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In Memoriam: The Man Who Fostered my Love of Israel
Edward Cohen. Credit: Courtesy.
JNS.org – I’ve been writing this column for more than a decade, but this week will, sadly, be very different for a few dozen of my readers.
I’m referring to a group of people—friends, family members, Israel advocates—who received my column every week courtesy of an email from my father, Edward Cohen, but who won’t be getting it from him this week. A fortnight ago, my Dad, who was 83, suffered from an overwhelming stroke at his apartment in Tel Aviv. Despite the best efforts of the doctors at Ichilov Hospital to revive him, he passed away about 12 hours later.
I traveled to Israel for his funeral—not an easy feat, given that most international airlines are not flying into Tel Aviv thanks to the war launched by Hamas with its pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7. If I’d flown directly from New York, I would likely have missed the funeral because of the lack of seat availability, so instead, I spent one night on a plane from JFK to London, where I met up with my brother, and the next night on an El Al flight from Heathrow Airport to Ben-Gurion Airport outside of Tel Aviv, where we landed, quickly showered and made our way to Jerusalem to bury our father at the cemetery in Givat Shaul. Then it was straight back to Tel Aviv for the shiva at the home he shared with his Israeli wife and their two daughters.
In truth, much of my trip is remembered as a blur. The combination of the awful news and the jet lag left me physically exhausted and not very communicative. But I do recall quite clearly several people coming up to me at the funeral, shaking my hand, wishing me a long life and then telling me, “You know, your Dad was very proud of you; he used to email me your JNS column every week.”
The point I want to emphasize, however, is that my Dad didn’t just passively shep nachas—admittedly, a very Ashkenazi phrase to use in remembering my proudly Sephardi father!—from my writings. He was an inspiration, and I learned an enormous amount from him, especially my Zionism, over the years.
As my brother memorably put it at the funeral, Dad loved Israel as if it were a person. His was an intense, joyous love, in which he garnered profound satisfaction from the mere act of waking up in a Jewish homeland, driving or walking along streets with Hebrew names, or buying nuts, baklava and other treats at the shuk. In both spiritual and material terms, he served our ancient homeland admirably, donating to numerous charities, sitting on the board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) from its inception under the tutelage of his late, dear friend, Dr. Dan Elazar, as well as spending two very busy years as the chairman of the Israel Free Loan Association (IFLA). He was, in Jewish parlance, a macher. It was a fact I gleaned during my teenage years when I spent summers with him in Israel, where he’d moved after his divorce from my mother, often accompanying him to meetings and social events where he would invariably receive an enthusiastic welcome.
As sons and fathers tend to do, we argued a lot. There were times, I know, when he was desperately worried about me; I think, in particular, of my flirtation with revolutionary Marxism during my university years and the anti-Zionism that came with it. But equally, I think my Dad knew how supremely uncomfortable I was, deep down, with having to be an enemy of the Jewish state, so when I recovered my senses, he was pleased but not really surprised.
He knew, I think, that I would come back, and he was one of the reasons that I did so. Not to ingratiate myself back into my Dad’s good books, but because I couldn’t cast aside all the things I learned before I started reading Leon Trotsky, Isaac Deutscher, Ralph Miliband and other Marxist revolutionaries and scholars, most of whom happened to be Jews. Nor could I ignore my own family history; my mother’s family in Bosnia, all of whom were youthful Zionists, was decimated during the Holocaust, while my father fled with his family from Iraq, where he was born, in 1941. Along with so many other immigrants, my relatives came to the teeming city of London, where they lived happy and productive lives, my father included. But unlike many other Jews there, my Dad was never truly at home in England. He yearned to be in Israel, and as soon as he got the opportunity to live there, he seized it.
The last few weeks of my Dad’s life were, as was the case for the rest of us, overshadowed by the Hamas pogrom. During the 1980s and 1990s, he’d engaged with members of the Israeli peace camp, particularly a small group of Israeli Sephardic intellectuals who hoped that they could forge a common cultural bond with the Palestinians, but those efforts, well-intentioned as they were, didn’t get anywhere, and eventually, he became disillusioned. Following the failure of the Oslo process and the outbreak of the 2001 Palestinian intifada, he reverted to being a security hawk. He was never a hater—never someone to lump all Palestinians into the same basket—but neither did he trust their integrity. When the Hamas terrorists penetrated the border on Oct. 7, he was grimly vindicated.
