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For American Zionist LGBTQ group, Israel’s right-wing government has created an urgent crisis
(JTA) — The annual gala of A Wider Bridge, a Jewish LGBTQ group, had all the trappings of a festive event: Guests arrived in cocktail attire finery — one woman wore a tiered, ruffled rainbow dress — to enjoy salad, rice, chicken, an assortment of desserts and schmoozing — and to celebrate the achievements of four Jewish activists.
But even though it was the group’s first in-person gala since before the COVID-19 pandemic, the mood on Monday night wasn’t entirely celebratory. Throughout the speeches and sideline conversations was the sense that A Wider Bridge — which advocates for the LGBTQ community in Israel, and for Israel in the U.S. LGBTQ community — was entering a new and uncertain era.
“For Israeli LGBTQ, the ground has shifted beneath their feet,” the group’s executive director, Ethan Felson, said in a speech to the crowd of about 200 attendees. Citing LGBTQ activists in Israel, he added, “Calls to crisis hotlines are up. Incidents of emotional and physical violence are up in Israel against the LGBTQ community. … You can imagine the challenges the trans community is facing — a full assault on their rights and on their lives.”
The crisis Felson depicted has materialized under a new Israeli government that includes vocal anti-LGBTQ officials in senior positions, whose signature legislation to reform the judiciary threatens the set of LGBTQ rights that Israel has long pointed to as evidence of its open society.
That new reality has complicated the work of A Wider Bridge both in the United States and Israel, and interspersed in the night’s program — speeches celebrating four honorees, some stand up comedy from Jewish comedian Judy Gold, and even a recorded video from Vice President Kamala Harris — was an acknowledgement of the challenges facing LGBTQ rights in Israel. It has also caused the group to double its donations to Israeli LGBTQ groups this year.
“I’ve been in this work for 35 years, and through very complex times, I’ve never felt a greater sense of urgency,” Felson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the event. “The urgency of this moment overshadows everything I’ve certainly done in my career.”
The gala, which took place in an event space lined with golden pillars whose arched windows overlooked Manhattan’s Union Square, occurred at the same time that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich visited the Hasidic community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Smotrich has called himself a “proud homophobe” and sits in Israel’s governing coalition alongside Avi Maoz, who heads the anti-LGBTQ party Noam. The coalition also includes haredi Orthodox parties that have long opposed LGBTQ rights.
Approximately 200 guests attended the gala Monday night, where executive director Ethan Felson announced a new emergency campaign for LGBTQ causes in Israel. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
Legislation the coalition is now advancing to sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and independence also endangers LGBTQ rights in Israel. While same-sex couples are not permitted to legally marry in Israel, the court ruled in 2006 that the country must recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad. A court decision in 2021 also paved the way for LGBTQ couples to have children via surrogacy.
“The conversation about the Israeli LGBTQ community has changed dramatically,” Felson said. “The Israeli LGBTQ community was always perceived as safe, secure and successful and not among the vulnerable constituencies. But that wasn’t an accurate picture. It’s always been vulnerable to conversion therapy, transphobia, violence. And there are ministers in this current government that make those situations worse, that play on those vulnerabilities.”
But Felson said that the core work of A Wider Bridge in the United States — to cultivate relationships between Israeli LGBTQ groups and those here — will not be diminished because of who is in power.
“We love Israel as much today as we did yesterday, as much as we did last year,” he said. “We hold Israel and its LGBTQ community close. And a country is more than its leaders at any time.”
He added, “We never lobbied for a government. We never were in this to support a government. And so it has been a truism of everybody involved in this conversation about Israel that there have been governments that have come and gone, with which we’ve aligned or haven’t aligned — that doesn’t change the equation of our connection to a country.”
Since the beginning of the year, A Wider Bridge has donated $180,000 to 20 different Israeli LGBTQ organizations — the same amount it has given annually in recent years. At the end of the evening, Felson announced an emergency campaign to raise another $180,000, adding that the organization received a $75,000 anonymous match to start off the campaign.
Other speakers also discussed the changing situation for LGBTQ Israelis in forthright terms. In a prerecorded video, Rotem Sorek, CEO of Ma’avarim, a transgender advocacy organization in Israel, said that since the new government coalition took over, she has noticed an increase in phone calls to her organization’s crisis call center.
