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New Yorkers protesting Israel’s government say they’ll keep up the fight for the country’s democracy
(New York Jewish Week) – Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Israeli consulate in New York yesterday to stand in solidarity with Israelis who have been protesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary, mere hours after a delay in the reforms was announced.
The protesters, who assembled on Second Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, carried Israeli flags, sang Hebrew songs and chanted “Democracy will stand” in between music and speeches from local rabbis and political leaders.
The rally was held the day after Asaf Zamir, the Israeli Consul General in New York, resigned, following Netanyahu’s firing of Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant. “The past 18 months as Israel’s Consul General in New York were fulfilling and rewarding, but following today’s developments, it is now time for me to join the fight for Israel’s future to ensure it remains a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world,” Zamir said in his resignation letter, which was posted to social media.
A majority of the crowd were Israelis living in New York, though cohorts from Park Slope’s Congregation Beth Elohim and supporters of T’ruah, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, also showed up.
For Israelis, even those who have immigrated to New York, the moment is a crucial one: Even though the legislation has been put on hold until May, it was important to many in the crowd to nonetheless make their voices heard. Attending protests in New York is an opportunity to both show solidarity with friends and family in Israel, some said, as well as impart a sense of urgency on American Jews.
The New York Jewish Week spoke to some of the protesters about what inspired them to protest Israel’s government in New York on a rainy Monday afternoon:
Israel and Hanana are a couple doing a housing exchange in New York. (Julia Gergely)
Israel and Hanana, who declined to provide their last names, are Israelis who have been living in New York for the last year doing a housing exchange with an American family. “We are concerned about what is happening,” Israel said. “It’s disturbing and the country is turning into a dictatorship.”
The couple has not hashed out their plan for when their housing exchange ends. Israel feels that he has to go back to his country. As for Hanana, “I don’t want to go back,” she said. “I can’t live in a dictatorship.” She would like to move to somewhere like Greece or Cyprus, she said.
Hanana carried a Hebrew sign that read “Our hope is not yet lost,” a line from the Israeli national anthem. Israel’s sign read “It’s good to protest for your country,” which is a play on the Hebrew phrase, “It’s good to die for your country,” allegedly said by a Zionist activist who died defending a Jewish settlement in Palestine in 1920.
Lior and Shiran, Israelis who moved to New York 18 months ago, hold signs protesting Prime Minister Netanyahu. (Julia Gergely)
Shiran and Lior, who declined to provide their last names, have been in the United States for a year and half. Last week, they visited friends in Israel but didn’t have time to attend protests, so it was important to them to make their voices heard in New York. “We are married, so for us this has been a really big deal,” Shiran said. At this point, they are planning to stay in New York for good, they said.
Susan Lax, the co-owner of an Israeli shoe company, holds a sign that reads “We must resist.” (Julia Gergely)
“I think that this is going to destroy Israel if we don’t come out in the streets, and my children and grandchildren will not have a country if I’m not out here,” said Susan Lax, who splits her time between the Upper West Side and Tel Aviv.
The co-owner of Naot, an Israeli shoe company, Lax feels the threat on a personal and professional level. “We are shoes of peace. It’s part of what we do,” she said.
If the reforms pass and things continue to deteriorate, “they could come and say you can’t have non-Jews working for you,” she said. “They can destroy everything that the generation above me fought for.”
American support is crucial to the cause, Lax said, whether by visiting Israel or by attending protests like these. “With no Israel, Jews have nothing in the world,” she said. “By not going there, we’re telling them ‘you’re on your own.’”
For Lax, the worst thing Israeli and American Jews could do is to give up hope, or to ease pressure on the government now that the legislation has been put on pause. She’s planning to return to Israel in a week. “Do not despair,” she said. She carried a sign reading, “We must resistance.”
Noa is frustrated with the hypocrisy she feels coming from American Jews who support Israel despite the government’s dangerous policies. (Julia Gergely)
“A lot of American Jews are saying that it’s important to have a Jewish country so they have a refuge if something happens,” said Noa, who declined to provide her last name, who left Israel in 2014 after the Gaza War.
“But it won’t be the case soon,” she said. “Unless they act, unless they stop funding the government that is very far-right, they won’t have a refuge. They won’t have a place to go to if something happens.”
