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Judy Heumann, Jewish disability advocate who spurred a movement, dies at 75
(JTA) — In Judith Heumann’s 2020 memoir, the lifelong advocate for people with disabilities describes feeling shocked upon being invited to read from the Torah at her synagogue in Berkeley, California. Not only were women permitted to carry out the sacred task, unlike in the Orthodox synagogue of her Brooklyn childhood, but the bimah, or prayer platform, had been made accessible just for her.
“Oh my God, I thought, I’ve never been asked to do an aliyah,” Heumann wrote, using the Hebrew word for the ritual. “I learned how to do it.”
The moment was just one of many when Heumann, who died Saturday at 75, charted ground that had previously been off-limits to wheelchair users like her. Since contracting polio as a toddler, Heumann broke down barriers for disabled children and educators in New York City schools, protested until federal legislation protecting people with disabilities was passed and advised multiple presidential administrations on disability issues.
A cause of death was not immediately given for Heumann, whose website announced her death on Saturday in Washington, D.C. Heumann had lived there for 30 years, since being tapped by the Clinton administration to serve as assistant secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services.
Heumann was born in 1947 to two parents who had separately fled Nazi Germany as children in the 1930s; all of her grandparents and countless other family members were murdered in the Holocaust.
She said she believed it was her parents’ experience that led them to reject doctors’ advise to have their daughter institutionalized after she contracted polio and lost the use of her legs. “They came from a country where families got separated, some children sent away, others taken from their families by the authorities and never returned — all part of a campaign of systematic dehumanization and murder,” she wrote in her memoir, “Being Heumann.” “Their daughter, disabled or not, wasn’t going anywhere.”
Instead, her parents and in particular her mother, Ilse, set about to advocate for her. When the city school system said Judith could not attend her neighborhood school, Ilse got a rabbi to agree that she could attend his yeshiva if her daughter learned Hebrew. Judith did, but the rabbi did not keep his word. Instead, Ilse lined up an array of activities for Judith, including thrice-weekly Hebrew school classes accessible only if her father carried her in her chair up a flight of stairs, until the city opened a program for children with disabilities.
Judy Heumann attends the 2022 Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization Summit at United Nations in New York City, May 20, 2022. (Chance Yeh/Getty Images)
There, Heumann wrote, she first encountered “disability culture” — what she described as “a culture that has learned to value the humanity in all people, without dismissing anyone for looking, thinking, believing or acting differently.” She would experience and then help craft this culture during a decade at summer camp, in a movement captured in the 2020 documentary “Crip Camp,” and then throughout a lifetime of advocacy that earned her the moniker “mother of the disability rights movement.”
One notable win came in 1970, after Heumann graduated from college with a degree in speech therapy. Told that she could not teach in New York City schools because she could not help children leave in case of fire, Heumann sued. She was represented in part by an attorney who would argue Roe v. Wade in front of the Supreme Court, and the case came before Judge Constance Baker Motley, the only woman on the NAACP legal team that argued Brown v. Board of Education. The city quickly settled and Heumann ultimately got a job at her old elementary school.
The public fight propelled Heumann into the leadership of an inchoate disability rights movement. Two years later, she participated in New York City protests in favor of federal anti-discrimination laws that President Richard Nixon ultimately signed. In 1977, she was one of dozens of disability advocates to occupy a federal building in San Francisco in a demonstration calling for enforcement mechanisms. Their advocacy led to Section 504, a federal statute that requires entities receiving government funds to show that they do not discriminate on the basis of disability.
The episode was dramatized on Comedy Central’s “Drunk History.” Heumann was played by Ali Stroker, a Jewish actress who was the first wheelchair user to perform on Broadway. Heumann was also recognized as Time Magazine’s 1977 Woman of the Year in a 2020 retrospective.
Heumann was a cofounder of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley before returning to the East Coast and the government advisory roles. Through it all, Heumann remained involved with the Jewish communities where she lived, including by having a bat mitzvah ceremony as an adult. In Washington, she was a member of Adas Israel Congregation.
In 2016, she cited tikkun olam, the ancient rabbinical imperative to repair the world, during a 2016 White House event during Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month. “The Jewish community has an obligation, I believe, to be leaders,” said Heumann, then special advisor for international disability rights in the State Department.
