Uncategorized
Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism
(JTA) – For days, students and police at Cleveland State University had been trying to figure out who stole a banner belonging to a campus Palestinian rights group.
The banner, which belonged to the student group Palestinian Human Rights Organization, read “CSU Solidarity for Palestinian Rights” and was illustrated with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip collectively emblazoned in the Palestinian flag. A dove holding an olive branch appeared on top of the image.
Then, on Jan. 19, police charged their top suspect: a local Orthodox rabbi, whose presence on campus had become all too familiar. A few days later the man confessed to the theft on Instagram, announcing that he had stolen the banner from the school’s student center “as an act of civil disobedience.”
“This incitement to annihilation of Israel should have never been permitted at CSU,” Rabbi Alexander Popivker, a 46-year-old Cleveland Heights resident whose neighborhood is six miles from the school, wrote on social media accompanied by a picture of the flag he stole.
It was far from Popivker’s only recent run-in with local university students.
A former Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Naples, Italy, who now works in the Cleveland area as a handyman and part-time rabbi for a Russian-speaking Jewish community, Popivker has become known around town as a vigilant and omnipresent pro-Israel advocate. He can often be spotted counter-protesting at local pro-Palestinian demonstrations, or putting on displays of his own, with his wife Sarah on hand filming every contentious encounter.
One major theme of his protests, and his worldview, as he explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Palestinians and Nazis are the same thing.”
For the last year, Popivker had been making weekly trips to Cleveland State, occasionally accompanied by other students or community members, to give public demonstrations that elaborate on that idea — sometimes with the aid of swastika-emblazoned props. In the early going, the university provided him with police protection and said his visits to campus were protected by free speech laws.
But he also sought out students online and in-person whom he deemed to be “brainwashed” by anti-Zionist messaging. One such online campaign against a law student prompted the student to file an order of protection against Popivker last fall, an order supported by a prominent Jewish dean at the university. Popivker promptly violated the order by returning to campus.
Cleveland State University main campus, Cleveland, Ohio. (Getty Images)
In late January, university authorities had enough. They arrested Popivker and, following a hearing, declared him persona non grata on campus, banning him from the university grounds for at least two years. Popivker has also been banned from nearby Case Western Reserve University, where he had advocated before focusing on Cleveland State.
In the midst of a nationwide university climate in which pro-Israel advocates claim Jewish students face regular antisemitic harassment for their real or perceived Zionist beliefs, here was a documented case of the opposite: a Jew and outspoken Zionist, who has no affiliation with the schools at which he advocates, accused of harassing anyone he perceived as a threat to Israel, including students who had never sought him out directly.
The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has spoken out numerous times against Popivker and praised university police for arresting him; a petition the group backed, labeled “Stop harassment on campus” and mentioning Popivker by name, has garnered close to 700 signatures.
Jewish groups, including civil rights groups, have been less forthcoming about situation. Hillel International declined to comment for this story, and the directors of Cleveland’s regional American Jewish Committee and Jewish Community Relations Council offices did not return requests for comment. Jewish on Campus, a nationwide university antisemitism watchdog group that tracks what it defines as anti-Zionist social media harassment of Jewish students, also did not return a request for comment.
Jared Isaacson, the executive director of Cleveland Hillel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the center was “not very familiar with this story.” Cleveland Hillel coordinates Jewish student life at a consortium of Jewish universities including Cleveland State and Case Western, where its student center is located, as well as at least one other school where Popivker has made his presence on campus known in some form.
But, Isaacson said, “Cleveland Hillel is deeply committed to countering antisemitism and hate in all forms, and we believe that no student — Jewish or otherwise — should ever feel threatened or intimidated because of their identity.”
Popivker says he has support from the New York-based Lawfare Project, which bills itself as an “international pro-Israel litigation fund.” He told JTA that the organization “is watching over my cases and providing guidance.”
In a statement, the Lawfare Project called Popivker “a Jewish civil rights activist” but did not confirm that it is backing him, saying only that the group is “currently reviewing the matter.”
The group, which frequently files lawsuits on behalf of students who allege antisemitism on their campuses, said in a statement to JTA that the order of protection was a “double standard” that “should be alarming to anyone who cares about the fight against Jew-hatred.”
Lawfar recently settled a multi-year lawsuit with San Francisco State University over student reports of antisemitic harassment on campus stemming from anti-Zionist activists disrupting an event featuring the mayor of Jerusalem. The settlement compelled the university to hire a coordinator of Jewish student life.