“What’s happening right now is there is a shift in power, a particular new brand of transphobia,” Sorek said. “People start to believe that trans people are not regular human beings.”
Harris’ prerecorded remarks didn’t address the situation in Israel and instead focused on honoree Roselyne “Cissie” Swig, a longtime donor to the group from San Francisco who received its Tzedek Award. But Swig herself sounded a note of concern about LGBTQ rights in Israel in her acceptance speech.
“I’m old enough now to have been part of the beginning of Israel,” said Swig, who is in her early 90s. “What I think it’s going through right now, from a legal point of view, is a little unsettling for me, and I’m sure others. And I would prefer that it was more stable.”
But Felson said that although his group is facing a new set of daunting challenges, he doesn’t feel like he and his colleagues are alone.
“People are keenly aware now that there are problems that can’t be swept under the rug,” he said. “These are not debates about fine policy points. This is an existential debate.”
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The post For American Zionist LGBTQ group, Israel’s right-wing government has created an urgent crisis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Vanderbilt launches inquiry into instructor after math question about Israeli occupation draws criticism
(JTA) — Vanderbilt University has launched an inquiry into a mathematics lecturer whose classroom exercise about Palestinian territory drew criticism from the activist group StopAntisemitism.
Tekin Karadağ, a senior lecturer at the university’s department of mathematics, drew the ire of the antisemitism watchdog after it obtained a slide from one of his lectures that used a pro-Palestinian protest slogan and suggested that Israel was shrinking the Palestinian territory.
“Assume Palestine as a state with a rectangular land shape. There is the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Jordan River on the east,” read the slide. “From the river to the sea, Palestine (…) was approximately 100 km. in 1946. The land decreases by 250 sq. km per year, due to the occupation by Israel. How fast is the width of the land decreasing now?”
Karadǎg, a Turkish national who received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2021, included the question under “examples related to the popular issues” in a survey of calculus class, according to StopAntisemitism, which wrote in a post on X that Karadǎg was “bringing his anti-Israel, antisemitic bias into his classroom.”
In a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Vanderbilt said that the content had been removed and that an inquiry had been launched into Karadağ.
“The university has received reports alleging a member of the faculty engaged in unprofessional conduct related to content shared during course instruction,” the school said. “The content in question has been removed, and a formal inquiry has been initiated consistent with relevant university policy.”
In recent years, rhetoric about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on college campuses has grown increasingly fraught, with professors’ commentary on the region sparking heavy scrutiny and, at times, disciplinary measures when their universities have determined that they exceeded the bounds of academic freedom. A recent report by Columbia University’s antisemitism task force found that students frequently experienced pro-Palestinian advocacy in classes entirely unrelated to the Middle East — such as dance or math classes.
The inquiry was not the first time that Vanderbilt took swift action against the expression of pro-Palestinian sentiments on its campus.
In March 2024, the university, which has roughly 1,100 Jewish undergraduate students, was among the first universities to expel students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. This year, the school’s antisemitism “grade” from the Anti-Defamation League was bumped up from a “C” to an “A.”
The post Vanderbilt launches inquiry into instructor after math question about Israeli occupation draws criticism appeared first on The Forward.
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Hugh Laurie rejects ‘Zionist’ label after his tribute to Israeli ‘Tehran’ producer sparks social media firestorm
(JTA) — British actor Hugh Laurie pushed back against being labeled as a “Zionist” after facing a wave of online criticism for posting a tribute to the Israeli producer of the hit television show “Tehran.”
“Dana Eden, who co-created and produced ‘Tehran’, died on Sunday, seemingly by her own hand,” Laurie, who played a nuclear inspector in the show’s third season, tweeted last week. “It’s a terrible thing. She was brilliant, and funny, and an exceptional leader. Love and condolences to all who knew her.”
The seemingly innocuous post eulogizing Eden, 52, who was found dead while filming the latest season of the hit Apple TV+ series in Athens last week, quickly drew a volley of backlash on social media.
“She was part of the occupation force’s propaganda arm,” wrote one user in response to Laurie’s post. “What a shame, didn’t expect you to be a closet Zionist.” Another wrote that Eden “creates propaganda for Israel so that they can kill kids more effectively. People should have no sympathy for her.”
The award-winning series, which follows a young Israeli Mossad agent in Iran, was produced by the Israeli public broadcaster Kan and purchased by Apple TV+ in 2020 for roughly $20 million. Eden’s death, for which no cause has been announced, occurred during production of the show’s fourth season, which had already stalled following Oct. 7.
