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Penn’s Jewish students — preparing for finals — say problems remain after president resigns
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — On Monday afternoon, as the front page of the student newspaper broadcast that the school’s president had resigned, Elan Roth was sitting at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel studying for finals.
It had been a whirlwind few days for Jewish students at the Ivy League campus. The previous Tuesday, their president, Liz Magill, had declined to say clearly that calls for the genocide of Jews violated school rules. On Saturday, she stepped down. Monday was the last day of classes, and exams begin Thursday.
Amid all of that, Penn’s Jews have had to contend with a swarm of journalists asking for their thoughts on antisemitism at their university. Students told JTA that at the end of Shabbat, after the news of Magill’s exit broke, a crowd of reporters was waiting outside of Hillel to get students’ reactions. Roth appeared on CNN the next day.
“At the end of the day, it’s just been really distracting,” Roth, a junior majoring in mathematical philosophy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s been unfortunate that we have to put a lot of mind power and effort into figuring out why there’s these feelings of antisemitism on campus. It’s been really difficult to concentrate on school normally.”
Magill’s resignation is the latest stage of a rolling antisemitism controversy that has been brewing at the school for months — and Jewish students were still digesting it. Roth feels it will be, “hopefully, a step in the right direction,” while other students mentioned fears of backlash or averred that they feel safe on campus. But all who spoke with JTA said that they’re more concerned about antisemitism from their peers than the question of who sits in the president’s office.
“It’s a little bit of a weight off to know that there’s accountability going on now,” said Sadie Waldbaum, a junior at Wharton studying finance and business analytics. “At least that’s being seen. However, I wouldn’t say I feel safer, because the problem is the professors and students on campus who are perpetuating these ideas and false narratives.”
She added, “Even though she’s resigned, there’s still a lot of work to be done to just change the trajectory of Penn as well as schools across the country.”
Magill’s response to antisemitism has been in the spotlight all semester. In September, the Penn administration drew criticism for a Palestinian culture festival that included speakers accused of antisemitism, such as Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters. The campus also experienced antisemitic vandalism. The school announced policy changes, but days afterward, Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and ensuing student activism drew a fresh wave of attention to campus antisemitism, placing renewed scrutiny on Magill and the administrations of other elite schools.
Penn formed an antisemitism task force, and soon afterward was hit with a federal complaint alleging that the university was an unsafe environment for Jewish students. Then Magill was invited to testify on the issue before Congress along with the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All three said their response to calls for genocide of Jews would depend on “context.” Days of criticism from students, alumni and Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor — and a donor threatening to withdraw a $100 million contribution — preceded Magill’s announcement.
(Penn’s board chair, Scott Bok, also resigned on Saturday. Bok’s position will be filled in the interim by Julie Platt, a Penn alum who also serves as chair of the Jewish Federations of North America.)
Maya Harpaz, a junior at Penn, member of the Hillel executive board and member of Penn’s antisemitism task force, wrote in an email to JTA that she welcomed the resignation and “will continue to monitor the situation.”
“The change in leadership is a good start to restoring our campus community, but there is much more that needs to be done to ensure that the Jewish community at Penn is safe,” she wrote.
In the meantime, Jewish life at the school — which has 1,600 Jewish students among a total undergraduate population of about 10,000, according to Hillel — is continuing apace. On Monday on Locust Walk, the main campus thoroughfare, Jewish alumni and parents handed out jelly donuts for Hanukkah just feet away from a student distributing copies of the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, featuring a front-page spread on Magill’s resignation.
The previous night, the Penn Jewish a cappella group, the Shabbatones, performed a traditional Jewish prayer for peace at the White House in Washington, D.C.
Akiva Berkowitz, an Orthodox student who wears a kippah, told JTA he feels “completely safe on campus.”
“I do think it’s important for people to recognize that campus remains safe, and people continue to go to Hillel and proudly be Jewish,” Berkowitz said. “And it’s not as if we’re cowering down because of what’s happening around. We’re standing up proudly, and we’re on Locust and we’re doing our own rallies and we’re out there.”
Berkowitz agreed that the focus needs to be on changing policies to address what he views as threatening chants. He hopes to see “better guidelines of what constitutes open expression and what constitutes hate speech.”