Noa criticized what she sees as the hypocrisy of American Jews, many of whom support the Israeli government no matter what. “They need to understand that next time they go to visit Israel, their wives might have to wear a head cover and men and women might be separated in many places, and maybe gay people won’t be able to live there,” she said there, presenting a worst case scenario should the haredi Orthodox parties continue to wield power in a right-wing government. “They really need to think about it and act accordingly.”
The Israeli government’s rightward shift confirmed her decision to move away, Noa said. Nonetheless, the country will always be her home. “My heart is still there,” she said. “But I don’t really see a future. It’s either dictatorship or democracy.”
Noa Osheroff believes this is also a moment to fight for Palestinian Liberation, carrying a sign suggesting as much in Hebrew, English and Arabic. (Julia Gergely)
Noa Osheroff, an Israeli who has lived in New York for eight years, is using this moment to fight for democracy and representation for both Israelis and Palestinians.
“A group of friends and I have decided to collaborate around the protests and create a more radical group,” Osheroff said. “I always joined demonstrations and was vocal about my opinions, but I don’t work for any political organizations and I can’t even say I’m a big activist.”
In recent weeks, though, it’s become increasingly important to her to make sure that Palestinian liberation is included in the call for democracy, as well as to call out the United States government for enabling Netanyahu’s policies. The sign she carried, “From the river the sea — democracy for all,” repurposes a slogan often used by the pro-Palestinian movement to call for a single democratic state — neither Jewish nor Palestinian — in what is currently Israel and the territories. “The protests are so Zionist,” she said. “It kind of bothered me, especially in the U.S., because the U.S. funds a lot of what’s going on in the settlements. People don’t necessarily see the connection, but what’s happening now is in part a result of the occupation.”
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Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine
(JTA) — Graham Platner, the anti-Israel progressive who took Maine’s political establishment by storm this spring, has officially prevailed in his state’s Democratic Senate primary.
Multiple news outlets called the race within 90 minutes of the polls closing, with only a fraction of the votes counted.
The victory was seen as a foregone conclusion after Platner’s primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her candidacy in late April, saying her campaign could not afford to continue.
Still, the final tally suggested that not all Mainers had embraced the political neophyte whose campaign was dogged by controversies, including the revelation that Platner had a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades until he drew criticism for it on the campaign trail. He denied knowing it was a Nazi symbol.
Mills, who remained on the ballot, drew about one in five votes in the first 10% of ballots counted, according to the tally published by The New York Times.
The result sets Platner up to face off in November against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has received substantial support from pro-Israel donors. The latest polls suggest a tight race.
“I’m humbled and proud to officially be your Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate to take on Susan Collins and the billionaire class she represents. Together, we will win this seat back for working Mainers,” Platner tweeted on Tuesday night. “Thank you, Maine.”
While Democratic leaders officially threw their support behind Platner after Mills halted her campaign, many of them remained circumspect about him. Their balancing act grew more delicate in the final days of the primary race, as Platner drew allegations of antisemitism over his characterization of donations channeled to Collins by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and as he faced new allegations of misconduct toward women. (He said he had been a “far from perfect boyfriend” during some periods of his life but denied engaging in misconduct.)
Now, top Democrats will have to decide how hard to gun for Platner, who has become a standard-bearer in the party’s anti-Israel shift at a time when the chamber is narrowly divided.
They are already facing pressure to disavow him. “Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America, and every Senate Democrat propping up Platner’s campaign, should be ashamed,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement after the polls closed. “Their continued support of Graham Platner, who wore the symbol of Hitler’s SS on his chest for 18 years is an outrage. Schumer must withdraw his support immediately.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine appeared first on The Forward.
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A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel
Given the jackhammer pace of outrageous developments, one might almost think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is trying to give the opposition ammunition in the coming election — most recently by promoting a bill rendering full-time Torah study as a national service equivalent to military service.
The proposed “Basic Law: Torah Study,” which will undergo its first of four Knesset votes on Wednesday, seeks to elevate full-time Torah study within Israel’s Basic Laws framework, a de facto constitution. Under its logic, sustained Torah study will not be merely a protected cultural or religious activity, but a state-recognized form of “meaningful service” to the nation. In effect, it would place long-term yeshiva study on a comparable footing to military service, including in terms of tangible financial benefits and how the state defines civic contribution.
