RSS
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.”
—
The post How Jewish day schools are talking about the horrors in Israel with their students appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Attempted Arson at Same Paris Kosher Market Which Was Attacked in 2015
Shoppers enter the Hyper Cacher in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, Jan. 7, 2019. Photo: Stephen Caillet / Reuters.
An arson attack occurred on Thursday outside a kosher shop in Paris—the same market where four Jews were murdered in 2015—amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic incidents in France.
The incident occurred around 3 a.m. outside the Hyper Cacher store after unidentified individuals set fire to nearby dumpsters.
While no injuries were reported and the interior of the shop remained unharmed, the fire damaged the exterior of the establishment, leaving a side wall covered in soot, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.
Local police have opened an investigation for “willful damage by fire” and are treating the case as an act of vandalism, but have not indicated any suspicion of an antisemitic motive.
In 2015, a jihadist terrorist murdered four Jews at the Hyper Cacher, just days after his accomplices murdered 12 people at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine.
Since then, annual commemorations are held outside the shop — the facade of which remained undamaged in the fire — to honor the victims of the attack.
After the attack this week, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) issued a statement that did not label the incident as antisemitic, but described it as “yet another reminder of the persistent threats Jewish communities face.”
EJC is “deeply troubled by the arson attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris, a site forever marked by the tragic 2015 hostage crisis,” the statement reads. “Authorities must ensure that those responsible are swiftly brought to justice.”
This assault comes amid a recent rise in antisemitic incidents across France. Earlier this month, a man was attacked after being insulted with antisemitic slurs, while a woman on her way to Hebrew class was also physically attacked.
Both of the incidents happened in Villeurbanne, which is home to the second-largest Jewish community in France.
In response to the rise in antisemitism, the city’s mayor, Cédric Van Styvendael of the Socialist Party, strongly condemned the attacks and expressed his support for the victims.
Both victims have filed complaints, and there are ongoing investigations into these attacks. Local police have yet to identify the person responsible for the attack on the woman. She was physically assaulted by another woman wearing a veil, who called her a “dirty Jew” while walking to her Hebrew class.
As for the attack on the man, a suspect was arrested following the release of city surveillance footage. Local police have launched an investigation into the incident for “aggravated violence” and “antisemitic comments.”
According to the victim’s report, the attack occurred after a traffic accident. The assailant physically assaulted him, hurling antisemitic insults, calling him a “zionist,” a “dirty Jew,” and blaming him for the “massacre in Gaza.”
Based on hospital records, the victim suffered a triple fracture in his arm and multiple bruises.
Antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews.
The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
The post Attempted Arson at Same Paris Kosher Market Which Was Attacked in 2015 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Sit Down With Social Media Personality Who Defended Hamas, Hezbollah
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are seen before a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 21, 2024. Photo: Craig Hudson/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raised eyebrows on Thursday by agreeing to participate in an interview with controversial anti-Israel media personality Hasan Piker.
Ahead of a joint appearance at a public rally, the duo sat with the political Twitch streamer to discuss issues affecting the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States. Piker suggested that the Trump administration has stifled the free speech rights of anti-Israel advocates, pointing to the recent deportation attempt of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
Piker has an extensive history of repudiating Israel as an “apartheid state” and defending atrocities committed against its civilians. In a 2024 livestream, Piker minimized sexual assaults committed against Israeli women at the hands of Hamas, saying “it doesn’t matter if rapes f—ing happened on Oct. 7.” He has defended violence from the Hamas and Houthi terrorist groups as legitimate “resistance.” He has also said he doesn’t “have an issue with” the Hezbollah terrorist group, which had pummelled Israel with an unremitting barrage of missiles and rockets from the southern Lebanon border in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7.
Piker accused the Trump administration of mirroring tactics by Nazi Germany through engaging in censorship of those critical of the ongoing war in Gaza. He also blasted the White House over its attempt to “take control” of Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern Studies by placing it under an academic receivership. He warned that the Trump administration could use the “Palestine conversation” as an “entry point” to expand censorship across the United States.
In the immediate aftermath of the October 2023 massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel by the Hamas terrorist group, Columbia University erupted in protest. Many student organizations issued statements placing blame on Israel for the terrorist attacks. Protesters called for the US to stop providing military aid to Israel and for Columbia University to divest from Israeli interests. In addition, Jewish students reported intimidation, harassment, and isolation on campus.
In a letter issued to Columbia earlier this month, the Trump administration directed the Ivy League university to establish a formal definition of antisemitism, prohibit masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate,” and place its departments of African Studies, South Asian, and Middle Eastern studies under “academic receivership,” which would place them under independent oversight.
