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Pro-Israel stalwarts Miriam Adelson and Noa Tishby join chorus condemning judicial reforms as protests enter 10th week
(JTA) — The actor Noa Nishby has gone to bat for Israel on U.S. college campuses as an official emissary of her home country. The philanthropist Miriam Adelson has underwritten multiple organizations dedicated to building pro-Israel sentiment in the United States.
And now both prominent Israeli-Americans have publicly joined what is turning out to be a resounding chorus of criticism of Israel’s current government and its efforts to sap the country’s judiciary of its independence and power.
“I will say it in the sharpest and clearest way: Diaspora Jewry and Israel’s supporters in the world are shocked. They are shocked,” Tishby said in a column published in Hebrew on Ynet Saturday. “With great pain they look and see how the country they fiercely defended — in Congress, in the media, on the networks or in front of foreign governments — is changing its face.”
Tishby wrote that she had never publicly criticized “any step taken by any government” in more than two decades as a public figure, but that she was writing “the most difficult public text I have ever written” because Israelis need to understand that the judicial reform legislation, which she called “not a reform, but a coup,” brings their country out of step with other democracies and would threaten its national security and support abroad.
“It’s not like America. Not even a little,” Tishby wrote.
Writing in Israel Hayom, the right-wing Israeli newspaper founded by her late husband Sheldon, Adelson sidestepped the legislation itself and instead focused on its speedy advance.
“Regardless of the substance of the reforms, the government’s dash to ratify them is naturally suspect, raising questions about the root objectives and concern that this is a hasty, injudicious, and irresponsible move. A good deal is reached through cold-eyed circumspection,” wrote Adelson, who with Sheldon was first a funder of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and then supported the Israel American Council, where she was board chair. She later added, “Bad motivations never bring about good outcomes.”
The statements from Adelson and Tishby offer a clear sign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot expect prominent allies abroad to back his right-wing government on its signature legislation. They join a chorus of figures who have in the past been notable for slapping down Jewish Diaspora criticism of Israel as unwarranted, among them the writers Yossi Klein Halevi, Matti Friedman and Daniel Gordis; the constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz; New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; and the former long-serving national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman.
Adelson and her husband were in the past major funders of the Zionist Organization of America, one of the handful of U.S. Jewish bodies defending the new governments planned reforms.
Protests within Israel entered their 10th week on Saturday night, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating not just in Tel Aviv, the country’s liberal center, but in cities across the country and even in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where most voters are right wing.
Among those publicly condemning the legislation this week have been scores of Israeli military officials; the Jewish former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, who said the changes would cause “tremendous damage”; and about 150 people in Gush Etzion, a group of religious settlements that were a stronghold for the far-right Religious Zionist bloc in last year’s election.
בפעם החמישית ברציפות, 150 מפגינים בגוש עציון. ״גשר צר מאוד״ pic.twitter.com/YLrR862jVt
— Ben Caspit בן כספית (@BenCaspit) March 11, 2023
A core piece of the legislation advanced on Sunday, with a hearing in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on the provision giving the government power over appointing judges. The legislation’s proponents say reforms are needed because the judiciary is out of step with the sentiments of voters, while its broad coalition of critics at home and abroad say they would threaten Israel’s status as a democracy with checks and balances.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has called for compromise talks, and there are some signs that efforts to reach a compromise may be taking place behind closed doors. But Netanyahu’s far-right partners in his governing coalition have not indicated an appetite to slow down or otherwise change their approach.
One of those partners, Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionists, is beginning his first U.S. visit as a government minister. Few Jewish groups have agreed to meet with the finance minister, who also has authority over civil administration in the West Bank, and protests are planned as he lands in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
Smotrich is speaking to Israel Bonds, the investment mechanism that works closely with his ministry, and an array of liberal Jewish groups have announced plans to picket the speech at a hotel in downtown Washington. Ahead of Smotrich’s speech, a group of leading investors in Israel will hold a press conference in the same hotel to outline what they say is the threats the radical reforms pose to Israel’s economy.
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The post Pro-Israel stalwarts Miriam Adelson and Noa Tishby join chorus condemning judicial reforms as protests enter 10th week appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City
(JTA) — An Israeli man was indicted on Thursday in connection to the violent assault of a Catholic nun in Jerusalem last month, after prosecutors said he targeted her over her Christian identity.
