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Meet Amichai Chikli, Israel’s new Diaspora minister, who opposes BDS and Reform Judaism
(JTA) – The Israeli ministry responsible for engaging with the half of the world’s Jews who don’t live in Israel has gotten a new name — and a leader who disdains the values of many American Jews.
Amichai Chikli announced during his swearing-in ceremony Monday that his ministry was changing its name from the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and the Struggle Against Antisemitism. The name change is a sign that Chikli could plan to focus on the problems of the Diaspora more than his predecessors, who have focused largely on promoting Israel to Diaspora Jews.
Chikli is the son of a Conservative rabbi who lives on a kibbutz founded by the Conservative movement of Judaism, which he defends but says he no longer identifies with. He vaulted into prominence within Israel last year when he became the first member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to break with then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett over Bennett’s decision to form an alliance with left-wing and Arab parties.
Though Chikli holds some views promoted by Diaspora Jews, he is disdainful of Reform Judaism, the largest denomination in the United States, and of the politics of American liberals, including President Joe Biden, who won a wide majority of U.S. Jews’ votes. He has said he believes the Pride flag is an anti-Zionist symbol and also equates public criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, a position that American Jewish groups have been fastidious about saying they do not hold.
“I have a problem with the trend of Reform Jews seeking to assimilate and affiliate themselves with groups who are anti-Israel,” Chikli told the Forward last year.
“The Reform movement has identified itself with the radical left’s false accusations that the settlers are violent, so they have earned the criticism against them, and I cannot identify with them,” he told the Jerusalem Post, also last year. “They are going back to their roots in Germany of anti-Zionism and anti-nationalism. It’s a tragedy that they are going there.”
Chikli’s appointment comes as Israel inaugurates a right-wing government that includes extremist parties, as well as one minister who has been convicted of inciting violence. The government and its priorities have drawn sharp criticism from Diaspora Jews, including from hundreds of U.S. rabbis who have pledged not to invite any members of extremist coalition blocs to speak to their communities.
Unlike some of his colleagues in the new government, Chikli says he believes there should be a space for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, a priority for many Diaspora Jews. He also criticized a haredi rabbi’s condemnation this week of Amir Ohana, a gay ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is the new Knesset speaker, saying on Twitter, “There is no disease more dangerous than baseless hatred.”
But he appears to be on the same page as some of the extremist politicians about the propriety of LGBTQ demonstrations, calling Tel Aviv’s Pride Parade a “disgraceful vulgarity” in a Facebook post this summer. (He said he believes sexual identity should be “subdued.”) He also shares their disdain of Reform Judaism, a frequent target for some of the Religious Zionist politicians who are part of the governing coalition.
In his new role, Chikli faces the task of winning over American Jewish leaders who may well be skeptical of or dismayed by Israel’s rightward shift. With his coalition seeking to narrow the definition of who is considered Jewish, make it harder to move to Israel, and strip rights from minority groups within Israel, including LGBTQ Jews, Israeli Arabs and non-Orthodox Jews, that task could be quixotic.
One area of ideological overlap, though, is in the fight against antisemitism, which watchdogs say is on the rise in the Diaspora.
Israel has gotten more involved in fights over antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the United States in recent years, appointing actress and activist Noa Tishby as its first ever “special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization” last year. Tishby’s travels have included visiting the campus of the University of California-Berkeley in the midst of a student anti-Zionist controversy at that school, and making appearances as a talking head on Fox News.
Chikli has indicated that colleges and universities are an area of special interest for him. “I am very worried about what is happening on the campuses,” he said in the Jerusalem Post interview. “It is heartbreaking to see Jewish young people who concede their connections to their people and their heritage in order to connect to the latest fashionable movement that they are calling woke.”
The Israeli government also involved itself in recent legal negotiations that resulted in regional rights to ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s being sold to an Israeli company after the Ben & Jerry’s U.S. board attempted to halt the sale of its products in “occupied Palestinian territories.”
Like U.S. Jewish leaders (and Biden), Chikli vociferously opposes the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as BDS. He believes that anti-Israel sentiment is inherently antisemitic, issuing a stern warning to American Jews in his Forward interview.
“Don’t think that joining anti-Israel movements will help you with anything,” he said. “In the end, the folks from the BDS movement will attack you and your children because it’s not Israel that they hate, they hate Judaism.”
On Wednesday, Chikli accused Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and past prime minister, of being “the spearhead of the BDS movement” because Lapid plans to speak critically to U.S. audiences about the new government.
“What Lapid is doing now as an outgoing prime minister is a disturbing irresponsibility,” Chikli said in public comments that he also tweeted. “He does not understand that when he tells the whole world that this is a ‘dark’ government, the world does not make a separation between government and state. That’s exactly how BDS does its work.”
Chikli’s predecessor, Nachman Shai, met early in his tenure with the heads of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements in the United States to push the message that Israel would embrace all denominations of Judaism equally.
On the occasion of the new government, Shai recently said that Israel could soon become hostile to Reform and Conservative Judaism.
Exactly how Chikli plans to engage with Diaspora Jews in his role, and when, is not yet clear; he did not respond to a request for an interview on Thursday. But he has started his tenure by taking action — canceling a 5 million NIS ($1.4 million) contract with a nonprofit group that Shai had struck shortly after the election. Chikli said the group, which has ties to Israel’s left, was “political” but that he was canceling the contract because it was inappropriate to strike one when the ministry’s leadership was set to change.
Another plan approved shortly before the election also faces an uncertain future: a $2.3 million contract with the Reform and Conservative movements in the United States to improve Israel’s image among young and liberal American Jews.
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The post Meet Amichai Chikli, Israel’s new Diaspora minister, who opposes BDS and Reform Judaism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.
