US Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) giving speech. Photo: Reuters

US Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) announced on Tuesday that he will co-chair a bipartisan task force aimed at tackling antisemitism.

“I’m the new House Co-Chair for the Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism. I witnessed antisemitism at 15 and chose to intervene. I refuse to be a bystander as it spreads like a virus. We must confront all racism,” Bacon posted on X/Twitter. 

The House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism was first formed in the 1990s as the Congressional Task Force Against Anti-Semitism. The body was revived during the 114th session Congress in 2015. It spearheads congressional efforts to combat antisemitism and bolster the safety of the Jewish community.

The task force collaborates with the US Senate to create bipartisan initiatives with the aim of educating and informing communities about anti-Jewish hate. It also works alongside the White House, foreign dignitaries, federal agencies, local governments, activists, and educators to fight antisemitism. In addition, the group also advances educational initiatives and Holocaust remembrance activities with the goal of eradicating antisemitic bias and hatred. 

In the 16 months following the Hamas-led slaughter of roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages throughout southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism has surged across the United States. According to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), anti-Jewish hate crimes ballooned by 63 percent in 2023, reaching record levels. A spike in antisemitic violence has been reported at synagogues, K-12 schools, and university campuses across the United States, underscoring the urgency of countering hate against Jews. 

The White House has made battling antisemitism a priority during US President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office. Last month, the Trump administration launched a task force to monitor and “root out” antisemitism on college campuses and schools.

Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement.

Additionally, it initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.

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Israel Education Minister Yoav Kisch and Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong photographed together on Feb. 19, 2025. Photo: Screenshot

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch met with higher education leaders in the New York City area on Tuesday and used the opportunity to comment on which universities he feels have made progress in combating campus antisemitism.

During the trip, Kisch — a Likud Party member who served in the Israeli parliament since 2015 before being appointed as education minister by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2022 — visited Columbia University for a meeting with its interim president, Katrina Armstrong.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Columbia University is being scrutinized by US federal lawmakers over its past policy of amnestying miscreant anti-Israel protesters and perpetrators of antisemitic discrimination. While the university has formally committed to addressing antisemitism, it was recently asked by the chairman of the US House committee on education and the workforce, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) to hand over dozens of disciplinary records as proof that it is honoring its pledge.

In a letter demanding the documents, Walberg cited as cause for doubting the university’s sincerity a damaging education committee report, published in August, which revealed that only a few students who were involved in occupying the Hamilton Hall administrative building in April 2024 were ultimately punished despite the university’s threatening to expel them.

Columbia has taken recent steps to reverse the impression that it condones anti-Jewish bigotry. It recently, for example, imposed disciplinary sanctions on several students who disrupted an active class and proceeded to utter pro-Hamas statements while distributing antisemitic literature, banning them from campus. Later, it denounced a group of students who poured concrete into toilets located inside its School of International Affairs as “deplorable,” adding that it is “acting swiftly to address this misconduct.”

But many Jewish faculty remain dissatisfied with the administration’s efforts. Earlier this month, nearly 200 Columbia University faculty signed an open letter urging administrative officials to do more, such as adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is widely used by governments and private entities around the world, banning the wearing of face masks which conceal the identities of those who commit violence and destroy school property, and expelling students who, for the purpose of furthering an extremist political agenda, occupy buildings and invade classrooms.

Joseph Massad — an anti-Zionist professor who in 2023 cheered the Hamas-led terrorists who murdered young people attending the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 in southern Israel as “the air force of the Palestinian resistance” — also emerged as a key area of concern of the letter, as he remains permitted to teach the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his courses. At least one professor has resigned in protest of Massad’s good standing with the administration. In doing so, he denounced Massad’s presence on campus as “a complete abandonment of academic integrity and unbiased scholarship.”

Kisch on Tuesday praised Columbia University’s efforts to combat antisemitism.

