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Dueling activists clash at public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in Tel Aviv
(JTA) — Multiple dimensions of Israel’s ongoing civil strife came to a head on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, as secular activists shut down a public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in the center of Tel Aviv that had been barred by the Supreme Court.
On Yom Kippur and in the hours afterward, Israeli social media accounts filled with videos of Orthodox worshippers and secular protesters shouting epithets at each other — including several instances, from both sides, of the word “Nazi.” A far-right event is planned in the same space on Thursday, promising further fighting, and Israel’s most senior politicians have released dueling statements about the clash.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog lamented that the country appears to be torn apart again half a century after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
“I know that I speak for the absolute majority of Israeli citizens when I express deep sorrow and shock at the sight of our own people fighting one another on a day that has always been a symbol of unity,” Herzog said at a memorial ceremony for the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by contrast, took a side in the dispute, squarely blaming “extremists on the left” for the disturbance. And his political opponents took the opposite view: Benny Gantz, a centrist leader, called Netanyahu “the biggest hatemonger,” while Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai blamed the incident on “religious and messianic extremists [who] trampled on a court decision.”
The fighting surrounded an Orthodox Kol Nidre service on Sunday evening in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square — a religious event that has taken place annually for several years in the heart of Israel’s largely secular metropolis. This year, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the organizers of the service could not erect a divider to separate between men and women — known as a mechitzah — in a public square.
But the organizing group, known as Rosh Yehudi, defied the order and proceeded with the prayer service anyway, setting up a makeshift divider made of Israeli flags. Secular protesters — including many from the mass protest movement that has mounted weekly demonstrations against the right-wing government all year — also showed up to rally against the event. The protesters chanted “Shame,” a cry that has become a mainstay of the antigovernment protests, and the prayer service came to a halt. A similar clash, with a similar result, occurred on Monday.
The incident has become a Rorschach test in Israel, which has grown deeply divided over Netanyahu’s effort to weaken the Supreme Court and has also erupted recently over increasing efforts to impose Orthodox standards of dress and conduct on women in public spaces. The Yom Kippur event was a confluence of the two: a moment when an Orthodox group ignored a Supreme Court decision and established a gender-segregated space in the central square of a largely non-Orthodox city.
For Netanyahu and others on the right, the incident is further evidence that Israel’s Supreme Court functions as a left-wing activist body that is out of touch with Israel’s population, and that the protest movement has resorted to violent tactics in its antipathy toward traditionally observant Jews.
“The Jewish people wanted to unite on Yom Kippur to ask for forgiveness, atonement and unity among us,” Netanyahu posted. “To our astonishment, in the Jewish state of all places, on the holiest day for the Jewish people, left-wing protesters disturbed Jews in their moment of prayer. It seems there are no boundaries, norms or limits to the hate of the left-wing extremists. I, like most Israeli citizens, reject that. There’s no place for such violent conduct among us.”
For Netanyahu’s opponents, by contrast, Sunday’s scuffle was a moment that demonstrated what his government is trying to achieve: a state where court orders carry no force, and where exclusionary religious practices will be imposed on formerly secular public spaces. A flier that was taped to the center of Dizengoff Square admonished visitors to respect the area’s secular culture, in an imitation of fliers in Orthodox neighborhoods warning visitors to adhere to standards of modest dress.
In the past, “no one sought to coerce their form of Judaism on the other,” Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, said in a statement. “Until messianic, racist cohorts came here, who are trying to coerce their version of Judaism upon us.”
The fight appears to be far from over. On Tuesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, announced that he and other activists from his Jewish Power party will come to Dizengoff Square to hold another Orthodox prayer service. In his statement, he issued an open challenge to the city’s secular protesters.
“I and other members of Jewish Power will come to the same place on this coming Thursday to pray the evening service,” he posted. “Let’s see you try to kick us out.”
Gilad Kariv, an opposition lawmaker and Reform rabbi, appeared to take up the challenge, likening Ben-Gvir to the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a former mentor of the far-right minister.
“Just as we stood against his spiritual father Meir Kahane 35 years ago every time he tried to speak in Tel Aviv, so we will stand against him,” Kariv wrote.
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The post Dueling activists clash at public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US House Members Ask Marco Rubio to Bar Turkey From Rejoining F-35 Program
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers is pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law.
Members of Congress on Thursday warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia. The letter pointed to Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite repeated US warnings, as the central reason Turkey was expelled from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The S-400 poses a direct threat to US aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35,” the lawmakers wrote. “If operated alongside these platforms, it risks exposing sensitive military technology to Russian intelligence.”
