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In a first, Volodymyr Zelensky met with Chabad rabbis ahead of Rosh Hashanah
(JTA) — Volodymyr Zelensky met with 32 Chabad emissaries and rabbis Thursday night ahead of Rosh Hashanah, marking the Jewish president of Ukraine’s first official meeting with Jewish leaders since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Also in attendance were 15 Jewish soldiers whom Zelensky presented with medals.
During the meeting, Zelensky made his latest appeal for military aid from Israel, including for its Iron Dome missile defense system, something Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly sought. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declined to supply Ukraine with Iron Dome capabilities because he fears the technology could then fall into the hands of Iran, an adversary of Israel that is allied with Russia.
At the meeting on Thursday, Zelensky involved Jewish religious observance in his request for Israeli aid. Israeli weapons, he said, would have made it easier for Ukraine to protect the tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims who are in the city of Uman for Rosh Hashanah to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a Hasidic leader who lived at the turn of the 19th century. Those pilgrims traveled to Uman despite safety warnings from both Ukraine and Israel, where many of them live.
Zelensky also broadcast a message of appreciation at the event, which was organized by the Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, an organization led by Rabbi Meir Stambler.
“Because of you, the glorious Jewish community continues to flourish here,” Zelensky said. “And you continue to do your part both within Ukraine and abroad, for the Jews here and for the general population.”
Ukrainian Jewish communities have been shaken by the war, as many Ukrainians fled the country or relocated to safer ground inside it once Russian troops invaded, leaving behind a population that is older and needier on average than was the case before the war. While some Chabad rabbis, who make up the majority of Jewish clergy in the country, helped their families leave early on, all have returned, in keeping with the philosophy of their movement, whose emissaries typically commit to the cities where they are stationed and stay there through thick and thin.
The meeting comes weeks after a landmark in Chabad’s recent presence in Ukraine: the first new emissary couple to arrive there since the war’s onset. Rabbi Mendy and Mushky Halperin, who came with their 4-month-old son Ari, now live in Chernivtsi, a western Ukrainian city which, due to its location, has largely been spared the war’s violence.
Before the war began, Chernivtsi was estimated to have about 2,000 Jewish residents, including many Holocaust survivors. Since February 2022, the city has become a refuge for Ukrainians, and the local Jewish community, too, has seen growth.
Chernivtsi’s Masorti community, which is affiliated with Conservative Judaism, saw attendance at its Shabbat services in the city roughly double as of last December. Chabad operations in Chernivtsi have also expanded — and local emissaries expect to host 500 people for Rosh Hashanah.
The Halperin family crossed from Moldova into Chernivtsi by land on Aug. 30, weeks ahead of the holiday that begins this Friday night. Mendy comes from Kfar Chabad, a Chabad-founded village in Israel, and Mushky hails from Riga, Latvia, where her parents serve as Chabad emissaries.
The couple will join Rabbi Mendy and Pnina Glitzenstein, directors of the Chabad of Chernivtsi, who have been at their posting since 2003. Mendy Halperin will work with Jewish university students, and Mushky Halperin will serve as the Jewish programming director of a preschool.
“We are overjoyed by the opportunity given to us,” Mendy Halperin told Chabad.org.
Now past the year-and-a-half mark, the war has become a grinding reality for Ukrainians as their army and Russia’s trade narrow slivers of territory and shelling punctuates daily life at unpredictable intervals. Zelensky is in the middle of another push for foreign aid, which he says is required for victory.
“We have come a long way, this very difficult year. In the new year, I wish all of you, your families, loved ones and the people you help health and peace. Peace can only come through Ukraine’s victory,” Zelensky told the rabbis. “Thank you for bringing this peace closer with your work, prayers, and activities together with the entire people of Ukraine, military and civilians.”