She also traveled as an adult to her father’s hometown in Germany, Hoffenheim, where she was taken to the site of the synagogue that the Nazis destroyed but noted that no one there spoke openly about what had happened to the local Jews.
In “Being Heumann,” she connected the experience to her own efforts to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream. “What a pervasive influence silence and avoidance have had on my life,” she wrote. “Why wasn’t I in school? Silence. Why aren’t we allowed on buses? Silence. Why can’t disabled people teach? Silence. Where are all the Jews going? Piercing silence.
“I refuse to give in to the pressure of the silence,” she concluded.
Heumann’s allies in the Jewish disability advocacy community mourned her death.
“So sad to learn of Judy Heumann’s passing,” tweeted Jay Ruderman, whose family foundation has been a leader in supporting Jewish disability inclusion. “She was one of the preeminent disability rights leaders in our country’s history and her accomplishments made our world a better place. I’ll miss you Judy and may your memory be a blessing.”
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The post Judy Heumann, Jewish disability advocate who spurred a movement, dies at 75 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Pakistan-Afghanistan Clashes Highlight Limits of Saudi-Pakistani Defense Pact: Experts

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif embrace each other on the day they sign a defense agreement, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 17, 2025. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS
Amid rising tensions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, experts say the newly signed Saudi-Pakistani mutual defense pact is largely symbolic and unlikely to alter the regional balance of power.
On Friday, Afghanistan accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes on its territory, shattering a temporary ceasefire after days of escalating clashes that marked the deadliest fighting along the border in years.
“The truce has been broken and Afghanistan will retaliate,” a spokesman for the Taliban-led Afghan government said in a statement, announcing that Pakistan had “broken the ceasefire and bombed three locations in Paktika,” a province in the country’s eastern region.
Earlier this week, the two nations had agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire after border clashes killed dozens of troops.
The conflict erupted after Pakistan accused its neighbor of harboring and supporting terrorist groups responsible for attacks on its territory, while Afghanistan accused Pakistan of violating its airspace and carrying out strikes in the country’s eastern regions.
The fragile ceasefire came after appeals from major regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, with which nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact last month, further solidifying a decades-long security partnership.
According to experts, the recent regional escalation shows how the Saudi-Pakistan partnership is largely symbolic, offering diplomatic backing and condemnation but unlikely to be tested in practice.
“”The recent Pakistan-Afghanistan clashes are unlikely to lead to invocation of the Saudi-Pakistan defense pact,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, told The Algemeiner.
He explained that the threat from Afghanistan, while politically serious, is not strong enough to push Pakistan to seek support from a third party, since the country is far stronger than the hostile forces along the contentious border.
“The Saudis, as central players in the Islamic world, will also want to be seen as welcoming Afghanistan’s gradual rehabilitation,” Brown said, noting that even if the pact were invoked, it is unlikely they would want to intervene in the conflict.
More broadly, he argued that this recent escalation underscores the limits of the Saudi-Pakistan defense pact, emphasizing that “most of the challenges that both countries face do not rise to the level of war between states.”
“”The possible war scenarios that do exist — Pakistan with India, Saudi Arabia with Iran — are not ones in which the other party to the pact would want to get involved, and it is inconceivable that Pakistan is offering a nuclear guarantee to the Saudis,” Brown told The Algemeiner.
Pakistan has repeatedly argued that its nuclear weapons are intended solely as a deterrent against India.
As the only nuclear-armed, Muslim-majority nation with the Islamic world’s largest army, Pakistan’s newly signed defense pact has raised questions about shifts in Middle East power and regional dynamics.
“”The agreement states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement following the signing of the pact.
While no further details have been disclosed, the partnership reportedly “encompasses all military means,” ranging from armed forces and nuclear cooperation to intelligence sharing.
Pakistan has even openly declared that it “”will make available” its nuclear program to Saudi Arabia if needed.
However, experts maintain that Pakistan’s ability to provide a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia is dubious, as its longest-range missile cannot reach most potential threats to the country.
“The deal’s military value appears negligible beyond its symbolic photo-op,” Brown told The Algemeiner. “Pakistan lacks the capability to project power over 2,600 miles to Saudi Arabia.”
The pact is also designed to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s long-term defense autonomy, with defense industry collaboration, technology transfer, and military co-production and training, among other key initiatives.
