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Israeli tensions spill over into Berlin at summit of European Jewish leaders
BERLIN (JTA) — Novelist Ruby Namdar’s appearance at a major conference of European Jewish leaders wasn’t meant to include a speech to an empty chair. But there he was on Sunday night, addressing the chair he had thought would hold Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs.
Chikli had been scheduled to address the summit, organized by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the European Council of Jewish Communities, but arrived too late to speak and left early Monday, amid a political crisis in Israel.
“In Israel right now under this government… our house has become rotten and corrupt,” Namdar told cheering conference attendees. “We have lost all shame in Israeli politics. It must be restored.”
Namdar, an Israeli who lives in the United States, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he spoke out because he worried that others at the conference would not.
“A large part of the Jewish leaders of the world and of Europe are here, and I know that many of them, if not most, are very concerned, very worried, feel very alienated,” he said. “But they’re not able to voice it because they’re instinctively so used to supporting Israel, even though it has become harder and harder with every passing year.”
The episode reflected the degree to which Israel’s political crisis is affecting Jews abroad, even reshaping what is discussed during convenings meant to elevate Diaspora Jewish life. On Monday, the saga took a sharp turn, after a historically large protest movement forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay controversial proposed reforms to the country’s judicial system.
It was the fifth edition of the summit and the first one held in person since the pandemic hit three years ago. The gathering included leaders and Jewish professionals from 35 communities across Europe and covered a broad range of topics, from how to combat antisemitism to how European Jewish communities have responded to Russia’s war against Ukraine; from gender issues to the challenges of “creating Judaism with no synagogues.”
Rates of emigration to Israel from parts of Europe have been high in recent decades, in the wake of the Ukraine war, the rise of right-wing populism and several violent antisemitic attacks by Muslim extremists and neo-Nazis. But some attendees at the conference said the recent crisis there was shaking the sense of safety that many European Jews associate with Israel.
“Democracy is a very important part in our lives especially as young leaders because we have been preached that it is such an important dogma,” Joelle Abaew, a German-Jewish teenager and member of the youth group BBYO’s international board, told JTA. “When, especially as young Jews, most of us identify with our homeland in Israel and if we don’t see that [strong democracy] there, we might question: Is that even our homeland, can we even identify with what they are doing?”
Jonathan Marcus, who is active in several Jewish organizations in Berlin, said he had seen people moving back from Israel to Germany in recent months “because of the current climate,” reflecting a trend of liberal Israelis considering emigration in response to the crisis. He also said he was worried about the religious agenda that some in Israel’s right-wing government want to advance — doing so in the language most often used to describe concerns about religious law in Europe.
“I worry on a personal level: What can I do to make sure we don’t wake up in a Jewish mullah regime?” Marcus said. “Will Israel be where my family and friends live, and be a part of my life?”
Namdar was not the only one to speak out against Chikli. A protest like the ones that have taken place across Israel and the Diaspora took place outside the conference venue, the Hilton Berlin. Inside the hotel’s dining room where Chikli was due to speak, conference guests found fliers distributed clandestinely on each table announcing that hosting him was “a slap in the face of hundreds of thousands of Israelis defending democracy for us too.”
Alexander Oscar, president of Shalom, Bulgaria’s main Jewish umbrella group, said at previous conferences he has attended it would have been unheard of to aim such statements at Israeli government officials. He said that though many European leaders are not Israeli citizens, “we all have our families in Israel and consider the state of Israel our homeland.”
“This is the first time ever I have seen this in conferences with other, you know, other countries, but never for the State of Israel.” Oscar said. “And it makes me happy, because what it says is that Israel is a democracy, and that it has a strong civil society.”
The protesting dovetails with a widening gulf he says that he and other Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe are finding with Israel.
“Over the past several years, we are seeing how, in various ways, the State of Israel is actually more prone to supporting the individual states in Europe, sacrificing the interests of the local Jewish communities,” Oscar said. “I’m speaking, in particular, about countries like Poland, like Hungary and Bulgaria nowadays. The local Jewish community is fighting with different groups, and even with the authorities, in terms of preventing the Holocaust distortion, and also combating antisemitism.”
“So we are ending up when the State of Israel is not defending the Jewish communities, in areas where until five, six years ago, it would have been impossible even to think of,” he added.