Yona Schreiber, 36, from the West Bank settlement of Peduel, was arrested last week and has since been indicted on charges of “assault causing actual injury motivated by hostility toward the public on the grounds of religion, as well as simple assault,” the state attorney’s office said in a statement.
According to the indictment, Schreiber, who is Jewish, attacked the nun just outside of the Old City in Jerusalem because he identified her as a Catholic nun. Schreiber allegedly pushed and then kicked the nun as she was lying on the ground and also attacked a passerby who attempted to intervene.
תקיפת הנזירה אתמול באזור קבר דוד בירושלים – שוטרי מרחב דוד איתרו את החשוד (36) ועצרו אותו בחשד לתקיפה ממניע גזעני >>> pic.twitter.com/agRpznR84X
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) April 30, 2026
The nun, a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research, suffered bruises on her face and leg due to the attack, the state attorney’s office said.
The attack, which drew condemnation from Catholic leaders as well as faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, comes amid mounting concern over hostility toward Christian clergy and holy sites in Israel.
Cases of Jews harassing Christians have risen sharply in recent years. Last month, the IDF punished a soldier who was filmed bludgeoning a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon. This week, the IDF also announced that it would discipline a different soldier who was seen placing a cigarette into the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a photo posted on social media.
Israel’s attorney general asked the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, where the indictment was filed, to hold Schreiber in detention for the duration of the legal proceeding.
The assault carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, which could increase to six years if prosecutors prove the attack was motivated by religious bias.
The post Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’
(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish real estate mogul Steven Roth compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “tax the rich” rhetoric this week to racial slurs and pro-Palestinian rhetoric on an earnings call for his company, Vornado Realty Trust.
“I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Roth said, referring to the phrase commonly used at pro-Palestinian protests that many Jewish groups consider antisemitic.
The remark by Roth, who has long been a notable philanthropist to Jewish causes, adds to mounting tensions between New York business leaders and Mamdani over his recently announced “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued at more than $5 million.
During the call Tuesday, Roth also expressed support for Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, whose $238 million dollar penthouse was featured in a video by Mamdani announcing plans for the tax last month.
“We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,” Roth said. “The ugly, unnecessary video stunt is personal for Ken and sort of personal for me.”
Roth’s comments touched on a longstanding source of friction between Mamdani and some New York Jewish leaders, who have criticized the mayor over his views on Israel and his previous defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” another common pro-Palestinian slogan viewed by some as a call to violence against Jews.
In the wake of Mamdani’s election, some Jewish business leaders, including Dave Portnoy, the Jewish founder of Barstool Sports, said that they planned to leave the city altogether, citing the mayor’s fiscal policies and concerns about antisemitism under his leadership.
In a statement responding to Roth’s comments, Mamdani’s office said that he wanted all New Yorkers to succeed, including “business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America.”
“That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink,” the statement continued. “The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share.”
The post Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison
(JTA) — The man charged with carrying out a deadly firebombing attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last year was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday after pleading guilty to muder and dozens of other charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was arrested at the scene of the attack on the demonstrators last June, pleaded guilty to 101 charges, including 52 counts of attempted murder and one count of murder for the death of Karen Diamond, an 82-year-old victim of the attack who later died of her wounds.
During the June attack, Soliman shouted “free Palestine” and threw two molotov cocktails at the group, Run for Their Lives, injuring over a dozen people. According to an earlier court filing, Soliman said that he had staged the attack, which prosecutors said he planned for a year, because he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
Soliman has separately pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, for which prosecutors could potentially seek the death penalty.
“If I went back, I would not have done this as this is not according to the teaching of Islam,” Soliman said during the sentencing hearing, adding that he wanted federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty. “What I did came out of myself and only myself.”
During his remarks, Soliman argued that he had not been driven by anti-Jewish animus. He later said that Zionism was “the enemy” and that it was his “right” to be against Israel.
Chief District Judge Nancy W. Salomone rejected Mr. Soliman’s arguments, telling him that his “choices were acts of terror, and they victimized an entire community,” according to the New York Times.
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she said.
In a statement read earlier in court by a prosecutor, Diamond’s sons, Andrew and Ethan Diamond, asked that Soliman not be allowed to see his family again “since he is responsible for our mother never seeing her family again,” according to the Associated Press.
They said that Diamond had suffered “indescribable pain” for over three weeks before her death, adding that “in those weeks, we learned the full meaning of the expressions ‘living hell’ and ‘fate worse than death.’”
The post Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison appeared first on The Forward.