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Far-right Israeli minister urges loyalty as his US visit draws protests, boycotts and arrests
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For more than a week, American Jewish groups have debated how and whether to welcome Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, as he visits Washington, D.C.
On Sunday night, that debate culminated in protests, arrests, boycotts — and a speech by Smotrich urging American Jews to remain loyal to the Jewish state.
Inside the Grand Hyatt Washington, Smotrich spoke to Israel Bonds, a U.S. organization that encourages investment in Israel. In the lobby of the hotel, left-wing groups protested, sang songs and, in some cases, were escorted out in handcuffs. And outside the hotel, in the cold rain, hundreds of liberal Jews gathered to declare their dedication to the Jewish community — and to protest Smotrich and Israel’s government.
“This is a moral emergency,” said Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, in a speech at the protest. “We must name this deep pain that so many of us feel for what’s happening in Israel right now, a place that we love. It is with that love that we come here tonight, standing with our Israeli siblings, saying there is nothing normal, nothing acceptable about this moment.”
The Israeli government is advancing legislation that would transform Israel’s system of government and has drawn sweeping protests across the country as well as concern by foreign investors and financial watchdogs. But little sense of emergency was present in the remarks given by Smotrich, who called on his audience to stay the course. The event was closed to press.
“This moment in the history of Israel is a miracle,” he said in remarks released by his office. “And for more than 70 years, Israel Bonds investors like you have helped make our Jewish State a reality. But, there is still work to be done, so don’t stop investing!”
Outside the conference room where Smotrich spoke, the left-wing Jewish group IfNotNow protested by singing and reciting maariv, the Jewish evening prayers. The group said seven of its members were arrested by police. The anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace also protested.
The dueling speeches and actions on Sunday came at a time when even the staunchest advocates for Israel are publicly criticizing its government. They serve as the latest evidence that the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is upending the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel like no government before it.
Much of the criticism has surrounded the government’s signature legislative effort, which would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and independence. And a fresh round of criticism came this month after Smotrich called for a Palestinian village to be wiped out — a statement he has since walked back repeatedly and at length, including during his Israel Bonds address. In the past, Smotrich has also made statements denigrating LGBTQ people and Arabs.
Major Jewish establishment organizations and leaders, once loath to publicly criticize Israel, are expressing alarm about the judicial legislation as well as Smotrich’s incendiary rhetoric. They are watching as the country is roiled by frequent massive demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets.
That criticism has manifested itself in a widespread boycott of Smotrich’s visit — a change of pace for Jewish organizations that are generally eager to meet with senior Israeli officials. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is snubbing Smotrich, and so is the Biden administration. His only known quasi-governmental interaction this week will be a guided tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Aside from his Israel Bonds appearance, Smotrich is meeting with officials from just two Jewish organizations, the Orthodox Union and the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, one of the few U.S. groups to support the judicial reform.
“The hateful views long expressed by Minister Smotrich are abhorrent, are opposed by a majority of Israeli citizens, and run contrary to Jewish values,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said in a statement. “No public servant should ever condone or incite hatred or hate-motivated violence, and when they do, they will be fiercely condemned by a wide swath of American Jewry.”
Those comments were echoed by the speakers at the protest outside the Grand Hyatt, which was organized by an array of progressive Jewish groups. Despite their attitude toward the Israeli official speaking inside the hotel, the event was suffused with patriotic fervor, with piles of Israeli flags for protesters to wave. It finished with a rendition of the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikvah.”
“Anybody who has authority in the community has to be ne’eman, to be faithful, has to be somebody who the community can trust like Moshe,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, using the Hebrew name for Moses and quoting a rabbinic teaching.
Jacobs, who is a longtime proponent of curbing Americans’ giving to right-wing extremist groups in Israel, went on: “We’re here to say that the current leadership of Israel — including, of course, Bezalel Smotrich, speaking inside this hotel — they are not ne’eman, they are not people we can trust, they are not people who are leading Israel in the right direction.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich addresses Israel Bonds in Washington D.C., March 12, 2023. (Office of the Finance Minister)
Smotrich emphasized the same themes — Jewish unity and mutual responsibility — but toward different ends. He thanked his audience of investors in Israel bonds “for the unquestionable connection between Israel and Diaspora Judaism.”
