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How Jewish day schools are talking about the horrors in Israel with their students
(JTA) — Rabbi Binyamin Krauss swayed back and forth as he delivered an emotional message to his Jewish day school Monday morning.
“It is hard to feel like you’re in a world of darkness,” he told his students at SAR Academy, the Jewish day school in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx where he serves as principal. “It’s hard to know that there are so many people that we care about who are confused, who are afraid.”
However, Krauss added during the school’s livestreamed morning prayer service, children — his students — can be a source of light and comfort to others. “All those people are going to need strength, and we’re going to do our small part to bring them that strength together,” he said.
In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ invasion, the murder of hundreds of Israelis and the beginning of a long and painful military campaign, Jewish educators are wrestling with how to discuss the matter with their students, while also using their schools as gathering places for community mourning and “light and comfort.” Given the timing of the attack over a weekend that included a two-day Jewish holiday, Monday morning was the first time when many of them needed to put their thoughts into action.
“It’s difficult, of course,” Gary Weisserman, head of school at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Things are solemn here. Many here are mourning the loss of friends and relatives, or are in constant touch with family huddled in shelters, or know people being called up to service. There is a lot of fear, especially amongst our older kids, but there is great comfort in knowing there’s a strong kehillah [congregation] around you for support and kindness.”
Many schools took steps Monday to communicate the horrors of the weekend with their communities, telling JTA that they were focused on fostering a shared sense of community and support. Variations on prayer services were offered both to students and to families; some schools also encouraged families to attend pro-Israel rallies or donate to the Israel Defense Forces or other causes. Many offered mental health services to students and announced they were increasing their security protocols.
“Like everyone in the Jewish world, the entire community of Jewish day schools is profoundly and personally affected by the attack on Israel,” Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah, a nonprofit that supports Jewish day schools and yeshivas, told JTA.
“Leaders and teachers in our schools are taking the steps that they need initially to support students, faculty, staff and families, including handling the trauma, leading prayers and conversations in support of Israel, taking appropriate steps to ensure security is in place, and participating in local community efforts to stand with Israel.”
Some schools openly admitted that balancing all the messages they hoped to deliver would be challenging — particularly given the experiences of their families and staff.
“We will do our best to walk the fine line of being honest, but not too desperate,” the heads of Kinneret Day School, a nondenominational school in New York City that enrolls many Israeli children, told families.
In Englewood, New Jersey, a Hebrew teacher who had been working at the Moriah School as part of a partnership with the World Zionist Organization is already heading back to Israel having been called up to return to his army unit, the head of school, Daniel Alter, said in an email to parents. Alter said his own son recently joined the IDF and is being sent to the border communities.
Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills, Michigan, which serves early childhood through 8th grade, has a large number of Israelis on staff. Head of school Darin Katz said his first priority on Monday was supporting them, which he hoped “would then translate to the students.”
When the time came to discuss the matter with students, Katz recalled, they were the ones who wound up comforting the staff. “They showed incredible kindness and compassion and grace to their Israeli teachers,” he said.
And in Miami, every student at the brand-new Jewish Leadership Academy recently returned from a month in Israel, a hallmark of the school’s annual program and for some their first experiences ever in Israel.
“This has made the recent events all the more personal and all the more difficult,” said head of school Rabbi Gil Perl.
On Monday, the Jewish Leadership Academy held a mandatory assembly to answer what Perl described as “critical background information,” including defining Hamas and the Gaza Strip, before breaking students into age-based groups for further discussion and to have them write letters to IDF soldiers.
Many educators stressed the importance of “age-appropriate” dialogue with students and said they would insulate younger children from certain topics and details. Milken Community School in Los Angeles, which serves grades 6-12, held a “very meaningful town meeting” where student leaders and Israeli faculty shared blessings for Israel and for peace, communications director Tal Barak said.
“We will listen carefully, and respond individually,” Ariela Dubler, head of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan, which spans preschool to 12th grade, told parents. “Of course, most importantly, across our divisions, we will be listening to our students and meeting them where they are in terms of their experiences and emotions.”
Several heads of school told parents to ask their children how much they already know rather than try to explain everything to them, while at least one, Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, held gatherings for parents to discuss the issues in the absence of students.
Understanding the ways that children of different ages might process the crisis is crucial for teaching them about it, said David Bryfman, CEO of the Jewish Education Project, a professional development network for Jewish educators.
