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In a Special Report, U.S. Denounces ‘More than a Century of Russian Antisemitism’
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
i24 News – On the eve of the International Holocaust Memorial Day, the U.S. State Department published a report on an issue that has deep historical links to the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi regime: the antisemitic conspiracy theories issuing out of Russia for over a century, including those that helped ignite the murderous Nazi obsession.
.@EinatWilf: Equating Israel and the star of David with colonialism, racism, Nazism, apartheid etc and then laundering the libels through international instutitions is an old Soviet strategy that has deep continuities with the antisemitic fabrications produced by Tzarist Russia. pic.twitter.com/LvU2vc2TAO
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 11, 2024
“For over a century, Tsarist, Soviet and now Russian Federation authorities have used antisemitism to discredit, divide, and weaken their perceived adversaries at home and abroad,” the report’s executive summary opened, pointing to the rarely interrupted continuity between the Tzarist regime that produced the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Soviet Union’s “anti-Zionist” propaganda campaigns and the rhetoric of Vladimir Putin’s government.
Mahmoud Abbas’s long record of Holocaust denial & distortion relies on age-old tropes. Yet the conspiracy’s modern day iteration, where ‘Jew’ is swapped for ‘Zionist,’ hails from Soviet Russia, couched in a language progressives find irresistible, @IzaTabaro tells @laura_i24: pic.twitter.com/O4NQaiRkYT
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) November 20, 2023
“Today, Kremlin officials and Russia’s state-run or state-controlled media spread conspiracy theories, fueling antisemitism intended to deceive the world about its war against Ukraine. These tactics build on a long tradition of exploiting antisemitism to create division and discontent,” the report reads.
A chapter in that dark history that remains uniquely pertinent today is the Soviet demonization of the world’s only Jewish state, which took gained momentum following the defeat of Soviet client states Egypt and Syria in the Six Day War of 1967 against Israel. An entire pseudo-academic discipline — known as “Zionology” — was forged, devoted to rebranding an ancient hatred in a way that would make it palatable to the progressive left.
Unbeknown to the dimwits who recite it today, leftist word salad re ‘imperialist Nazi Zionist colonizers’ is lifted wholesale, with virtually no innovations, from a deeply sinister Soviet propaganda campaign shot through with the basest antisemitism, @IzaTabaro tells @laura_i24 pic.twitter.com/hjVFOfiCkL
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 18, 2023
“During the 1960s-1980s, the Committee for State Security (KGB) implemented several antisemitic active measures, a Soviet term for covert influence operations, to discredit its perceived adversaries — the Catholic Church, West Germany, the United States — as antisemitic,” the State Department report reads. “The KGB also targeted the Zionist movement and Soviet Jewish dissidents.”
According to writer Dara Horn, “The Soviet Union thus pioneered a versatile gaslighting slogan, which it later spread through its client states in the developing world and which remains popular today: it was not antisemitic, merely anti-Zionist.”
The premier expert on the topic today is Soviet-born U.S.-Israeli historian Izabella Tabarovsky, who has shown in great detail the pertinence of the propaganda tropes spread by a long-dead regime to current events. One prominent example is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a leader with a long record of minimizing, inverting or outright denying the Holocaust; his PhD from Moscow is a vital clue for understanding the kind of antisemitic rhetoric that thrives in Palestinian society, Tabarovsky argues.
When the Palestinian Authority issued a statement denying the Hamas massacre, the parallels with its president’s rich record of Holocaust denial jumped out. The Soviet origins of Abbas’s lies merit closer scrutiny, @IzaTabaro tells @laura_i24: https://t.co/T68s2WHqJV pic.twitter.com/GFkjlcPedv
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) November 21, 2023
Today much of the Kremlin’s antisemitic propaganda targets Ukraine and its leader, often through bizarre insinuations, such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s reference to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s alleged Jewish heritage.
“The Kremlin falsely portrays Ukraine and its supporters as Nazis, antisemites and Russophobes, demonizes Ukraine’s Jewish president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accuses Jews of being the worst Nazis, and manipulates the history of the Holocaust for political purposes,” the State Department report states.
