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Dozens of Penn professors spent the week in Israel, following their university president’s antisemitism resignation
(JTA) — After Oct. 7, Michael Kahana joined hundreds of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in signing an open letter condemning Hamas and expressing support for Israel and its right to self defense. But the psychology professor wanted to do more.
So Kahana sent an email to the 340 signatories on the letter, which came amid scathing criticism of Penn’s response to Hamas’ attack on Israel, and invited them on a trip.
This week, the 39 Penn professors who took Kahana up on the invitation spent three days traveling in Israel, in the first solidarity visit by faculty members of an Ivy League school since the outbreak of the war on Oct. 7 and the congressional hearing on campus antisemitism that led directly to the resignation of Penn’s president.
Many but not all of the professors on the trip were Jewish, and some were visiting Israel for the first time. During their 66-hour visit, they met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and families of hostages including Rachel Goldberg, the Israeli-American mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin who has emerged as a stalwart voice advocating for the more than 130 people still held by Hamas in Gaza. In what has become a new rite of passage for visitors to Israel, they also visited devastated Gaza border communities where they heard accounts from survivors and first responders, according to a statement released by the mission’s tour operator, Israel Destination.
A significant focus of the mission was meeting with academic colleagues from major Israeli institutions, the statement said, including the Hebrew University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Tel Aviv University, to allow for “deeper mutual understanding of the challenges posed to academia by war and conflict on one side, and antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments on the other.” The delegation also met with Penn alumni living in Israel and heard from Israeli officials, including Amir Yaron, the governor of the Bank of Israel who previously was a professor at Penn’s Wharton School of Business, during a banquet at Tel Aviv’s ANU Museum.
“I was truly surprised to see how much our visit meant to our Israeli colleagues and by my own overwhelming emotional response to hearing from Israelis firsthand,” cinema and media studies professor Peter Decherney, who worked with Kahana to organize the trip, said in the statement.
Professors from the University of Pennsylvania, whose president resigned amid criticism of her handling of antisemitism, pose during a visit to the Israeli presidential residence in Jerusalem, January 2024. (GPO)
The delegation took place amid a backdrop of tension at Penn, which was already embroiled in an antisemitism controversy surrounding a Palestinian writers conference on campus when Hamas attacked Israel. President Liz Magill resigned in December shortly after being called to testify before Congress about campus antisemitism — and refraining from saying that calling for the genocide of Jews was a violation of the university’s code of conduct. (Penn’s board president also resigned and has been replaced temporarily by Julie Platt, who also chairs Jewish Federations of North America.)
While the group was in Israel, a second college president who took the same stance during the congressional hearing stepped down. Harvard University’s Claudine Gay also faced allegations of plagiarism that emerged as her critics took aim following the university’s initial response to Hamas’ attack.
Kahana pointed to the global academic community’s failure to express support to Israeli academics after Oct. 7.
“Academic communities are incredibly small, tight-knit families that span the globe,” Kahana said, according to the statement. “When the horrific trauma of October 7 struck the Israeli academic community, people awaited words of comfort from their close colleagues and friends, but for many, those words did not come.”
Kahana and Decherney barely knew each other prior to organizing the trip, even though they have worked on the same campus for years. In fact, many of the Penn professors, from varied disciplines like statistics, film, and orthopedics, had never met before the mission.
Now, the professors are “returning home with a greater understanding of how the U.S. academic community can support their Israeli colleagues during this traumatic time, and with renewed vigor to withstand the antisemitism and anti-Israel feelings prevalent on campus,” the statement said.
Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, Liz Magill, president of University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee on December 5, 2023, in Washington, DC. The Committee held a hearing to investigate antisemitism on college campuses. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Decherney expressed his hope that the visit would “inspire more university communities to move past divisive cultures and come themselves.”
According to Yair Jablinowitz from Israel Destination, which specializes in educational tourism, since the Penn mission became public, the tour operator has received dozens of inquiries into similar visits from representatives at other universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — many of which are, like Penn, facing federal Department of Education investigations over their handling of antisemitism complaints.
“There is definitely now a drive to go on these types of delegations,” he told JTA. “The Penn delegation had an influence not only on the academic world in Israel and the people of Israel that they met, but also on Ivy League schools throughout North America.”
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The post Dozens of Penn professors spent the week in Israel, following their university president’s antisemitism resignation appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really?
JNS.org – If I asked you to name the most famous line in the Bible, what would you answer? While Shema Yisrael (“Hear O’Israel”) might get many votes, I imagine that the winning line would be “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). Some religions refer to it as the Golden Rule, but all would agree that it is fundamental to any moral lifestyle. And it appears this week in our Torah reading, Kedoshim.