“I’m less interested in the administrative and who’s in charge and more about: are the issues on campus being addressed, and are we able to really crack down on people who are calling for Intifada, calling for genocide against Jews?” Berkowitz said. “Can we really address that and make sure that they mete the punishments that they deserve?”
Waldbaum added that she’s worried about the trajectory of events — Magill resigning following a threat from a donor — playing into antisemitic stereotypes.
“A lot of the reactions that I’ve seen have been like, ‘The Jewish donors control the school’ and just feeding into antisemitic tropes of, ‘Jews control the media’ and ‘Jews control this’ and stuff like that, which is definitely not great either, because, while obviously the donors do have influence, this was a broader moral issue that needed to be dealt with,” she said.
Still other Jewish students oppose the resignation. Hilah Kohen, an Israeli-American doctoral student enrolled in the comparative literature and literary theory program, told the Daily Pennsylvanian, “Far-right political figures who align themselves with actual neo-Nazis may use these resignations to repress campus protests against the active, blood-curdling genocide of Palestinians.”
Waldman, who wears a small Star of David necklace, said the Penn Jewish community is “incredible” and that she feels safe on campus, even though this semester has been tense. She added that generally, a lot of her energy is taken up not with fighting bigotry but with the everyday concerns of student life.
“I have to deal with it. And I have to go to school and I have to do my classes,” she said. “When I went home for Thanksgiving, I think I realized, ‘Wow, I’ve really been dealing with so much and I don’t even realize it because I’m just going through the day-to-day and dealing with it.’”
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The post Penn’s Jewish students — preparing for finals — say problems remain after president resigns appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon set to be released Saturday from Gaza
Philissa Cramer reports for JTA. Look for more updates from The CJN after Shabbat.
An American Israeli and a high-profile young father are among the latest hostages set to be freed from Gaza, in what will be the fourth release during the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon will be released on Saturday, Hamas told Israel on Friday. The three men are among 33 hostages whose release was required under the current deal, out of 98 held before the deal’s start earlier this month.
Siegel, 65, is the oldest American-Israeli hostage. A North Carolina native who moved to Israel as a young adult, he was abducted in his own car from Kibbutz Kfar Aza with his wife Aviva during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Aviva was released after 51 days in a temporary ceasefire in November 2023 and has advocated for him since, wearing a T-shirt daily with a photo of him on it.
“Dad is coming!” Aviva Siegel shouts in a video the family posted on Friday after hearing the news that her husband was on the list for release. Siegel’s mother died during his captivity.
Bibas, 38, is the father of the only children who remain in Gaza and appeared in a hostage video in November 2023 that showed him responding to being told that his wife, Shiri, and sons Ariel and Kfir had been killed. Israel has never confirmed Hamas’ allegation that the mother and young children were dead, but has said there are “grave concerns” about them and did not insist on their release prior to that of living men.
This week, Israel demanded that Hamas “clarify” the status of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, who were abducted separately from Yarden and have become global symbols of the crisis; it is not clear whether that has happened or will before his release.
Kalderon, 51, was abducted with his two children from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sahar, 17, and Erez, 12, were released during the November 2023 ceasefire after 52 days in captivity. Their mother, Hadas, was a prominent voice for mothers of the children abducted on Oct. 7 and has continued to advocate for her ex-husband, a dual French-Israeli citizen.
After the three men are released, there will be 79 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom at least 44 are confirmed to be dead—36 whose deaths were announced before the current ceasefire, and eight who are among the 33 whose release was negotiated as part of the current deal.
The post Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon set to be released Saturday from Gaza appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike
Picture said to show leader of Hamas’s military wing, known as Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif in a location given as Gaza Strip in this handout picture released on Jan. 7, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas officially confirmed on Thursday that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed during the Gaza war, almost six months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported his death.
Deif, the architect of Hamas’s military capabilities, is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — which sparked the Gaza war.
Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, also reported the deaths of Deif’s deputy, Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, as well as senior operatives Marwan Issa, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, Raad Thabet, Ahmed Ghandour, and Ayman Nofal.
According to the IDF, Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13 of last year.
Following weeks of intelligence assessments, Israeli authorities gathered evidence to confirm Deif’s death before publicly announcing it in early August.
“IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and … it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. “His elimination serves the objectives of the war and demonstrates Israel’s ability to carry out targeted strikes with precision.”
At the time, Hamas neither confirmed nor denied Deif’s death, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, stated that any announcements regarding the deaths of its leaders would be made solely by the organization.