“The fight against antisemitism on American academic campuses is essential, and I am pleased to see that Columbia University interim president Professor Armstrong is committed to this issue and is taking decisive action to eradicate this phenomenon,” Kisch said in a statement. “This is an important step, and I hope other universities will follow her and take responsibility for ensuring a safe environment for Jewish and Israeli students and faculty.”

He was not as forbearing toward New York University (NYU), a higher education institution which has, on paper, enacted robust proscriptions of both antisemitic and anti-Zionist discrimination. In August 2024, it amended its code of conduct to acknowledge the “coded” subtleties of antisemitic speech and its use in discriminatory conduct that targets Jewish students and faculty, updating its Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy (NDAH) with language which identified “Zionist” as a racial dog whistle.

The updated NDAH listed numerous examples of the use of “Zionist” in perpetrating discriminatory behavior, including, “excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participating in any NYU activity, [and] using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists.” Other examples included “demanding a person who is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.”

NYU president Linda Mills, however, declined an invitation to meet with Kisch while he was in New York, leading him to release a statement lambasting the school.

“It is unacceptable for a respected academic institution to allow antisemitism to run rampant on its campus while evading responsibility for protecting its Jewish and Israeli students and faculty,” Kisch said in the blistering statement. “The administration’s silence is a tacit approval of incitement and hatred. I call on all Jewish donors and Israel supporters of NYU as well as members in the community to halt your donations to the institutions until its president condemns campus antisemitism and commits to preventing it.”

NYU disagreed with the education minister’s analysis in a statement shared with The Algemeiner. It contained many hyperlinks that the paper was asked to reproduce in this story.

“Among American universities, NYU has been at the forefront of working to reduce and eliminate antisemitism on campus,” wrote long-time NYU spokesman John Beckman. “NYU has notably earned praise from elected officials such as Congressman [Ritchie] Torres (as well as this) and Congressman Daniel Goldman, from organizations at the forefront of fighting antisemitism (such as the ADL and its leader, the Academic Engagement Network, and the Jewish Community Relations Council), for being among the first universities in the US — if not the first — to issue a Guidance and Expectations for Student Conduct Document that clarified that the use of code-words such as ‘Zionist could violate the University’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies.”

He continued, “NYU was also the first university to issue a 10-Point Plan to address safety, bigotry and antisemitism, and to announce the appointment of a Title VI Coordinator. In addition, NYU has launched a Center for the Study of Antisemitism; taken a leadership role in multi-university conferences on combating antisemitism, such as the summits convened by the American Jewish Committee, Hillel International, and the American Council on Education (here and here); and required that students undertake training on the university’s non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy, which includes training on reducing antisemitism.”

Beckman added that NYU did not intend to snub Kisch, saying, “It was not possible to accommodate the request on the president’s schedule. NYU administrators frequently meet with both consular officials and other officials.”

Kisch’s visit to the US follows the release of new polling data showing that many Jewish students feel that college professors across the US are promoting antisemitism and fostering hostile learning environments.

Roughly one-third of students, 32 percent, hold such feelings, according to the American Jewish Committee’s “State of Antisemitism in America 2024 Report,” which contains copious data on the Jewish experience in the US.

Of those who responded, 35 percent said they had personal encounters with antisemitism, 20 percent of whom did so more than once. Meanwhile, 32 percent reported feeling uncomfortable on campus, and 34 percent found ways to conceal that they are Jewish. Forty-three percent refuse to discuss Israel and the conflict with the Palestinians for fear of being identified as a Zionist.

Additionally, 22 percent of Jewish students reported feeling that groups and campus events have excluded them because of anti-Jewish animus.

“How are Jewish students supposed to show up and engage in class or have trust in their educators if they feel that their professors are creating a hostile environment for Jews on campus?” AJC chief executive officer Ted Deutch said in a statement. “If students feel that they need to just keep their head down and earn their grade, they are not fully participating in the educational experience that they have a right to and deserve.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Israeli Education Minister Unexpectedly Praises Columbia University for Response to Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Pro-Hamas demonstrators gather in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in New York City on Feb. 18, 2o25. Photo: Screenshot

The pro-Hamas group Pal-Awda staged a protest in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in New York City on Tuesday night, leading to clashes.