Although the Saudi-Pakistani relationship has long been close, Brown explained that mutual support between the two nations has faced significant limitations.
“This new mutual defense pact is likely to remain a symbolic agreement, with its main applicability in nonbelligerent arenas, such as training and procurement,” he told The Algemiener.
Experts have also noted that the new pact could heighten regional tensions, strengthening Saudi Arabia’s defenses against Iran and its allies while also signaling its strategic posture toward Israel.
Yet, Brown argued that it makes little sense to suggest the pact is directed at Israel, given there is no realistic prospect of conflict between the Jewish state and either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, whereas Iran remains far more active against both countries.
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An attack on Israeli soccer fans last year was dubbed a ‘pogrom.’ Could it happen again?
When fans of the soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv were assaulted in the streets of Amsterdam after a game last November, the violence drew comparisons to pogroms. It even prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dispatch rescue planes to evacuate Israeli citizens.
Now, once again there are fears of a repeat outbreak of violence, this time over a match in Birmingham, England.
Local police reportedly requested supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv be kept away from the match against the English team Aston Villa, classifying the sporting event as a “high risk” threat to public safety. On Thursday, authorities told Israeli fans they would be banned from attending.
But after that move sparked accusations of antisemitism, the British government said it is doing “everything in its power” to reverse the decision and let Israeli fans buy tickets.
“This is the wrong decision. We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer posted to X. “The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.”
What happened at the game in Amsterdam?
The day before a November 2024 game against the Dutch team AFC Ajax, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans vandalized a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag, police said.
After the game, groups of men on scooters roamed the streets looking for Israeli fans, beating and kicking them and throwing fireworks, police said. At least five Israelis were hospitalized, and more than 60 people were arrested. Authorities uncovered WhatsApp and Telegram messages prior to the attacks urging a “Jew hunt.”
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the attacks “antisemitic hit-and-run squads.” Others drew Holocaust comparisons, with Netanyahu noting the assaults took place near the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again,” King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands said the morning after the attacks.
Days later, protesters set fire to a tram car in Amsterdam while shouting “Free Palestine” and “Kanker Joden,” or “cancer Jews.”
Israel’s growing isolation
Fallout over Gaza in the world of international sports suggests just how perilous Israel’s international standing has become.
Earlier this week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed that Israel would be barred from competing at the gymnastics world championship in Indonesia this weekend. The court said it had no control over Indonesia’s decision to deny Israeli athletes visas, which was made amid outcry over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
At a September cycling race in Spain, the presence of an Israeli team drew thousands of protesters, forcing the race to end 31 miles short of the finish line.
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Muaythai Associations in August banned the display of the Israeli flag and the playing of Israel’s national anthem at all its martial arts competitions.
In the United Kingdom, some argued that banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans wasn’t enough, calling for the team itself to be barred from competition.
In the leadup to the ban on supporters of the Israeli team, British MP Ayoub Khan and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a petition to cancel the game entirely, citing both the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and the “track record of violence by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.” The petition, which launched in September prior to the ceasefire, drew nearly 4,000 signatures.
The tensions have also impacted major international tournaments. Last month, the European soccer federation UEFA was reportedly set to vote on banning Israel from international competition over the war in Gaza — a move that would have prevented the country from qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The vote was paused, however, following the announcement last week of the Gaza ceasefire.
On Friday, local officials called a meeting for an “immediate review” of the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, with sources telling The Athletic they expect the policy to be reversed.
The post An attack on Israeli soccer fans last year was dubbed a ‘pogrom.’ Could it happen again? appeared first on The Forward.
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Hamas Aims to Keep Grip on Gaza Security and Can’t Commit to Disarm, Senior Official Says

Hamas senior official Mohammed Nazzal speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Doha, Qatar, Oct. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Hamas intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, a senior Hamas official told Reuters, adding he could not commit to the Palestinian terrorist group disarming – positions that reflect the difficulties facing US plans to secure an end to the war.
Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal also said the group was ready for a ceasefire of up to five years to rebuild devastated Gaza, with guarantees for what happens afterwards depending on Palestinians being given “horizons and hope” for statehood.