“We must not forget that we are brothers,” he said. “Despite all of the differences, despite the many colors that make up the Jewish mosaic, we are one.”
He also once again apologized for his call to “wipe out” Huwara, a Palestinian West Bank village where Israeli settlers rioted recently after a Palestinian gunman there killed two Israelis. He said his words “created a completely mistaken impression.”
“I want to say a few words about the elephant in the room,” Smotrich said. “I stand before you now as always committed to the security of the state of Israel, to our shared values, and to the highest moral commitment of our armed forces to protect every innocent life, Jew or Arab.”
If anyone is finding new allies, it is not Smotrich but his opponents, who run the gamut from the Jewish left to once-reliable mainstays of the right. Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate, Republican kingmaker and pro-Israel donor Sheldon Adelson, said on Sunday that Netanyahu’s rush to enact judicial reform was “hasty, injudicious and irresponsible.”
Those changes galvanized the protesters. “We are the Jewish establishment!” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said later in an interview that the “grounds are shifting” among American Jews. “Some of us here and in Israel have been on the ground fighting against the occupation and the attacks on democracy for years and years, and now it’s becoming clear to more and more American Jews and Israeli Jews that that was the right message,” she said.
The issue of whether to raise Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has been a matter of debate amid the protests in Israel, where there have been reports that organizers have discouraged the display of Palestinian flags, fearing that Netanyahu will weaponize any sign of solidarity with the Palestinians.
The tension over whether the Palestinians should be mentioned played out before the protest in Washington as well, at a press conference featuring philanthropists and Israeli businessmen who said the judicial reforms were threatening Israel’s economic standing.
The event started with a rendition of “Oseh Shalom,” the Jewish prayer for peace, composed by the Israeli Jewish Renewal group Nava Tehila.
Susie Gelman, a philanthropist who chairs the Israel Policy Forum, which supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, said one of the key roles of the Israeli Supreme Court in recent years has been to protect some Palestinian rights and slow Israeli efforts to increase sovereignty in the West Bank.
“You can’t entirely separate judicial overhaul from the question of what’s happening with Palestinians in the West Bank in particular,” she said.
But Offir Gutelzon, a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur who helped found UnXeptable, an anti-Netanyahu protest movement by Israelis living abroad, differed, saying the protesters’ top priority should be to save the courts’ independence. Achieving that goal, he said, required maintaining unity across the Israeli political spectrum.
“We have to save our Israeli democracy and then we can move on and talk about” the Palestinians, Gutelzon said.
Still, at the protest, speakers spoke of the occupation and its effect on the Palestinians, and there were no objections. Gutelzon led an Israeli contingent in registering cheers for every pronouncement by American liberals.
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‘A collapse’: Number of Israelis who believe Trump prioritizes Israel’s security falls to new low, poll finds
(JTA) — The share of Israelis who believe that Israel’s security is a central consideration of President Donald Trump fell to a record low as Democratic support for Israel in the U.S. continued to decline, according to two new polls Tuesday.
A new poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found that, amid widening disagreements in Israel over U.S. efforts to broker a new nuclear deal with Iran, the share of Israelis who believe Trump prioritizes Israel’s security had seen a “collapse” from 44% in May to 28% in June, pollsters said.
The survey, which polled 603 Jewish respondents and 151 Arab respondents from June 28 to July 1, found that among Jewish respondents, the belief that Israel can fully rely on Trump has plummeted by 38 points between March and June 2026.
Just over one-third of Israelis said they believed Israel’s strategic security situation is better today than it was before the war with Iran. The margin of error was 3.57 percentage points.
Another survey released Tuesday, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research from June 11 to 17, added to a growing number of polls showing waning support for Israel among U.S. adults.
The AP poll, which surveyed 3,040 people, including 1,022 Jewish adults, found that 40% of U.S. adults believe America is “too supportive” of Israelis, while 39% believe the U.S. is “not supportive enough” of Palestinians. While the survey included a large sampling of Jewish adults to allow for more reliable estimates of their opinions, the survey was weighted to ensure their views weren’t overrepresented in the findings, the pollsters said.
Among Democrats, the poll found that 58% now say the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israelis, up from 45% in an AP-NORC poll in January 2024.