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UNC Student Newspaper Publishes Tropes About Jews and Money
In May 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine poured red paint which resembles spilled blood on the steps of the South Building, an office for administrative staff and the chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photo: UNCSJP/Screenshot
The Daily Tar Heel, the student-led newspaper of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, recently featured commentary that some view as antisemitic.
On Feb. 26, Kyle Bublic began a column by writing, “The 2022 congressional race for North Carolina’s 4th District was puppeteered by the wallet of Benjamin Netanyahu, as he whisked away the last of our previously honest lawmakers with American Israel Public Affairs Committee money.”
The American Jewish Committee explains why it is antisemitic to allege that Jews are political puppet masters:
Myths of control portray Jews as secret puppet masters, ruling over others and manipulating the world’s economies and governments. For centuries, Jews were blamed for controlling world events behind the scenes, leading “blind” leaders into wars and debt to enrich themselves and further their own hidden agenda …
The imagery of Jewish leaders pulling the strings of politicians was featured in Nazi propaganda … Antisemitic propaganda continues to spread the idea that rich or influential Jews are behind the scenes conspiring to further their plans of world domination.
It is a serious matter to state or imply that the Prime Minister of Israel is in any way financing or directing an American election. According to Congress, “Federal campaign finance law and regulation prohibits foreign money in U.S. elections.”
I reached out to five of the paper’s editors for comment. None responded.
Later in his column, the op-ed’s author repeated the antisemitic puppet master trope, writing:
While I would like to imagine Israel’s investment into Durham and Orange County was driven by their prime minister’s love for Cosmic Cantina [a local restaurant], it seems like his motivation was more nefarious. Nida Allam, Foushee’s most fearsome competitor in the 2022 election, represented everything that makes our puppet masters shudder — a principled and young candidate fighting under a truly progressive ticket.
The student column focused on the primary election in NC’s 4th Congressional district held last week between Democratic Congressional incumbent Valerie Foushee and her challenger, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam. Israel became a major focus of this Democratic primary, with anti-Israel radicals embracing Allam.
I previously reported that in 2018, Allam tweeted, “This is the United States of Israel,” which is consistent with centuries-old antisemitic propaganda that Jews seek to dominate the world. Allam ended up issuing a public apology for her antisemitism.
The Daily Tar Heel endorsed Allam in the Nov. 3 primary. Foushee narrowly beat Allam in the election.
UNC Professor of Medicine and longtime Jewish communal leader, Dr. Adam Goldstein, told me:
It’s truly disappointing to see the UNC student newspaper endorsing a partisan description of a Congressional race in 2026 as “puppeteered by the wallet of Benjamin Netanyahu’” in 2022, with references to “Bibi’s pockets.”Such descriptions echo longstanding antisemitic tropes portraying Jews as secretly controlling political systems through money. This moves beyond criticism of a current candidate’s policies into shameful demonization of a longtime progressive Congresswoman, and those that support her, through language that is itself manipulative and corrupting.
The Daily Tar Heel’s policy page claims that it seeks “to be a leader in espousing the ethical standards of the industry [and] to serve as a beacon of journalistic integrity.” Yet, the paper fails UNC students, our community, and the people of North Carolina, by allowing these tropes about Jews and money in its pages.
Peter Reitzes writes about antisemitism in North Carolina and beyond.
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CNN Shames Itself By Shilling for Iran
Images of Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are displayed at a gathering to support Mojtaba Khamenei, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 9, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
There’s a reason why the Iranian regime, which murdered thousands of its own citizens just months ago, only allowed one American network access to the country. It picked CNN, because it thought it would get coverage either that was favorable in some way, or at least not critical.
We are no longer in the era of Mike Wallace. Not long after Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979, Wallace interviewed him in Iran. Wallace had the guts to mention that Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat called him a disgrace to Islam and a “lunatic.” The Ayatollah responded by saying that Sadat was not a Muslim and was united with their enemies. He called for the people of Egypt to overthrow Sadat. Sadat was assassinated two years later.
Wallace sat on the floor during the interview, as did the Ayatollah, and asked if he could go visit the American hostages and talk to them. He was refused.
Back to now. CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen interviewed shopkeepers who said they were scared for their lives because there were bombs.
Of course, none of the people Pleitgen would interview are capable of criticizing the regime, or they’d be beaten or killed. Pleitgen himself might be killed if he reports anything the regime doesn’t want. The reports do include the line: “CNN operated in Iran only with government permission.” But that’s meaningless.
