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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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Iran Holds Trilateral Talks With China, Russia Amid Ongoing Nuclear Negotiations With US
Illustrative: Chinese Foreign Minister Wag Yi stands with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazeem Gharibabadi before a meeting regarding the Iranian nuclear issue at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Photo: Pool via REUTERS
Iran held trilateral consultations with China and Russia on Thursday to discuss ongoing nuclear negotiations with the United States, as a fifth round of talks between Tehran and Washington ended with no deal yet in sight.
Iranian, Chinese, and Russian officials met to “coordinate their positions ahead” of the upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hearing on Iran’s nuclear program, set to begin on June 9.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, which has long sought to maintain access to the Islamic Republic to monitor and inspect the country’s nuclear program, is preparing to release its quarterly report on Tehran’s activities ahead of the upcoming board meeting.
In a post on X, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed that the three countries held high-level consultations to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program and the country’s ongoing negotiations with Washington, as well as broader regional developments.
“Given the upcoming BRICS summit as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the coming months, in separate meetings with the ambassadors of Russia and China, we reviewed the development and strengthening of cooperation within the framework of these two important groups of countries,” the Iranian diplomat said.
Tehran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian security and political group, in 2023 and also joined the BRICS group in 2024 — a bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that positions itself as an alternative to economic institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Following Thursday’s discussions, Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, described the talks as highly productive, noting that they helped the three countries closely coordinate their positions.
“Met today with my dear colleagues – Permanent Representatives of China and Iran – to compare notes on the eve of the forthcoming IAEA Board of Governors session. This trilateral format proves to be very useful. It helps coordinate closely our positions,” the Russian diplomat wrote in a post on X.
In an interview with Russian media on Friday, Ulyanov reiterated Moscow’s offer to mediate the indirect talks between Tehran and Washington.
“The Russian Federation has repeatedly stated its readiness to assist Iran and the United States in reaching an agreement on nuclear issues,” the Russian diplomat said. “But for this to happen, both Tehran and Washington need to make such a request. So far, there has been no such request.”
Both Moscow and Beijing, permanent members of the UN Security Council, are also parties to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
On Wednesday, ahead of the trilateral meeting, Tehran reaffirmed its stance that it will not give up its right to enrich uranium under any nuclear agreement.
“Continuing enrichment in Iran is an uncompromising principle,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said in a statement.
However, Reuters reported that Tehran may pause uranium enrichment if Washington releases frozen Iranian funds and recognizes the country’s right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes under a “political deal” that could pave the way for a broader nuclear agreement.
The two adversaries concluded their fifth round of nuclear talks in Rome last week, with the Omani mediator describing the negotiations as having made limited progress toward resolving the decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.
So far, diplomatic efforts have stalled over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.
“We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability,” US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said last week.
Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has sought to curtail Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon that could spark a regional arms race and pose a threat to Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran seeks to have Western sanctions on its oil-dependent economy lifted, while maintaining its nuclear enrichment program — which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.
As part of the Trump administration’s “”maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.
During Thursday’s meeting, Iran and Russia also agreed to substantially deepen their military and economic cooperation in response to ongoing US sanctions targeting both nations.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to fund the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Iran as part of a broader energy agreement that also includes a major gas deal between the two countries.
Earlier this year, Moscow and Tehran signed a 20-year strategic partnership to strengthen cooperation in various fields, including security services, military exercises, warship port visits, and joint officer training.
The post Iran Holds Trilateral Talks With China, Russia Amid Ongoing Nuclear Negotiations With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Only One Solution’: Pro-Hamas Dartmouth College Group Occupies Building, Injures Staff
Pro-Hamas activists at Dartmouth College strike a pose inside the anteroom of the Parkhurst Hall administrative building. They had just commandeered the area. Photo: New Deal Coalition via Instagram, Inc.
A pro-Hamas group at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire which calls itself the “New Deal Coalition” (NDC) commandeered the anteroom of the Parkhurst Hall administrative building on Wednesday but limited the demonstration to business hours, as its members went home when it was shuttered at 6pm.