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The post In a first, Volodymyr Zelensky met with Chabad rabbis ahead of Rosh Hashanah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Comparing US Strike on Iran to Hiroshima, Trump Plays Down Intelligence Report
A satellite image shows airstrike craters over the underground centrifuge halls of the Natanz Enrichment Facility, following US airstrikes amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Natanz County, Iran, June 22, 2025. Photo: Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump compared the impact of American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the end of World War II on Wednesday, arguing that the damage was severe even though available intelligence reports were inconclusive.
His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on Tuesday revealing that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran‘s nuclear program by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated.
“The intelligence was … very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So, I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump added.
SUCCESS OF IRAN STRIKES CRUCIAL FOR TRUMP
Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him.
Some of his right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump‘s domestic-focused “Make America Great Again” agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.
Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon – a line that an accurate, decisive attack would support.
Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Iran and compared them to the United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which brought an end to World War II in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
Trump argued that Iran‘s nuclear program had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again” and he turned to top advisers to reinforce that message.
Broadly, he has argued that the strikes were much more successful than has so far been reported in the US media.
The White House on Wednesday shared what it said was a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission – that country’s nuclear regulator – assessing that Iran‘s nuclear program had been set back by “many years.”
Al Jazeera quoted an Iranian official on Wednesday saying that the country’s nuclear installations had been “badly damaged.”
HEGSETH AND RUBIO REINFORCE TRUMP‘S MESSAGE
Trump, who arrived in the Netherlands late on Tuesday for NATO’s annual summit, was sitting beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who both also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA assessment.
“When you actually look at the report – by the way, it was a top secret report – it was preliminary, it was low-confidence,” Hegseth said. “This is a political motive here.”
He said the FBI was investigating a potential leak. Rubio suggested that those responsible for sharing the report had mischaracterized it, saying: “This is the game they play.”
All three men criticized media reports about the intelligence assessments.
At the summit, NATO member states were set to announce their joint intention to raise defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product.
While some countries have suggested they may not in fact reach that threshold, the Trump administration has pointed to the expected commitment as a significant foreign policy victory.
The post Comparing US Strike on Iran to Hiroshima, Trump Plays Down Intelligence Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian Movement Is a Cult Based on Indoctrination and Lies
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
When a movement demands absolute loyalty, rewrites history, and silences dissent, we’re no longer dealing with activism. Rather, it signals the rise of a dangerous cult. The global response to the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel has become exactly that: a sprawling, toxic cult masquerading as justice while hiding a deadly agenda.
Now, over 600 days later, after horrific events like the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington D.C., and the firebombing in Boulder, Colorado, we have borne witness to its lethal consequences.
A few days ago, I came across a video of one of the loudest and cruelest pro-Hamas agitators leading a group of students in a chant that defiled the Holocaust. Coldly and maliciously, she appropriated the horrors of the Shoah, declaring that the “real genocide” is happening in Gaza, while her audience echoed her words in a slow, droning murmur, as if in a trance. As if part of a cult.
The term “cult” is often tossed around loosely, but it has a specific meaning. A cult offers simple answers to complex problems. It demands extreme devotion to an ideology, blind loyalty, and enforces a rigid us-versus-them worldview. Cults reinvent history, suppress dissent, and zealously protect their ranks, often resorting to intimidation or violence to maintain control.
When protesting, students repeat slogans like “From the river to the sea” as if they were scripture, and now, when they openly support Iran’s murderous, nuclear-obsessed regime, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary movement. Convinced they are advancing justice, their refusal to scrutinize the cause they have embraced speaks of the movement’s cult-like character. They are not merely misguided social justice warriors; they form a global cult whose ultimate aim is not just control, but the annihilation of a nation, a people, and the Western way of life.
This terror-supporting, anti-Israel cult began its rapid ascent after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel’s military success transformed the country into a leftist scapegoat. Arab regimes elevated the Palestinian cause as a convenient proxy to dismantle Israel. The cause became a symbol of “resistance,” led by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. This narrative offered a binary worldview: oppressed versus oppressor, good versus evil — a worldview that appeals to those with little understanding of the conflict and even less interest in learning.