“Unless either of them [the Hamas political and military leadership] announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Deif is believed to have collaborated closely with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, managing military operations and coordinating with the group’s top commanders throughout the conflict.
After Deif’s assassination, then-defense minister Gallant posted an image on social media praising the Israeli military’s accomplishment.
“The assassination of mass murderer Mohammed Deif — ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’ — is a major step toward dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity, and achieving the war’s objectives,” he said.
The post Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free
Oran Almog, right, addressing the UN Security Council next to Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on July 25, 2017. Photo: Screenshot
While the release of three Israeli hostages on Thursday brought relief and elation across Israel, it also triggered a wave of mixed emotions, especially among victims who saw the terrorists responsible for their suffering set free. One of them is Oran Almog, who was just ten years old when a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman blew up the restaurant he was in, killing five members of his family and leaving him blind.
Yet, while Thursday’s release of Sami Jaradat — the mastermind behind the October 2003 massacre of Almog’s family — was a deeply personal blow, the return of hostages remained a necessary step, he said.
“That the terrorist who killed my family will find himself free is deeply painful, heartbreaking even,” he told The Algemeiner. “But at the same time, I know that even today — especially today — I must set aside my personal pain and focus on the significance of this deal. And the significance is clear. We are getting our hostages home, and that is the only thing that matters.”
Almog’s father, Moshe Almog, his younger brother, Tomer, his grandparents Admiral (res.) Ze’ev and Ruth Almog, and his cousin, Asaf, were murdered when the suicide bomber, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer from Jenin, managed to get past the security guard of the Maxim restaurant — jointly owned by a Jewish Israeli and an Arab Israeli — and blow herself up. Sixteen other people were also murdered in the attack, among them four children. Almog lost his eyesight, and his mother, sister, and aunt were among the 60 injured Israelis.
“Sami Jaradat’s continued imprisonment will never bring my family back, but his release can bring the hostages back home alive,” Almog explained.
Emotional meeting between Agam Berger and her family at Beilinson Hospital in Israel. Photo: Haim Zach (GPO)
Almog knows firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Just two weeks after marking the 20th anniversary of the Maxim restaurant attack, another tragedy struck his family. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Nadav and Yam and abducted Chen, Agam, Gal, and Tal from the Almog-Goldstein family in Kfar Azza.
Fifty-one days later, in November 2023, they were released from Hamas captivity in a temporary ceasefire deal.
Under the current ceasefire agreement reached earlier this month, Hamas will release a total 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, according to the terrorist group. In exchange, Israel will free over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving multiple life sentences on terrorism offenses. Thursday saw the release of three Israelis — including IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80 — and five Thai nationals, who were working in Israeli kibbutzim when they were abducted.
“This is a bad deal, very bad, but the alternative is that much worse,” Almog said. “We must look ahead, put today aside, and recognize that releasing prisoners serves a greater purpose.”
However, Almog expressed hope that Israel would move toward a more decisive and uncompromising approach in its fight against terrorism.
“I sincerely hope that as a country, we will have the wisdom to decisively thwart terrorism,” he said, emphasizing the need to break free from the ongoing cycle of prisoner exchanges.
“I don’t want us to find ourselves trapped in a cycle of releasing terrorists, only for them to return to terror, and then repeat the process again and again,” he added.
Almog has previously addressed the UN Security Council, urging action against the so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme, in which terrorists and their families receive monthly stipends from the Palestinian Authority. The terrorist behind the murder of Almog’s family received $3,000 a month while behind bars, making him almost a millionaire by the time of his release.
Still, Almog concluded with a deeply uplifting message for the returning hostages, confident that they would have a chance at a good life, drawing from his own experiences since the terror attack.
Oran Almog. Photo: Facebook
After his release from the hospital, he began a long rehabilitation process, culminating in third place at the World Blind Sailing Championship with Etgarim, a nonprofit founded by disabled veterans and rehabilitation experts, and supported by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). He was chosen to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the state and, despite his disability, insisted on enlisting in the IDF, serving in an elite unit. Today, he is a managing partner at a financial technology fund, works with Etgarim, and shares his story globally through lectures.
“I know the hostages will be able to return, to live, and to live well. With enough support — and a great deal of willpower — it is truly possible to rebuild life, even after the deepest catastrophes,” he said.
The post ‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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