I miss my Dad, and every day that passes drives home his absence from my life. I miss the phone calls, the WhatsApp chats, even the annoying questions he’d email my way at the height of a busy day. I will miss landing in Israel and going straight to his apartment—a ritual that is as old as I am. But most of all, I feel a deep sadness at the fact that he left us in the middle of this ghastly trauma and won’t be here to see how it resolves.
My Dad, you see, was confident that Israel would triumph in this latest installment of its battle to simply exist. I want to believe that he is right, and I think he is. And when victory does come, it will be a victory for him, too, as the Israel he loved so passionately will continue to flourish.
I have said my last farewell to my Dad, but his presence is with me. Every time I check the news from Israel, I think of him and am tempted to reach for my phone, call him and ask what he thinks … before remembering that I can’t. All that remains is his legacy, and it is one that I will treasure.
So, goodbye Dad, and thank you for shaping me into the proud Jew that I became. Thank you for being the person who introduced me to Israel, its land, its cultures, its food, its politics, its joie de vivre. Thank you for loving me, and know that I loved you.
May you rest in peace. And may your memory be a blessing.
The post In Memoriam: The Man Who Fostered my Love of Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Columbia University Says It Suspended Pro-Hamas Agitator Who Stormed Classroom
Anti-Israel agitators disrupting an Israeli history class at Columbia University, New York City, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Columbia University has suspended one of several students who disrupted an active class earlier this week and proceeded to utter pro-Hamas propaganda and distribute antisemitic literature, the school announced on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the first day of classes of the new semester, the agitators stormed into Professor Avi Shilon’s course, titled “History of Modern Israel.” Clad in keffiyehs, which were wrapped on their faces to conceal their identities, they read prepared remarks which described the course as “Zionist and imperialist” and a “normalization of genocide.” As part of their performance, which they appeared to film, they dropped flyers, one of which contained an illustration of a lifted boot preparing to trample a Star of David. Next to the drawing was a message that said, “Crush Zionism.”
Another flyer proclaimed, “Burn Zionism to the ground.”
The incident set off an explosion of responses on social media. The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce — now chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) — warned that such behavior “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration,” while Columbia University professor and activist Shai Davidai demanded “strong action.” Later, Shilon wrote in an op-ed published by the Israeli publication Ynetnews that Columbia needs to “reevaluate” its safety policies, noting that students should not be able to “walk around wearing masks.”
On Thursday, the university attempted to quell concerns that it would do nothing, as it has been accused of before, and announced that it “has identified and suspended a Columbia participant” of the demonstration. The punishment, it added, will hold until the completion of a “full investigation and disciplinary process.”
The statement continued, “The investigation of the disruption, including the identification of additional participants, remains active. Disruptions to our classrooms and our academic mission and efforts to intimidate or harass our students are not acceptable, are an effort to every member of our university community, and will not be tolerated.”
Columbia University has allegedly refused to levy disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist agitators in the past.
In August, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce denounced university officials for punishing only a few of the anti-Zionist activists who last spring occupied an administrative building and staged a riot which prompted the university to advise Jews to refrain from coming to campus. According to documents shared by the committee, 18 of the 22 students who were given disciplinary charges for their role in the incident were later upgraded to “good standing” despite the university’s earlier pledge to expel them. Another 31 of 35 who were suspended for illegally occupying the campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” were restored to good standing as well.
Amnestying those students was “disgraceful and unacceptable,” former education committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said at the time. She added, “The vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing. By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in these unlawful actions.”
Meanwhile, Columbia University continues what is widely perceived as a partisan investigation of Davidai, an inquiry prompted by accusations that condemning terrorism is racist and anti-Muslim. In October., the university banned Davidai from campus, an action which prevents him from attending university functions and accessing his office. Since then, Davidai has accused Columbia of prolonging its investigation of his conduct to injure his reputation and destroy his academic career.
At the same time, the university has allowed a pro-Hamas professor and cheerleader of violence, Joseph Massad, to continue teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite that he is on record supporting terror — after the Oct. 7 massacre, for example, he described the Hamas fighters who paraglided into the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel to murder the young people attending it as “the air force of the Palestinian resistance” — and has been accused of antisemitism dozens of times.
On Tuesday, Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong maintained that Columbia opposes antisemitism.
