Uncategorized
Hundreds of rabbis say Biden’s plan to fight antisemitism should embrace a disputed definition
WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than 550 rabbis are calling for the Biden administration’s forthcoming strategy on fighting antisemitism to include a definition of anti-Jewish bigotry that has come under debate.
The letter was sent as progressive groups are seeking to dissuade the administration from using the definition because they believe it chills legitimate criticism of Israel. The letter’s signatories disagree with that assessment.
“IHRA is critically important for helping to educate and protect our congregants in the face of this rising hate,” said the rabbis’ letter, which was sent to the White House on Friday via the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The acronym IHRA refers to the 2016 working definition of antisemitism crafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
“We believe it is imperative that in its National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, the administration formally embrace the IHRA Working Definition as the official and only definition used by the United States government and that it be used as a training and educational tool, similar to European Union countries’ use of the definition in their Action Plans,” the letter said.
The IHRA document consists of a two-sentence definition of antisemitism followed by 11 examples of how antisemitism may manifest. Most of those examples concern speech about Israel that the IHRA defines as antisemitic. Israel critics, and some progressive supporters of Israel, say two of those examples are so broad that they inhibit robust criticism of Israel: “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
The letter’s signatories hail from all three major Jewish denominations, though the list of names includes few leaders of the movements. The Reform movement has said IHRA is a useful guide but has opposed using it in legislation.
Among the signatories are rabbis known to be close to President Joe Biden, including Michael Beals, a Delaware rabbi who played a prominent role campaigning for the president in 2020, and Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the rabbi who protected his congregants during a hostage crisis at a Texas synagogue last year.
If the Biden administration does include the IHRA working definition in its plan, it won’t exactly be a surprise. Soon after his inauguration, a Biden administration official called the IHRA document an “invaluable tool,” and one month later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the administration “enthusiastically embraces it.” The working definition has been endorsed by past administrations of both parties and, in 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Education to consider it when weighing civil rights complaints concerning Jews. It has been adopted in varying forms by a range of national and local governments, universities, professional sports teams and other bodies.
But now, according to Jewish Insider, progressive groups are asking the Biden administration to forgo including the definition in a soon-to-be-published strategy to combat antisemitism. Biden said at an event on Tuesday that the strategy would have 100 recommendations for action, and insiders say it may be published as soon as next week.
A number of coalitions have proposed alternative definitions that contain more limited definitions of when anti-Israel speech is antisemitic. The letter from the rabbis does not mention Israel, but cautions against adopting a definition other than IHRA’s.
“We believe the adoption of any definition less comprehensive than the IHRA definition would be a step backwards for this administration and make our work on the ground significantly harder,” it said.
In a meeting this week with members of the press, Biden’s lead antisemitism monitor, Deborah Lipstadt, who is a member of the administration’s antisemitism task force, would not say if the IHRA definition would make it into the strategy, accordin. She said it was “effective” and helped her in her work, but added, “I’m not going to preempt what the White House is going to say or not say.”
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents, said the notion that the IHRA working definition inhibits Israel criticism has been belied by the “slew of people critical of Israeli policy [who] have not been muted because of the IHRA definition.” Daroff pointed in particular to widespread criticism of the Israeli government’s plan to weaken the judiciary, which critics have said would undercut Israel’s democracy and remove a curb on human rights abuses.
“A comprehensive report on antisemitism might not be comprehensive without defining antisemitism,” Daroff told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It might undercut American efforts to combat antisemitism abroad by weakening the clear importance of the IHRA definition.”
—
The post Hundreds of rabbis say Biden’s plan to fight antisemitism should embrace a disputed definition appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
Uncategorized
Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
Uncategorized
Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.