There is value to being on the scene in a war zone, but CNN, which gets much of its ratings from bashing Trump, will no doubt find citizens who will curse Trump. And no one they talk to will support the war in any way. Is simply putting in a line that you are reporting only with the permission of the government good enough? Do the ends justify the means in this case?
Pleitgen reported that “oil-filled rain” is falling from the sky. Is he able to report on what the true process was for the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new leader? Doubtful. What about the real number of its citizens they killed? Of course, they won’t get that. What about why they apologized for striking Gulf countries, and then continued to do so? If we won’t get any real answers to real questions, why is CNN really there — other than to do the bidding of the Iranian regime?
What is surprising is that I thought they’d send the CNN reporter to the girls school that was said to have been hit by American forces. Why not let him speak with some of the parents whose children have been killed? One would think this is exactly what Iran would want. That they have not done so raises suspicions. Was it a school not marked as a school, as part of an Revolutionary Guard Corps facility? Are there some discrepancies Iran doesn’t want the world to know?
It goes without saying that there is propaganda from every country in a war. It’s not always easy to get to the truth, and all countries only want certain information to be public. I’d like to know more about the Iranian ship sunk by America. Was it really unarmed when it was coming back from exercises with India? That’s what Iran says, but the US says that’s a lie. How about an interview with one of the 32 who survived? That would be an interesting interview.
If you’re going to report from an enemy country in war, can you at least have some unique and engaging content? It will be interesting to see if CNN decides to leave Iran, realizing their reputation will be hurt and it’s not worth it to aid an enemy’s propaganda war.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Self-Reliance Is Israel’s Strategic Imperative
A US Marines F-35C Lightning II is staged for flight operations on the flight deck of the US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran from an undisclosed location March 3, 2026. Photo: US Navy/Handout via REUTERS
History has taught the Jewish people many painful lessons, but perhaps the most enduring one is this: survival can never depend entirely on the goodwill of others. Alliances matter. Partnerships strengthen nations. But the responsibility for defending the Jewish state ultimately rests with Israel itself.
For decades, the alliance between Israel and the United States has been a cornerstone of Israel’s national security. This partnership has saved lives and deterred wars. Yet responsible leadership requires looking forward, not backward.
The global order is shifting. The United States faces growing domestic polarization, rising debt, and strategic competition with China that increasingly dominates its foreign policy priorities. Within parts of American political discourse, support for foreign aid in general, and Israel in particular, is no longer a consensus issue. While bipartisan support for Israel remains somewhat in place at the institutional level, the tone and intensity of the debate have changed.
This does not mean America is abandoning Israel. But it does mean that Israel cannot afford complacency.
The Jewish State was founded in the shadow of embargoes and isolation. In 1948, when the newborn nation faced invasion, it did not enjoy the luxury of dependable suppliers. Those early experiences forged a national doctrine of self-reliance. Over the decades, Israel built one of the most advanced defense industries in the world — precisely because it understood that sovereignty without military independence is fragile.
Today, Israel produces cutting edge missile defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. It leads globally in unmanned aerial systems, cyber capabilities, electronic warfare, and advanced battlefield technologies. Israeli defense exports reach Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, including countries that once viewed Israel as an adversary. Innovation is not merely an economic asset for Israel. It is a strategic necessity.
However, critical dependencies remain. Israel does not manufacture its own fifth generation fighter jets. Its air force relies heavily on American platforms such as the F-35 and F-15. Certain precision munitions and key components are sourced from abroad. Moreover, financial frameworks tied to foreign military assistance inevitably create political considerations beyond Israel’s direct control.
If the geopolitical winds shift, even slightly, those dependencies could become vulnerabilities.
Recognizing this reality does not diminish the importance of Israel’s alliances. It strengthens them.
Israel must accelerate investment in domestic production of critical munitions, expand its aerospace capabilities, and secure independent supply chains for raw materials and advanced components. It must ensure that during prolonged conflict, it can sustain itself without waiting for external political approvals. This is not an act of isolation. It is an act of national responsibility.
Israel cannot gamble its security on the internal debates of other nations, however friendly they may be. The Jewish people returned to their homeland to reclaim agency over their destiny. That agency must extend to every dimension of national defense.
In a region where weakness invites aggression, strength guarantees peace. The strongest message Israel can send to both allies and adversaries is clear: we value partnership, but our security will never be outsourced.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.