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IDF soldiers wounded on Oct. 7, in New York for medical treatment, say support from other injured troops crucial for recovery
(New York Jewish Week) – On Oct. 7, Yonatan Pinto was stationed on the Gaza border near the Israeli communities of Nirim and Nir Oz. At around 7 a.m., as Hamas terrorists launched their surprise attack, Pinto’s tank was hit by a missile, blinding him, spraying him with shrapnel and causing serious burns to his body.
Fellow soldiers from his battalion evacuated Pinto on an armored personnel carrier, but the vehicle hit a mine and stalled, and was then attacked. The assailants fired seven projectiles at the vehicle but were fought off by the troops. Pinto, still unable to see, then ran three kilometers, holding onto a friend’s shoulder for guidance, until he reached safety. He arrived at a hospital at 3:40 p.m.
“I remember everything,” Pinto told the New York Jewish Week on Monday at a gala for Belev Echad, a New York-based nonprofit founded in 2009 that supports wounded IDF soldiers. “An eight-hour journey of trying to survive, trying to escape, all blinded.
“When I got to the hospital bed I started to let go — the adrenaline started dropping and I started feeling a little pain,” he said. “The stress started to go away but it was a relief, a huge relief. I’m saved.”
Pinto, 20, still has a long road ahead. He has undergone a number of surgeries in recent weeks to remove shrapnel and treat his eyes, and he has also started physical therapy. But he remains mostly blind, wearing dark glasses indoors and struggling to navigate using a cane.
Pinto and two other wounded soldiers, Yarden Chamo and Daniel Zaidman, came to the U.S. this week to receive further medical and psychological treatment in the New York area. The men said one of the keys to coping with the attack and its aftermath were the bonds they had formed with other wounded soldiers, both those injured on Oct. 7 and others who had tread the same difficult path before them.
“It really helps me and strengthens me,” said Chamo, who sustained injuries on Oct. 7 to his arms, legs and face, pointing to his friend Zaidman. “He knows what I’m feeling and I know what he’s feeling.” Zaidman was shot in the arm while fighting in the farming community of Netiv Ha’asara on Oct. 7 and took shrapnel to his hand and face.
“We know exactly how to help each other because we experience the same pain,” said Chamo, 21, who is still using a crutch and coping with PTSD.
Belev Echad runs a house with amenities for wounded soldiers in the Tel Aviv suburb of Kiryat Ono, and its activists visit the injured in hospitals, organize medical treatments and provide other services such as martial arts lessons. The group was assisting some 600 veterans before Oct. 7, and has added 500 more to its rolls since the attack, said Belev Echad’s director, Rabbi Uriel Vigler.
While in New York, the three soldiers, who had pink scars still visible on their skin, spoke at the nonprofit’s annual gala to raise funds for the group. Around 1,500 people, most of them Jews, packed into the the swanky Cipriani event space on Wall Street for the event, hearing the soldiers’ stories, pledging funds to the organization and sympathizing with the troops and their families. Some of the funds will go to a hyperbaric pressure chamber used to treat brain injuries, Vigler said. The gala and fundraising efforts surrounding the event raised a total of around $4.3 million. Orthodox singer Yaakov Shwekey performed and actress Swell Ariel Or of Netflix’s “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” delivered a speech.
The event was dedicated to Raz Mizrahi, a Border Police trooper whose back was badly wounded when an attacker rammed her with a vehicle in East Jerusalem in 2021. She recovered from her injury after four months of rehabilitation, rejoined her unit, became an officer and completed her service. After her release from the military, she joined the staff of Belev Echad, becoming the keynote speaker at the organization’s New York gala last year and connecting with local Jewish communities. She last visited New York in September.
Mizrahi, 21, was at the Supernova music festival near kibbutz Re’im on Oct. 7. She sought safety in a bomb shelter with two friends as rockets streaked out of Gaza, calling her family from the scene. She was missing after the attack as her panicked family scrambled to find information; her body was identified three days later.
“I sometimes think she’s on a trip and needs to come back. I have so many conversations with her. I think that’s what I miss the most,” her mother, Nirit Mizrahi, said in a video played at the event that brought some in the audience to tears.
“Raz is not an ordinary girl. She has a light in her face,” her mother said in the video, which showed Mizrahi in interviews, at the previous year’s gala, and then showed her funeral.
“She would like us to keep living and keep laughing and not fall into sadness,” her mother said. “If I could tell her something, it would be that I’m proud of her.”