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There Is Massive Antisemitism in the Workplace; Here’s What You Need to Know

FILE PHOTO: A man, with an Israeli flag with a cross in the center, looks on next to police officers working at the site where, according to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., U.S. May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
Most people think they would recognize antisemitism if they saw it: a slur, a swastika, or someone saying Jews deserved to be attacked on October 7. However, the public rarely hears about such antisemitism permeating workplaces in almost every industry nationwide.
In my work as a non-profit lawyer specializing in workplace antisemitism, I’ve learned that some of the most insidious harm happens and remains behind closed doors.
Since October 7, 2023, there’s been a visible spike in antisemitism worldwide. Jewish students are experiencing a surge in discrimination and harassment, Jewish institutions are being defaced, a patron at a Jewish-owned bar paid for a sign to be held up saying “F*** the Jews,” and Ye (Kanye West) recently released a music video titled “Heil Hitler.”
In workplaces, antisemitism is just as present and egregious, but far less publicized. That is because most workplace antisemitism cases do not end up in headlines. Often, workplace antisemitism cases end in a signature on an ironclad nondisclosure agreement (“NDA”) and subsequent silence.
Since approximately more than half of employment law cases settle at some point before trial, the lack of publicity on Jewish civil rights violations in workplaces is not surprising. Still, the secrecy surrounding how those cases are resolved has devastating ripple effects. Given that most workplace cases settle, employees experiencing workplace antisemitism rarely hear about other similar incidents, which could have empowered them to enforce their rights or set a meaningful precedent in the courts to help them assess their chances of success. Another reason workplace antisemitism cases often do not make headlines is that many employees do not report their concerns out of fear of retaliation.
In my work on employment-related antisemitism matters as Senior Counsel at StandWithUs Legal, a division of StandWithUs, many of our cases involve employees in medicine, education, service industries, and technology who simply wanted to do their jobs. What they experienced instead were hostile comments from colleagues, exclusion from diversity programs, denials of promotions, or even termination. Some were mocked for their Israeli nationality or Jewish identity in team meetings. Others were treated unfairly based on Israel’s military actions, were told that Jews started the California wildfires with laser beams, or were called genocidal by colleagues. One was repeatedly subjected to “Anne Frank” jokes by her supervisor.
Employers rarely know how to handle antisemitism, and since these cases usually settle and involve NDAs, employers often can avoid directly addressing the problem. Jewish identity is frequently treated as invisible or controversial. Some employers encourage political discussions about every global injustice except those affecting Jews, drawing lines around Jewish identity that no other minority group is asked to navigate.
Antisemitism in the workplace remains a largely invisible problem — one that’s growing, unchecked, simmering just beneath the surface. The chilling effect of these settlements, NDAs, and silence is profound. When someone is fired for raising concerns about antisemitism, or pushed out under the guise of “performance” after reporting a hostile work environment, they’re often offered severance in exchange for silence in an NDA. It’s a cruel choice: rebuild your life with some financial security, or speak out and risk everything. Most understandably take the deal, but that means the problem continues to go unaddressed.
Whether guiding an employee through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) process, partnering with firms nationwide to sue, or interfacing with human resources or corporate general counsels to resolve the issue, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful the law can be in the workplace. It can force accountability, restore dignity, and, at its best, prevent future harm.
Louis Brandeis once said, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” While many of the victories I help achieve remain confidential, the mission is clear: to give voice to those who were silenced, empower employees to enforce their rights, and ensure that silence is no longer the cost of employment.
Deedee Bitran is Senior Counsel and Director of Pro Bono with StandWithUs Saidoff Legal.
The post There Is Massive Antisemitism in the Workplace; Here’s What You Need to Know first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Netherlands Also Has a Campus Antisemitism Problem

Anti-Israel protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Esther Verkaik
The Netherlands often presents itself as a beacon of tolerance and progress. But in recent years, that image has started to crack — especially in its universities. These institutions, which should champion open discussion and critical thinking, are now becoming known for something else: hostility toward Jewish and Israeli voices.
