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BDS Activists Push False ‘Genocide’ Charge to Attack Israel

A pro-BDS demonstration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Activists of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement spent much of January engaging in disruptive protests aimed at institutions accused of supporting Israel. Accusations that Israel is undertaking “genocide” against the Palestinians have become standard, and were boosted by the spurious case brought against Israel brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice.

Protestors have blocked bridges, highways, tunnels, train stations, airport access roads, and other transportation infrastructure in major cities around the country. Disrupting travelers in major cities such as Chicago, Seattle, and New York has been a goal, along with tourist attractions such as Disneyland. Egregiously, the entrance to the Los Angeles National Cemetery was vandalized with the words “Free Gaza.” The most dangerous incident involved releasing balloons at Kennedy Airport with the intent of disrupting flight operations.

Few arrests were made and no prosecutions appear forthcoming. Police and prosecutors are unwilling or unable to exert control over the pro-Hamas mobs. This was viscerally demonstrated as protestors attempted to swarm the White House, throwing bottles at police, yelling “fuck Joe Biden,” and destroying an outer fence. Biden was also heckled during an appearance at a Charleston church while in Dallas protestors tried to storm the tarmac and surround Air Force One.

A new lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration has instructed Federal law enforcement to refrain from investigating pro-Hamas protests in order to not offend the American Muslim community.

The “Flood Manhattan for Gaza MLK Day March for Healthcare” — simultaneously usurping the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and mimicking the name of Hamas’ October 7 invasion of Israel, “Al-Aqsa Flood” — was a notable example of the protests. Later in January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day was similarly hijacked with protests and marches, but New York police shut down an attempt to blockade Kennedy Airport.

The larger focus of unified anti-Israel/anti-capitalism protests was made clear by a speaker at “The People’s Forum” in New York City who stated: “When we finally deal that final blow to destroy Israel, when the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism.”

The unification of BDS, Islamist, and communist/antifa groups (called in Europe the “red-green alliance”), including groups which share toolkits, talking points, and organizing advice on anti-Israel and anti-capitalist issues, raises the question of which faction is charge.

On college campuses, faculty members remain at the forefront of supporting BDS and Hamas:

At Columbia University, a new branch of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine was formed under the aegis of the BDS movement. Another branch formed at Harvard University pledged “to support, defend, and protect our students, faculty, staff, and all Harvard affiliates organizing for Palestinian human rights, justice, and peace in Palestine/Israel.”
A University of Pennsylvania “Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine” group condemned the university’s “one sided rhetoric” on the Gaza war, alleged outside interference, and said that the “the movement for justice in Palestine has become crucial to the defense of academic freedom.” The group also held a “die-in” on the steps of a university building.
Individual faculty members at Cornell University, the University of California at Irvine, and other institutions canceled classes in solidarity with the “Global Strike for Palestine.”
The union representing York University’s teaching assistants distributed a toolkit instructing them to “collectively divert this week’s tutorials to teaching on Palestinian liberation,” which denounces “Zionist cultural institutions, and accuses the university of complicity in “genocide.”
The University of Michigan faculty senate passed a resolution calling on the institution from to divest from corporations “with financial ties to Israel’s military,” but did not call for ties to be cut with Israeli universities.

The massive upswing in expressions of antisemitism from medical professionals, including in journals and on social media, intensified in January. The leading example was Rupa Marya, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who stated that, “The presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity.” She was quickly condemned by her university.

On campus, Students for Justice in Palestine’ (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters also continue to be a focal point for BDS related antisemitism:

The Rutgers University SJP chapter had its suspension lifted and immediately held a press conference in which three masked members demanded the university cut ties with Israel, acknowledge the “Palestinian genocide,” and establish a variety of Palestinian educational and cultural programs.
The Columbia University SJP and JVP chapters remain suspended but are operating on campus unhindered. Columbia protestors also claim to have been sprayed with noxious chemicals during an unauthorized campus rally.
The University of Wisconsin’s Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return (SUPER) held a campus prayer vigil, “Honoring Our Martyrs.” A petition also demanded the university rename the main Golda Meir Library, described by a pro-BDS protestor as “a Zionist known for her crimes against Palestine.”
Protestors at Stanford University disrupted a session on antisemitism led by the university president and provost, which featured Israeli envoy Michal Cotler-Wunsh. Students who attended reported threats and insults including, “We’re going to find out where you live,” “Go back to Brooklyn,” and “Our next generation will ensure Israel falls, and America too, the other terrorists” from pro-Hamas protestors.

