלשאַפֿטלעך װײַטער שטיצן.
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