“They might ask a question and your immediate response might be, ‘Well, they’re asking about a border, and I need to show them a map and we need to go through the history,” he said. “But the reality is they’re asking something much more complicated, like, ‘Why do people hate one another?’ And ‘Why is there hate in the world?’”
Not all schools have yet had to tackle the crisis with their students. Some Orthodox day schools remained closed on Monday to allow families to return home after the Sukkot break, including Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov-Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi, the Midwest’s largest Jewish day school, located in Chicago, where more than 2,000 Orthodox Jews gathered Sunday night to pray for Israel.
On Monday afternoon, staff were still figuring out how to best address the tragedy in Israel with their students, the school’s CEO, Rabbi Menachem Levine, told JTA. But he said he didn’t anticipate surprising anyone with the news.
In all likelihood, Levine said, most of his students “have already been inundated with the horrors of the past few days.”
That’s part of the challenge facing educators, according to Bryfman.
“We need to acknowledge that our young people, especially our tweens and our teenagers, are going to come into contact with images, videos, vitriol on Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, that we won’t be able to control as educators or as parents,” he said. “Young people just can’t deal with that same intensity and barrage of information the same way that adults can.”
Balancing the crisis with the schools’ regularly scheduled programs is another challenge. As SAR’s morning service was wrapping up, staff and students laced their arms over each other’s shoulders and swayed. With students at every grade level watching from classroom windows above and the media center below, they sang “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.
Then, with an Israeli flag projected on the monitor, Krauss made an announcement: “Please return to your classes.”
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The post How Jewish day schools are talking about the horrors in Israel with their students appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US House Passes ICC Sanctions Bill Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant
US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to members of the media at the Capitol building, April 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation that would sanction members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act (HR 23) calls for the warrants against the Israeli officials to be “condemned in the strongest possible terms,” labeling them as “illegitimate and baseless” actions that “create a damaging precedent that threatens the United States, Israel, and all United States partners who have not submitted to the ICC’s jurisdiction.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. 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.
Beyond condemning the arrest warrants, the bill would also impose sanctions on any officials with the ICC, or entities supporting the court, who seek to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute “any protected person of the United States and its allies.”
The bill easily passed by a margin of 243-140. House Republicans overwhelmingly backed the bill, with 198 voting in favor, zero voting against, one voting “present,” and 20 abstaining from voting. House Democrats were more divided on the bill, with 45 voting in favor, 140 voting against, and 30 abstaining from voting.
The proposed sanctions would target individuals “directly engaged in or otherwise aided any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person.” In addition, the legislation would freeze assets and ban visas of sanctioned individuals and allow the sitting president to waive individual sanctions if the waiver is considered critical to US national security interests.
US Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), a stalwart ally of Israel and co-sponsor of the bill, condemned the ICC on the floor of the House of Representatives.
“Israel is the tip of the spear in bringing the fight to an enemy that currently holds and has killed our fellow Americans,” said Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), another co-sponsor of the bill, lambasted the ICC for taking an “unprecedented action” against Israel, arguing that the court’s actions are undermining the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself against Hamas terrorism.
Roy decried the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant as a “politicized witch hunt” and claimed that the ICC “doesn’t have any jurisdiction” over the defensive military operations of the Jewish state.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) issued a statement endorsing the bill.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” Torres said. “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
Immediately after the vote, pro-Israel organizations issued statements applauding the House for advancing legislation to sanction the ICC.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, praised the passage of HR 23.
“AIPAC commends the House for adopting the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons aiding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) morally bankrupt and legally baseless attack against Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) also celebrated the passage of the legislation, lauding Republican leadership in helping advance the bill through the House of Representatives.
