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NY Rep. Bowman calls meeting on antisemitism amid sharp criticism from Jewish constituents ahead of potential primary
(New York Jewish Week) – Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the progressive New York Democrat, is asking his Jewish constituents to attend a meeting to discuss antisemitism as criticism of his stance on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has bolstered a potential primary challenge against him.
The meeting, which his office called “Healing breakfast: Fighting antisemitism and hate,” will be held at Bowman’s office in White Plains on Monday morning.
An invitation was sent out to some local Jewish leaders on Friday, but some of the invitees are ridiculing the effort. Rabbi Evan Hoffman, the head of the Westchester Board of Rabbis, called the meeting “laughable.”
“Nobody’s going,” said Hoffman, the leader of the Orthodox Congregation Anshe Sholom in New Rochelle. “The relationship with the congressman has hit rock bottom, and he knows it, we know it. There’s no point in dancing around it anymore.”
Bowman has elicited pushback locally and nationally over his calls for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, including from Jewish constituents. He has condemned Hamas and a rally appearing to support its attack; he has also demanded the release of the terror group’s hostages and decried antisemitism. But he is also a member of the “Squad,” the group of progressive Democrats that has directed harsh criticism at Israel both before and since Oct. 7.
Bowman co-sponsored an Oct. 16 resolution from fellow progressive Rep. Cori Bush calling for an “immediate ceasefire.” The resolution did not mention Hamas, terrorism or Israeli hostages, and Bowman’s backing drew condemnation from the Westchester Board of Rabbis, which said the resolution denied Israel the right to defend itself while Hamas held hostages and drew false equivalence between the two sides.
Bowman was one of just 10 members of Congress to vote against a resolution “Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.” He likewise voted against a resolution condemning support in campuses for terror groups including Hamas.
Bowman was elected to Congress in 2020 after defeating a long-term Democratic pro-Israel incumbent, Eliot Engel, in a primary. Unlike other members of the Squad, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rahida Tlaib, Bowman at first tried to walk a cautious line on Israel policy. He traveled to Israel in 2021 on a trip organized by the liberal Israel lobby J Street, drawing fire from the left, and quit the Democratic Socialists of America after the trip.
J Street had endorsed Bowman before Oct. 7. The group told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Oct. 24 that it was not withdrawing that endorsement.
The discord over those stances in his district could bolster the prospects for a challenge from George Latimer, the popular county executive in Westchester, who has said he will make an announcement on a potential run this month; Bowman’s current term ends on Jan. 3, 2025.
Bowman’s 16th congressional district is located north of New York City, though it also covers a small part of the Bronx. It is home to a significant Jewish population, and is around half Black and Latino.
More than two dozen rabbis in Bowman’s district, including Hoffman, wrote a letter to Latimer nine days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, urging him to challenge Bowman due to the incumbent’s “effort to erode support for Israel on Capitol Hill and within the Democratic Party.”
Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake of the Westchester Reform Temple, who also signed the letter, said that Bowman’s approach to the war appeared to be at odds with most of Westchester’s Jewish community.
“The overwhelmingly shared sentiment is that the Jewish voters in Representative Bowman’s district do not believe that his policy and messages on Israel reflect their own views,” Blake said.
Hoffman feels that that tension predated Oct. 7. Ahead of the war, he said, Bowman was “unresponsive to our requests and our needs and developed an adversarial relationship with us.”
On Thursday, Bowman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had been in daily contact with Jewish constituents “and they do not want their pain exploited by the right wing to justify even more civilian deaths.” Following the rabbis’ letter criticizing Bowman, and another missive urging Latimer to mount a challenge, several dozen Jewish community members calling themselves “Jews for Jamaal” wrote a counter letter, expressing support for the congressman and urging Latimer against running.
Micah Sifry, one of the lead signatories on that letter, said he had been invited to the meeting on Monday and planned to attend.
“I don’t think anybody has actually polled so it’s hard to know, so probably everyone is touching a different piece of the larger picture,” he said regarding Jewish support in the district for Bowman. “It’s no secret that there’s a wide range of opinions in the Jewish community.”
Sifry said Bowman distributed his contact information to community members and had been responsive to requests, but may struggle to keep up with the volume of messages he receives.
Bowman’s office did not respond to a request for further information about the Monday meeting, including who would be attending, what would be discussed and what prompted the event.
Blake, a member of the Westchester Jewish Council, an umbrella group, and the Westchester Board of Rabbis, said that he was not aware of Bowman’s office approaching either group, did not know who Bowman was speaking to in the Jewish community, and had not received an invitation to the Monday meeting.
Hoffman said he had received a brief phone call from Bowman last month, and that the congressman’s Jewish supporters represented a “very small fraction” of the community.
“I believe that he uses this language as a fig leaf,” Blake said of Bowman’s claim that he had been speaking daily with Jewish constituents, “to cover the plain fact that his relationship with the mainstream Jewish community in his district is badly strained at this time.”
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The post NY Rep. Bowman calls meeting on antisemitism amid sharp criticism from Jewish constituents ahead of potential primary appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.