Speaking to Reuters in an interview from Doha, where Hamas politicians have long resided, Nazzal defended the Islamist group’s crackdown in Gaza, where it carried out public executions on Monday. There were always “exceptional measures” during war and those executed were criminals guilty of killing, he said.
PRESSURE TO DISARM
While Hamas has broadly expressed these views before, the timing of Nazzal’s comments demonstrates the major obstacles obstructing efforts to cement a full end to the war in Gaza, days after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed.
They point to big gaps between Hamas’s positions and US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, ahead of negotiations expected to address Hamas’s weapons and how Gaza is governed.
Asked for comment on Nazzal’s remarks, the Israeli prime minister’s office said Israel was committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold and fulfil its side of the plan.
“Hamas is supposed to release all hostages in stage 1. It has not. Hamas knows where the bodies of our hostages are. Hamas are to be disarmed under this agreement. No ifs, no buts. They have not. Hamas need to adhere to the 20-point plan. They are running out of time,” it said in a statement to Reuters.
Trump’s Sept. 29 plan called for Hamas to immediately return all hostages before committing to disarmament and ceding governance of Gaza to a technocratic committee overseen by an international transitional body.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the plan, saying it would dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities, end its political rule, and ensure that Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel.
Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted another 251 during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that triggered the war. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostage and dismantling Hamas in neighboring Gaza.
Pummeled by Israel in the war, the internationally designated terrorist group is under intense pressure to disarm and surrender control of Gaza or risk a resumption of the conflict.
Asked if Hamas would give up its arms, Nazzal, speaking on Wednesday, said: “I can’t answer with a yes or no. Frankly, it depends on the nature of the project. The disarmament project you’re talking about, what does it mean? To whom will the weapons be handed over?”
He added that issues to be discussed in the next phase of negotiations, including weapons, concerned not only Hamas but other armed Palestinian groups, and would require Palestinians more broadly to reach a position.
Asked for its response to Nazzal’s remarks, the White House directed Reuters to comments by Trump on Thursday.
“We have a commitment from them and I assume they’re going to honour their commitment,” Trump said, noting that Hamas had returned more bodies but without elaborating on the issue of it disarming or its interim presence on the ground.
Nazzal also said the group had no interest in keeping the remaining bodies of deceased hostages seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
Hamas has handed over at least nine out of 28 bodies. It was encountering technical problems recovering more, he said, adding that international parties such as Turkey or the US would help search if needed.
A senior Turkish official said last week that Turkey would take part in a joint task force along with Israel, the US, Qatar and Egypt to locate the bodies.
Hamas said on Friday it would transfer the body of another hostage to the Red Cross, with Israel confirming the handover would occur just after midnight on Saturday amid a dispute over delays in the return of remains under their ceasefire deal. Israel, insisting Hamas knows the whereabouts of the hostages’ bodies, had said the group was running out of time.
Hamas agreed on Oct. 4 to release the hostages and hand over governance to a technocratic committee, but said other matters needed to be addressed within a wider Palestinian framework. It released all living hostages on Monday.
Nazzal said the phase two negotiations would begin soon.
GOALS OF ELECTIONS, ‘HOPE’ FOR PALESTINIANS
On Tuesday, Trump said he had communicated to Hamas that it must disarm or it would be forced to. Trump has also suggested Hamas was given temporary approval for internal security operations in Gaza, and has endorsed Hamas killing members of gangs.
Noting Trump’s remarks, Nazzal said there was an understanding regarding Hamas’s presence on the ground, without specifying among whom, indicating it was necessary to protect aid trucks from thieves and armed gangs.
“This is a transitional phase. Civilly, there will be a technocratic administration as I said. On the ground, Hamas will be present,” he said. After the transitional phase, there should be elections, he said.
Nazzal said mediators had not discussed with the group an international stabilization force for Gaza, which was proposed in Trump’s ceasefire plan.
Hamas’s founding charter called for the destruction of Israel, and its leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy the Jewish state.
Nazzal said Hamas had suggested a long-term truce in meetings with US officials, and wanted a truce of at least three to five years to rebuild the Gaza Strip. “The goal isn’t to prepare for a future war.”
Beyond that period, guarantees for the future would require states to “provide horizons and hope for the Palestinian people,” he said.
“The Palestinian people want an independent Palestinian state,” he added.