Uncategorized
Police, security agencies advise Jews to be on alert ahead of planned ‘National Day of Hate’ on Shabbat
This is a developing story.
(JTA) – The police bulletins have circulated among Jews on social media, in WhatsApp chats and via email: A white supremacist group is calling for a “National Day of Hate” this Saturday and encouraging antisemites to vandalize and deface Jewish institutions.
Information about the antisemitic campaign was first provided by the Chicago Police Department, and a “situational awareness alert” with NYPD insignia circulating online advises local Jewish communities to be on the lookout for suspicious activity.
The NYPD did not comment on the authenticity of the bulletin but told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “While there are no identified threats to New York City, out of an abundance of caution, the Department will deploy additional resources to sensitive locations, including houses of worship, throughout the weekend.”
The NYPD bulletin also shared one of the hate group’s messages, which called for “MASS ANTI-SEMITIC ACTION.” The message urged followers to “shock the masses with banner drops, stickers, fliers, and graffiti,” and to film their activities.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the campaign is being pushed by a small white supremacist group in Iowa called Crew-319, in conjunction with other extremist groups. The ADL confirmed that the hate message in the NYPD bulletin is authentic and comes from Crew-319’s channel on the social network Telegram, which is popular with extremists.
In its memo, the Chicago Police Department’s Place of Worship Safety Advisory Team, which monitors threats to synagogues and other houses of worship, urged Jewish community members to “keep situationally aware and pay attention to your surroundings while out in the neighborhood, not just on Shabbos, but during the week as well.”
An alert from the Community Security Initiative, a New York City-area Jewish security agency, advised residents that “no specific details have been shared by New York-based extremists to indicate their exact plans for this weekend. We assess that propaganda-based activities are likely, as we have seen across New York in recent months.” The alert recommended “heightened situational awareness” and cautioned residents not to confront people spreading propaganda.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement this week, “At this time, there is no actionable intelligence.” Chicago’s Jewish federation sent a message to synagogue rabbis and leadership in the area saying that there is no discernible concrete threat to the local Jewish community at this time. Chicago Alderman Deborah Silverstein, whose ward includes the heavily Orthodox West Rogers Park neighborhood, echoed that assessment.
“There has been no threat to Chicago. Chicago is not at the moment targeted in any way. But the police are very active,” Silverstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Unfortunately, because we have been targeted before, we have a very active police department.”
The messages from police and community leaders came alongside an outpouring of anxiety from Jews sharing the news of the threatened antisemitic action on social media.
The alert came roughly a week after two Jews exiting morning prayer services were shot on consecutive days in Los Angeles, allegedly by a man with antisemitic motives. Last fall, two men were arrested in Penn Station for threatening violence against New York City synagogues, and weeks earlier, police in New Jersey warned synagogues in the state about a “credible threat.”
“So being an American Jew in 2023 is choosing between 1) taking my kids to pray, anxiously looking at the exits worried about their safety or 2) staying home and letting the anti-Semites define my Jewishness,” tweeted Daniella Greenbaum Davis, a writer and former producer on the TV talk show “The View.”
Crew-319, the group behind the antisemitic initiative, is a “tiny Iowa-based neo-Nazi crew that distributes propaganda and engages in antisemitic stunts,” Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, told JTA. Segal said that on Sept. 11, 2022, a member of the group drove a U-Haul truck hung with posters reading “Jews did 9/11” through Des Moines.
In recent months, hate groups have targeted Jews with fliers, graffiti and in-person protests. The Goyim Defense League, one of the country’s most visible hate groups, has distributed antisemitic fliers in Jewish communities across the country and unfurled hateful banners on highway overpasses; recently they also staged an antisemitic protest outside Chabad of South Orlando. Their propaganda reportedly inspired the suspect in the L.A. shootings.
Antisemitic messages have also been projected onto sports stadiums, graffitied on college campuses and displayed outside Disney World.
The antisemitic activity also comes amid a national rise in extremist violence. An ADL study published Thursday found that the proportion of mass shootings tied to extremism has risen significantly over the last decade.