Popivker will have his work cut out for him if he fights the charges. He had exhibited “behavior detrimental to the university community” by stealing the Palestinian banner and separately affixing an Israeli flag to university property, Matthew Kibbon, Cleveland State’s associate vice president of facility services, wrote in the university’s decision declaring him persona non grata.
The rabbi “was not banned for the content of his speech, but how he chose to exercise it,” a Cleveland State spokesperson told JTA in a statement. The university also provided JTA a list of recent campus police interactions with him, including the initial Jan. 11 report of the banner’s theft; Popivker’s visit to campus on Jan. 18, during which police advised him that the student’s order of protection did not permit him to be there; and his return visit on Jan. 25, during which he was arrested.
From Popivker’s perspective, he is simply speaking out on Israel’s behalf for a campus that has a large pro-Palestinian activist presence but few Jewish students. (There are fewer than 200 Jewish undergraduates on Cleveland State’s campus out of 11,784 students, according to Hillel International.) His goal is to educate, he says, informed by his status as a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union. And he believes he is being targeted by local pro-Palestinian activists, who, he said, have gone after his kippah and Israeli flags.
“I never attacked anyone. I never raised my hand up to anyone,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying that he was motivated by civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. “I’m going to a public university. I’m staying in the free speech zone. And I raise awareness about what’s going on. There’s a bunch of students that have become my friends that come to study with me regularly.”
One of those students, senior Tyler Jarosz, told JTA he became friends with Popivker after seeing him visiting campus to advocate for Israel. Not knowing much about Jews or Israel himself — “I thought Israel was a very peaceful state,” Jarosz said — the student was taken with Popivker’s demonstrations and said he learned a great deal from them.
“He didn’t just lecture me like a teacher would,” Jarosz said. “He was actually very engaging. He asked questions.”
Jarosz said he never witnessed the rabbi harassing anyone on campus, and said he always tried to engage people in peaceful dialogue, despite what he described as harassment directed at him by some Muslim students. He recalled one Popivker visit to campus for Israel’s independence day, when the rabbi was offering falafel to students, and said he witnessed one student throw the falafel back at him and threaten to “rape” him.
Other students tell a different story. One campus paper, the Cauldron, reported that the rabbi has targeted visibly Muslim and Arab students on campus, demanding to know their views on Israel. Popivker “makes me wary of coming into campus,” a student member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organization group told the Cauldron. “I’m forced to be on constant edge and take the longer way to class in order to avoid him.” Another student told a different campus newspaper, “It’s almost as though he deliberately looks for Palestinian individuals just to target them.”
The chair of the law school’s National Lawyers Guild student chapter told the Cleveland Jewish News that their group’s efforts to engage Popivker in reasonable dialogue failed when he began using “racial slurs and insulting language.”
A swastika Alexander Popivker drew on a Palestinian scarf (alleged by some students to be a keffiyeh, or ritual Muslim prayer scarf) while mounting a pro-Israel demonstration on the campus of Cleveland State University. Popivker then shared the image to his Instagram, Feb. 3, 2023. (Screenshot)
In images from one Popivker demonstration, the rabbi can be seen drawing a swastika with a Sharpie marker on what the Cauldron reported was a keffiyeh, a scarf worn by Arabic men, but which Popivker told JTA was a Palestinian scarf with no spiritual significance. He has also yelled phrases including “Palestinians are Nazis” and “Palestinians are the KKK,” and constructed a stage with images further linking Palestinians to Naziism, according to reports. Popivker’s own Instagram videos show him approaching groups of students to argue about Israel as he films them, calling some of them “terrorists” when they go after his flags. One of his video captions mentions “a Middle Eastern looking student.”
Cleveland State increased its safety protocols as a result of Popivker’s activities, locking some additional entrances around campus. But much of his activities have been online, too.
Last fall Popivker trained his attention on a law student who was involved with campus Palestinian rights groups and had made some anti-Israel posts online, including sharing an image of a child whom pro-Palestinian groups claimed had been a victim of an Israeli bombing, and sharing a socialist group’s post quoting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Documents show that Popivker emailed and called the student’s employer and law school seeking to have her disciplined for her beliefs, writing among other things that she was a “mouthpiece of terrorism and racism against Jews.” He also made Instagram posts targeting her. In response, the student filed for and received the order of protection against him, which Popivker later claimed was unwarranted because he had never met the student in person.
In its statement to JTA, the Lawfare Project homed in on this sequence of events, saying that Popivker’s decision to email the student’s school and employer about what he believed to be antisemitic social media posts was “a tool routinely used by civil rights activists to fight discrimination.”