Pro-Hamas campus vandalism was reported at Princeton University and Boston University, while reports of campus antisemitism and harassment increased, including at the New School and the University of Michigan where Jewish students were called “kikes” and “dirty Jews” by pro-Hamas activists. Pro-Hamas students at New York University distributed an email designed to appear like an official university communication. At the University of Central Florida, a Palestinian-American student was arrested for threatening to shoot three Jewish students.

The spread of BDS, pro-Hamas and anti-capitalist ideology in K-12 education was further documented in January. The problem was illustrated in New York City where controversy emerged regarding a map of the Middle East displayed in an elementary school classroom that labeled the region the “Arab World” and displayed Israel as “Palestine.” The map was part of an “Arab Culture Arts” program funded by the Qatar Foundation International and taught by a Palestinian-American teacher.

It was also revealed that two New York city elementary school teachers used the song “Wheels on the Bus” to indoctrinate students: “The bombs in the air go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, all through the skies. From every river to every sea the people cry, cry, cry. Free Palestine till the wheels on the tanks fall off.” The song comes from a “Woke Kindergarten” curriculum which describes Israel as a “made up place” with “settlers called Zionists who are harming and killing the Palestinian people.”

Evidence continues to emerge detailing how “ethnic studies” programs claiming that Israel is the epitome of “racism and colonialism” are already being taught in California schools. A new report indicates that high school teachers are describing Palestine as “Arab lands currently occupied by Israel,” Hamas as “a political party which is continuing to fight against Israel,” Gaza as “an open air prison,” and Jesus as having lived in “Palestine.”

The role of teachers in disseminating anti-Israel ideologies had been highlighted when the Oakland Educators Association issued a statement in October condemning the “75 year long illegal military occupation of Palestine” and calling Israel “apartheid state” employing “genocidal rhetoric and policies.” Since then, reports have emerged that dozens of Jewish families have withdrawn children from the public schools, citing safety fears and evidence of anti-Israel bias, including “Free Palestine” posters in elementary school classrooms.

Other reports have documented the involvement of well-known BDS activists in Bay Area schools including teach-ins and teacher trainings sponsored by the Middle East Children’s Alliance and CAIR. In response to complaints, the US Department of Education has launched investigations of the San Francisco and Oakland school districts.

The continuing impact of the Gaza War was also seen in city council resolutions calling for a ceasefire, such as in San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Minneapolis, after raucous debates which featured overt antisemitism and support for Hamas. The Burlington (VT) city council, however, voted against a resolution that would have put a referendum condemning “Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation” on the November ballot.

Reports indicate that these resolutions are often brought about with the help of pro-Palestinian activists and by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) representatives who use anti-Israel politics as an entryist tactic to gain local legitimacy and votes. More pernicious resolutions were introduced in local school boards, including Ann Arbor, and were supported by demands especially from Arab and Muslim Americans that local schools teach about the conflict.

At the international level, reports indicate that Israel is facing a silent boycott by shipping companies due to Houthi attacks from Yemen on commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea.

Calls for Israel to be banned from international sports and cultural life have also dramatically increased:

Icelandic and Nordic artists have demanded that Israel be banned from the Eurovision song contest.
The International Ice Hockey Federation banned Israeli participation on the basis of “safety,” but then reversed its stance after threats of lawsuits and pressure from the National Hockey League.
An Israeli playing for a Turkish soccer team was arrested, fired, and then fled after displaying a message in support of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.
Fearing backlash, a South African cricket squad removed a Jewish player from the captaincy after he expressed support for Israel. A South African sportswear manufacturer then stated it would not sponsor any games in which the player participated.
Reports indicate that international and US television development projects involving Israelis have slowed or been halted.

While polls continue to show strong support for Israel in the US, with some 80% of Americans backing Israel in its war against Hamas, this figure drops to only 43% of 18-24 year olds. In Britain, one third of the public believes Israel treats Palestinians worse than the Nazis treated Jews, a belief shared by half of 18-24 year olds, while 20% of the public believes that Jews control the media. These and other classically antisemitic concepts form part of the background to reports on soaring rates of antisemitic incidents including bomb threats and violence.

The author is a contributor to SPME, where a version of this article first appeared.

The post BDS Activists Push False ‘Genocide’ Charge to Attack Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Brooklyn Woman Denied Bail, Claims She Didn’t Kill Anyone in Car Crash That Killed Jewish Mother, Two Daughters

An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

A Brooklyn woman denied killing anyone when she appeared in court on Thursday, less than a week after a Jewish woman and her two daughters died when she crashed her car into them at a crosswalk.