Pinto’s mother, Carmit Pinto, was also struggling with the aftermath of the attack.
“We’ve been through ups and downs. Very optimistic, but still crying. It’s not easy,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “We try to focus on the present and not on the future. To go through the medical stuff and to pray that he’ll see again.”
Pinto took a lighter tone, joking that “I’m a little bit disappointed that my first visit in America or in New York is going to be when I can’t see anything.”
“There are times I remember suddenly, ‘Oh, I can’t see,’” he added. “But then I’m saying to myself, ‘No, don’t think about it, move on.”
Despite his optimism, doctors in Israel said Pinto’s vision may or may not improve, and if it does get better, it’s unclear to what extent he will recover. Pinto’s medical files were translated to English and sent to doctors in New York, who will also assess his condition and offer an opinion on a way forward. Details about the soldiers’ procedures in the United States were kept confidential.
Pinto’s mother also said support from other wounded veterans was a crucial part of his recovery. When Pinto was first released from the hospital, friends, former teachers and others came to visit him, but at other times, he was left alone, unable to read the news or use his phone. He was reluctant at first to leave the house for physical therapy, but found a safe space with others who had gone through, or were going through, similar experiences.
“It’s not just therapy, it’s also and most importantly the people,” his mother said. “The people that know exactly what he’s been through because they’ve been through the same thing. It makes him feel good.”
Pinto said he had connected with other soldiers who were injured in different areas on Oct. 7, and had pieced together the bigger picture of the attack, and his place in the story. “I fit here — it’s not like I need to play pretend. I don’t need to make a fake smile,” he said, adding that soldiers injured in past battles knew the way forward. “These people understand me better than I probably understand myself because they’ve been through the same thing and they already got over most of the things I’m going through right now.”
Chamo, a soldier in the Golani infantry brigade, was stationed on the Gaza border on Oct. 7 when he heard the first “red alert” rocket sirens at 6:30 a.m. He and eight other soldiers were told that terrorists had attacked the nearby kibbutz of Nir Am and headed to the community in an armored personnel carrier.
On their way there, attackers opened fire on the vehicle with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. During a running battle, one of the soldiers exposed himself to fire back, was shot in his eye, and fell back into the vehicle. Before the soldiers had time to react, an attacker hurled a grenade into the carrier. One of the troopers apologized to the others and jumped onto the explosive. He was killed, but likely saved the lives of the others, who were still wounded by the shrapnel. Chamo continued fighting, gunning down another terrorist, before another grenade exploded next to him, injuring his arms, legs and face. A gas grenade then landed in the vehicle, temporarily blinding them.
“I’m injured, I have one dead, another injured in the vehicle. The soldiers who are with me are in shock,” Chamo told the rapt audience while standing next to his mother, who also accompanied him to New York. “I’m looking death in the eye, but I didn’t give up. I opened the emergency door so the gas could get out. Another terrorist stood in front of me and I eliminated him.”
The terrorists had fortified themselves in the kibbutz by that point, and before going in, Chamo sent a farewell video to his family and close friends. After an hour and a half of fighting, he received medical attention for his wounds and survived. His mother recounted to the audience how she had driven south, through rocket fire, to find her son in an emergency room covered in blood.
Chamo pointed to Shuri Moyal, a Belev Echad staff member at the event who was injured by a rocket propelled grenade blast in Gaza in 2014, as a source of support.
“I met him a month ago and I feel like he’s my older brother,” Chamo said. “He experienced it 10 years ago and now he helps me get through it like I need to. He’s showing me the way.”
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Trump Withholds Another $450 Million From Harvard University Coffers
US President Donald Trump attends a press conference in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 12, 2025. Photo: Nathan Howard via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration has impounded another $450 million in taxpayer funded research grants and contracts previously awarded to Harvard University, citing the school’s history of fostering anti-Zionist extremism and practicing racial preferences in admissions and hiring.
“Harvard University has repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and antisemitic harassment plaguing its campus,” the multi-agency Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, created by US President Donald Trump in February, said in a statement. “This is just the latest chapter in Harvard’s long standing policy and practice of discriminating on the basis of race as recognized by the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, where the court rebuked Harvard for its unlawful race discrimination in admissions.”
The task force went on, coupling the issue of racial preferences with anti-Zionism in higher education, which conservative activists have said is necessary for reforming what they describe as a hub for far-left radicals who name both Israel and Western civilization as targets for subversion and deposition.
