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Ohio school board member apologizes for giving Nazi salute at public meeting
(Dayton Jewish Observer via JTA) – A school board member outside Dayton, Ohio, has apologized after delivering a Nazi salute and uttering “Sieg heil” at the board’s president during a public meeting this week.
Anne Zakkour was initially defiant when fellow board members and local Jewish groups denounced her after she made the gesture, during a meeting Tuesday of the Tipp City Board of Education. The gesture came after the board president chastised her for trying to interrupt him.
The board president, Simon Patry, “does have a dictator mentality,” Zakkour told the Dayton Jewish Observer. She said she was making a “sarcastic gesture” of “submission to a board member trying to act like a dictator” and did not intend it as alarming to Jews.
“That was in no way meant to be anything towards the Jewish people,” Zakkour told the Jewish newspaper. “If we don’t identify, even at a local level, if we don’t call out suppression and oppression, I’m not an expert at this, but isn’t that how some of this snowballed with Hitler and Nazism?”
But Zakkour expressed a more regretful tone after two other board members; the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton; Ohio’s regional Anti-Defamation League office; and Ohio Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization of Ohio’s eight Jewish federations, all denounced her actions. (A third board member, who was out of town during the incident, declined to comment.)
“Invoking Nazism with a ‘Sieg heil’ salute during a school board meeting, a place meant to support and guide our youth, is outrageous, offensive, and potentially dangerous,” Kelly Fishman, regional director of the ADL based in Cleveland, told the Dayton Jewish Observer. “Hateful gestures and words cannot be normalized by local officials who are tasked with representing everyone in their communities.”
Tipp City, located about 16 miles north of Dayton, is home to about 10,000 people. It does not have a large Jewish population; a synagogue in a nearby town that counts Tipp City among the populations served describes itself as “a very small Reform congregation.”
The local federation CEO, Cathy Gardner, said she did not believe Zakkour “had antisemitic intent” but said the board member’s actions “highlight the need for education and a deeper understanding for all.”
Ohio does not currently have a law requiring Holocaust education in schools; last year, a Republican lawmaker on the other side of the state made headlines by suggesting that a law he sponsored about instruction on “divisive concepts” would call for schools to teach from the Nazi perspective in addition to their victims’ perspective when presenting about the Holocaust.
“Flippant, casual references to Hitler, the Nazi regime, or the Holocaust grossly diminish the tragedy that still affects so many,” Gardner said. “Seeing this image splashed in the news in reference to a disagreement at a board meeting desensitizes people to the terror that ensued at the command of Hitler.”
And Howie Beigelman, president of Ohio Jewish Communities, said, “It’s never acceptable to use a Nazi salute in debating and discussing policy or political differences.”
Following the criticism, Zakkour told the Dayton Jewish Observer in an email, “In hindsight, I regret having done this.”
She added, “After four years of attacks by a board member that I believe has been acting as a dictator spreading lies and division, my action was spur of the moment and I’m very sorry for that. My heart is open to all religions, and it was never my intent to offend anyone of the Jewish community.”
Zakkour’s current term on the board expires in December, and she has previously said she isn’t running for reelection. Patry shocked locals by announcing at the Tuesday meeting that he would be resigning from the board, effective immediately, for unrelated reasons; he has since called on Zakkour to resign over her conduct.
Zakkour has faced previous calls to step down. A concerned citizens’ group sought to force Zakkour off the board over what their complaint alleged was a flagrant misuse of authority and power. A local court dismissed the challenge earlier this year, and the citizens’ group opted not to advance their claim.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Dayton Jewish Observer; it is reprinted with permission.
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The post Ohio school board member apologizes for giving Nazi salute at public meeting appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Missile Strikes Haifa Mosque, Injures Muslim Clerics While ‘Firing Indiscriminately at Civilians’
A man walks near broken windows at a mosque that was damaged following Iran’s missile strike on Israel, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Haifa, Israel, June 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Rami Shlush
A mosque in the Israeli city of Haifa was hit by a ballistic missile launched by Iran on Friday morning and Muslim clerics were among those injured in the attack.
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said Iran’s barrage of missiles targeting Haifa struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood and clerics inside the mosque sustained injuries. Haifa is a port city in the north that has a mixed Arab and Israeli population.
“The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian sites. These are war crimes,” said Sa’ar in a post on X. He also shared a video of the mosque that was hit in the missile attack.
The Iranian regime launched a missile attack on Haifa and struck the Al-Jarina Mosque in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood. The missile attack injured Muslim clerics who were in the mosque.
The Iranian regime is targeting Muslim, Christian, and Jewish civilians, as well as civilian… pic.twitter.com/aG9JRfyLP7— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 20, 2025
Sa’ar later arrived at the scene of the strike and gave a statement to the press.
Photos shared on social media show the mosque’s broken windows and other damage to the religious site, all as a result of the Iranian strike.
Haifa mosque was indeed hit in the last ballistic missile attack. pic.twitter.com/m0AUN8IPrY
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 20, 2025
“The Iranian regime is firing indiscriminately at civilians — with zero regard for who they hit,” read a post on Israel’s official X account about the missile attack in Haifa.
