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Operation Israel: How a New Jersey Woman Is Providing the IDF With Millions of Dollars of Specialized Gear
Adi Vaxman, second from right, with others in support of Operation Israel. Photo: Courtesy of Operation Israel
Like most Israelis and Jews living in the diaspora, Adi Vaxman turned on the news on Oct. 7 to complete shock and horror. The scenes of Hamas terrorists rampaging across southern Israel — where they murdered 1,200 people and took 240 more as hostages — immediately seared itself into the Jewish psyche.
Vaxman, though, jumped into action to help her people, succeeding in the most remarkable ways with her nonprofit Operation Israel.
“I was traumatized and upset, but within 10 days [after Oct. 7] we had the nonprofit registered and everything was operating,” she told The Algemeiner from her home in New Jersey.
Operation Israel, which has raised more than $7.25 million since the war started, has been shipping essential gear to Israel’s soldiers fighting Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah to the north by the Lebanese border, and Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank.
Vaxman, a business operations consultant, said new ideas for the organization started immediately out of necessity.
“I had family members drafted to the army, but people reported to duty drafted or not,” she explained. In her case, helping to fulfill the desperate needs of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the early days of the war, woefully unprepared for the immediate call up of over 350,000 reservists to duty, was the top priority.
Operation Israel set up an online intake form where units could request exactly what they needed. “In the beginning, it was ceramic vests and ceramic plates, then different types of gear,” Vaxman said. “We were researching what to buy, where to buy it — can it be bought in Israel?”
Today, the organization is focused on more specialized gear such as “drones, special communication equipment, medical supplies, tactical protective gear, tents, heaters, and other items.
The resultant work has led Operation Israel to now be partners with specific units dealing with drone training and anti-terrorism — and the success the nonprofit is bringing the units is evident in the daily antidotes that come from the field. “The drones are saving lives, being flown into tunnels before soldiers … If something is blown up it is the drone, not a soldier or dog,” Vaxman said. She told one story from last week when 14 soldiers were saved after being stuck in frigid temperatures, keeping themselves warm with the blankets provided by Operation Israel.
Other stories Vaxman’s team has received are of soldiers whose lives were saved by the ballistic goggles they have been providing. “These are the stories that make it all worth it,” she said.
Currently, the organization has dozens of volunteers both in the US and Israel working around the clock to fulfill the needs of Israel’s frontline fighters. To date, they have shipped more than $7 million worth of gear — more than 66,000 pounds combined — to over 900 units, comprising more than 10,000 soldiers. This included 2,500 ballistic glasses, 2,000 bulletproof vests, 2,000 tactical sunglasses, 1,000 rescue blankets, and countless other gear.
Boxed up gear ready to be sent to Israeli soldiers. Photo: Courtesy of Operation Israel
The requests are not simple, and they come in daily. For example, some drones can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000, meaning sourcing the right gear is critical.
“I wish we didn’t have to do the work, but I am proud to,” Vaxman said. “God gave me a gift in my abilities to do so.”
One effect of the Israel-Hamas war that she did not expect was how it would impact her and her family, specifically as it pertains to long-term planning and where they would live. On Jan. 1, Vaxman was walking in the American Dream Mall in New Jersey with her husband, 16-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and her daughter’s friend. Proud of their heritage, her daughter was wearing an IDF jacket, leading hostile pro-Hamas agitators to approach her family and yell profanities.
“We started hearing all from behind us: Free Palestine, f—k Israel, f—k you bi—h, f—k you wh—e,” all directed at her daughter, Vaxman said. “My husband got between them and us, telling them to leave her alone, saying she is just a child.” However, the agitators continued the antisemitic harassment, cursing and threw her phone to the ground.
Vaxman, who was raised by Holocaust survivors, said the incident shook her daughter, who has been struggling since. “They were going at her in a vile, horrible way,” Vaxman said. The family submitted the video to the nonprofit watchdog group StopAntisemitism, which is active on social media, where the clip went viral. The watchdog found the main assailant, who claimed to be Palestinian in the video, although it turned out she was Hispanic.
“Until the attack it hadn’t crossed my mind to live anywhere else,” Vaxman said. “But the rise of antisemitism and the way it has become acceptable, I don’t know if we are going to be here.”
Antisemitism has skyrocketed to historic levels worldwide, including in the US, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.
At the same time, Vaxman’s kids have shown a deeper appreciation for their Jewish heritage, no doubt in part due to their mother, who said she was committed to working on behalf of the Jewish people and Israel, providing IDF soldiers with all their needs as they come in.
“I am never going to stop advocating for the Jewish people and Israel,” she said.