“We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” she said in a statement.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Says It Suspended Pro-Hamas Agitator Who Stormed Classroom first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Nashville School Shooter Praised Hitler, Said He Was ‘Influenced’ by Candace Owens in Purported Manifesto
Solomon Henderson, 17, who police say opened fire at Antioch High School in Nashville, TN on Jan. 22, 2024 before killing himself, posted neo-Nazi content on social media. Photo: Screenshot
The teenager accused of perpetrating a fatal school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday praised Adolf Hitler, shared neo-Nazi content, and said he was inspired by anti-Israel commentator Candace Owens, according to reports of the alleged shooter’s purported manifesto.
Police identified the shooter as Solomon Henderson, a 17-year-old student at Antioch High School, saying he shot and killed Josselin Corea Escalante, who was 16, and wounded two others in the school’s cafeteria before turning the gun on himself.
Authorities are also investigating a racist and antisemitic manifesto full of online writings and social media posts that emerged following the shooting that has been attributed to Henderson to determine if the materials were actually the work of the alleged shooter.
Multiple local media outlets, including NewsChannel 5 Nashville and The Tennessean newspaper, reported that the documents indicated that the suspect harbored a litany of antisemitic beliefs and drew inspiration from Owens, a far-right media personality.
“Candace Owens has influenced me above all each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish question,” the manifesto reportedly said.
Henderson, who like Owens is black, also posted a flyer from the Goyim Defense League, an antisemitic hate group which, according to the Anti-Defamaion League (ADL), has an “overarching goal to expel Jews from America.”
The suspect’s purported writings indicate he was mentally deteriorating and suffered from self-loathing. Henderson reportedly wrote that he “was ashamed to be black.” He also repudiated Antioch High School, which has a heavily Black and Hispanic student body, with the use of derogatory racial terms.
The ADL’s Center on Extremism issued an analysis of the document, saying it appears to be authentic.
“Our analysts located a sprawling manifesto full of anti-black content, references to accelerationism, and antisemitism,” Carla Hill of the Center on Extremism, told The Tennessean. “It also plagiarized from various far-right manifestos and publications, including Terrorgram Collective [a white supremacist group] and a manifesto by Matthew Harris.”
Harris, who is black, was arrested in 2022 for threatening a mass shooting against the University of California, Los Angeles, where he had worked as a philosophy instructor. He posted a manifesto that included calls for violence against Jews and white people.
In the 15 months since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Owens has established herself as a fierce critic of the Jewish state who has also been accused of antisemitism. After parting ways with The Daily Wire, a politically conservative media company, last year amid controversy over her comments regarding Jews and Israel, Owens has made those subjects top priorities in her new show.
In late July, for example, Owens said that the Star of David originated from an evil, child-sacrificing, pagan deity and has only become associated with Judaism within the past few hundred years.
In a June episode, Owens argued that “it seems like our country [the US] is being held hostage by Israel.” She lamented, “I’m going to get in so much trouble for that. I don’t care.” She also falsely suggested in the same episode that AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the US, was behind the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy.
Weeks later, Owens promoted a series of talking points downplaying the atrocities of the Holocaust and said experiments by Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele performed on Jews during World War II sounded “like bizarre propaganda.”
In an August interview, Owens claimed that Judaism is a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons … [and] child sacrifice.” She has also suggested without evidence that Israel was established to shield “pedophiles” from accountability.
As a result of her comments, Owens received the “Antisemite of the Year” award for 2024 from the US-based advocacy group StopAntisemitism. The controversial media personality happily accepted the distinction while stating that the charge of antisemitism no longer maintains “any real meaning.” Owens then claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is actually the most prominent antisemite, because he has “murdered and killed and maimed more actual Semites this year” than anyone else.
Owens issued a statement on Thursday in response to reports noting her name being mentioned in the alleged Nashville shooter’s purported writings.
“It is truly sickening that people would use the death of a young 16-year-old girl to try to quickly score political points, rather than to responsibly make sure that what they are sharing is accurate,” Owens said, calling the manifesto “an obvious troll.”
The post Nashville School Shooter Praised Hitler, Said He Was ‘Influenced’ by Candace Owens in Purported Manifesto first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Terrorists Admit Israeli Hostages Held at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital
Ahmad Kahalot, a senior Hamas member and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, speaking to Israeli interrogators. Photo: Screenshot
Israeli hostages were held in Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, a new report citing terrorists’ confessions revealed this week.
