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A day after being heckled for his Israel views, Ritchie Torres gets a hero’s welcome at Bronx Jewish school
(New York Jewish Week) – The day before winter break starts is often an exciting one at school, with pizza parties, movies in class and other laid-back activities. But at SAR Academy, a Modern Orthodox K-8 day school in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, the air was abuzz for a different reason: Their congressman, Ritchie Torres, was stopping by for a visit to reaffirm his support for Israel.
Torres, a Democrat who is an outspoken ally of Israel in Congress and online, was a guest of honor at SAR’s morning assembly, where the entire school community comes together to say Tehillim — psalms said for healing and protection — and sing prayers for Israel and the Jewish people, in a daily ritual that began the Monday morning after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
For the students at SAR Academy, Torres is something of a celebrity, having visited the school a handful of times in the past few years and even traveling to Israel with the school’s principal, Rabbi Binyamin Krauss, last year on a Jewish Community Relations Council trip. The congressman, who was previously a member of the New York City Council, was greeted with uproarious applause — some students held posters reading “The Bronx Loves Ritchie Torres,” while others stopped him for a selfie or tried to give him homemade crafts.
“I know, as a congressman, I’m not supposed to have favorites — but SAR is one of my favorites because it is a special and magical place,” Torres, 35, told the group of nearly 1,000 students and faculty. “It’s moments like these that we’re reminded that what matters most, and most in life is family, and friendship and faith.”
SAR Academy students lined up to take selfies and shake hands with the congressman, Dec. 22, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
It was a stark contrast from the reception Torres got Thursday night at a different Jewish venue, the 92NY Jewish cultural center on the Upper East Side. There, while discussing his recently passed bill to assign a special envoy for the Abraham Accords, the peace deals between Israel and Arab countries, he was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters who shouted, among other things, “Ritchie Torres, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
At SAR, however, it was all smiles for the Bronx native, who first traveled to Israel in 2015 with UJA-Federation New York and the JCRC when he was first elected to city council, and who has been a prominent supporter since.
“When I’m in my district in a place like SAR, I’m warmly received,” Torres told the New York Jewish Week. “Obviously, among anti-Israel activists, I’m considered controversial. But in life, you have to fight for what you believe in.”
He said no amount of criticism could deter him from his support for Israel, which sets him apart from other young members of Congress, particularly representatives of color.
“I believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and I believe in the U.S.-Israel relationship and I’m never going to waver from that belief,” Torres added.
Ahead of Torres’ remarks, Krauss thanked the congressman for his continued support of Israel and SAR. “We never want our kids’ association with Israel to be negative or sad; we also know it’s important to tell them the truth, so there’s been a lot of sadness lately,” he said. “But what you chose to do today, on Erev Shabbat, right before we’re all going out for a well-deserved holiday break, is to share good and hopeful news. That’s what our children are hearing, and I promise you that that’s something they will never, ever forget.”
(L-R) Congressman Ritchie Torres, Rabbi Binyamen Krauss and Israeli Consul General Aviv Ezra take questions from a group SAR Academy students , Dec. 22, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
After Torres and Israeli Consul General Aviv Ezra greeted the student body with brief remarks, they held a small press conference of sorts with members of SAR’s student council, a group of about 10 students representing each grade at the school.
“This is really exciting for me,” eighth-grader Hannah Goldstein, the student council president, told the New York Jewish Week. “There’s a lot going on in Israel and there’s a lot of arguments about what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s really special to have someone come that’s representing America and representing the Bronx and say, ‘This is what I’m standing up for.’”
Torres told the students he saw them as being part of shaping a more peaceful future for Israel.
“The future of the Middle East is neither pro-Israel nor pro-Arab — the future of the Middle East is both pro-Israel and pro-Arab,” Torres said in his remarks. “We are here at SAR because the students represent the future leaders of our society. These students are going to fight to create a world where all the children of Abraham — Jews, Christians and Muslims — can coexist in peace and prosperity. Yours is the generation that’s going to realize the Abrahamic dream and build on the foundation of the Abraham Accords.”
The students didn’t shy away from asking tough questions. One middle-schooler asked Torres what more he and the U.S. government could and will do to support Israel, while an elementary-aged boy wondered if Torres would consider supporting a country who has attacked Israel in the past if they were to need aid one day.
To the first question, Torres answered that Congress was working on a security assistance bill for the replenishment of aid to the Iron Dome. And to the second question, Torres urged the student to draw distinctions between people and their governments, especially when thinking about supporting Palestinians in a path towards peace while holding Hamas accountable.