The post Operation Israel: How a New Jersey Woman Is Providing the IDF With Millions of Dollars of Specialized Gear first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Shifts One of Two Aircraft Carriers Away From Middle East
The world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford steams alongside USNS Laramie (T-AO-203) during a fueling-at-sea in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in this photo taken on Oct. 11, 2023 and released by the US Navy on Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: US Naval Forces Central Command / US 6th Fleet / Handout via REUTERS
One of two US aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East in part to deter Iran from carrying out a threatened attack against Israel has departed the region, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
The decision to end the dual-carrier presence came nearly three weeks after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to remain in the Middle East, even after the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace it.
The Roosevelt has now departed the Middle East and is headed to the Asia-Pacific region, Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a news briefing.
Austin’s order for the Roosevelt to stay in place came on Aug. 25, as Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel and Israel‘s military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a larger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.
Officials have been concerned that Iran might make also good on its threats to carry out an attack against Israel over the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran in July.
Ryder played down the idea that the United States was no longer concerned about potential Iranian action and said the decision was based on the Navy’s fleet management.
“Iran has indicated that they want to retaliate against Israel. And so we’re going to continue to take that threat very seriously,” Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.
Iran has vowed a severe response to the July killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place as he visited Tehran and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now approaching its one-year anniversary. The conflict has leveled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group and drawn in Yemen’s Houthis.
“We remain intensely focused on working with regional partners to de-escalate tensions and deterring a wider regional conflict,” Ryder said.
The post US Shifts One of Two Aircraft Carriers Away From Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Toronto police charge three people at UJA event protest—while more cops find themselves assaulted
Protests also occurred at multiple screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The post Toronto police charge three people at UJA event protest—while more cops find themselves assaulted appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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SUNY Purchase President Steps Down Amid Backlash Over Handling of Anti-Israel Protests, Campus Antisemitism
SUNY Purchase College President Milagros Peña attends the 52nd annual commencement at Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, May 17, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase president Milagros Peña will leave office at the end of this academic year, ending a four-year tenure that was derailed by pro-Hamas demonstrations on the campus.
According to The Journal News, Peña announced her “retirement” in a letter to the campus community and further discussed the decision at a convocation event held earlier this month.
“After considerable reflection and discussion about what is best for me and my family, I informed Chancellor [John B. King, Jr.] over the summer that this 2024-2025 academic year will be my last year as president,” Peña wrote, according to excerpts of the letter shared by the local news outlet. “I have mixed emotions about my decision to retire as president after the spring semester, because, though we still face challenges as a community, we have accomplished a great deal together and our shared mission of providing access to a high quality, transformative public education is as important as ever.”
Appointed to office 2020, Peña became a target of far-left faculty last academic year when she authorized the clearing of an illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which, the school’s newspaper reported at the time, led to clashes between law enforcement and pro-Hamas students who refused to obey orders to leave the area. An estimated 70 students were arrested, The Phoenix Purchase has said, and at least one professor was detained for obstructing justice.
However, Peña was inconsistent as a policy maker. In an account of her responses to campus antisemitism published by The Algemeiner on Wednesday, SUNY Purchase alumna Esti Heller said the president ignored numerous supplications for increased security for Jewish life on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Peña was unresponsive, even after someone vandalized an Israeli flag and desecrated a sukkah, a hut built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Later, Peña reversed course in her handling of the pro-Hamas protesters, Heller said, acceding to their demands for “ethical investing,” amnesty for students charged with violating the code of conduct, and public disclosure of the school’s financial decisions.
Ultimately, Peña lost a no-confidence vote on June 3 in which 87 percent of the voting faculty called for her to leave office.
“While disappointed by the resolution, I am committed to continuing to take part in conversations with stakeholders on and off campus about many of the issues raised and look forward to engaging with the faculty, staff, and students about our shared goals and the best way of moving forward as a community,” Peña told the Purchase following the vote.
Now, three months later, Peña has granted faculty their wish, becoming the third university president in New York State this year to leave office after being criticized for mismanaging a series of crises, antisemitic incidents, and riotous demonstrations. Last month, Minouche Shafik resigned as president of Columbia University after her administration’s credibility crumbled amid revelations of antisemitic conversations between administrators and a partisan investigation of a pro-Israel professor. In May, Cornell University president Martha Pollack resigned after weeks of convulsive protests and disruptions on campus caused by mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Peña pledged to make her final months in office productive.
“We still have a lot to do before I step away, and I look forward to working together to ensure that Purchase College continues to thrive,” she said. “While there are challenges ahead, I feel confident that we have the flexibility, the skills, and the determination to continue to provide an excellent education for our students and to make progress as an institution that is continually evolving, while safeguarding our community and living up to our values during this extraordinary time.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post SUNY Purchase President Steps Down Amid Backlash Over Handling of Anti-Israel Protests, Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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