This is quite a tall order. Can we be expected to love other people as much as we love ourselves? Surely, this is an idealistic expectation. And yet, the Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. How can His Torah be so unrealistic?
The biblical commentaries offer a variety of explanations. Some, like Rambam (Maimonides), say that the focus should be on our behavior, rather than our feelings. We are expected to try our best or to treat others “as if” we genuinely love them.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in his classic text called the Tanya, argues that the actual feelings of love are, in fact, achievable provided that we focus on a person’s spirituality rather than how they present themselves physically. If we can put the soul over the body, we can do it.
Allow me to share the interpretation of the Ramban (Nachmanides), a 13th-century Torah scholar from Spain. His interpretation of the verses preceding love thy neighbor is classic and powerful, yet simple and straightforward.
“Do not hate your brother in your heart. You shall rebuke him, but do not bear a sin because of him” by embarrassing him in public. “Do not take revenge, and do not bear a grudge against your people. You shall love your fellow as yourself, I am God” (Leviticus 19:17-18).
What is the connection between these verses? Why is revenge and grudge-bearing in the same paragraph as love your fellow as yourself?
A careful reading shows that within these two verses are no less than six biblical commandments. But what is their sequence all about, and what is the connection between them?
The Ramban explains it beautifully, showing how the sequence of verses is deliberate and highlighting the Torah’s profound yet practical advice on how to maintain healthy relationships.
Someone wronged you? Don’t hate him in your heart. Speak to him. Don’t let it fester until it bursts, and makes you bitter and sick.
Instead, talk it out. Confront the person. Of course, do it respectfully. Don’t embarrass anyone in public, so that you don’t bear a sin because of them. But don’t let your hurt eat you up. Communicate!
If you approach the person who wronged you—not with hate in your heart but with respectful reproof—one of two things will happen. Either he or she will apologize and explain their perspective on the matter. Or that it was a misunderstanding and will get sorted out between you. Either way, you will feel happier and healthier.
Then you will not feel the need to take revenge or even to bear a grudge.
Here, says the Ramban, is the connection between these two verses. And if you follow this advice, only then will you be able to observe the commandment to Love Thy Neighbor. If you never tell him why you are upset, another may be completely unaware of his or her wrongdoing, and it will remain as a wound inside you and may never go away.
To sum up: Honest communication is the key to loving people.
Now, tell me the truth. Did you know that not taking revenge is a biblical commandment? In some cultures in Africa, revenge is a mitzvah! I’ve heard radio talk-show hosts invite listeners to share how they took “sweet revenge” on someone, as if it’s some kind of accomplishment.
Furthermore, did you know that bearing a grudge is forbidden by biblical law?
Here in South Africa, people refer to a grudge by its Yiddish name, a faribel. In other countries, people call it a broiges. Whatever the terminology, the Torah states explicitly: “Thou shalt not bear a grudge!” Do not keep a faribel, a broiges or resentment of any kind toward someone you believe wronged you. Talk to that person. Share your feelings honestly. If you do it respectfully and do not demean the other’s dignity, then it can be resolved. Only then will you be able to love your fellow as yourself.
May all our grudges and feelings of resentment toward others be dealt with honestly and respectfully. May all our grudges be resolved as soon as possible. Then we will all be in a much better position to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The post Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Really? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday dismissed as nonsensical the report that President Donald Trump would endorse Palestinian statehood during his tour to the Persian Gulf this week.
“This report is nonsense,” Huckabee harrumphed on his X account, blasting the Jerusalem Post as needing better sourced reporting. “Israel doesn’t have a better friend than the president of the United States.”
Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The leader’s first trip overseas since he took office comes as Trump seeks the Gulf countries’ support in regional conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and curbing Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
However, reports citing administration insiders claimed that Trump has also set his sights on the ambitious goal of expanding the Abraham Accords. These agreements, initially signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. The accords are widely held to be among the most important achievements of the first Trump administration.
The post ‘Nonsense’: Huckabee Shoots Down Report Trump to Endorse Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – Unless significant progress is registered in Sunday’s round of nuclear talks with Iran, the US will consider putting the military option back on the table, sources close to US envoy Steve Witkoff told i24NEWS.
American and Iranian representatives voiced optimism after the previous talks that took place in Oman and Rome, saying there was a friendly atmosphere despite the two countries’ decades of enmity.
However the two sides are not believed to have thrashed out the all-important technical details, and basic questions remain.
The source has also underscored the significance of the administration’s choice of Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director, as the lead representative in the nuclear talks’ technical phases.
Anton is “an Iran expert and someone who knows how to cut a deal with Iran,” the source said, saying that the choice reflected Trump’s desire to secure the deal.
The post US to Put Military Option Back on Table If No Immediate Progress in Iran Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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