Miriam Yarimi, 32, appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court via a video stream from her room in NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, according to the New York Daily News. She is undergoing a psychological evaluation at the hospital following Saturday’s deadly car crash.

After the crash, Yarimi told first responders she was “possessed” and believed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was following her. She has made similar claims about being pursued by the CIA on social media several times in the past, The Algemeiner previously reported.

Yamini, who is also Jewish, faces a slew of charges that include three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault.

“The devil is in my eyes. I am haunted inside. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. Prove it. Show me the proof. You have no proof,” Yarimi said in a statement after Saturday’s crash, according to Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Nocella. “I need CT scans in my eyes. I need to get the scanning done now … Where’s my daughter? My daughter’s always in my heart.”

“People are out to get me,” added the single mother. “I need CT scans on my entire body. F— you. I need a whole work up to get whatever is in my body out of it. I did not hurt anyone. All the evidence is on my phone.”

Nocella called Yamini a flight risk and asked the judge that she be held without bail due to the “nature and severity” of the allegations, as reported by the Daily News. Judge Jevet Johnson agreed with Nocella and ordered Yamini to be held without bail. Nocella said prosecutors are prepared to present grand jury indictment on the manslaughter charges.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his administration is “committed” to taking more action to prevent traffic violence and deaths following the fatal car crash that killed Natasha Saada, 35, along with her daughters Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5. Saada’s 4-year-old son Philip was injured in the crash and is still being hospitalized in critical condition.

Adams’ office announced on Wednesday that there were 41 traffic deaths during the first three months of 2025 — 24 fewer than last year and the second fewest since they started being recorded by the city. Despite the decline in traffic deaths, Adams admitted that more work needs to be done to keep New Yorkers safe on the streets, as evident by Saturday’s deadly car crash.

“In order to make New York City the best place to raise a family, we need to be safer at every level — including on our streets,” he said in a released statement on Wednesday. “Our administration’s investments in intersection safety improvements, treating traffic violence as the serious crime that it is, and our expanding automated camera enforcement are all helping ensure we’re leading the way toward a safer future for all New Yorkers — whether they are pedestrians, cyclists, or motorists.”

“We understand there is more work to do, as evidenced this past weekend’s tragic crash in Brooklyn because one lift [sic] lost to traffic violence is one life too many, but our administration remains committed to reducing traffic violence as much as any other form of violence,” Adams added.

On Saturday afternoon, Yarimi crashed her car into an Uber and then slammed into four members of the Saada family as they were trying to walk across the street at an intersection on Ocean Parkway in Midwood.

Yarimi was speeding at the time of the incident, “probably doing close to twice the speed limit,” and “ran a red light” just before the crash, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez revealed on Wednesday while speaking to Eyewitness News. Yamini was also driving on a suspended license and has accumulated almost 100 parking and camera violations, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets.

“It actually exceeds just being reckless, it’s almost being wanton, we’re not going to tolerate that,” Gonzalez told Eyewitness News. “Her vehicle had been ticketed many times by red light cameras and speed cameras, that car was a frequent violator of both speed laws and red-light laws, and there is no excuse for running a red light.”

Saada and her daughters were buried in Israel this week. Four-year-old Philip remains at the hospital for his injuries and is facing “tough straights,” Gonzalez said. “We expect him to make some kind of recovery, but it’s going to be a long road for him.”

The boy lost one of his kidneys during treatment at Maimonides Medical Center, according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “It’s heartbreaking,” Lander said after he visited the home of the Saada family, according to the New York Post. “He’s still in critical condition. He lost one kidney but they are hopeful about his prognosis.”

Five people in the Uber hit by Yarimi’s car suffered minor injuries.

Supporters of a proposed state law that would stop repeat super speeders in New York have rallied together since the car accident on Saturday, calling for the passage of the bill that they said could have prevented the crash. The legislation would require speed limiters to be installed on vehicles owned by repeat reckless drivers, like Yarimi. The device automatically limits the vehicles to within 5 mph of the legal speed of the road. The “Stop Super Speeders” bill was sponsored by New York State Assembly Member Emily Gallagher and Senator Andrew Gounardes.

The New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander, supports the bill and criticized Adams for not already implementing such measures.