Popivker asked Jarosz to send a letter attesting to his character for the order of protection hearing, which he did. “Alex understands and respects everyone of every background that he comes across,” the student wrote in his letter. “I have personally witnessed the demonization they have done of him.” Speaking to JTA weeks later, Jarosz said the court case was “bogus,” but said he was unaware of the emails, social media records and phone transcripts reviewed by JTA showing that Popivker had contacted the student’s employer and school.
At the order of protection hearing, a transcript of which Popivker sent to JTA, a key witness who advocated for the restriction was law school dean Lee Fisher, a former attorney general and lieutenant governor of Ohio. Fisher is Jewish.
“We share a hatred of antisemitism,” Fisher told Popivker during the hearing, according to the transcript. The dean also identified himself as “pro-Israel, very much so.” But Fisher made clear he was critical of Popivker’s activities on campus. Asked by Popivker about a specific social media post the student had made, Fisher responded, “Even if she made a mistake by posting it, it did not warrant the kind of reaction I believe that you had.”
Fisher had also met with Popivker previously, in a session mediated by a local rabbi who was a friend of Popivker. “I told him that I was concerned for the health and safety of our students,” the dean said during the hearing. He had implored Popivker to stop his campus activities, but the rabbi refused.
It’s the initial order of protection, which Popivker said had already effectively banned him from campus, that the rabbi says he truly opposes. He saw it as evidence that “they were basically working together with Palestinians” to “cover up the fact that they have an antisemitic group that openly propagates a destruction of Israel.” Popivker visited campus several times after receiving the order of protection but was permitted to stay with only a warning from campus police, Jarosz recalled.
This state of affairs lasted until the rabbi stole the Palestinian student group banner to, he said, “shine a light on this antisemitism.” Popivker described to JTA how he entered the student building, walked up to the third floor where he knew the banner was, and used scissors to remove it and take it with him: “Clip, clip, clip.” He was subsequently thrown in jail — his second such stint in Cleveland for pro-Israel activities, he said, criticizing local law enforcement for not providing him with kosher food while he was behind bars.
Outside of campus, Popivker is active in other areas. Last year, he organized a GoFundMe to support the family of a former classmate of his who was killed by an Islamic State supporter in a terrorist attack in Beersheba, Israel. He also applied to fill a January vacancy on the Cleveland Heights city council, but later withdrew his application.
After being barred from Cleveland State University, Rabbi Alex Popivker took to holding his anti-Palestinian protests on a street outside a local casino. (Courtesy Popivker)
While Popivker may preach nonviolence, his social media activity points to more radical ideologies, as well. On Instagram, he has shared an image of the flag of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist Jewish group that advocates violence against enemies of Jews, founded by convicted terrorist Rabbi Meir Kahane, as well as an image with a logo of Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Israeli group that has in the past been accused of inciting violence against Israeli human rights groups. Popivker told JTA he is not a member of either group, but that “if I think it’s aligned with what I believe in, I’ll share it.”
Popivker says that, for now, he’s done with his brand of “civil disobedience” and won’t be making his weekly visits to Cleveland State’s campus. “I do have five wonderful boys and a loving wife, and as much as Cuyahoga [County’s] jail is an educational experience in life in many ways, I do not want to go there every week,” he said.
Instead, days after his arrest and campus ban, Popivker posted a photo of himself with an Israeli flag to social media — this time outside a casino a mile away from campus.
—
The post Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
What’s Really Behind Attacks on AIPAC?
AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr speaking at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 2, 2020. Photo: AIPAC.
In the age of websites tracking “pro-Israel money” and politicians questioning American support for Israel, one claim has become a rallying cry: AIPAC should register as a foreign agent. It’s repeated so often that many accept it as fact. But repetition doesn’t make something true, and this claim reveals more about the accusers than about AIPAC.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requires registration by those who act “at the order, request, or under the direction or control” of a foreign entity while engaging in political activity on that entity’s behalf.
Notice what’s required: not merely sympathy with a foreign country or advocating for policies that benefit it, but actually operating under its direction or control. This crucial distinction is what AIPAC’s critics ignore.
If the Department of Justice, which has dramatically ramped up FARA enforcement since 2016, believed AIPAC met the legal threshold, it would be an obvious target. Yet the DOJ hasn’t pursued AIPAC. Professional prosecutors evaluating the actual legal standards apparently don’t find the case compelling. But that hasn’t stopped the pundit class.
The claim that AIPAC operates under Israeli government control crumbles under scrutiny. DOJ guidance asks whether an organization acts independently or as “an agent or alter ego of the foreign principal.” The evidence overwhelmingly supports AIPAC’s independence.