The discovery followed an Israeli raid that uncovered a sprawling network of terrorists operating within the hospital’s walls, leading to the detention of over 240 Hamas terrorists, some of whom — including a senior commander who attempted to evade capture by posing as a patient with a broken arm — admitted that the facility was used as a base for Hamas operations.
The hospital, which is located in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, was used to hide terrorists at different times, Fox News Digital said in a report published on Tuesday. According to captured terrorist Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, the hospital was seen as a “a safe haven for them because the [Israeli] military cannot directly target it.”
Gonen Ben Itzhak, former spy handler for Mosab Yousef, the son of Hamas’s co-founder who became an informant for Israel, said the news came as no surprise, noting that international aid organizations were “complicit in war crimes carried out under the cover of those criticizing Israel.”
“Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza has led to the fact that all government systems in the Strip, as well as civilian systems, are subordinate to Hamas and have an affiliation with Hamas,” the Shin Bet agent turned lawyer and activist told The Algemeiner.
During last month’s raid, Israeli forces uncovered that its director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was actively complicit in Hamas’s terrorist activities. As interrogations of detainees progressed, it became clear that Abu Safiya was more than just a passive observer — he was a key figure in facilitating Hamas operations. Despite his involvement in the group’s actions, an international campaign has emerged since then to call for his release, a movement spurred by his media appearances throughout the war.
“We realized that the person at the heart of it all, the one organizing the terrorism and Hamas activities within the compound, was the hospital director himself,” Lt. (res.) D., a field investigator in military intelligence, told Israel’s Channel 12 news. “The world must understand that there is close and clear cooperation between the medical team and the senior leadership of the terrorist organization: they cynically exploit our desire to avoid harming the helpless and use the medical platform to establish a base for terrorism.”
Terrorists inside the facility reportedly distributed grenades, mortars, and equipment for ambushing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops. “The [terrorist] operatives were there, transporting equipment and weapons like AK-47s … and pistols,” Faiz al-Sharif said, confirming that “the weapons were transferred to and from the hospital.”
Lt. D also reported becoming suspicious of a man posing as an injured patient during a routine check at the hospital’s ambulance platform. Upon questioning, the man gave a false name and ID, claiming to have been injured days earlier. But, the cast on his arm appeared freshly applied, raising the IDF investigator’s doubts. The investigator would later learn that he was a senior Hamas commander who had been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel and was still running terror operations until the day of his capture.
“During the interrogation, [the terrorist] confessed that the doctor sitting next to him had faked the cast to help him escape in a humanitarian aid ambulance. He explained Hamas’s strategy, saying they know there’s little chance the IDF will interrogate wounded individuals being evacuated for medical treatment, so he tried to exploit the opportunity to flee,” Lt. D told Channel 12.
Ben Itzhak blasted international aid organizations, including UNRWA and the Red Cross, for serving as a facade enabling terrorist operations in Gaza.
“The international organizations bear responsibility for war crimes committed by Hamas against Israel, against the Israeli hostages, and also against the poor residents of Gaza,” he told The Algemeiner.
“They allowed Hamas to trample on international law and use civilian infrastructure: kindergartens, schools, clinics, and hospitals as military headquarters … dragging Israel into military activity that is perceived by the world, in the eyes of those who are not familiar with the cruel reality of Gaza, as war crimes.”
The hospital’s ties to terrorism run deep and are longstanding, starting with its very name. Kamal Adwan, for whom the facility is named, was a Palestinian Fatah operative responsible for attacks in Nahariya and Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market before being killed by the IDF in 1973.
Last month’s raid wasn’t the first on the hospital. On Dec. 12, 2023, around 90 people were detained, including its then director, Ahmed Kahlout. The IDF at the time released a video of his interrogation, in which he described how Hamas used the hospital as a base for Hamas operations. Its ambulances were used to transport terrorists and even Israeli hostages, Kahlout said.
Kahlout revealed that he was recruited into Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and received military training. He also said that other staff members, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, were part of Hamas’s military network. Kahlout called Hamas leaders “cowards” and blamed them for the suffering, saying, “They ruined us,” hinting that his involvement may not have been entirely voluntary. He was later released, but according to Palestinian media reports, was killed by an Israeli drone in November.
The post Hamas Terrorists Admit Israeli Hostages Held at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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