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Avi Mayer, prominent pro-Israel activist, named editor of the Jerusalem Post
(JTA) — Avi Mayer, a pro-Israel activist and communications professional with a large following on social media, has been named the next editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post.
Mayer, 38, will take over for the current editor of the 90-year-old English language newspaper in mid-April, after Passover.
“I look forward to working with the Post’s outstanding staff to continue upholding the highest standards of journalistic excellence, to offer our readers content of relevance and quality, to fortify the paper’s position as a leading media outlet in Israel and the Jewish world, and to lead it into the future,” Mayer said in a statement, according to the Post.
Mayer, who was born in New York and lives in Jerusalem, comes to the role with a background in communications and online activism rather than journalism. He most recently served as the managing director of global communications and public affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and previously served as the spokesperson for the Jewish Agency for Israel. He also served in the spokesperson’s unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Before enlisting, Mayer briefly worked for Eretz Acheret, an Israeli magazine that has ceased publication.
But Mayer is perhaps best known for his presence on Twitter, where he has more than 140,000 followers; posts a mix of news updates, advocacy for Israel and pictures of freshly-baked challah; and has clashed with anti-Israel accounts.
His appointment comes at a time of upheaval in Israel, as the country’s right-wing government pursues an overhaul of the judicial system that would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and independence. The legislation’s backers say it would give voice to the country’s right-wing majority, but it has sharply divided the country, led to mass street protests and spurred a diverse chorus of public figures to criticize the reform as a danger to Israeli democracy.
His recent posts on Israel’s current judicial crisis have mostly focused on documenting the protests, though he has expressed his opinion in Hebrew from time to time on Israeli domestic politics. Mayer tweeted the word “insane” regarding news that the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was halting a program because it was run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which Ben-Gvir called “leftist.”
And Mayer tweeted regarding Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s compromise plan on judicial reform, “The outline has been presented. The time has come for both sides to climb down from their trees and begin dialogue. Enough.” That position appears to dovetail with the Jerusalem Post’s editorial stance, which has recently criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged compromise on his coalition’s judicial overhaul.
The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was for decades the most prominent English-language newspaper published in Israel. Now it is one of several news organizations covering Israel in English, including the Times of Israel, founded by a former Jerusalem Post editor, and an English-language edition of the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz. It is owned by Eli Azur, who also owns multiple Hebrew-language outlets. In recent decades, the paper, published six days a week in print, has been seen as right-leaning, though its website touts the paper’s “centrist and pluralistic stance.”
Yaakov Katz, the outgoing editor, served in the role for seven years and will continue to write a column for the paper. Katz formerly served as the paper’s military correspondent and worked as an advisor to future Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett before becoming editor-in-chief.
The newspaper’s previous editors include Bret Stephens, who is now a conservative columnist for the New York Times, and David Horovitz, who went on to found the Times of Israel, an online competitor to the Post.
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NY State Young Republicans chapter disbanded amid racist, antisemitic chat scandal
(JTA) — New York’s state Young Republicans organization has been disbanded in the wake of leaked group chats in which officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs.
“The Young Republicans was already grossly mismanaged, and vile language of the sort made in the group chat has no place in our party or its subsidiary organizations,” New York GOP chair Ed Cox said in a statement, adding that he sent formal notice of the shutdown to the National Federation of Young Republicans.
Earlier this week, the Kansas Young Republicans club was also dissolved. The moves are meant to allow for a fresh start for the Republican Party’s youth wing in those states following a Politico exposé that published thousands of messages involving participants in multiple states.
Of them, several participants had ties to New York Republican politics. Since the reporting, some involved lost jobs or had political opportunities withdrawn.
The scandal has also fueled partisan squabbling. Amid the fallout, the Republican Jewish Coalition posted on X in response to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s criticism of GOP “silence,” writing: “We strongly condemn the comments and those involved should step aside. See how easy that is?”
The post then turned into a political attack: “Your turn @SenSchumer: condemn Jay Jones, Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and more, in your deranged, radicalized party. You won’t. Enjoy the political wilderness in the meantime!”
Republican leaders have largely denounced the messages with House Speaker Mike Johnson saying the party “roundly condemn[s]” them. Vice President J.D. Vance, however, downplayed the uproar, saying “kids do stupid things” and calling the jokes “very offensive” but not worthy of life-ruining consequences.
The people involved are largely in their 20s, and the Young Republicans aim to engage conservatives between 18 and 40.
The post NY State Young Republicans chapter disbanded amid racist, antisemitic chat scandal appeared first on The Forward.