When Isaiah “Si” Kenen founded what would become AIPAC in the 1950s, he described the idea that he was an Israeli “agent” as ludicrous, pointing to constant disagreements with Israeli diplomats. When the US planned to arm Iraq, Israeli diplomats wanted to immediately campaign for arms to Israel. Kenen disagreed, arguing that opposing arms to the entire region was the better strategy.
During the Oslo Accords, AIPAC publicly supported the agreement while internally opposing Israel’s request to send US aid directly to Yasser Arafat, insisting instead that it go to Palestinians more broadly with proper monitoring.
These aren’t the actions of an organization under foreign control. They’re the actions of an independent American organization whose members at times disagree with Israeli policy and advocate for their opinion of what’s best.
Organizations like the United States India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) operate nearly identically to AIPAC. Founded in 2002, USINPAC helped secure the landmark 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. Additionally, a 2009 Foreign Affairs article stated that “the India Lobby is the only lobby in Washington likely to acquire the strength of the Israel lobby.”
Yet when you search for “FARA” and “USINPAC” together, you find essentially nothing. Meanwhile, countless articles, entire books, and dedicated websites exist solely to “expose” AIPAC and its alleged foreign agent status.
This isn’t about legal analysis. It’s about targeting one ethnic lobby while giving identical organizations a pass. Irish, Armenian, and Cuban lobbies have all shaped American foreign policy throughout our history. AIPACis targeted because its members are Jews.
What if AIPAC did register under FARA? According to FARA specialist Matthew Sanderson, it would mean filling out a few extra documents with essentially no practical effect.
AIPAC already operates under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, requiring extensive public disclosure: lobbying expenditures, specific issues and officials lobbied, lobbyist identities, funding sources, and political contributions.
Since AIPAC doesn’t accept money from foreign entities, the FARA funding disclosure forms would be blank. Since it doesn’t lobby under foreign control, it wouldn’t need to file interpersonal disclosure documents detailing who it contacted or announce itself as a foreign agent during lobbying calls — requirements that only apply when an organization operates as an extension of a foreign principal. The only potential requirement might be labeling some materials as coming from a “foreign agent,” but in today’s climate, where everyone already has opinions about AIPAC, this would have a negligible impact.
If FARA registration would change nothing practically, why does this matter?
First, truth matters. The claim is false. When bad-faith actors misrepresent AIPAC’s history as sinister subterfuge, often with antisemitic overtones reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, capitulation legitimizes their framing.
Second, selective scrutiny reveals troubling double standards. The vast chasm between scrutiny of AIPAC versus identical organizations, suggests factors beyond legal analysis drive this narrative. When the campaign focuses overwhelmingly on the Jewish State’s supporters while ignoring others, we should call it what it is.
Third, FARA’s ambiguity makes it a potential weapon. A statute so broad it could require registration for “routine business activities” becomes dangerous when applied selectively based on political preferences. This sets a disturbing precedent.
AIPAC is an American organization, funded by Americans, run by Americans, advocating for what its American members believe serves American interests. That some disagree doesn’t make it a foreign agent. It makes it a lobby, like hundreds of others in Washington.
The next time someone claims AIPAC should register as a foreign agent, ask: Where’s the evidence of foreign control? Why don’t they make the same claim about similar organizations? And why aren’t DOJ prosecutors, who’ve ramped up FARA enforcement dramatically, pursuing this supposedly obvious case?
The answers reveal this isn’t about law. It’s about politics — and prejudice.
Alexander Mermelstein, a recent USC graduate with a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Data Science, is an aspiring policy researcher with a focus on Middle East affairs and combating antisemitism.
Uncategorized
Arab Israelis Enjoy the Rights of Democracy — The Same Can’t Be Said for Citizens of Other Middle East Countries
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
On October 13, the Israeli Knesset met to mark a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that included the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke first, for 30 minutes. Yair Lapid, representing the Opposition, spoke next, for 15 minutes. Then, President Donald Trump delivered a largely extemporaneous speech lasting a little more than an hour.
A few minutes into President Trump’s address, there was a disturbance, a common feature of Knesset sessions. Two elected members of the left-wing party, Hadash — Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jew, and Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab — held up signs saying “Recognize Palestine.” After a few moments of shouting, the two were removed from the Knesset chamber. (Note: They were not arrested. They continue to represent their constituency in the Knesset.)