The post Brooklyn Woman Denied Bail, Claims She Didn’t Kill Anyone in Car Crash That Killed Jewish Mother, Two Daughters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hungary Announces Withdrawal From ‘Political’ ICC as Netanyahu Visits Country, Defying Arrest Warrant

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to the media next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Hungary on Thursday announced that it will withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the country welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the capital city of Budapest, defying an ICC arrest warrant against him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

Despite Hungary’s status as a signatory of the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, Netanyahu was not taken into custody upon his arrival in Budapest. Instead, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed his Israeli counterpart with full military honors.

Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary, which is scheduled to last until Sunday, is his first trip to Europe since the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him last year. In February, he made his first foreign trip altogether since the ICC’s decision to the United States, where he met with US President Donald Trump.

As Orban and Netanyahu met to discuss regional developments and bilateral cooperation, Hungarian Minister Gergely Gulyas released a statement announcing that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure” from the ICC, which could take a year or more to complete.

After their meeting, Orban said he believes the ICC is “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

“I am convinced that this otherwise important international judicial forum has been degraded into a political tool, with which we cannot and do not want to engage,” Orban said during a press conference.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised Budapest’s decision to withdraw from the international court, highlighting the country’s “strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty.”

“I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC,” Saar wrote in a post on X. “The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense.”

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased 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 until a recently imposed blockade had provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout the war. Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged 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.

After the court issued the warrant against Netanyahu, Orban rejected the decision by inviting the Israeli leader to Budapest and accusing the court of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”

During Thursday’s news conference, Netanyahu commended Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC, calling it a “bold and principled action” as “the first state that walks out of this corruption and this rottenness.”

“The ICC directs its actions against us fighting a just war with just means,” Netanyahu said. “I think [this decision will] be deeply appreciated, not only in Israel but in many, many countries around the world.”

After the Israeli leader was welcomed in Budapest, Hamas issued a statement calling on the Hungarian government to reverse its decision and extradite Netanyahu to the ICC to stand trial, calling the decision an “immoral stance that shows collusion with a war criminal who is running away from justice.”

In a post on X, Israel’s top diplomat reiterated his support for Hungary’s decision, arguing that Hamas’s statement only proves the country is taking the correct stance in this matter.

“Whoever needed further proof as to how justified, moral and necessary Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC is: Hamas just condemned it,” Saar wrote.

“Hamas is defending the politicized and twisted so-called ‘International Criminal Court.’ And that’s the whole story.”

After the ICC’s decision to issue the warrants, several countries, including Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, France, and Italy, have said they would not arrest Netanyahu if he visited.

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 on Oct. 7, 2o23.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. 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 Hungary Announces Withdrawal From ‘Political’ ICC as Netanyahu Visits Country, Defying Arrest Warrant first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Individualism Will Not Work, But Solidarity Must

The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

During the events of Purim, Haman approached King Xerxes I and said, “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So, it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.”

Queen Esther’s solidarity with her dispersed people in Persia, and her profound loyalty to her Jewish identity, saved them from Haman’s genocide and secured their self-defense when she courageously revealed her heritage to Xerxes I.

Today, Israeli Jews are once again fighting for their Jewish and Zionist survival. Since Oct. 7, 2023, this Jewish Armageddon has extended anew to Diaspora Jews, who have felt the past’s chilling draft. Antisemitism has reawakened, infecting non-Jews and Jews alike. Few people contribute to antisemitic attitudes more than “self-loathing” Jews. These “self-loathing” Jews, who cynically reveal only the negative aspects of their Jewishness, believe they can avoid antisemitic attacks if they condemn Israel. But they achieve only self-betrayal, gaining neither acceptance nor respect from those who hate all Jews. Jews are a nation of people who question, not people who answer.

Questions pervade the Jewish mind to such a degree that the adage, “two Jews, three opinions,” has become a common characteristic of Jewish identity. Moreover, the pursuit of an answer often serves as a springboard for further inquiry. For us, as Jews, the ultimate answer, akin to the messianic ideal, remains a distant, undefined future. This traditional perspective has granted Jews a sort of perpetual license to disagree. Jews enjoy engaging in debate with others, but they sometimes find particular delight in debating amongst themselves, which allows their intellects to roam and their sardonic wit to playfully engage with each other’s vulnerabilities, finding humor without causing offense.

This love for discourse, for questioning everything in sight, including Hashem himself, is by no means the only puzzle that makes up our Jewish identity. Another crucial element of our makeup is solidarity. In times of major upheavals, we have always stood together against the masses who rose against us. To our enemies, we Jews — atheists, nihilists, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Haredi, religious Zionists, non-religious Zionists, or undecided — look, taste, and feel the same. They care nothing for our ingrained liberalism. Our enemies seek cracks within our communities in order to break us apart and cause irreparable damage.