It said, “Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination. This is not leadership; it is cowardice. And it’s not academic freedom; it’s institutional disenfranchisement. There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support.”
Harvard University continues to draw criticism over its campus culture.
Earlier this month, a new “preliminary” report published by nonprofit watchdog NGO Monitor said the institution has ties to anti-Zionist nongovernmental organizations and other entities acting as proxy organizations for terrorist groups that warrant scrutiny and reproach.
Titled, “Advocacy NGOs in Academic Frameworks: Harvard University Case Study,” the report presents copious evidence that Harvard’s academic centers, including Harvard Law School, have come under the influence of Al-Haq and Addameer — two groups identified by the Israeli government as agents and propaganda manufacturers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. The NGOs, the report added, influence research and institutional culture, tilting the ideological balance of the campus toward anti-Zionism.
“The report demonstrates the major contribution from prominent advocacy NGOs to the atmosphere of propaganda and antisemitism at Harvard, particularly through frameworks claiming human rights agendas,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, who authored the report alongside Dr. Adi Schwartz, said in a statement. “The close cooperation between prominent NGOs and Harvard academic programs warrants urgent scrutiny. The blurred lines between scholarship and advocacy threaten academic integrity and risk further inflaming campus tensions.”
In April, the Trump administration impounded $2.26 billion in Harvard’s federal funds following the institution’s refusing to agree to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter the administration sent to Harvard interim president Alan Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — the policies called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Since then, Harvard has admitted to being irresponsive to the concerns of Jewish students and the public.
Several weeks after sparring with the Trump administration, as well as suing it in federal court, Harvard released its long anticipated report on campus antisemitism which said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups. Garber apologized for the inconsistent application of policy.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in a statement which accompanied the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Harvard’s contrition has not changed Trump’s opinion about the institution. After the report’s release he announced plans to revoke Harvard University’s tax exempt status, which it enjoys as a nonprofit entity.
“It’s what they deserve,” Trump said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Vows ‘Most Destructive Force’ Iran Won’t Get Nuclear Weapon as Tehran Defends Enrichment Program
US President Donald Trump attends the Saudi-US Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced Iran as the “most destructive force” in the Middle East, accusing Tehran of fueling regional instability and vowing that Washington would never allow the country to acquire a nuclear weapon.
During his visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump also accused Iran of causing “unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond,” just two days after US and Iranian officials held a fourth round of nuclear talks in Oman.
Trump’s comments came as Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, described the recent round of talks between the adversaries as productive, but criticized Washington’s new sanctions as undermining the ongoing diplomacy.
“In recent days, they [the Trump administration] issued sanctions on Iran; this is completely incompatible with the process of negotiations,” the Iranian diplomat said. “This will definitely affect our positions.”
This week, the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian oil smuggling network accused of facilitating billions of dollars in crude oil sales to China.
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.
The fourth round of nuclear talks between Iranian and US officials concluded in Oman on Sunday, with additional negotiations scheduled as Tehran continues to publicly insist on advancing its uranium enrichment.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian declared in Tehran on Tuesday that Iran “will not retreat from its inalienable right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.”
Earlier this month, Iran accused the Trump administration of “contradictory behavior and provocative statements” following remarks by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who warned the country of severe consequences for supporting Yemen’s Houthi militia, an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The Iran-backed group, which controls northern Yemen, has been targeting ships in the Red Sea since November 2023, disrupting global trade, while justifying the attacks as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
The first and third rounds of talks were held in Oman, while the second round took place in Rome at the residence of the Omani ambassador.
Tehran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable, despite Washington’s threats of military action, additional sanctions, and tariffs if an agreement is not reached to curb Iran’s nuclear activities.
However, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.” Witkoff’s comments came after he received criticism for suggesting the Islamic Republic would be allowed to maintain its nuclear program in a limited capacity.
Trump indicated last Wednesday during a radio interview that he is seeking to “blow up” Iran’s nuclear centrifuges “nicely” through an agreement with Tehran but is also prepared to do so “viciously” in an attack if necessary. That same day, however, when asked by a reporter in the White House whether his administration would allow Iran to maintain an enrichment program as long as it doesn’t enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, Trump said his team had not decided. “We haven’t made that decision yet,” Trump said. “We will, but we haven’t made that decision.”
Despite Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapons development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
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New York City Mayor Establishes First-of-Its-Kind Office to Combat Antisemitism
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announcing the formation of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism at a press conference at City Hall on May 13, 2025. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced at a press conference on Tuesday morning the creation of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, the first office of its kind to be established in a major city in the US.