Recently, the heads of Dutch universities published a “Statement on Academic Freedom.” It’s full of idealistic talk about openness, free debate, and the importance of diverse opinions. But for many Jewish and Israeli academics, these words ring hollow.
Where was this concern for free expression over the past two years, when Jewish speakers were uninvited, Israeli scholars were boycotted, and students of multiple religions were silenced just for expressing support for Israel?
Where was this defense of dialogue when protests took over campus buildings, tried to intimidate and force out Jews, and declared these buildings and institutions were “Zionist-free”?
And let’s be clear — “Zionist-free” isn’t just about Israel; it’s a chilling phrase that echoes a much darker history.
And this isn’t just about silence. In some cases, universities actively supported or ignored clear discrimination against Jews and anyone who supported Israel’s right to exist.
At Wageningen University, for example, staff openly pledged not to supervise Israeli students. That’s not protest — that’s academic discrimination, pure and simple. The administration said nothing.
At TU Delft, a course described Israel as a colonial project and framed all Israelis as colonizers. Some of the people involved had even supported terror groups like Hamas, or downplayed the Holocaust. This wasn’t fringe — it was university-approved.
At Maastricht University, Jewish speakers were denied platforms due to “security concerns,” while pro-Palestinian speakers with long histories of hate speech were welcomed. The university even gave office space to a group known for antisemitic rhetoric and threats of violence. And Jewish professors needed security just to walk through campus.
So when these same universities now suddenly say they care about academic freedom — after ignoring these issues for years if they involved anyone Jewish or who supported Israel’s right to exist — it’s hard to take them seriously. It feels less like a change of heart, and more like damage control.
The truth is, academic freedom only means something when it’s applied fairly — not just to those with popular opinions, but also to those who face criticism and hostility. That includes Jewish and pro-Israeli voices.
If Dutch academia wants to rebuild trust, it must begin with honesty: admit the past failures, recognize the harm caused, and commit to applying its values consistently. That’s the only way forward.
This isn’t just a policy issue. It’s a moral one.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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Iran’s Khamenei Dismisses US Nuclear Proposal, Vows to Keep Enriching Uranium

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that abandoning uranium enrichment was “100 percent” against the country’s interests, rejecting a central US demand in talks to resolve a decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The US proposal for a new nuclear deal was presented to Iran on Saturday by Oman, which has mediated talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
After five rounds of talks, several hard-to-bridge issues remain, including Iran’s insistence on maintaining uranium enrichment on its soil and Tehran’s refusal to ship abroad its entire existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium – possible raw material for nuclear bombs.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, said nothing about halting the talks, but said the US proposal “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance and the principle of ‘We Can.’”
“Uranium enrichment is the key to our nuclear program and the enemies have focused on the enrichment,” Khamenei said during a televised speech marking the anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests … The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” he added.
Tehran says it wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and has long denied accusations by Western powers that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
‘MAXIMUM PRESSURE’
Reuters reported on Monday that Tehran was poised to reject the US proposal as a “non-starter” that failed to soften Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment or to address Tehran’s interests.
Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since his return to the White House in January, which included tightening sanctions and threatening to bomb Iran if the negotiations yield no deal.
Trump wants to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon that could trigger a regional nuclear arms race and threaten Israel. Iran’s clerical establishment, for its part, wants to be rid of devastating sanctions.
During his first term, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Iran responded by escalating enrichment far beyond the pact’s limits.
Iran’s clerical establishment is grappling with multiple crises — energy and water shortages, a plunging currency, losses among regional militia proxies in conflicts with Israel, and rising fears of an Israeli strike on its nuclear sites — all intensified by Trump’s hardline stance.
Iran’s arch-foe Israel, which sees Tehran’s nuclear program as an existential threat, has repeatedly threatened to bomb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Tehran has vowed a harsh response.
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