The cult did not rise in a vacuum. It was seeded by radical Islam, which long framed Jewish existence as an affront. It took root in a broader Muslim world where anti-Jewish hatred has often been normalized through education, media, and politics, absorbed unquestioningly from childhood. This is starting to change in places like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but it is a generations-long problem and still out of control in many parts of the Arab world, including all the Palestinian territories.
In the decades since Arafat’s heyday, the anti-Israel and blindly “pro-Palestinian” cult has spread globally, infiltrating institutions, NGOs, and universities. It is a malignant worldview rooted in old-school European and Muslim antisemitism, feeding on echo chambers, deliberate naiveté, and a universal need for moral validation. All this is sustained by disinformation and false moral certainty.
What makes this movement cult-like, however, is not sympathy for Palestinians, who are indeed a tormented people betrayed by their own leaders and neighboring regimes. The suffering is real, and peace remains a shared hope. But peace cannot take root while the world, led by this cult, continues to invert blame, chastising Israel while excusing or ignoring the atrocities committed by Hamas, including the ongoing hostage crisis. Such warped morality and its underpinnings clearly reveal a cult anatomy.
Cults reject facts. October 7, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, is whitewashed or denied. Attackers are reframed as “freedom fighters,” and the victims labeled “colonizers.” Students cry “genocide,” and media and politicians echo the lie. Cults divide the world into pure good and absolute evil. In this narrative, the Palestinians are blameless and Israel demonic. This binary view is fueled by billions in funding from Hamas, Qatar, and Iran, and left largely unchallenged by Israel’s weak public diplomacy. Building the cult around these lies was almost effortless.
There is no single charismatic leader, but countless clones – even US members of Congress like Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Some are grifters; others zealots. All stoke the same fire, blurring the line between condemnation and incitement, normalizing antisemitism and calls for Israel’s destruction. The cult’s symbols and rituals include the keffiyeh, encampments, chants, and performative arrests. They claim moral heroism while aligning with Palestinian terror groups that massacre civilians and oppress their own people.
Dissent is not tolerated. Jewish students are silenced. Faculty are labeled racist. Institutions either join in or fold. Governments, NGOs, and the media fan the flames. Politicians seek votes; social media outlets and influencers chase clicks; Hamas grows emboldened. Every chant denying October 7, every “resistance” sign empowers terror. This cult doesn’t just poison minds, it costs lives.
Can the curse be broken? Followers join by choice but become trapped in systems rewarding obedience and punishing doubt. While accountability is essential, so too is the need for remedies: deprogramming, public pressure, and legal consequences. But real change starts with leaders and institutions. Dismantling this cult requires bold action: prosecutions, curbing hate speech, holding institutions and the media accountable, and stopping terror funding and disinformation.
Most of all, we must call this movement what it is: a cult. Not a protest, not a peace movement, not advocacy. A cult. It took history’s bloodiest war and a Jewish Holocaust to end the Nazi cult. What will it take now? There has to be a better way. I just pray we find it in time.
Oren Bar-Ner is a writer and consultant. He advises technology startups and crafts business and marketing content for clients around the world. After more than two decades in senior roles within the software industry, he now channels his expertise into pro-Israel advocacy, a mission inspired by his late father, a lifelong Israeli diplomat and former ambassador to Turkey.
The post The Anti-Israel, Pro-Palestinian Movement Is a Cult Based on Indoctrination and Lies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Will Sarah Lawrence Address Congressional Committee in Face of Its Hostile Environment for Jews?
The Sarah Lawrence campus. Photo: Wiki Commons.
Sarah Lawrence College, my alma mater, might be delaying or resisting a Congressional request to provide documents concerning antisemitism and the safety of Jewish individuals on campus.