“We thank [House Speaker Mike Johnson] and the [House Republican] majority for their leadership and prioritizing this critical legislation in week one of the 119th Congress,” the RJC wrote on X/Twitter.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and 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 has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
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 last Oct. 7.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Following the official issuing of arrest warrants in November, a slew of US lawmakers vowed to seek retribution against the ICC after President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the ICC if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
The post US House Passes ICC Sanctions Bill Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California College Sued for Punishing Jewish Professor Over Conversation on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Edward H. Blake via Wikimedia Commons
A Jewish professor is suing the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco for allegedly violating her rights by punishing her because she disagreed with students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner by the Deborah Project, a legal nonprofit which defends the civil rights of Jewish educators, Professor Karen Fiss’s tribulations began on Oct. 23, 2023, when she exchanged remarks with several members of the terrorist-linked Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group who summoned her to an anti-Zionist display and asked that she support the campaign for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Fiss scanned their materials — which included a sign that proclaimed the anti-Israel genocidal slogan “From the river to the sea,” artwork, and quick response (QR) codes promoting their cause — and initiated a dialogue with the students, asking what the slogan meant and what news sources they read. Offended by Fiss’s signaling she was not an anti-Zionist, one of the students tore down the “from the river to the sea sign” and began arguing that reports of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 were fabricated.
The conversation reached the fateful moment which precipitated Fiss’s lawsuit when one of the students, Maryiam Alwael, asserted that her knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was superior because she was a native of Kuwait, to which Fiss responded by asking the student if she was aware of the Kuwaiti government’s expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians in 1991. Fiss then argued for a more nuanced narrative of the Middle Eastern conflict, noting that not all Middle Easterners are anti-Israel and many oppose Hamas and disapprove of Iran’s backing of it. She ended by counseling the young women to avoid ideological echo chambers. Alwael said she liked her own views.
While both sides made sharp points, the conversation remained civil, according to court documents. However, the students interpreted Fiss’s comments as an attack on their identities and filed a complaint which accused her of being “harassing and discriminatory.” With little due process, Fiss was ultimately found guilty of the allegation and forced to submit to a series of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” trainings — a form of political rehabilitation in which subjects are forced to denounce key values of Western civilization such as the meritocracy and the sovereignty of the individual.
In explaining its guilty verdict, the college accused Fiss of being culturally insensitive and imposing her “power” on the women, who are ethnic minorities of color. Fiss, it said, “began explaining the history of Alwael’s country to her,” and “caused the students to reasonably believe” that Fiss was “using [her] positional power as a professor to get the outcome [she] sought, which was for the students to agree with [her] point of view.”
The college reached these findings but declined to apply the same logic to an earlier complaint Fiss had filed about the Critical Ethnic Studies program’s issuing a statement — “DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY,” it said — which justified Hamas’s violence and implied that Jews are not indigenous to their own homeland. This is because, the Deborah Project says, CCA rules are in place to protect left-wing anti-Zionism and punish Jews who oppose it.
“Because Dr. Fiss’s beliefs do not align with the creed mandated and enforced by the college, she has suffered repeated and severe adverse treatment by CCA, which has dramatically impeded her ability to function as a scholar,” the Deborah Project said in its complaint. “As part of its policy of enforcing ideological conformity about Israel, CCA has threatened Dr. Fiss with dismissal for two reasons: (1) her refusal to comply with student demands to contact her congressional representatives to pressure Israel — a sovereign nation — to cease its military response to an ongoing threat; and (2) for respectfully challenging this monopolization of discourse and reaffirming the principles of open dialogue and open debate within CCA.”
According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, the college ignored Fiss’s concerns about widespread support for Hamas’s atrocities in Israel last Oct. 7, arguing they were simply expressions of free speech.
“Karen Fiss, a fully-tenured professor at CCA was told that her pain, intimidation, and horror upon learning that a huge number of not only students at CCA but her fellow faculty members, the department chairs, and members of the administration not only justified, but supported the wanton rape, torture, and murder of her co-religionists on Oct. 7 was not problematic as far as CCA was concerned because those positions were protected by free speech,” Lowenthal Marcus told The Algemeiner.
She added that CCA “accorded no such academic freedom to Dr. Fiss, who was disciplined for a single conversation that all parties agree was civil.”
“For this actual exercise of academic freedom,” Lowenthal Marcus concluded, “CCA found that Dr. Fiss’s speech constituted harassment of the Kuwaiti student. It was also found to be bullying, on the theory that Dr. Fiss was found to have used her position as a faculty member to pressure the students to adopt Dr. Fiss’s view — when it is undisputed that, throughout the conversation, the students did not even know Dr. Fiss was a professor. For this, Dr. Fiss’s file was permanently marked, and she was warned that if such a thing were to occur again, Fiss would suffer additional punishment, up to and including termination.