Iran launched around 20 to 25 ballistic missiles at Israel on Friday and at least 19 people were wounded from the strikes in Haifa, local authorities said.
A spokesperson for Israel’s national emergency response service, Magen David Adom (MDA), said its teams treated and evacuated injuries civilians that include a roughly 40-year-old man in serious condition, a 16-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel in his upper body, and a 54-year-old man in moderate condition with shrapnel in his lower limbs.
Friday marks one week since the start of the Israel-Iran war, which began with the Jewish state launching pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets in a campaign known as Operation Rising Lion. MDA said that since the war began on June 13, its paramedics and EMTs have treated at least 1,007 people, including 23 who have died.
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Europe Foreign Ministers See ‘Perilous’ Moment, Urge Iran to Talk to US
European foreign ministers talk over lunch at the offices of the honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Geneva, Switzerland June 20, 2025, before meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS
European foreign ministers urged Iran on Friday to engage with the United States over its nuclear program after high-level talks in Geneva aimed at opening negotiations for a new nuclear deal ended with little sign of progress.
The talks between the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain, France, and the EU with their Iranian counterpart sought to test Tehran’s readiness to negotiate despite there being scant prospect of Israel ceasing its attacks soon, diplomats said.
“The Iranian Foreign Minister has expressed his willingness to continue discussions on the nuclear program and more broadly on all issues, and we expect Iran to commit to the discussion, including with the United States, to reach a negotiated settlement,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy said the European countries were eager to continue talks with Iran.
“This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict,” he said.
Tehran, under mounting pressure to agree tough curbs on its nuclear program to prevent the potential development of an atomic weapon, has repeatedly said it will not talk to the Trump administration until Israeli attacks end.
European ministers spoke ahead of their Geneva meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who signaled that Washington was open to direct talks even as it considers joining Israeli strikes intended to smash Tehran’s nuclear capacity, diplomatic sources said.
Washington did not confirm that, though broadcaster CNN quoted a US official saying President Donald Trump supported diplomacy by allies that could bring Iran closer to a deal.
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Israeli Scientists Scramble to Save Work After Iranian Missile Hits Labs
A building at the campus of the Weizmann Institute of Science remains damaged following an Iranian missile strike on Sunday, in Rehovot, Israel, June 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Researchers at Israel’s prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science have been scrambling to save their experiments after an Iranian missile destroyed a building containing dozens of cutting-edge laboratories.
The missile struck the institute’s campus at Rehovot, on the southern periphery of Tel Aviv, in the early hours of Sunday, damaging multiple buildings and prompting researchers to clamber into the ruins to save samples even as fire raged.
No one was hurt as the campus was empty overnight, but one part of a building collapsed, while in the remaining part the walls were blown out, exposing a tangle of twisted metal, blasted debris and blackened cement.
“We did our best to save as much of the samples as we could from the labs, from the buildings, while we were fighting the fire,” physicist Roee Ozeri, Weizmann’s vice president for development and communications, told Reuters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the devastated site on Friday and praised the researchers as well as the rescuers of the country’s emergency services, describing both groups as the “best of Israel.”
“This building behind me, next to me, says everything,” Netanyahu said, pointing to the massive pile of rubble.
“Iran is the pre-eminent terrorist regime in the world. It must not, cannot have nuclear weapons. That is the purpose of Israel’s actions – to save itself from the Iranian threat of annihilation, but by doing so, we are saving many, many others.”
Israel began attacking Iran on June 13, saying its longtime enemy was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Israel.
Israel’s strikes have killed several prominent Iranian nuclear scientists, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, and damaged nuclear capabilities.
Iran has not said if or why it targeted the Weizmann Institute.
Last Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.
Iran’s attacks have killed 24 civilians in Israel and damaged hundreds of structures, including a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba.
While most of the institute’s research is in areas with potential benefits for medicine and scientific knowledge, it also has connections with defense. It announced in October 2024 a collaboration with Israel’s largest defense firm Elbit on “bio-inspired materials for defense applications.”
A multidisciplinary institution which carries out research in fields including genetics, immunology and astrophysics, Weizmann was founded in 1934 and is considered world-class within the international scientific community.
It is Israel’s most important science research institute, with 286 research groups, 191 staff scientists and hundreds of PhD students, master’s students and postdoctoral fellows.
‘EVERYTHING IS LOST’
The Iranian missile hit the work of researchers such as Eldad Tzahor, who focuses on regenerative medicine with particular relevance to adult heart diseases. He said many samples and tissues that had been part of long-running experiments had been destroyed.
“Everything is lost,” he told Reuters TV. “I would estimate that it will take us about a year to get into a full year of research and with everything working again.”
In financial terms, the damage is estimated at $300-$500 million, according to the institute, which operates costly, complex machines, often shared between several labs or research groups.
Jacob Hanna, who runs a molecular genetics team focused on embryonic stem cell biology, told the scientific journal Nature that his lab’s ceiling had collapsed and the staircase had detached.
His students managed to save hundreds of frozen mouse and human cell lines by transferring them to back-up liquid-nitrogen tanks that Hanna had stored in the basement, Nature reported.
“I was always worried that if a war actually happens, I don’t want to lose these,” he said.
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