The Secure Community Network, a national group that coordinates security for Jewish institutions, told JTA it had been tracking extremist activity around the date for weeks and would be issuing a more detailed bulletin to its synagogue network. CEO Michael Masters said his team “is working around the clock to ensure the safety and security of our community.”
—
The post Police, security agencies advise Jews to be on alert ahead of planned ‘National Day of Hate’ on Shabbat appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israeli Ambassador Sounds Alarm on Rising Antisemitism in Germany as Left Party Youth Wing Targets Jews as ‘Traitors’
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, has warned of a rising wave of antisemitism in the European country, particularly from left-wing groups, as the youth wing of Germany’s Left Party continues to spread anti-Israel rhetoric and harasses Zionists, labeling them “traitors.”
In a new interview with the German news outlet Berliner Morgenpost, Prosor said that the local Jewish community is living in fear amid an increasingly hostile climate, noting that it is “better not to walk down Sonnenallee in Neukölln wearing a Star of David.”
“In 2025, Jewish men and women fear attending university or riding the subway because they are visibly Jewish. That schools, community centers, and synagogues require round-the-clock police protection is not normal,” the Israeli diplomat said.
Prosor also highlighted the growing threat of left-leaning antisemitism, saying it is even more dangerous than antisemitism from the political right or from Islamist extremists.
“Left-wing antisemitism, in my view, is even more dangerous because it masks its intentions. It has long operated on the thin line between free speech and incitement,” he said.
“Across Europe, this is visible on university campuses and theaters. Many present themselves as educated, moral, and progressive — yet the line separating free speech from incitement was crossed long ago,” he continued. “Israel is demonized and delegitimized day after day, and it is Jews everywhere who ultimately suffer the consequences.”
His comments came after Germany’s Left Party youth wing last week passed an anti-Israel resolution labeling the world’s lone Jewish state a “colonial and racist state project,” sparking controversy within both the local Jewish community and the party’s senior leadership.
During the Left Youth’s 18th Federal Congress last weekend, Jewish delegates reported being harassed by fellow party members — branded “traitors” and even warned of an internal “purge.”
According to local media reports, several participants left early after colleagues allegedly threatened to show up at their hotel rooms at night.
Now, the youth group is set to vote next week on a motion falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, as well as another measure calling for support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state internationally as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Earlier this year, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the agency responsible for monitoring extremist groups and reporting to the German Interior Ministry — designated BDS as a “proven extremist endeavor hostile to the constitution.” The agency also described the campaign’s “anti-constitutional ideology, which denies Israel’s right to exist.” That followed Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), last year classifying BDS as a “suspected extremist case” with links to “secular Palestinian extremism.”
Prosor in his interview condemned the Left Youth’s latest resolution and the harassment of Jewish members, saying “the red line has been crossed.”
“The youth wing of the Left Party is showing the true face of left-wing antisemitism, which would otherwise remain well hidden,” the Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“By justifying terror, turning a blind eye to antisemitism, and denying Israel’s right to exist, the Left Party has abandoned its moral compass and integrity. All that remains is extremism, radical ideology, and violence,” Prosor continued.
Die rote Linie ist überschritten. Die Jugend der Linkspartei offenbart das wahre Gesicht des linken Antisemitismus, der sonst gut verborgen bleibt.
Mit der Rechtfertigung von Terror, dem Ignorieren von Antisemitismus und der Leugnung des Existenzrechts Israels hat die… pic.twitter.com/mNEmdNR0dp
— Ambassador Ron Prosor (@Ron_Prosor) November 7, 2025
Amid increasing political pressure to clearly distance itself from the youth wing, senior leaders of Germany’s Left Party are now facing growing scrutiny.
While the youth group is technically independent, it relies financially on the main party.
After meeting Wednesday night, the party’s executive committee issued a statement saying there was “broad agreement that the approved motion is inconsistent with the positions of the Left Party.”
“Antisemitism and the downplaying of antisemitic positions contradict the core values of the Left,” the statement read.
“Intimidation, pressure, and exclusion have no place in a left-wing youth organization, and even less in the political culture we uphold as the Left,” it continued.