Pal-Awda, which says it supports the “complete end to the settler-colonial project of Israel” and supported the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis, announced its “Flood Boro Park” protest “to stop the sale of Palestinian land.”

The demonstration targeted an Israeli real estate event in Brooklyn, although the website for the event reportedly did not offer holdings in disputed territories such as the West Bank. According to the Jerusalem Post, however, the organizer of the real estate gathering, the Getter Group, could inquire into property in settlements on behalf of its clients.

The use of the term “flood” in the title of the protest was seemingly designed to pay homage to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel, in which the terrorist group killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. The onslaught was termed the “Al-Aqsa Flood” by Hamas.

Approximately 200 anti-Israel protesters showed up on Tuesday, with at least an equal number of pro-Israel protesters and local Jews countering them.

The anti-Israel protesters chanted slogans such as “settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone,” “Zionists go to hell,” and “We don’t want no Zionists here,” according to press reports and video circulated on social media.

Videos of violence at the protests quickly went viral. One video showed an anti-Israel protester, who was promptly arrested, punching a pro-Israel man in his face unprovoked. Other videos showed clashes between the two sides, with it being unclear exactly who started the violence.

One Zionist organization, Beter USA, posted on X prior to the clashes that it would be confronting the anti-Israel demonstrators, who had announced their planned protest in advance.

“Our synagogues will not be touched in Brooklyn tomorrow. You will not come near our streets or stores jihadis,” the group wrote, adding that it will “fight back” against anti-Israel demonstrators “by any means necessary.”

Borough Park is known as one of the most heavily populated Orthodox Jewish communities in the US, leading many Jewish groups and political leaders to argue the anti-Israel demonstration was antisemitic and really meant to intimidate the local Jewish community.

“Last night we saw protesters in Boro Park targeting Jewish New Yorkers with hateful rhetoric and antisemitic chants. This is unacceptable,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X. “We are grateful to [the New York City Police Department] for their diligent work keeping all New Yorkers safe.”

Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, noted that “calling Orthodox Jews in Boro Park ‘filthy Zionist a–holes,’ shouting ‘you’re so gross, you’re disgusting,’ and chanting ‘settlers go back home’ to people whose parents & grandparents were killed in the Holocaust is antisemitism, plain and simple.”

He continued, “We cannot tolerate it. I condemn it in the strongest terms.”

The group #EndJewHatred said in a statement that what happened in Borough Park “is the consequence of the complete systemic failure of local officials, most notably Mayor [Eric] Adams and Police Commissioner [Jessica] Tisch, to meaningfully stand up to Jew-hatred and support what has, especially since Oct. 7, 2023, become New York City’s most vulnerable and attacked minority community.”

It added, “We did not see Mayor Adams arrive on scene to order the crowd of Hamas supporters to disperse. He did not arrive, bullhorn in hand, to call them out as unwelcome in his city.”

Members of the US Congress also condemned the scenes on Tuesday night.

The vile and antisemitic rhetoric directed at Jewish residents in Borough Park is unacceptable and unconscionable. We will not tolerate the egregious behavior on display that was clearly designed to intimidate and harass Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leader of the House of Representatives, said in a statement. “People of goodwill across our city and throughout the nation must continue to do everything possible to protect our Jewish brothers and sisters who are under assault and fight the cancer of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres posted on X a video of the clashes, writing that “it should come as a shock to no one that the pro-Hamas mob targeting Jews and promising to ‘flood’ Boro Park has descended into violence.”

“Violence is not a bug but a feature of the so-called ‘Free Palestine’ movement,” he argued, adding that the movement has “no desire to free Palestinians from Hamas.”

The post ‘Settlers Go Back Home’: Pro-Hamas Protesters Agitate in Jewish New York Neighborhood, Leading to Clashes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.