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Jenessa Schwartz, Bay Area day school teacher and cancer ‘thriver,’ dies at 41
SAN FRANCISCO (J., the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California via JTA) — Jenessa Schwartz wore many hats: wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and educator at Yavneh Day School in Los Gatos, California. Many also knew and admired her as a courageous, self-described “cancer thriver” determined to spread awareness of the disease through her unflinchingly honest blog “My Colon Cancer: Semicolon, Not Full Stop.”
“When life gives you cancer, make a punctuation pun,” she joked on the site. Humor infused her posts, even those that exposed her rawest, most painful struggles.
Schwartz succumbed to the illness on Nov. 1, a month after making the difficult decision to stop all treatment and enter hospice, and less than two weeks after standing on the bimah as her daughter, Ramona, became a bat mitzvah, a celebration Schwartz was determined to attend in person. Schwartz was just 41, though she lived longer than predicted early on by her doctors, who told her it was unlikely she’d live to see 36.
“She didn’t do anything just because,” said Jamie Zimmer, director of Jewish life and learning at Yavneh. “It came with meaning. It came with resolve to make the world a better place.”
A native of the South Bay area of Northern California, Schwartz grew up in Congregation Beth David in Saratoga, California. She was active in her local BBYO chapter and graduated from Yavneh in 1993. She returned to the Jewish school as an employee in 2015, serving first as a middle-school language arts teacher and then as the middle school’s dean.
“There’s not a kid who wasn’t in awe of the kind of teacher that she was,” said Zimmer. “She meant every single word she said, and she took her passion for grammar and language and building confident writers and musical theater and imbued it in every student, and inspired her colleagues, too.”
She also excelled as a Jewish educator, Zimmer said. In 2022, Schwartz won the Ruby Award from the San Francisco-based Jewish Learning Works for excellence in Jewish youth education and engagement.
Her Jewish identity “came from her kishkes. Her Judaism came from a place of heart,” Zimmer said. Prior to working at Yavneh, Schwartz served as director of Jewish life at the Addison-Penzak JCC, next door to the school.
It was at Yavneh that Schwartz met her husband, Trevor Davis, who taught physics there at the time. The two shared a close friendship before becoming a couple shortly after Schwartz was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in March 2017, when she was just 34.
Schwartz and Davis wed in their San Jose backyard a few years later, in a small ceremony held at the height of the pandemic and streamed over Zoom. The bride and groom wore blue, for colon cancer awareness, as did Ramona and son Solly, her children from a previous marriage.
“It’s going to sound trite and a little cliche, but I’ve cultivated this seize-the-day attitude,” she told CNET before the wedding. “We decided we can’t put off joy.”
Though colon cancer can strike at any age, it typically impacts older adults. Schwartz noticed irregular bowel habits, fatigue, nausea and anemia, but initially attributed the symptoms to her pregnancies: In addition to her two kids, she carried twins as a surrogate for a gay couple, Israeli natives Gil Shlamovitz and Tomer Mendelson.
“She’s the most amazing, loving, compassionate woman we know,” Shlamovitz said. He and Mendelson, who live in Los Angeles, stayed in close contact with Schwartz after Ben and Maya were born in 2015, generally seeing her twice a year. The twins refer to her as their birth mom.
“She’s a super important and meaningful person in their life story,” Shlamovitz said. “She gave many gifts to the world. Ben and Maya are just two examples.”
Another is the way she shared her colon cancer journey publicly in hopes others could get diagnosed, and treated, sooner than she did. The disease is on the rise among people under 50.
“Her writing helped her students, family, community and countless others learn how to live life fully and with compassion,” Yavneh said in its online memorial.
Schwartz wanted to document her experience “partly because I’m a middle child and need the attention, but mostly because colon cancer deserves some air time,” she wrote in an introduction to her blog. “It is incredibly treatable when caught early, but devastating once metastasized.”
Schwartz knew that devastation all too well. She wrote about enduring more than 100 rounds of chemotherapy, several surgeries and clinical trials. Her decision to enroll in hospice followed scans that showed extensive new tumor growth in her liver and lungs, a progression that led to her being released from a medication trial she considered her last hope.
“I’m bloodied, I’m bruised, but no one can say I lost my battle with cancer,” she wrote in her final post on Oct. 1. “I get to choose how things end, and that sounds like winning to me.”
Yavneh Day School closed on Friday, Nov. 3 so members of the Yavneh community could attend her morning funeral at the JCC and grieve for their friend, colleague and teacher.
Schwartz previously asked that donations in her memory be made to Yavneh.
Schwartz is survived by her children, Ramona and Solly; her husband, Trevor; parents Allan Schwartz, Cyndi Sherman and Stephen Schleimer; siblings Jon (Brittany) and Josh (Danielle) Schwartz, cousin Quelise Schroeder, and aunts Jodi Sherman (Ed Markowitz) and Suzie Sherman (Emily Saltzman).
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The post Jenessa Schwartz, Bay Area day school teacher and cancer ‘thriver,’ dies at 41 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.