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No, New York libraries aren’t closing because of funding for Israel

(New York Jewish Week) — For months, a subset of New Yorkers has railed against reductions to the city’s public library budget, which has already forced some of them to close on Sundays.
This week, a few denizens of social media said they found a culprit for the cuts: Israel.
“New York Public Library now closed on Sundays because of $36.2M in budget cuts,” the posts say. “But NYC taxpayers sent $118,929,729 to Israel to commit genocide?”
The posts have spread far and wide in recent days. On Monday, a left-wing Twitter account posted that text, garnering more than 3 million views. The following day, a pro-Palestinian instagram account with nearly 100,000 followers reposted the message.
Is aid for Israel to blame for the library closures? In a word, no.
The anti-Israel flyers include a link to a webpage for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, which details the nearly $4 billion in federal aid sent to Israel annually. The roughly $119 million figure ostensibly represents the share of that aid paid from New Yorkers’ federal taxes.
But while New Yorkers pay federal, state and local taxes, the city’s public libraries are mostly funded by the New York City budget, in addition to private donations.
The city’s largest public library systems do receive some federal funding. But the social media posts are conflating two separate budgets: The library cuts they referred to were in the city budget enacted by City Council and the mayor. The federal budget, which includes aid to Israel, is separate and controlled by Congress and the president.
The city budget cuts came in November, proposed by Mayor Eric Adams. The New York Public Library said libraries would be ending service on Sundays as a result, beginning in mid-December, in the three boroughs where it operates. (Only eight of the New York Public Library’s 92 locations offered Sunday hours before the cuts.) It also said it would cut spending on materials and proograms. Adams announced this week that there would be no further cuts in next year’s budget.
Pro-Palestinian activists have previously tied society’s woes to Israel and targeted New York institutions with only tenuous connections to the Jewish state.
At a rally on the front steps of the New York Public Library’s main branch in November, a week ahead of the Sunday closures announcement, speakers blamed Israel for homelessness in New York City, among other problems. At that rally, activists also plastered stickers around the library blaming “Zionist donors” for meddling in universities.
In 2022, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York blamed aid to Israel for healthcare problems in the United States, drawing charges of antisemitism from Israel advocates.
On Monday, pro-Palestinian protesters targeted the Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital in Manhattan for accepting a donation from billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. Griffin has spoken out against Harvard University students who blamed Israel for the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis. The demonstrators said the hospital was “complicit” in “supporting genocide.”
Israel is usually the largest recipient of U.S. foreign military funding, although Ukraine received more aid following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Foreign aid to Israel amounts to a minuscule amount of the total U.S. budget. Before the Gaza war, the United States provided Israel with $3.8 billion annually in aid for its military and missile defense. In 2022, the federal government spent $6.13 trillion.
The libraries have been damaged in connection with the Gaza war, however. After pro-Palestinian protesters defaced the library’s iconic main branch in November, the library said repairs would cost $75,000.
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The post No, New York libraries aren’t closing because of funding for Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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