Before leaving the building, however, the group contributed to injuries sustained by a member of President Sian Beilock’s staff and an officer of the school’s Department of Safety and Security officer, according to The Dartmouth, the college’s official campus newspaper.
College deans Anne Hudak and Eric Ramsey have since vowed to hold the group, which included non-students, accountable.
“While Dartmouth remains committed to dialogue, we want to be absolutely clear: there cannot and will not be any tolerance for the type of escalation we saw on our campus today,” the officials said in a statement quoted by The Dartmouth.
During the unauthorized demonstration, the agitators shouted “free, free Palestine,” words shouted only recently by another anti-Israel activist who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC.
The following day, the group at Dartmouth defended the behavior, arguing that it is a legitimate response to the college’s rejection of a proposal — inspired by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — to divest from armaments and aerospace manufacturers which sell to Israel and its recent announcement of a new think tank, the Davidson Institute for Global Security, which it claims is linked to the Jewish state.
“We took this escalated action — one deployed several times in Dartmouth’s history to protest against apartheid — because Dartmouth funded, US-backed Israel has been escalating its genocidal assault on Palestine,” the group wrote. “In an effort to ‘dialogue,’ a group of students, staff, and faculty, and alumni spent months drafting extensively researched 55-page divestment proposal … How did the college respond? They rejected divestment on every single criteria and, the day after, announced that they are reinvesting in colonial genocide with the launch of the Davidson Institute for Global Security.”
The statement concluded with an ambiguous threat and an evocation of the memory of the Holocaust.
“So long as you fund actively imperialistic violence, we will continue to hold you accountable,” it said. “There is only one solution! Intifada! Revolution!”
Last week, Dartmouth College’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) unanimously rejected a proposal urging the school to adopt the BDS movement against Israel.
“By a vote of nine to zero, the [ACIR] at Dartmouth College finds that the divestment proposal submitted by Dartmouth Divest for Palestine and dated Feb. 18, 2025, does not meet criteria, laid out in the Dartmouth Board of Trustees’ Statement on Investment and Social Responsibility and in ACIR’s charge, that must be satisfied for the proposal to undergo further review,” the committee said in a report explaining its decision. “ACIR recommends not to advance the proposal.”
A copy of the document reviewed by The Algemeiner shows that the committee evaluated the BDS proposal, submitted by the Dartmouth Divest for Palestine (DDP) group, based on five criteria regarding the college’s divestment history, capacity to address controversial issues through discourse and learning, and campus unity. It concluded that DDP “partially” met one of them by demonstrating that Dartmouth has divested from a country or industry in the past to establish its moral credibility on pressing cultural and geopolitical issues but noted that its analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lacks nuance, betraying the group’s “lack of engagement with counter arguments.”
ACIR added that DDP also does not account for the sheer divisiveness of BDS — which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — and its potential to “degrade” rather than facilitate “additional dialogue on campus.”
It continued, “The proposal includes no compelling evidence on the level of support for divestment among students, among faculty, among staff, and among alumni. Moreover, the proposal is silent on the matter of how divestment can be treated as a consensus position in the face of what is almost certainly deep opposition to it among some members of the Dartmouth community.”
NDC is one of many campus groups which staged an end of year action aimed at coercing college officials into adopting anti-Israel policies.
At Yale University, a pro-Hamas group moved to cap off the year with a hunger strike, choosing to starve themselves inside an administrative building in lieu of establishing an illegal encampment.
Yale administrators refused to meet with the students for a discussion of their demands that the university’s endowment be divested of any ties to Israel, as well as companies that do business with it, according to the Yale Daily News. On the fourth day of the demonstration, Yale student affairs dean Melanie Boyd briefly approached the students at the site of their demonstration, Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, advising them to leave the space because “the administration does not intend to hold any additional meetings.”
The group ended the hunger strike after just ten days, citing “deteriorating health conditions.”
In New York City, pro-Hamas students clashed with police during an unauthorized demonstration at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, continuing a series of days in which law enforcement has been deployed to quell extremist disturbances.