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Iran Reviewing US Proposal to End War, Though Key Demands Remain Unaddressed
People walk on a street near a mural featuring an image of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran said on Wednesday it was reviewing a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the war while leaving unresolved the key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson cited by Iran‘s ISNA news agency said Tehran would convey its response. US President Donald Trump said he believed Iran wanted an agreement.
“They want to make a deal. We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Trump had sounded more pessimistic about the chances of a deal. In a Truth Social post, he threatened to restart the US bombing campaign in Iran, calling the possibility of Tehran agreeing to the latest US proposal a “big assumption.”
Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of an agreement that would end the war that started Feb. 28, so far without success. The two sides remain at odds over a variety of difficult issues, such as Iran‘s nuclear ambitions and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply.
A Pakistani source and another source briefed on the mediation said an agreement was close on a one-page memorandum that would formally end the conflict. That would kick off discussions to unblock shipping through the strait, lift US sanctions on Iran, and set curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, the sources said.
It was unclear how the memorandum differs from a 14-point plan proposed by Iran last week, and Iran has yet to respond to the latest US proposal.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the US proposal contained some unacceptable provisions, without specifying which ones.
Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for parliament’s powerful foreign policy and national security committee, described the text as “more of an American wish-list than a reality.”
“The Americans will not gain anything in a war they are losing that they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.
OIL PRICES TUMBLE
Reports of a possible agreement caused global oil prices to tumble to two-week lows, with benchmark Brent crude futures falling around 11% to around $98 a barrel at one point before rising back above the $100 mark.
Global share prices also leapt and bond yields fell on optimism about an end to a war that has disrupted energy supplies.
Trump on Tuesday paused a two-day-old naval mission to reopen the blockaded strait, citing progress in peace talks.
The US military has kept up its own blockade on Iranian ships in the region. US Central Command said forces fired at an unladen Iranian-flagged tanker on Wednesday, disabling the vessel as it attempted to sail toward an Iranian port in violation of the blockade.
NO MENTION OF KEY US DEMANDS
The source briefed on the mediation said the US negotiations were being led by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. If both sides agreed on the preliminary deal, that would start the clock on 30 days of detailed negotiations to reach a full agreement.
The full agreement would end the competing US and Iranian blockades on the strait, lift US sanctions, and release frozen Iranian funds. It would also include some curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, with the aim of a pause or moratorium on Iranian enrichment of uranium.
While the sources said the memorandum would not initially require concessions from either side, they did not mention several key demands Washington has made in the past, which Iran has rejected, such as curbs on Iran‘s missile program and an end to its support for proxy militias in the Middle East.
The sources also made no mention of Iran‘s existing stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of near-weapons-grade uranium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s ally against Iran, said on Wednesday the two leaders agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
Tehran denies wanting to acquire a nuclear weapon.
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Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass
(JTA) — More than 650 years after Jews in Brussels were executed and expelled following false antisemitic accusations, church officials at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula have installed a plaque apologizing for the persecution commemorated in its stained glass windows.
At a ceremony on April 27, Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels and Rabbi Albert Guigui, the chief rabbi of Brussels, unveiled four plaques, written in Dutch, French, English and Hebrew, providing historical context for the windows and an apology for the antisemitic persecution tied to the events they depict.
The plaques, which Terlinden signed, state that “baseless accusations of the desecration of the Eucharistic host were made against Jewish communities” in medieval Europe and that the accusations “led to persecution, massacres, and unjustifiable expulsions.” The windows show Jews being executed at the stake in response to their alleged attacks on the Eucharist, bread that Catholic doctrine considers a literal representation of Jesus’ body.
“Theological and social anti-Judaism is in direct contradiction with the Gospel of Christ, which calls for truth, justice, and brotherhood,” the plaques say. “We ask forgiveness from the Jewish people for the suffering these accusations have caused.”
The stained glass windows in the cathedral depict the “Brussels Host Desecration,” an antisemitic accusation in 1370 that Jews had desecrated communion wafers, leading to the execution of Jews in Brussels and the expulsion of the city’s Jewish community.
The windows have drawn scrutiny for decades, particularly as the Catholic Church sought to reckon with its history of antisemitism. In 1969, shortly after the landmark Nostra Aetate declaration rejecting longstanding anti-Jewish Catholic doctrine, the Archbishop of Brussels ordered that several paintings be removed and a plaque be mounted to offer context about the remaining depictions.
Several years later, the European Jewish Congress noted last week, Catholic leaders did install a plaque that drew readers’ attention to “the biased nature of the accusations [against the Jews accused of the desecration] and to the legendary presentation of the ‘miracle.’”
But Flora Cassen, the director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and a scholar of European antisemitism, said the existing plaque was “very ambiguous about the responsibility and what happened” and installed in an easy-to-miss location. The new plaques, she said, contain a clear and “very moving” apology and cannot be missed by anyone who comes to see the windows.
“The significance is enormous of the church finally putting a plaque there that tells the story, that acknowledges the antisemitism behind it, that acknowledges that it was a slander and that it resulted in persecution and in the execution of Jews in Brussels and their expulsion,” Cassen said.
The new plaques cite Nostra Aetate and the Catholic Church’s subsequent effort under Pope John Paul II to reckon with historical antisemitism in 2000. They affirm the church’s “commitment to combat all forms of antisemitism, to deepen dialogue between Jews and Christians, and to pass on to future generations a clear remembrance, based on the acknowledgement of truth and mutual respect.”
While some have called for the historic windows to be removed, Guigui said in a statement that the plaques represented an appropriate way to address relics of historical antisemitism.
“What matters today is how we look at these images,” the rabbi said. “They must not be erased, because they are part of history, but they must be accompanied by explanation and moral insight in order to understand the context and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
The post Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass appeared first on The Forward.