The first task of the new mayoral office will be to immediately establish an inter-agency taskforce that will focus on tacking “all forms of antisemitism,” which include monitoring court cases and outcomes in the justice system, cooperating with the New York City Law Department on cases to bring or join, and advising on executive orders to issue and legislation to propose to address antisemitism. The office will also liaise with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to take action against antisemitism, and it will have the authority to ensure that city-funded entities, taxpayer-funded organizations, and city agencies do not promote antisemitism.
“Anything funded by the city, there are rules and regulations of how you can contract with the city and behave when you contract with the city, and we’re going to make sure that is taken care of in the proper way,” Moshe Davis, the inaugural executive director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism, told The Algemeiner. He explained that the new office will make sure “that these [city-funded] agencies are not doing the wrong thing and if they are, and we have the legal ability, we are going to make sure they are not going to be able to continue doing that.”
“By establishing the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, our administration is taking immediate and concrete steps to address antisemitism at every level of city life,” Davis added during the press conference.
Adams made the announcement about the new initiative amid an unprecedented uptick in antisemitism in New York City and across the nation. In 2024, the NYPD reported that 54 percent of all hate crimes in New York City were against Jewish New Yorkers. During the first quarter of 2025, that number rose to 62 percent.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League’s latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents revealed a record number of 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the US in 2024. The highest number of incidents were in New York.
New York City has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and Jews make up 10 percent of the population, according to the mayor. New York has 960,000 Jewish residents.
Adams said it is “imperative” to address the increase in antisemitism in New York City.
“We can’t move on with business as usual when we have a population in your city that is overwhelmingly being targeted merely because of their religion or way of life,” Adams said on Tuesday at the press conference. He added that the new Office to Combat Antisemitism will help “send a very clear message in this city that antisemitism cannot live and most importantly cannot grow – cannot grow on our college campuses, cannot grow in our schools, in our work environments … And let’s be honest, it’s not a Jewish issue. Any hate on a group is an issue that we should address. This administration will not remain silent while our Jewish brothers and sisters are targeted.”
“As we continue to see the rising tide of antisemitism here at home, and across the country, this moment calls for decisive action,” the mayor further said in a released statement. “The Office to Combat Antisemitism … will tackle antisemitism in all of its forms, working across city agencies to ensure Jewish New Yorkers are protected and can thrive here in the five boroughs. Antisemitism is an attack not only on Jewish New Yorkers, but on the very idea of New York City as a place where people from all backgrounds can live together.”
Davis’s first course of action as the executive director of the new office will be to form a commission of Jewish leaders from across the city to oversee and advise on the office’s work. The mayor described Davis in a press statement as “a tireless advocate on behalf of Jewish New Yorkers, and he is exactly the right person to lead and build this office.”
Davis joined the Adams administration in November 2022 as Jewish liaison in the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs. He formerly managed the city’s first Jewish Advisory Council, which the mayor established in June 2023.
“Combating antisemitism requires a sledgehammer approach: coordinated, unapologetic, and immediate,” Davis said. “Mayor Adams has been a modern-day Maccabee, standing up for the Jewish community, and, with the establishment of this office, he is strengthening his resolve to ensure Jewish New Yorkers thrive in our city. I look forward to working closely with Mayor Eric Adams and First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro to continue our forceful response against anti-Jewish hate and discrimination.”
Davis was previously the rabbinic leader at the Manhattan Jewish Experience, a program for young Jewish professionals. He also founded New York Jews in Politics, an initiative that connects Jewish professionals who work in government, advocacy, and nonprofit sectors, and received his ordination from the Rabbinical Council of Jerusalem. As executive director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism, he will report directly to First Deputy Mayor Mastro.
“We are a city that will not tolerate antisemitism,” Mastro said at the press conference on Tuesday.
“The rise in antisemitism in our city, in our country, and around the world is both alarming and intolerable,” Mastro added in a released statement. “Today, Mayor Adams is taking a stand — that in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world — antisemitism is unacceptable, and we have to do more to address it. So, New York City will lead the way as the first major city in America to establish an office dedicated solely to combatting antisemitism.”
New York City also has an Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, which was launched in 2019 and is still active, and the NYPD has a Hate Crime Task Force that addresses bias-motivated threats, harassment, discrimination, and violence throughout New York.
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