Laurie is not the first actor to spurn the “Zionist” label, as entertainers in recent years have increasingly faced pressure to declare their views on Israel. In December, Jewish actress Odessa A’zion pushed back on claims she was a Zionist after an image of her wearing an IDF shirt as a teenager circulated online.
On Friday, Laurie, who previously starred in the Emmy Award-winning medical drama “House,” shot back at the criticism.
“Nothing I have ever said or done could lead a sane person to believe that I am a Zionist,” wrote Laurie in a post on X. “However. If someone exults in the death of a friend of mine, yes I will block them. If you wouldn’t do the same in my position, you can f—ck off too.”
Laurie’s subsequent post also drew outcry, but this time from pro-Israel influencers who lamented the actor’s disavowal of the Zionist label, calling him “weak” and a “pathetic weasel” in the replies.
Freelance journalist Angela Epstein replied to Laurie’s post, writing, “Not Hugh Laurie as well. I thought he was one of the decent ones….”
“God almighty, why does no one understand English any more?” wrote Laurie in response to Epstein’s critique. “I have not spoken or written a word that would indicate pro or anti Zionism. That’s what those words mean. Blimey.”
The post Hugh Laurie rejects ‘Zionist’ label after his tribute to Israeli ‘Tehran’ producer sparks social media firestorm appeared first on The Forward.
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German anti-Zionist group’s plan to protest at Buchenwald memorial over kaffiyeh ban sparks outrage
(JTA) — An anti-Zionist group in Germany has drawn condemnation after it announced plans for a protest against the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial in response to a ban on pro-Palestinian symbols at the site.
The group Kufiyas in Buchenwald claims that the memorial has become a place of “historical revisionism and genocide denial.” It announced a demonstration for April 11, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp.
“Instead of honoring the persecuted and resolutely opposing every genocide, the memorial spreads Israeli propaganda and provides the ideological ammunition for the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” the group says on its website.
Buchenwald, one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazis and one of the largest in the country, was the site of the murder of roughly 56,000 male prisoners, including 11,000 Jews, from 1937 to 1945.
Last year, a German court ruled that the concentration camp had a right to refuse entry to visitors who wear a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headscarf that has been adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit by a woman who attempted to wear the scarf to an event commemorating the concentration camp’s liberation.
The woman, who was only identified by her first name, Anna, posted a testimony about her actions on the Kufiyas in Buchenwald Instagram page in which she said she was inspired by the resistance of Buchenwald prisoners.
“Our fundamental principle is this: criticism of the Israeli government’s policies, settlement policy, or actions in the Gaza Strip is legitimate,” said the Buchenwald Foundation’s director Jens-Christian Wagner in a statement outlining the memorial’s protocols. “However, it becomes antisemitic when used to relativize the Holocaust and discredit its victims as perpetrators. We will not tolerate this at the Buchenwald Memorial.”
The campaign against the memorial has been signed onto by a host of pro-Palestinian groups, including the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the German group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which has defended the protest on X as evidence of what “commemorating past German crimes has to do with rejecting current ones.”
In a post on Instagram announcing the protest earlier this month, the Kufiyas in Buchenwald group wrote that it would hold a “public protest” in Weimar, the German city located nearby the concentration camp. The group also said it planned to host lectures and a “tour that vividly illustrates the events in the former concentration camp.”
It was unclear whether the protest is intended to take place outside the memorial itself. Kufiyas in Buchenwald did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the location of the protest.
The protest quickly drew condemnation from German leaders, including the country’s antisemitism czar Felix Klein, who told the Swiss outlet Neue Zürcher Zeitung that the protest marked a “new low point in the unfortunately all-too-common reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.”
Michael Panse, the commissioner for combatting antisemitism for the German state Thuringia, where Weimar is located, told the outlet that the protest was “tasteless and historically ignorant.”
The protests also drew condemnation from the European Jewish Congress, which wrote in a post on X that the demonstration represents a “deeply troubling instrumentalization of Holocaust remembrance.”
“Holocaust memorial sites are places of solemn reflection and respect for the victims of National Socialism,” the post continued. “They must never be exploited to promote agendas that deny Israel’s legitimacy or glorify those who perpetrate violence against Jews.”
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