Now, with her reputation blighted by scandal and the college threatening revoke her tenure, Fiss is fighting for both her right to exist as a proud Jew at work as well as her right to free speech. She is suing CCA for discriminating against her for being Jewish, a violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and breach of contract, offenses which caused her “substantial damages” and other trauma.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Voice for Peace’s ‘Extremist’ Anti-Israel Agenda, Terror Group Ties Highlighted in Report
Anti-Israel protesters take part in a demonstration hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America, IfNotNow Movement, and Jewish Voice for Peace that turned violent in Washington, DC, Nov. 15, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
A pro-Israel nonprofit has published a new bombshell booklet detailing the inner workings and funding of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a controversial and prominent anti-Zionist group that has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza.
StandWithUs (SWU), an organization which promotes a mission of “supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism,” released the report examining how the far-left JVP — which defended the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7 — “promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories” and even partners with terrorist organizations to achieve its “primary goal” of “dismantling the State of Israel.”
According to the report, JVP weaponizes the plight of Palestinians to advance an “extremist” agenda which promotes the destruction of Israel and whitewashes terrorism, receiving money from organizations that have ties to Middle Eastern countries such as Iran.
“JVP and its allies slander and dehumanize Israelis as privileged, powerful, and racist white European colonizers,” the report says. “They promote dangerous conspiracy theories tying Israelis to injustices against various communities” around the world.
The booklet points out that JVP pushes a misleading history of Jewish presence in the Middle East, ignoring that Jews “faced systemic discrimination at best and brutal violence at worst under Muslim and Arab rule, until almost all of them fled or were expelled in the 20th century.” SWU also notes that JVP has routinely labeled Jews as “racist” for expressing fear about the prospect of living as minorities in Israel.
“JVP simply refuses to acknowledge that most Jews genuinely see efforts to eliminate the world’s only Jewish state as a form of hate,” the report reads.
In addition, the report alleges that JVP advances “antisemitic conspiracy theories,” such as the notion that American police are trained by Israeli forces. This narrative suggests that Israel exacerbates alleged police brutality in the United States through training law enforcement to brutalize black people. Prominent anti-Israel pundits such as Marc Lamont Hill and Linda Sarsour have cited this misleading information in various public statements.
StandWithUs also alleges that JVP harbors deep connections and support for international terrorist groups, highlighting JVP’s record of support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization with the stated goal of dismantling Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state.
“JVP has campaigned in support of PFLP terrorists, hosted PFLP members at events, and partnered with groups that openly support PFLP and other terrorist organizations,” the report reads.
In addition, the report states that JVP has collaborated with anti-Israel entities such as Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, to hold rallies. Samidoun described Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel as “a brave and heroic operation.” The United States and Canada each imposed sanctions on Samidoun in October, labeling the organization a “sham charity” and accusing it of fundraising for terrorist groups such as PFLP. The US Treasury Department said that PFLP “uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising operations in both Europe and North America.”
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” Bradley Smith, the US Treasury Department’s acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement at the time.
The SWU report also says that JVP has ties to “extremist” anti-Israel groups such as Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). Leadership for these groups have repeatedly expressed support for violence against Israel and terrorist groups. JVP has worked alongside these groups to hold anti-Israel demonstrations and marches.
According to the new report, JVP has received substantial financial assistance from organizations tied to Lebanon and Iran. For example, the Maximum Difference Foundation, which has been accused of maintaining ties with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, donated $65,000 to JVP.
JVP has also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which according to SWU has funded other anti-Israel organizations, including Palestinian organizations linked with the PFLP.
The report additionally noted that JVP received $200,000 from The Quitiplas Foundation, which has allegedly donated to other organizations connected to Samidoun.
“JVP’s harmful rhetoric and alliances make it clear they are not a voice for peace,” StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement accompanying the report’s release. “This organization fuels hate and shields extremists from accountability while doing nothing to bring about peaceful coexistence.”
“To help fight rising antisemitism, the public, media, and leaders across our society must finally recognize JVP’s dangerous agenda and reject it,” she said.
The Algemeiner has previously reported that JVP argued in a recently resurfaced 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians.
In June, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission accusing JVP’s political fundraising arm of misrepresenting its spending and receiving unlawful donations from corporate entities, citing “discrepancies” in the organization’s income and expense reports.
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