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Palestinian man who allegedly participated in Oct. 7 attack on Israel arrested in Louisiana
(JTA) — A Palestinian man in Louisiana was arrested Thursday after federal prosecutors accused him of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, a Palestinian resident of Lafayette, Louisiana, is accused of being an operative for the National Resistance Brigades, a Gaza-based paramilitary group that took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.
“After hiding out in the United States, this monster has been found and charged with participating in the atrocities of October 7 — the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
The government’s case against Al-Muhtadi appears to represent the first arrest on U.S. soil of anyone alleged to have participated in the deadly 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people in Israel, most civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken hostage.
On that day, after Al-Muhtadi learned of the attacks, he allegedly “armed himself, recruited additional marauders, and then entered Israel,” according to a statement by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg.
According to transcripts of cell phone calls Al-Muhtadi allegedly made that morning, he told another man to “get ready” and that “the borders are open,” and later requested a “full magazine.”
Al-Muhtadi’s phone also used a cell tower located near Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel, where at least 62 residents were killed and 19 were taken hostage during the attacks, according to court documents.
He entered the United States on Sept. 12, 2024, after allegedly providing false information on his U.S. visa application to immigration authorities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
A criminal complaint against Al-Muhtadi was filed on Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, on the eve of the second anniversary of the attack. He was charged with providing, attempting to provide or conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization as well as visa fraud, according to the criminal complaint.
The arrest comes as the U.S. government seeks legal redress against those who perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which included U.S. citizens among the victims. In September 2024, the Justice Department also filed charges against six Hamas officials, including Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar shortly before he was killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.
Bondi established the Joint Task Force October 7, which the Justice Department is calling JTF 10-7, in February 2025 to investigate the attacks. The task force discovered Al-Muhtadi’s presence in the United States, according to the Justice Department’s press release, and JTF 10-7 and the FBI New Orleans Field Office are now investigating the case along with Israeli authorities.
The post Palestinian man who allegedly participated in Oct. 7 attack on Israel arrested in Louisiana appeared first on The Forward.
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Far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson visits Israel on invite of Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli
(JTA) — Far-right British agitator Tommy Robinson, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and leadership of the now-defunct extremist British Defense League, is in Israel this week on the invitation of Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli.
Together, Robinson and Chikli toured the site of the Nova music festival massacre, explored Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market on Friday morning and met with a prominent anti-immigration activist, Sheffi Paz, in Tel Aviv.
Robinson has been at the forefront of Britain’s anti-immigration movement and has also been imprisoned five times in the last 20 years for fraud, drug offenses and libeling a 15-year-old Syrian refugee. In 2023, he was arrested for attending a march against antisemitism against the wishes of the march’s Jewish organizers.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest Jewish organization in the United Kingdom, decried Chikli’s invitation in a post on X last week.
“Tommy Robinson is a thug who represents the very worst of Britain. His presence undermines those genuinely working to tackle Islamist extremism and foster community cohesion,” the group said. “Minister Chikli has proven himself to be a Diaspora Minister in name only. In our darkest hour, he has ignored the views of the vast majority of British Jews, who utterly and consistently reject Robinson and everything he stands for.”
Chikli pushed back on the Board of Deputies’ assessment, and accused them of becoming “openly aligned with left-wing, woke, pro-Palestinian parties.” (In August, the group called for a rapid increase in Gaza aid months after previously disciplining its members for signing an open letter condemning the war in Gaza.)
Now, after arriving in Israel Wednesday, Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, used the opportunity to take aim at U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I’ve arrived in the beautiful nation of Israel 🇮🇱,” wrote Robinson, who is not Jewish, in a post on X. “A country with strong, patriotic leadership in @netanyahu and his party. Unlike the weak and cowardly @Keir_Starmer and his party of wrong’uns in the UK.”
Chikli has long associated himself with far-right activists and politicians in Europe, with whom he shares an interest in opposing Muslim immigration. Earlier this year, he stirred controversy by inviting far-right leaders from Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and France to speak at Israel’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism.
On Thursday, Robinson posted an interview clip with Chikli where he asked the minister whether he believed Britain will “have to experience its own Oct. 7” in order to “realize that these terror organizations must be stopped.”
“I really hope you shouldn’t, but in order to make sure it will never happen, you need all other set of tools to address this challenge, and you need to be far, far more decisive, far, far more aggressive, and to understand that it most likely, it won’t go smooth and it won’t go quietly,” Chikli answered. “But if you won’t do it, I’m not sure there’s going to be Britain.”
Robinson posted videos showing shoppers approaching him and Chikli in Mahane Yehuda to express their support, and their opposition to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently recognized an independent Palestinian state over the objections of the organized Jewish community in Britain and the Israeli government.
“Despite @BoardofDeputies saying I wasn’t welcome, the residents of Jerusalem welcomed me with open arms,” Robinson wrote.
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