As seen in footage captured by “FreedomNews.TV,” students rocked officers with blow after blow to obstruct their being arrested for trespassing, prompting as many as six others to rush in to help with detaining one person at a time. The melees were unlike any seen on a US college campus this semester.
Reportedly, the aim of the group was to establish a pro-Hamas encampment on the East Quad section of campus, which they called a “Liberated Zone,” and several reports said that it attempted to block the entrance to the Tanger Hillel House after being prevented from doing so. FreedomNews captured several more fights between protesters and officers which were filmed in front of the Hillel building, where Jewish students socialize and seek support from their community.
“Tanger Hillel at Brooklyn College is appalled by the anti-Israel protest and encampment that took place on May 8, 2025 and violated campus policies and feared deeply troubling antisemitic rhetoric, including chants of ‘Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here,’ and banners with inverted red triangles, a symbol widely recognized as a call for violence,” Tanger Hillel told The Algemeiner in a statement following the incident. “Targeting Hillel, the Jewish student center, is not a peaceful protest. It is harassment, intimidation, and an antisemitic act of aggression.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Democratic Socialists of America Distances Itself From Caucus Group That Applauded DC Jewish Museum Shooting
Elias Rodriguez, 30, from Chicago, taken into custody by police for allegedly shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) national organization has distanced itself from remarks made by one of its caucus groups which celebrated the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC last week.
“Democratic Socialists of America seek to democratically transform our society and reject vigilante violence. We condemn the murder of Israeli embassy workers. Any statement otherwise is not the stance of DSA,” DSA posted on X/Twitter on Wednesday.
The post came one day after the DSA’s Liberation Caucus publicly praised Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old far-left and anti-Israel activist who has been charged with gunning down two Israeli embassy officials as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in the US capital.
The caucus announced that it signed onto a statement by left-wing activist group Unity of Fields which defended Rodriguez’s actions as a “legitimate act of resistance against the Zionist state and its genocidal campaign in Gaza” and called for the alleged murderer’s immediate release.
Rodriguez was charged last Thursday in US federal court with two counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of fatally shooting Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, a young couple about to become engaged to be married, as they left an event for young professionals and diplomatic staff hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). According to video of the attack and an affidavit filed by US federal authorities supporting the criminal charges, Rodriguez yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police and told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
“Excellent statement that we are proud to add our name to. Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners,” the DSA liberation caucus said on social media of Unity of Fields’ note.
The liberation caucus’s comments sparked immediate backlash, with critics accusing the group of both supporting antisemitic violence and further marginalizing the Palestinian cause.
“DSA types literally think murderers, if they kill *the right people*, deserve no consequences. Socialism is a pro-killing ideology on so many levels, and they seem almost proud of it,” Reason reporter Liz Wolfe wrote.
Following the main DSA organization’s statement condemning the DC murders, the liberation caucus posted, “Liberation is not all of DSA. DSA is comprised of many different ideological tendencies, we are just one. Right wing news outlets and individuals have chosen to take the statement we signed to portray the entire organization as holding our views – this is wrong.”
DSA, one of the country’s premier leftist political advocacy organizations, has mobilized in recent years to elect anti-Israel members to the US Congress. Influential lawmakers such as US Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Greg Casar (D-TX), and Cori Bush (D-MO) are all current members of the socialist organization. Others such as Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Summer Lee (D-PA) are former members.
The organization also counts rising star and aspiring New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani among its ranks. Mamdani has made his anti-Israel activism a centerpiece of his mayoral campaign, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and arguing that it does not offer “equal rights” to all of its citizens.
DSA has ramped up its anti-Israel rhetoric during the Gaza war. On Oct. 7, 2023, the organization issued a statement saying that Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel that day was “a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” The organization also encouraged its followers to attend an Oct. 8 “All Out for Palestine” event in Manhattan.
In January 2024, DSA issued a statement calling for an “end to diplomatic and military support of Israel.” Then in April, the organization’s international committee, DSA IC, issued a missive defending Iran’s right to “self-defense” against Israel. Iranian leaders regularly call for the Jewish state’s destruction, and Tehran has long provided Hamas with weapons and funding.
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