The share dropped among Republicans, of which just 21% said they believed the U.S. was “too supportive” of Israelis. The share of Republicans who say the U.S. is “not supportive enough” of Israel has shrunk from 39% to 15% since 2024.
It also found that a third of American Jewish adults believe that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, while another 49% said that it has not.
Among U.S. adults overall, the poll found that about one-third believe Israel has committed genocide, including roughly half of Democrats.
The poll also found that the favorability of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was split. It found that, among U.S. adults, 38% have an unfavorable view of Netanyahu, while just 28% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable opinion of Mamdani.
Among Jewish adults, about 6 in 10 view Netanyahu unfavorably, while just 39% view Mamdani negatively and 44% view the New York City mayor positively.
For the AP poll, the margin of error for adults overall was 2.8 percentage points, and the margin of error for Jewish adults was 5.0 percentage points.
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The iconic crest worn by Messi and Argentina’s soccer team was designed by a Jewish superfan 50 years ag
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — Soccer fans around the world are familiar with the crest worn by Argentina and its star Lionel Messi: a vertical shield with laurel branches symbolizing victory and glory at the bottom and three stars at the top representing the team’s three World Cup titles.
But few are aware that the crest has its roots in Argentina’s close-knit world of Jewish sports clubs, where its designer developed his affinity for soccer.
Norberto “Toto” Rud was in his late 20s and a member of Club Náutico Hacoaj, a Jewish club, when he proposed the crest in 1976, drawing on the branding acumen and graphic design skills he would use throughout his career as a businessman and soccer aficionado in Buenos Aires.
Rud has long been credited with developing the crest after observing that while many European soccer teams wore distinctive emblems, his own beloved Argentina’s jerseys were notable only for their sky blue-and-white colors.
Watching international soccer in the era of black-and-white television, Rud noticed that supporters could instantly recognize teams such as West Germany by its eagle or the Soviet Union by its CCCP lettering, but Argentina could easily be confused with clubs wearing similar striped shirts. He concluded that the national team needed a visual identity equal to its footballing tradition.
Rud prepared approximately 20 design proposals and submitted them to the Argentine Football Association, in a proposal that reached its president and executive committee. The crest made its debut on Nov. 28, 1976, just days after it was approved, in a 0-0 friendly against the Soviet Union in Buenos Aires.
Fifty years later, the crest is basically unchanged and is one of the most widely worn team logos in the world, as Messi jerseys are popular across the globe.
“As a son and a member of the Jewish community and as an Argentinean, it’s a source of pride,” Toto Rud’s son Oliver Rud told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He added, “Every time I see Argentina’s national team crest, it still amazes me.”
Toto Rud got to see Argentina wear his crest to two World Cup championships, in 1978 and 1986. But he did not live to see the third in 2022. He died in 2010 at age 61 and is buried in Buenos Aires’ La Tablada, Latin America’s largest Jewish cemetery.
Oliver Rud said his father’s mother came to Argentina from Ukraine, a common pathway for Jewish migrants in the first half of the 20th century. Toto Rud was born in March 1948 and was a longtime member of Hacoaj, where he played club soccer himself.
Founded in 1935 by Jewish immigrants to Buenos Aires, Club Náutico Hacoaj is a sports and cultural club with around 10,000 members and five facilities, one in Buenos Aires city and four in Tigre, a city in the north of the Buenos Aires province. Hacoaj, which means “strength” in Hebrew, has been the launch pad for a number of prominent Jewish athletes, including tennis star Diego Schwartzmann. Oliver Rud said a tree dedicated to his father is planted on Hacoaj’s sprawling campus.
“For Hacoaj, it is a tremendous source of pride that one of our members was the creator of the Argentine Football Association’s crest,” the club’s president, Osvaldo Ofman, told JTA. “His design not only represents the jersey of the Argentina national team, the reigning World Cup champions, but also gives us the feeling that a small part of Hacoaj and the Jewish community lives on in an emblem recognized around the world.”
Now, Argentina will face off in the Round of 16 against Egypt, whose coach Hossam Hassan waved a Palestinian flag after defeating Australia in a 4-2 shootout on Friday. Footage of him walking across the field with the flag while chants of “Free, free Palestine” were heard quickly went viral. In a post-match interview, Hassan said his “heart and soul” were with the Palestinian people and dedicated the win to both Egyptians and Palestinians.