Ocaio-Cortez (AOC), one of the most strident opponents of Israel in Congress, defended Khalil, arguing that his raucous protests on Columbia’s campus were an example of “free speech.” She added that there is “profound money and interest that remains dedicated on both sides of the aisle” attempting to “conflate criticism of Israel as antisemitism.”
AOC has an extensive history of using her platform to criticize Israel. In the 17 months following the Oct. 7 attacks, the firebrand progressive has accused Israel of committing a “genocide” against Palestinians and practicing “apartheid.” She has repeatedly called for the implementation of a full “arms embargo” against Israel, which would deprive the Jewish state of weapons needed to complete its military objectives in Gaza. Nonetheless, AOC has come under fire from progressive organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for supporting a House resolution which affirmed Israel’s “right to exist.”
The post Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez Sit Down With Social Media Personality Who Defended Hamas, Hezbollah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Why Deportation of Dr. Rasha Alawieh Is Justified
Demonstration in support of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, Monday, March 17, 2025, at the Rhode Island State Capitol Building. Green banner on right with white Arabic lettering reads, “From Gaza to Beirut, the Intifada Will Never Die!” Photo: Screenshot
The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday issued a simple statement of the “commonsense security” considerations that led to the deportation of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant nephrologist in Brown University’s Division of Kidney Disease.
“Last month, Rasha Alawieh traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah — a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree,” the statement read. “Alawieh openly admitted to this to CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) officers, as well as her support of Nasrallah. A visa is a privilege, not a right — glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is commonsense security.”
Multiple media outlets that were given access to Alawieh’s immigration proceeding documents have elaborated on her fawning admiration of Nasrallah — the long-time leader of the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based jihad terrorist group Hezbollah who called for the annihilation of Jews — as a “spiritual leader.” Alawieh, a Shiite Muslim, reportedly declared, “If you listen to one of his [Nasrallah’s] sermons, you would know what I mean. He is a religious, spiritual person … His teachings are about spirituality and morality.”
I was a very active clinical kidney transplantation researcher who worked for almost 20 years in the Brown University Division of Kidney Disease. Moreover, as a recognized scholar of jihadism and Islamic antisemitism, I have studied Nasrallah’s alleged “spirituality and morality” and, understatedly, found it wanting.
Invoking antisemitic references from the Qur’an, Nasrallah characterized Jews as “apes and pigs” (Qur’an 5:60) and as “Allah’s most cowardly and greedy creatures” (Qur’an 2:96; 4:53; 59:13–14). He elaborated these themes into an annihilationist animus against all Jews, not merely Israelis”
Anyone who reads the Qur’an and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history … Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment … There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel … If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli … [I]f they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide [emphasis mine].
Nasrallah’s recent funeral in Beirut — which Alawieh attended, in reverence — was punctuated by the enormous throng of tens of thousands bellowing “death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
The Department of Homeland Security acted appropriately in deporting Alawieh, and I wholeheartedly endorse that decision. Particularly as a non-citizen visa holder, there is no place for Alawieh’s support of a vicious advocate of jihad terror, and mass-murdering Jew-hatred, in the US, let alone in American medicine.
I also denounce those feckless, morally blind medical “academics” who are seeking Alawieh’s return to the US and reinstatement at Brown University. A scene pathognomonic of their willful ignorance unfolded Monday evening, on the steps of Rhode Island’s State Capitol building. While Alawieh’s supporters including, sadly, former colleagues, stood enraptured facing the speaker’s location, adjacent to it, a group of women in hijabs held a green banner with white Arabic lettering that read, “From Gaza to Beirut, the Intifada Will Never Die!” The “Intifada” is synonymous with lethal jihad violence that targets non-combatant Israeli Jews, in fulfillment of Nasrallah’s “spiritual” Shiite Islamic religious ideology.
Finally, I am thoroughly disgusted with a recently retired colleague of 30 years, and former chief of the Brown Division of Kidney Disease, Dr. Douglas Shemin, who hired Alawieh and would not state categorically he would not have hired her had he known she was a disciple of Nasrallah!
Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS, is a retired Brown University academic internist and clinical epidemiologist, who is also the author of The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism, and other books and essays on Islam. His non-medical research focus has been on the impact of Islamic conquest, colonization, and governance on non-Muslims.
The post Why Deportation of Dr. Rasha Alawieh Is Justified first appeared on Algemeiner.com.