It was Torres himself who suggested a meeting with the day school students. “SAR is an iconic institution,” he told the New York Jewish Week about why he thought it was important to visit the school. “These students are going to be the future leaders who are going to be fighting for the world that is envisioned by the Abraham Accords, they’re going to be living in the world that we’re describing here today.”
Torres then turned to the students and said: “All of you are fighting for the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and the right of Israel to defend itself against an existential threat. It’s an honor to be a righteous ally in that cause.”
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The post A day after being heckled for his Israel views, Ritchie Torres gets a hero’s welcome at Bronx Jewish school appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced on Wednesday that he intends to vote in favor of imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
In statements posted on X/Twitter, Torres lambasted the ICC over its “weaponization of international law,” arguing that the Hague-based court has waged an ideological propaganda campaign against Israel and unfairly maligned Israeli leaders for “daring to defend” their country against terrorist groups.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” Torres said. “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
Torres accused the ICC of brushing aside Israel’s motives for prosecuting its war against the Hamas terrorist group. He also castigated the ICC as a “kangaroo court,” criticizing it for ignoring Hamas’s intentional use of the Palestinian people as human shields to maximize civilian casualties — a tactic employed by the terrorist group to tarnish Israel’s international reputation.
“The ICC ignores the cause and context of the war. Israel did not initiate the war. The war was imposed upon Israel by the unbridged barbarism of Hamas on Oct. 7 [of 2023],” Torres said. “Not only did Hamas wage war on Israel, causing the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, it carefully constructed a battlefield designed to maximize the loss of civilian life. None of that context seems to matter to the kangaroo court of the ICC, which cannot let facts get in the way of its ideological crusade against the Jewish State. The ICC should be sanctioned not for enforcing the law but for distorting it beyond recognition.”
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Following the official issuing of arrest warrants in November, a slew of US lawmakers vowed to seek retribution against the ICC after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
“These allegations have been refuted by the US government,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s pick to serve as White Hous national security adviser in the incoming administration, wrote on X. “Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.”
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the ICC if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The post Ritchie Torres Announces Intent to Vote for Sanctions Against ICC, Citing Anti-Israel ‘Ideological Crusade’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Biden Administration Shifts $100 Million in US Military Aid From Israel and Egypt to Lebanon
Lebanese army soldiers gesture as they secure the area near the US embassy in Awkar, Lebanon, June 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
In the final days of US President Joe Biden’s time in office, his administration has redirected over $100 million in military aid from Israel and Egypt to Lebanon, citing a need to strengthen a ceasefire agreement to halt fighting between the Jewish state and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
The US State Department issued two separate notices to Congress dated Jan. 3, announcing that it would shift $95 million in military aid intended for Egypt and $7.5 million intended for Israel toward the Lebanese military and its government, the Associated Press reported.
The move came after some lawmakers in Congress expressed concerns about Egypt’s human rights record, particularly the arrests of thousands of political prisoners.
Most of the money will go to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has a central role in enforcing the November ceasefire that stopped nearly 14 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist terrorist organization that wielded significant political and military influence in Lebanon.
“Successful implementation [of the ceasefire] will require an empowered LAF, which will need robust assistance from the United States and other partners,” the State Department said in its letters.
Hezbollah relentlessly pummeled northern Israeli communities with daily barrages of missiles, rockets, and drones in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel from Gaza in the south. Roughly 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate Israel’s north due to the unrelenting attacks.
Israel intensified its military efforts against Hezbollah in September, using airstrikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon — bolstered by sophisticated intelligence operations — to decimate much of the terrorist group’s leadership and weapons stockpiles.
In late November, both Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, which in part requires Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon over 60 days. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army will enter these areas and ensure that Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani River, located some 18 miles north of the border with Israel.
The newly shifted US aid is largely meant to help the LAF in dispatching troops throughout southern Lebanon to supplement UN peacekeeping efforts there.
“US security assistance to the LAF increases its capacity as the country’s only legitimate military force and defender of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, enables the LAF to prevent potential destabilization from ISIS and other terrorist groups, and enables the LAF to provide security both for the Lebanese people and for US personnel,” the State Department said in its notices.
The department also rejected the claim that members of Hezbollah are serving in the LAF, insisting that the Lebanese army serves as a valuable “counterweight” to Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon.
“US support to the LAF reinforces the LAF as an important institutional counterweight to Hezbollah, which receives weapons, training, and financial support from Iran,” the State Department wrote. “The LAF continues to be an independent, non-sectarian institution in Lebanon, and is respected across all sectors.”