Tuesday’s match represents something of a de facto Israeli-Palestinian showdown in a tournament in which neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are playing. In addition to the show of support for the Palestinians from Egypt, the Argentine government staunchly supports Israel, which Messi, a Catholic, has visited. And a recent poll by an Israeli magazine found that Argentina was the clear favorite among Israeli World Cup viewers, named by 38% of respondents as the team they hope wins the tournament.
The knockout game comes a decade after Messi ignited a backlash in Egypt after announcing on an Egyptian television program that he was donating his shoes to a charity in Cairo. Presenters on the TV show accused Messi of being Jewish and aligned with Israel, which he had visited three years earlier.
“I know he’s Jewish, he donated to Israel and visited the Wailing Wall and whatever,” then-Egyptian Football Federation spokesman Azmi Mogahed phoned in to say. “We don’t need his shoes and Egypt’s poor don’t need help from someone with Jewish or Zionist citizenship.” Mogahed died in 2020.
Messi, who plays for Inter Miami during the regular season, is 39 and is widely expected not to play in another World Cup after this one, meaning that an Argentina loss could be his last game in international competition.
For Oliver Rud, the game will be an opportunity to reflect not only on Messi’s contributions but on his father’s, as well.
“Every time I see Argentina’s national team crest, it still amazes me,” he said. “In fact, my brother Guido and I were just talking about it the other day — how incredible it is to think that Toto designed the crest for the national team some 50 years ago. It’s really extraordinary. Every time I see the crest, I feel a little piece of him in my heart. It’s a beautiful way to remember him.”
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Abdul El-Sayed has refused super PAC funding. An anti-AIPAC PAC says it will spend for him, anyway
(JTA) — A super PAC formed to counter the influence of pro-Israel political action committees confirmed that it will boost Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary, despite the candidate’s pledge to refuse all super PAC funding.
A spokesperson for American Priorities PAC, the anti-AIPAC PAC, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday that its vow two days earlier to “do whatever it takes” to help El-Sayed “means spending.”
The move would put El-Sayed, who has mounted an popular insurgent campaign for a seat viewed as a must-win for Democrats, in the company of other progressives this election cycle who specifically railed against pro-Israel super PACs when swearing off corporate funding — while also benefiting from spending by the newly created pro-Palestinian super PAC.
Super PACs have no limits on fundraising but by law are prohibited from directly coordinating with a campaign — so American Priorities could theoretically raise money to run ads and other get-out-the-vote operations to boost El-Sayed without his consent.
El-Sayed has yet to comment publicly on American Priorities’ plans.
A physician and former county health director, El-Sayed is scheduled to debate his opponent, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, on Tuesday night in Grand Rapids. A third candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, dropped out of the race over the weekend, which American Priorities said motivated its pledge to help El-Sayed. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
El-Sayed has made refusing PAC money a key element of his platform. “Money out of politics” forms part of the slogan that brands many of his yard signs. A new ad released by his campaign on June 30 claimed he was “the only candidate for Senate” who has taken “No Corporate PAC Money.”
The American Priorities spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up to clarify what El-Sayed’s anti-PAC pledge would mean for the group’s spending plans. Requests for comment to the El-Sayed and Stevens campaigns also were not immediately returned.
Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate who has welcomed PAC support, has so far had at least $10 million in AIPAC-affiliated funding directed to boost her campaign, according to Federal Election Commission data. AIPAC-affiliated ads for her have trumpeted policies, including proposed restrictions on immigration enforcement, that AIPAC-funded ads in different races this year have lambasted.
American Priorities has complicated the narrative for the progressive wave of the 2026 primary cycle, which has made pro-Palestinian causes and opposition to corporate funding twin priorities while treating AIPAC as a particular bogeyman.
American Priorities also spent to help democratic socialists Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier in their successful primary runs for New York congressional seats last month, even as Valdez pledged to “end Citizens United,” the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions, and Avila Chevalier called to “abolish Super PACs.”
The spending allowed the candidates’ opponents to accuse them of hypocrisy but failed to derail their success at the ballot box. American Priorities also spent heavily in favor of Adam Hamawy, a doctor who served in Gaza who won his crowded New Jersey congressional primary in June.
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