However, intimidation of dissenting voices and anti-Israel rhetoric are not new within the Left Party, following a pattern of previous antisemitic incidents within the organization.
For example, Berlin’s former Culture Senator, Klaus Lederer, and other prominent members left the organization last year following an antisemitic scandal at a party conference in Berlin.
Uncategorized
Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’
—
The post Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Iran’s Water Crisis Worsens as President Warns Tehran May Need to Be Evacuated
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting in Ilam, Iran, June 12, 2025. Photo: Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has endured an extreme drought in recent months, depleting the country’s reservoirs and leading President Masoud Pezeshkian to warn that the capital may even need to be evacuated.
“If rationing doesn’t work, we may have to evacuate Tehran,” Pezeshkian said last week, adding that the Iranian regime will start restricting water supplies in the city next month if there isn’t more rain.
According to Abbasali Keykhaei of the Iranian Water Resources Management Company, 19 major dams comprising 10 percent of the country’s reservoirs have run dry. In Tehran — a city with 10 million people in the city itself and 18 million in the metropolitan area — five dams that provide drinking water have hit “critical” levels, with one at below 8 percent capacity.
Hossein Esmaeilian, managing director of the Water and Wastewater Company in Mashad, the country’s second largest city with four million residents, told state media that reserves have fallen below 3 percent and that “the current situation shows that managing water use is no longer merely a recommendation – it has become a necessity.”
Esmaeilian added that “only 3 percent of the combined capacity of Mashhad’s four water-supplying dams — Torogh, Kardeh, Doosti, and Ardak — remains. Apart from Doosti Dam, the other three are out of operation.”
Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi has stated that “some nights we might decrease the water flow to zero.” He said on Iranian state television on Saturday that this was needed “so that reservoirs can refill.”
“If people can reduce consumption by 20 percent, it seems possible to manage the situation without rationing or cutting off water,” Esmaeilian urged Iranians, suggesting that those consuming the most would see cuts to their water supply first.
However, environmental researcher Azam Bahrami told German media outlet DW that “reduced consumption among the population is nowhere near enough to overcome this crisis.”
“One look at the water consumption pyramid shows that the agriculture sector consumes about 80-90 percent, the biggest share,” Bahrami continued. “As long as other sectors are positioned as priority … the water saving measures will not be very successful.”
The BBC reported that Iranian weather officials do not expect rain in the next 10 days. Mohammad-Ali Moallem, who manages the Karaj Dam, said that there was a 92 percent decrease in rain compared to last year.
“We have only 8 percent water in our reservoir — and most of it is unusable and considered ‘dead water,’” he added.
Stuttgart University researcher Mohammad Javad Tourian told DW about the rate of water loss Iran has seen in recent years.
“Iran loses a volume the size of Lake Constance almost every three years,” Tourian said. “In total, some 370 cubic kilometers have disappeared over the last 23 years. This means the problem is very serious.”
The question of a potential evacuation of Tehran remains unresolved. Former Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi stated that fleeing the city due to the drought “makes no sense at all.”
Tourian identified actions that Iran could take to provide “rapid relief,” saying that prioritizing drinking water in key cities and the “temporary diverting of less critical usage” could be effective as quick, short-term steps.
However, actions to create a sustainable solution to the water crisis remain elusive.
While the Islamic regime in Iran struggles to quench the thirst of the Iranian people, its military reportedly remains stocked in its missiles targeting Israel.
“Our missile power today far surpasses that of the 12-day war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week, referring to the regime’s brief conflict with Israel in June. “The enemy in the recent 12-day war failed to achieve all its objectives and was defeated.”
Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh likewise boasted of Iranian military might, saying on Monday that the country’s “defense production has improved both in quantity and quality compared to before the 12-day Israeli-imposed war in June.”
Last week, a US official confirmed that Iran had initiated a plan to assassinate Ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger, Israel’s emissary in Mexico City.
“The plot was contained and does not pose a current threat,” the official told i24 News. “This is just the latest in a long history of Iran’s global lethal targeting of diplomats, journalists, dissidents, and anyone who disagrees with them, something that should deeply worry every country where there is an Iranian presence.”