The group of signatories, spanning both parties, stressed that Turkey still possesses the Russian weapons systems and has shown “no willingness to comply with US law.” They urged Rubio and the Trump administration to uphold the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and maintain Ankara’s exclusion from the F-35 program until the S-400s are fully removed.
The letter comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington have begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Lawmakers argued that reversing course now would undermine both US credibility and allied confidence in American defense commitments. They also warned it could disrupt development of the next-generation fighter jet announced by the administration earlier this year.
“This is not a partisan issue,” the letter emphasized. “We must continue to hold allies and adversaries alike accountable when their actions threaten US interests.”
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US Lawmakers Urge Treasury to Investigate Whether Irish Bill Targeting Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law
A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
A group of US lawmakers is calling on the Treasury Department to investigate and potentially penalize Ireland over proposed legislation targeting Israeli goods, warning that the move could trigger sanctions under longstanding US anti-boycott laws.
In a letter sent on Thursday to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 16 Republican members of Congress expressed “serious concerns” about Ireland’s recent legislative push to ban trade with territories under Israeli administration, including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), called for the US to “send a clear signal” that any attempts to economically isolate Israel will “carry consequences.”
The Irish measure, introduced by Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris, seeks to prohibit the import of goods and services originating from what the legislation refers to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” including Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters say the bill aligns with international law and human rights principles, while opponents, including the signatories of the letter, characterize it as a direct extension of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward the destruction of the world’s lone Jewish state.
Some US lawmakers have also described the Irish bill as an example of “antisemitic hate” that could risk hurting relations between Dublin and Washington.
“Such policies not only promote economic discrimination but also create legal uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland,” the lawmakers wrote in this week’s letter, urging Bessent to determine whether Ireland’s actions qualify as participation in an “unsanctioned international boycott” under Section 999 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the Ribicoff Amendment.
Under that statute, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that pressure companies to comply with international boycotts not sanctioned by the US. Inclusion on the list carries tax-reporting burdens and possible penalties for American firms and individuals doing business in those nations.
“If the criteria are met, Ireland should be added to the boycott list,” the letter said, arguing that such a step would help protect US companies from legal exposure and reaffirm American opposition to economic efforts aimed at isolating Israel.
Legal experts have argued that if the Irish bill becomes law, it could chase American capital out of the country while also hurting companies that do business with Ireland. Under US law, it is illegal for American companies to participate in boycotts of Israel backed by foreign governments. Several US states have also gone beyond federal restrictions to pass separate measures that bar companies from receiving state contracts if they boycott Israel.
Ireland has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel on the international stage since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, leading the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
Last year, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, a decision that Israel described as a “reward for terrorism.”
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US Families File Lawsuit Accusing UNRWA of Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
American families of victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have filed a lawsuit against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing the organization of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing material support to the Islamist terror groups behind the deadly assaults.
Last week, more than 200 families filed a lawsuit in a Washington, DC district court accusing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing funding and support to Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
The lawsuit alleges that UNRWA employs staff with direct ties to the Iran-backed terror group, including individuals allegedly involved in carrying out attacks against the Jewish state.
However, UNRWA has firmly denied the allegations, labeling them as “baseless” and condemning the lawsuit as “meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible.”
According to the organization, the lawsuit is part of a wider campaign of “misinformation and lawfare” targeting its work in the Gaza Strip, where it says Palestinians are enduring “mass, deliberate and forced starvation.”
The UN agency reports that more than 150,000 donors across the United States have supported its programs providing food, medical aid, education, and trauma assistance in the war-torn enclave amid the ongoing conflict.
In a press release, UNRWA USA affirmed that it will continue its humanitarian efforts despite facing legal challenges aimed at undermining its work.
“Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we,” the statement read.
Last year, Israeli security documents revealed that of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, 440 were actively involved in Hamas’s military operations, with 2,000 registered as Hamas operatives.
According to these documents, at least nine UNRWA employees took part directly in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Israeli officials also uncovered a large Hamas data center beneath UNRWA headquarters, with cables running through the facility above, and found that Hamas also stored weapons in other UNRWA sites.
The UN agency has also aligned with Hamas in efforts against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terror activities and selling them at inflated prices.
These Israeli intelligence documents also revealed that a senior Hamas leader, killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024, had served as the head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, where Lebanon is based,
UNRWA’s education programs have been found by IMPACT-se, an international organization that monitors global education, to contribute to the radicalization of younger generations of Palestinians.