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Jewish groups back gun restrictions for domestic abusers in high-profile Supreme Court case
(JTA) – Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s announcement that it would consider a major case on Second Amendment rights, Jewish groups are joining an effort led by a Jewish organization for survivors of domestic abuse to back gun-rights restrictions for people convicted of domestic violence.
Jewish Women International is leading an amicus brief that also includes the organizations representing Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis, along with several interfaith organizations, in the case United States v. Rahimi.
The case, which the court announced in late June that it would consider in the coming year, concerns whether a law prohibiting people under domestic-violence restraining orders from owning firearms is a violation of the Second Amendment, which says the right to gun ownership “shall not be infringed.” Gun-control advocates worry that the court’s rightward tilt, combined with its willingness to hear the case at all, could point to a ruling that overturns the law.
The faith groups argue that preventing convicted domestic abusers from accessing firearms is not only consistent with the Second Amendment, but also a matter of religious urgency. The Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, for example, cites the Book of Leviticus in arguing that clergy should not “stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
“Rabbinical Assembly recognizes that acts of gun violence, whether perpetrated against the Jewish community or not, are shattering the peace and sanctity of our lives at an alarming rate,” the brief adds.
One story related in the brief, from Rabbi Bruce Kahn of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, Maryland, relates how Kahn had counseled a non-Jewish woman who had fled her abusive former partner and is currently helping her and her children flee the area where her partner lives.
In its brief, Jewish Women International notes that one of its members was shot and killed by an estranged husband in 1988, permanently shifting the focus of the group’s mission “to break the silence about domestic abuse in the Jewish community.” It joins the brief’s other Jewish groups: the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis; the Rabbinical Council of America, which is Orthodox; the Jewish Gun Violence Prevention Roundtable; the National Collaborative of Jewish Domestic Violence Programs; and the Women’s Rabbinic Network, also from the Reform movement.
Also represented are more than a half-dozen Jewish members of an interfaith coalition against domestic and sexual violence: the Clergy Task Force to End Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community, Hadassah, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Council of Jewish Women, Network of Jewish Human Services Agencies, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Jewish groups and activists have long argued for stringent rules to keep guns out of the hands of people who might use them for dangerous purposes. Multiple Jewish groups, including Hadassah and the Orthodox Union, teamed up to press for federal gun-control legislation in 1968. The 2000 “Million Mom March” for gun control was launched by a woman who was distraught about the 1999 shooting by a white supremacist at a Los Angeles-area Jewish community center in which multiple children were wounded; some of the children’s parents became organizers. And Jewish students and parents from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were killed in 2018 have emerged as leading gun-control activists in the years since.
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The post Jewish groups back gun restrictions for domestic abusers in high-profile Supreme Court case appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.