This comes in the context of a conscription crisis, which has seen the country come to a boiling point over a long-standing institutional arrangement by which Haredi yeshiva students are exempted from military service.
Yet even as the rage mounts, the governing coalition is trying to find legislative ways to formalize the draft exemptions to appease Netanyahu’s Haredi coalition partners, without whom he would lose his tenuous majority.
The result may be a disastrous dual-track citizenship model: one in which military service obligations are heavily concentrated among secular and national-religious Israelis, while Haredi communities are structurally insulated both from conscription and from the economic consequences that typically accompany non-participation in the labor force or military.
There are plenty of cultural disagreements between Haredi and secular Israelis, but the central criticism of the proposed law is about how the legislation threatens the structure of the country. It incentivizes behavior that will undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself from its very real enemies by diminishing the number of people serving, and demoralizing those who do.
Torah study as national defense
The draft exemption has contributed to a severe manpower shortfall in the Israel Defense Forces, as tens of thousands of reservists are repeatedly mobilized for extended periods of duty: sometimes hundreds of days per year, even after completing compulsory service. Ordinary Israelis are chafing under this burden, while many thousands of conscription-age Haredim enjoy danger-free and often taxpayer-subsidized lives.
With the Haredim set to make up a third of Israel’s citizenry by 2050, many see the long-term implications of this inequality as dire for Israel.
By classifying Torah study as a form of recognized national service, the Basic Law proposal would provide a legal foundation for aligning the rights of yeshiva students with those of IDF veterans and active soldiers. That would influence their eligibility for a range of state-linked benefits and entitlements that are tied — directly or indirectly — to military service, including housing assistance, childcare subsidies, and other welfare mechanisms that privilege or differentiate based on service status.
In parallel, it strengthens the political and legal argument that full-time Torah learners should not be treated as draft evaders but as a distinct category of service-recognized citizens, thereby reinforcing the broader exemption framework. It would function as a bulwark anchoring existing and future exemption arrangements against judicial or legislative rollback.
Words can hardly express the agitation this prospect has caused in mainstream Israel.
A coherent worldview
Haredi politicians have settled on justifying the draft exemption by arguing that their prayers are more important than the actions of pilots or tank commanders in aiding Israel. Supporters of the exemption frame the arrangement as a necessary accommodation to preserve large-scale Torah study as a core national and religious value.
These arguments are, in my view, wrong but not trivial. They reflect a coherent worldview about identity, community and the meaning of national service.
Actual supporters of this approach outside the Haredi parties — and they are few — argue that Torah study is not merely a private religious activity but a foundational element of Jewish national identity. In their view, it represents a continuous spiritual contribution to the survival and cohesion of the Jewish people — one that cannot be measured in military or economic terms. They also warn that broad coercive conscription risks destabilizing Haredi society, undermining its institutions, and producing a deep cultural rupture.
The law “will be a historic confirmation of the supreme value of the Torah and students of the Torah to the people of Israel and their security,” said Aryeh Deri, head of the Haredi Party Shas, adding “the People of Israel need greater virtues for the success of its campaign against enemies.”
That argument is unlikely to convince anyone not already sold on this worldview. Which raises the question: What is Netanyahu thinking in letting this move forward?
It is all but certain this move will harm him in upcoming elections, and the opposition, should it win, will cancel most of the laws that resulted from the current legislative blitzkrieg — most of which involve weakening of the state’s institutions, primarily those with oversight over the government.
Perhaps the Haredim have conditioned future support for Netanyahu on the effort; but this would be an empty threat, because the center-left opposition is not a viable alternative for them, any more than the MAGA movement might join the U.S. Democratic Party.
The whole thing is a mystery. But one thing is clear, and alarming: Israel’s government is now openly advocating against a single shared system of civic duty, and for a tiered structure in which one group bears the full burden of military service, and another is exempt, on the strength of arguments that most Israelis reject.
The post A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Milei praises ‘Judeo-Christian values’ at Chabad event as Argentina courts European Jews
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President Javier Milei exalted “Judeo-Christian values” on Monday as he spoke to a crowd of 1,800 people celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the death of the last Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi.
Milei was the keynote speaker at the Hasidic Orthodox movement’s event marking the yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, becoming what appears to be the first sitting non-Jewish head of state to make an official tribute to the Lubavitcher Rebbe at a major Chabad event.