Years of relative peace and prosperity since the Holocaust have allowed us to gather again and engage in countless polemics over the fate of Israel, Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. However, we have failed to notice that we are at war again, and that our enemies eagerly exploit the divisions within a nation that comprises only 0.2% of the world’s population. These enemies — radical Islamists and progressive Western leftists who view Jews and Israel as white oppressors and colonizers — avidly listen to Jewish internal squabbles and criticisms of the Israeli government.

Despite the significant progress the Shin Bet and IDF have made in dismantling much of Hamas’s leadership and terrorist infrastructure, destroying its complex network of tunnels and command centers, and weakening Hezbollah, in addition to eliminating tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists, many Jews remain critical of, and disagree with, what Israel represents today. Aware of government problems, Israelis desire improvement. However, their rage and almost addictive pattern of anti-government protests have provided their adversaries with more opportunities to exploit perceived weaknesses.

This has resonated with some Jews worldwide. In New York, some Jewish intellectuals have defended “free-Palestine” and pro-Hamas protesters harassing Jewish students, invoking freedom of speech. They appear to have fallen prey to what they perceive as the lies of progressive anti-Zionist media, which systemically omits crucial facts about Israel. This includes the IDF’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties, and its role in eliminating thousands of Hamas terrorists and dismantling their terror network, which posed a significant threat to Israel (and innocent Palestinians themselves).

These “romantic” progressive Jews also forget that no matter how critical they are of that “brutal” IDF, it is still fighting on their behalf, because it is fighting on behalf of every Jew. Civilian deaths do occur, but they are either unfortunate incidents of war or, more often, a direct result of Hamas’s cruelty, as Hamas terrorists purposefully embed themselves within the civilian population. I once sat at dinner in Israel with a wealthy American Jewish couple who came on a sympathy tour a few months after Oct. 7. Nevertheless, the husband was convinced that the IDF was deliberately killing Palestinian children.

Those were wealthy, educated American Jews who thought they were charitable because they donated to Jewish causes, and therefore, believed they had the right to express their views on everything. This is where I, a Soviet Jew who grew up deprived of Judaism yet targeted by antisemitism, felt differently. To begin with, the husband was completely wrong. Second, in times of existential crisis, we, as Jewish people, must set aside our irresistible urge to disagree and criticize Israel on basic premises such as Israel’s fight to ensure Jews don’t live through a second genocide. The freedom to speak our minds has been ours for thousands of years. We conversed with Hashem, we obeyed Him, we sacrificed for Him, and then we quickly learned to disobey and question Him, even before we began arguing amongst ourselves.

Still, throughout our dotted and punctured history, it wasn’t our tongues or our disagreeable minds that kept our small nation together; it was our solidarity. In solidarity, we walked out of Egypt. In solidarity, tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews came to their promised land as early as the 1920s and began to build from nothing. In solidarity with his orphans, Dr. Janusz Korczak, despite being given the chance to save himself, chose to march with them, hand in hand, through the ghetto to the deportation point, on their way to Treblinka, where they met their final hour. In solidarity with other Jews across the Soviet Empire, Soviet Jews secretly tried to remember who they were, despite years of persecutions and purges.

In solidarity with their Soviet brethren, powerful American Jewry fought for Russian Jews to be able to emigrate to Israel and the United States. One of the main reasons our small nation has not disappeared into the abyss is because, in Diaspora, across oceans, and through impenetrable iron curtains, we never ceased to support one another. We knew we could not afford the luxury of neglecting our faith, traditions, and, most importantly, we could never abandon defending ourselves against our enemies.

Caesar’s “Divide et impera” (“Divide and Conquer”), though a cliché, is particularly relevant here. Seeing fractures within our communities, our enemies have intensified these divisions through incessant anti-Zionist and antisemitic propaganda and violence. Therefore, only as an undivided people, united by a single purpose — eradicating our enemies and protecting our promised land — do we stand a chance of survival. Perhaps only then will the day come when Jewish people gather on virtual street corners to argue and ask questions to which they seek no answers.

Anya Gillinson is an immigration lawyer and author of the new memoir Dreaming in Russian. She lives in New York City. More at www.anyagillinson.com.

The post Jewish Individualism Will Not Work, But Solidarity Must first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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