On June 11, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce sent a letter to Sarah Lawrence College “requesting more details about the safety of Jewish students on campus.”
This Congressional committee gave the college a deadline of June 25 to provide these documents. This is the second time the committee has requested documents from the college.
On June 23, Sarah Lawrence College President Cristle Collins Judd sent an email to faculty and staff, writing:
It is important to be aware that processes such as a congressional inquiry take time. As we indicated in our discussions last semester, the “due date(s)” in the Committee’s letters are not hard deadlines, rather they are dates by which our outside counsel – on behalf of the College – engages with the Committee to understand the scope and exact nature of the inquiries.
A committee spokesperson told me, “As is true with school assignments, college admissions, and requests from Congress—a deadline means a deadline. We do expect a response to our requests by the deadline.”
The June 11 letter, written by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), details many concerns about antisemitism and Jewish safety at Sarah Lawrence, including the allegation that some of the college’s faculty have “celebrated violence against Jews in online posts.”
Citing one of my columns in The Algemeiner, the Congressional letter states:
Sarah Lawrence professor, Suzanne Gardinier, applauded the October 7th attack on Israel and denied that Hamas committed mass rape against Israeli women. She retweeted a post claiming that on and after October 7th, “there was no mass rape, it was all atrocity propaganda.”
The committee reiterated “its request for all documents related to disciplinary action taken against students or faculty involved in the November 2024 takeover and occupation of Westlands and the accompanying encampment.”
Westlands is the main administration building on campus and is described as “the heart of the Sarah Lawrence College campus.”
Additional information requested by the committee includes documentation and communications related to “the cancellation of classes by faculty or the modification of course materials in support of the Westlands occupation or encampment,” “social media posts by Sarah Lawrence faculty on platforms celebrating violence against Jews, Israelis, or Zionists, including posts that applaud the October 7th Attack,” “coordinated efforts to pressure students not to register for classes taught by Jewish professors,” and specific information related to bullying and harassment, and information pertaining to the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
The letter states:
Two days after the October 7th terrorist attack, Sarah Lawrence’s Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) [Briana Martin] invited Jewish students to attend a so-called “solidarity with Palestine” event sponsored by SJP, the same group whose members have allegedly harassed Jewish students on Sarah Lawrence’s campus. SJP’s own social media post advertising this event featured an image of a bulldozer on October 7th with the caption, “LONG LIVE PALESTINE.” The DEIB Director’s invitation allegedly caused significant distress to Jewish students as an apparent institutional endorsement of National SJP’s position celebrating the terrorist attack as a “historic win” [citations removed].
Briana Martin continues to appear on Sarah Lawrence’s website as director of DEIB, however, her email address is no longer listed on the site. The other four members of Sarah Lawrence’s diversity team have their email addresses listed on the website.
Just last week, Sarah Lawrence professor Samuel J. Abrams wrote that the college “has become an increasingly hostile place for Zionist and Jewish students, with open calls for violence against Jews becoming disturbingly common.”
According to Abrams, Jewish students and Hillel — “the national Jewish student-facing support organization that is on hundreds of campuses nationwide” — have repeatedly requested space in a new campus building and were denied. Abrams states that Hillel even offered to “pay the costs.”
As I have previously reported, being Jewish on the Sarah Lawrence campus is even hostile for some Jewish students who are not Zionists. A graduate of the college wrote on a social media alumni group, “i’m not a zionist but nevertheless … when i was at SLC someone graffitied a swastika onto my dorm and i had fake eviction notices slipped under my door, just because i celebrated jewish holidays. people threatened me because i went to hillel. it’s tough out there even for jews who 1000% support Palestine [sic].”
It is appalling that Sarah Lawrence College seems to think that Congressional deadlines related to Jewish safety on its campus are flexible or optional. I am ashamed of my alma mater.
Peter Reitzes writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
The post Will Sarah Lawrence Address Congressional Committee in Face of Its Hostile Environment for Jews? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.