Critics have noted that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 and is the basis for the current ceasefire, failed to disarm Hezbollah, with the terrorist group becoming more powerful despite the presence of the LAF and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Nonetheless, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) applauded the Biden administration’s announcement, arguing that the diversion of funds to Lebanon helps bolster American priorities in the region.
“Our military aid should advance US values and national security interests in the Middle East — not reflexively reward the Egyptian government, despite its failures to meet human rights conditions set by Congress,” Murphy said.
However, Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, argued that shifting money toward the LAF was ill-advised.
“If we actually saw the LAF take on Hezbollah, there might be value in this support, but right now, we are throwing away taxpayer money to a Hezbollah enabler. Egypt should be pressured to do much more to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, but moving money from a Hamas enabler to a Hezbollah enabler makes no sense,” Goldberg said in a statement.
The post Biden Administration Shifts $100 Million in US Military Aid From Israel and Egypt to Lebanon first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Minister of Culture Urges FIFA to Remove Senior PA Official for Inciting Terrorism Against Israel
Palestinian Football Association head Jibril Rajoub speaks during a press conference regarding the cancellation of the soccer match between Argentina and Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, June 6, 2018. Photo: Flash90.
Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar called on Tuesday for FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, to remove Jibril Rajoub as president of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) for inciting, justifying, and supporting violence against Israel.
Zohar wrote in a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino that Rajoub’s alleged incitement to violence is a “blatant infringement of the core values that international sports aim to promote — values of peace, unity, and mutual respect.” He urged Infantino and the FIFA Executive Committee to act swiftly and expel Rajoub from his senior position.
“There is no place for individuals who incite or support terrorism and violence within sports institutions,” he added. “His continued membership in senior roles within the sports world undermines public trust and sends a dangerous message — that the platform of sports can be exploited for political agendas and the promotion of hatred and violence … It is our collective responsibility to ensure that sports remain a unifying force that brings people together, rather than a stage for incitement and terror. I trust in your leadership and in FIFA’s commitment to upholding the integrity of international sports, and I am confident that you will act to safeguard its moral future.”
Zohar noted in his letter that following the Hamas-led deadly terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023 — in which 1,200 people were murdered and over 250 were kidnapped – Rajoub “publicly justified these acts of terror, stating that they were a ‘natural response to the occupation.’”
“He has repeated this appalling justification on several occasions,” Zohar added. He additionally pointed out that on Sunday, Rajoub made a guest appearance on television and “openly called for continued violent attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. He even encouraged the Palestinian Authority to take responsibility for overseeing such acts.”
“Tragically, within 24 hours of Mr. Rajoub’s statement, multiple terrorist attacks were carried out in Israel, resulting in the deaths of three innocent civilians: a 70-year-old woman, a 73-year-old woman, and a 35-year-old man,” Zohar explained.
Rajoub was fined and temporarily suspended by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee in 2018 for inciting hatred and violence. He received the suspension after he called on soccer fans to burn jerseys of the Argentinian Football Association as well as pictures of Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi ahead of a soccer match between Argentina and Israel. The Argentinians ultimately pulled out of the soccer game.
Since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the PFA has repeatedly called for FIFA to suspend Israel from all international soccer matches because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip, which target Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. FIFA is expected to make an announcement regarding the matter in May. A number of international soccer organizations have voiced support for the PFA’s efforts to have Israel suspended from FIFA, including the Asian Football Confederation and the Norwegian Football Association (NFF).
“The Norwegian FA is not indifferent to the disproportionate attacks Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to over time … The NFF is actively advocating for FIFA to address the Palestinian FA’s proposal for sanctions against Israel,” NFF President Lise Klaveness said in December. “We are also closer to the region and the Palestinian Football Association than most other European associations. For over 10 years we have worked on the ground in the region and the Palestinian West Bank to train female football coaches and create football activities for children in schools and refugee camps.”
Kaveness also denied reports that Norway has refused to compete against Israel.
“Israel is currently part of UEFA’s competitions. We are following the situation closely, and follow the policies set by FIFA, UEFA, and the Norwegian authorities,” Kaveness added. “This means our national team will play against Israel — in March away on a neutral pitch, and in October at home at Ullevaal Stadium. Everyone now has a clear responsibility to protect and respect the football matches and the players on both teams.”
The post Israeli Minister of Culture Urges FIFA to Remove Senior PA Official for Inciting Terrorism Against Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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