“The conclusion I have reached is simple in its formulation and profound in its consequences: When one embraces Judeo-Christian values, spiritual and material life become aligned and resonate on the same wavelength,” Milei said Monday night at the Palacio Libertad cultural center.
It was the latest in a long list of expressions of admiration for Judaism for Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who was elected in 2023 and since has made support for Israel a cornerstone of his agenda. He has previously visited Schneerson’s grave in New York City, made pilgrimages to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and presented a picture of Schneerson to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a gift. He was also honored at a Chabad synagogue in Miami in 2024, where he revealed that he believed he has Jewish heritage.
Milei has long studied Judaism and has said he wants to convert after leaving office but sees Jewish practice, including the observance of Shabbat, as incompatible with the presidency.
His 40-minute speech at the Chabad event focused almost entirely on Jewish religious texts and thought, quoting passages from the Torah as the basis of his economic view.
Milei also revealed that his address was drawn from the epilogue of his upcoming book, “Morality as State Policy,” in which he argues that capitalism is a system invented by “the Creator” — whom he also referred to as “the One” — to bring paradise to earth through work.
Jews in Argentina have a range of perspectives on Milei’s philosemitism.
“I appreciate that the president chose to attend and speak at the Tribute to the Rebbe,” Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, the head of Chabad in Argentina, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He is doing so from a deeply personal place. I also think it is healthy for him to have this spiritual side.”
But Alicia Osipovich, a sign-language interpreter assisting a deaf attendee at the event, told JTA that Milei’s forceful support for Israel and Judaism made her uneasy, even as she personally appreciated it.
“I’m proud and deeply moved to have a president like him,” Osipovich said. “At the same time, I have some concerns. He speaks extensively about Israel, and you know how support for Israel is sometimes portrayed. He says he is a Zionist, but nowadays the word ‘Zionist’ is often used as a negative label. I have mixed emotions. As a Jew, I am proud, but I also feel some concern about the increased public exposure of Judaism these days.”
Under Milei’s leadership, Argentina has invited European Jews worried about rising antisemitism to consider the country as a destination. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno recently emphasized Argentina’s attractiveness in a message aimed at Jews in Britain and other European countries who are grappling with surging incidents targeting Jewish communities.
“A country on the up with great opportunities. Sunny, with many natural attributes, and home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America. Strong stand against antisemitism. British and European Jews should seriously consider Argentina. You are welcome,” Quirno wrote on X in reply to author Saul Sadka, who had urged British Jews to consider leaving amid growing hostility.
Argentina’s leading Jewish organization, DAIA, has recorded more antisemitic incidents in recent years, mostly taking place online. But the rate of antisemitic incidents reported in the country last year was significantly lower than in many other countries with sizable Jewish populations, according to the 2025 worldwide antisemitism report published in April by Tel Aviv University.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s global director, praised Quirno’s invitation, saying it reflected a significant shift.
“Sign of the times? A country formerly ruled by a Nazi-supporting dictator has morphed over decades into a strong democracy whose president is a philo-Semite,” Cooper wrote in reply to Milei’s foreign minister. “Argentina currently serves as chair of IHRA [the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance]. Foreign minister now beckons embattled British Jews. Incredible.”
Israel’s ambassador to Argentina Eyal Sela told JTA at the Chabad event that he had no difficulty recognizing that Argentina is currently a very good place for Jewish life.
“Yes, I agree with the Argentine foreign minister,” Sela told JTA. “Of course, Israel will always be the best place for Jewish life. But today, Argentina is a much better place for Jews than Europe.”
Monday’s event opened with the testimony of Yosef Chaim Ohana, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, who expressed deep gratitude for the support shown by Jews around the world, followed by remarks from his father, Avi Ohana. Milei hosted the Ohanas and Grunblatt on Tuesday morning at Argentina’s presidential palace, the Casa Rosada.
Dozens of Argentine nationals were murdered or taken hostage on Oct. 7. This week, an Israeli who had worked in Buenos Aires at the Israeli embassy in Argentina was killed in an attack on a moshav in central Israel.
The post Milei praises ‘Judeo-Christian values’ at Chabad event as Argentina courts European Jews appeared first on The Forward.
