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Author Won’t Back Down After Receiving Hate for Publishing Children’s Book About Jewish Heritage Amid Gaza War
The cover of “Under the Rockets’ Glow: Shira’s Journey to Courage.” Photo: Screenshot
A first-time children’s book author who has been targeted with thousands of hate messages and negative comments and reviews online for publishing a book that highlights the Jewish people’s heritage amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war said he’s not letting the backlash have an effect on him.
“There’s Israeli soldiers who are putting their lives on the line to protect the land of Israel. If I take a little bit of heat online, it’s the least I can do if this is actually bringing value to people,” Roman Sandler, 34, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “I see the hate as kind of a corroboration that I’m on the right track because if you’re not pissing anyone off you’re not doing the right sort of thing. You’re not doing something important.”
The father of three self-published a children’s book in January titled Under the Rockets’ Glow: Shira’s Journey to Courage. It’s about a young girl named Shira and her father, who teaches her about her Jewish heritage and history, from Abraham to modern-day Israel, to help her find courage one night as rockets rain down outside her bedroom window. The story concludes with Shira falling asleep, feeling safe while dreaming about a world full of peace.
A portion of all proceeds from the book will be donated to the victims of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel, during which the terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people and took hundreds of others as hostages back to the Gaza Strip. The book is also dedicated to victims of the massacre and soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who are “currently risking their lives to defend Israel and subdue evil in our midst.”
Sandler, who lives in California with his family, told The Algemeiner that he was inspired to write the children’s book after having a hard time explaining the gravity of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war to his five-year-old daughter, and not being able to find any decent resources to help her understand the situation. The author, whose wife has Israeli roots, also wanted to help children understand “the first principles of who we are as a [Jewish] people, why we’re in Israel, our connection to the land, and why it’s worth fighting for,” he explained.
“I didn’t think I did anything that controversial,” Sandler added. “But I think that even the sole point that the Jews have a stake to the land of Israel is unfortunately a controversial point.”
In February, the children’s book garnered the attention of Jewish actress and former Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik, who praised it in an Instagram post. After the Big Bang Theory star posted about the book on social media, sales for Under the Rockets’ Glow went up tremendously, but Sandler and the book also began receiving hate messages from anti-Israel activists. The book was additionally review bombed on Amazon and Google, which dragged down its ratings, and Sandler was sent thousands of threatening messages on social media.
“I think just the fact that Mayim [Bialik] posted it as comforting to Israelis in present times just automatically to the pro-Palestinian movement makes it a bad thing because [to them], it can’t be comforting to Israelis and say the Jewish narrative without somehow infringing the Palestinian narrative,” Sandler told The Algemeiner. “I think that’s how they see it, unfortunately.”
Across TikTok, Facebook, X/Twitter, and other platforms, Sandler was called “genocidal zionist scum”; compared to Nazis; and falsely accused of promoting genocide for writing a “propaganda children’s book to indoctrinate israeli [sic] children with hateful lies, while tens of thousands of Palestinians die at the hands of this brutal illegal occupation.” His book was described as “Zionist trash” aimed at “radicalizing Jewish kids” and “glorifying ethnic cleansing.” It was also labeled as “Zionist propaganda designed to brainwash you and your little ones into supporting genocide.”
Photo: Screenshot
“Lying to kids about Israel’s barbarity is a Zionist tradition,” wrote one X user. Others encouraged pro-Palestinian individuals to leave negative reviews online for the book. However, most of the negative reviews left on the book’s Amazon page are from unverified purchases, Sandler noted, meaning they were written most likely by online users who have not even purchased and read Under the Rockets’ Glow.
Despite all the negativity that Sandler’s book has faced, many parents online have thanked him for writing a book that has helped their own children.
One Amazon reviewer, a parent from Israel, said the book has helped “comfort my children with their trauma” and “give them strength and hope” when Israel experiences rocket attacks.
“This book is beautiful and heartwarming, speaks about how we need to be brave and courageous, just like all of our Jewish ancestors as they faced similar hardships, and reminding them of our beautiful history of survival,” added the Amazon reviewer and verified purchaser. “My kids love reading it now eveynight [sic], and I often hold back tears reading it [to] them, trying to smile and be positive for them.”
“Oct. 7th is a dark day that is hard to explain to our kids,” said another reviewer and verified purchaser on Amazon. “But I think [Under the Rockets’ Glow] can give strength to the young Jewish children (and their parents!) in the US who have seen such a rise of antisemitism here that it often feels dangerous and scary. Thank you for helping provide that strength for our kids and helping them understand the Jewish people’s [connection] to the land of Israel.”
Under the Rockets’ Glow has also been praised as educational and helpful in having kids understand the Israel-Hamas war.
Photo: Screenshot
Sandler has no immediate plans to write another children’s book but is not ruling it out, despite the negativity he’s faced with his first publication. Reflecting on all the positivity surrounding Under the Rockets’ Glow, he said, “I think a lot of people are very glad this book exists, just because there is so much hate out there. [The book is] something that can say their story and provide context to their children in such hard times.”
Under the Rockets’ Glow: Shira’s Journey to Courage is available to purchase on Amazon as well as some independent Jewish bookstores in New York and Toronto, Canada.
The post Author Won’t Back Down After Receiving Hate for Publishing Children’s Book About Jewish Heritage Amid Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
The post Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
The post Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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