This kind of democracy and dissent would not be possible anywhere else in the Middle East or North Africa. None of the 22 states in the Arab League operate on the basis of free and open elections, and respect for civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms.
Indeed, several of these countries (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya) fit the category of “failed states” — unable to carry out fundamental functions, such as controlling borders.
Since 2006, the influential British news and business magazine, The Economist, has published a comprehensive annual Democracy Index, which analyzes in detail the democratic processes in 167 countries around the world. Based on 60 numeric scores, the rankings include five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
Countries are divided into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid (partially democratic) regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
The Democracy Index for 2024 lists 25 full democracies, 46 flawed democracies (including countries such as Israel, the US, France, and Italy), and 96 hybrid or authoritarian regimes. The Index gives an authoritarian score for Palestine.
A color-coded map of the world accompanies the Index report. Full and flawed democracies are dark blue and pale blue, respectively, while hybrid governments are yellow. Authoritarian countries appear light to dark brown.
Israel is not even visible from a quick glance at the map. To see Israel, one must either adjust the magnification of the computer image or use the “pinch to zoom” feature available with many devices. Only then does a little island of blue become visible amid a vast sea of brown.
In fact, the only Arab people in the Middle East or North Africa who have experienced what it is like to live in a democracy are the more than two million Arab citizens of Israel.
In a blog he wrote in The Times of Israel, Bassem Eid, a Palestinian activist and writer who monitors human rights abuses by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, writes that, as in other western democracies, Israeli Arabs “can vote in elections, own businesses, work, speak, and worship freely, wherever in Israel they call home.” To Eid, Israel is the best place to be an Arab.
Meanwhile, Ayman Odeh, leader of the Hadash party (yes, one of the Knesset members ejected during the Trump visit) has been working to establish a unified slate of Arab parties (a Joint List) in preparation for the next Israeli election. A unified party would energize Arab voters, increase the community’s political influence, and possibly lead to Arab participation in the government, as was the case during the short-lived Bennett-Lapid coalition that preceded the current Israeli government.
The Arab people of Israel know that Israel is a thriving, diverse, and democratic country, and that it includes a thriving Arab population. Or, as Bassem Eid puts it, Arabs have been fortunate to call Israel home.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
Uncategorized
Rabbis and other Jewish New Yorkers join Mamdani’s 400-member mayoral transition committees
(JTA) — Five local rabbis are among the more than 400 New Yorkers tapped for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition committees, the teams tasked with preparing his administration ahead of his Jan. 1 swearing-in.
They include Abby Stein, who appeared in “Jews for Zohran” campaigns and shares the mayor-elect’s anti-Zionist outlook, on the health committee; Ellen Lippman, who recently retired from Kolot Chayeinu, the Brooklyn congregation where Mamdani attended Rosh Hashanah services, on the social services committee; and Rachel Timoner, whose Park Slope synagogue Congregation Beth Elohim hosted Mamdani for a meeting with congregants, and Jason Klein, who helms the LGBTQ synagogue Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, on the immigrant justice committee.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, sits on the emergency response transition committee. He is the only Jewish clergy member to join the transition committees of both Mamdani and Mayor Eric Adams, whom Mamdani unseated.
Adams’ 700-member transition team had a clergy committee with 16 rabbis from across denominations, including several from the city’s Modern and haredi Orthodox communities. Mamdani does not have a clergy committee and there are no Orthodox rabbis on any of his committees; during the campaign, he drew criticism from a wide array of rabbis over his stances on Israel, and received little support from Orthodox voters.
The transition committees advise on policies, vet personnel and broker relationships between the incoming administration and New Yorkers. Mamdani’s appointees range from traditional leaders, such as Kathryn Wylde, the longtime head of the city’s fundraising nonprofit, to those who traditionally have lacked power in the city — including representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing movement where Mamdani cut his teeth and which is vying to sustain influence as he assumes the mayorship. Mamdani has two committees, on worker justice and community organizing, that have not before been part of a mayoral transition.
Other notable Jews on the transition committees include Jonah Boyarin, a member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice who helped craft city antisemitism trainings, on the community safety committee; Ruth Messinger, the former leader of American Jewish World Service, on the immigrant justice committee; Masha Pearl of the Blue Card, which supports needy Holocaust survivors, on the social services committee; and Mamdani’s high school teacher Marc Kagan on the transportation committee.
Also on the committees are a number of prominent New Yorkers who are Jewish but who have not made their Jewish identity a primary feature of their public personas.
The post Rabbis and other Jewish New Yorkers join Mamdani’s 400-member mayoral transition committees appeared first on The Forward.