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South African Jews Demand President Condemn Alleged Bombing Attempt at Jewish Center

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rogan Ward

South Africa’s Jewish community has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to condemn a recent alleged attempted bombing of a Jewish community center in Cape Town, decrying his silence on the global surge in antisemitism following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last year.

The local Cape Town branch of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the umbrella group of the country’s Jewish community, released a statement last Friday saying that an “improvised explosive device” had been thrown over the front wall into the community center and “failed to detonate.”

No one was hurt and no damage was caused in the incident. The facility, located in the neighborhood of Gardens, reportedly contains offices for many Jewish community organizations, including a women’s group, a youth movement, and a Jewish newspaper, among others.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis confirmed earlier this week that city police were helping the South African Police Service (SAPS) investigate the matter and analyze closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage to find the perpetrator. He added that the case has been handed to South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks.

“We have evidence showing the perpetrators committing the act, and all available evidence has been handed over to the authorities,” Cape SAJBD executive director Daniel Bloch told the South African Jewish Report.

However, Hill-Lewis said that law enforcement had not yet determined the nature of the device.

“Should the SAPS investigation confirm that this was an attempted attack on the Jewish Community Center, I know I would speak for all Capetonians in condemning such an attempt in the strongest possible terms,” the mayor said in a statement. “Cape Town is a city of peace-loving people, where differences of faith and opinion are expressed loudly and fully, but always peacefully.”

Amid the investigation, SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn on Thursday shared a statement with The Algemeiner demanding South African President Ramaphosa condemn the alleged bombing attempt, noting he has been silent on the incident for a week.

“This was an act of antisemitism aimed at the Jewish community, whether intended to intimidate or to cause physical harm. It was an illegal act that constitutes a hate crime,” Kahn said. “This incident is concerning not only to South African Jewry, but also to the greater South African society and has garnered much global attention. Arson and bomb attacks against Jewish institutions have become sadly commonplace in other parts of the world, but this is the first time in many years that a Jewish communal facility in South Africa has been targeted.”

The apparent bombing attempt occurred on the same day that arsonists heavily damaged a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, in what both law enforcement and political leaders called an antisemitic attack.

“The Mayor of Cape Town, the SA Police Services, and now the Hawks have approached the situation with the extreme gravity that it deserves.  However, nearly a week later, there has still been no word of condemnation nor any expression of support for South Africa’s Jewish community from President Ramaphosa,” the SAJBD statement continued. “This is not the first time that events that have directly affected the SA Jewish community have been met with silence from the presidency.”

Kahn called Ramaphosa’s silence “all the more perplexing” given how other world leaders have stood with their Jewish communities when they have experienced threats.

“Our own country’s elected president, however, has, in nearly a week, failed to condemn this incident,” the statement concluded. “A year ago, on Dec. 13, the Jewish communal leadership met with the president to express concerns about growing antisemitism that was spiraling in our country, and to call for him to speak out against this hate.  A year later we are again forced to call on our president to speak out against this violent attack clearly aimed at our community.”

The South African Jewish community has repeatedly lambasted Ramaphosa and his ruling African National Congress (ANC) for insufficiently combating antisemitism and being one of the harshest critics of Israel since the Palestinian terrorist group invaded the Jewish state last Oct. 7 and launched the war in Gaza.

For the past year, the South African government has been pursuing its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza. In late October, South Africa filed the bulk of the relevant material to support its allegations, a move that the SAJBD slammed as a demonstration of “grandstanding” rather than actual concern for those killed in the Middle Eastern conflict.

South Africa temporarily withdrew its diplomats from Israel and shuttered its embassy in Tel Aviv shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom, saying that the Pretoria government was “extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians” in Gaza.

Then in December, South Africa hosted two Hamas officials who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.

In May, members of South Africa’s Jewish community protested Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor’s call for students and university leaders to intensify the anti-Israel demonstrations that have engulfed college campuses across the US.

Later that month, Ramaphosa led the crowd at an election rally in a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Ramaphosa’s ANC has also supported a proposal by the City of Johannesburg to rename the street on which the US Consulate is located after notorious Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, who hijacked a Tel Aviv-bound plane in 1969 and attempted another hijacking, this time of an El Al flight, in 1970.

The government’s ardent opposition to Israel did not help its performance in elections earlier this year, when the ANC lost its majority in parliament for the first time in South Africa’s post-apartheid democratic history. However, it still remained the largest party and retained power at the national level through a coalition.

While Ramaphosa has not commented on last week’s alleged bombing attempt at the Jewish community center in Cape Town, he has continued speaking against Israel. In a message posted to X/Twitter on Thursday, the South African president falsely described the Israeli military campaign against Hamas terrorists as “Israel’s war on the people of Gaza,” comparing it to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The post South African Jews Demand President Condemn Alleged Bombing Attempt at Jewish Center first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Now is The Time to Destroy the Iranian Threat

The new Chief of the General Staff, Major General Eyal Zamir, visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, March 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

JNS.orgThe Islamic Republic is actively working toward obtaining nuclear capability, Israel is planning an attack strategy, and the United States, finally, under President Donald Trump, is demonstrating it may be willing to use military force to stop the Iranian regime.

This week, the head of US Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, visited Israel for talks with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on regional security issues, the US military said in a statement on Thursday.

Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS Iran “must not be allowed to possess the weapons with which to carry out its homicidal agenda: its terrorist proxies must be degraded; its influence around the region rolled back; its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile and drone factories either shuttered or destroyed.”

To this end, the US has now taken the crucial step of placing the military option front and center to pressure Iran into folding.

The Pentagon has reportedly ordered the relocation of at least two Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile defense system from Asia to the Middle East.

There are also reports of a massive number of US military cargo flights traveling to the Middle East, with dozens of C-17s and several C-5s arriving at Isa Airbase in Bahrain as well as other bases near the Persian Gulf. Planes are also being delivered to Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar and Djibouti International Airport near Yemen.

The relocation of critical air-defenses such as THAAD and the repositioning of the USS Carl Vinson and its Carrier Strike Group to the Middle East, as well as the deployment of at least six B-2 “Spirit” Long-Range Strategic Stealth Bombers recently to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, suggest that the United States may be preparing for a major conflict soon with Iran.

However, Yossi Mansharof, an expert on Iran and Shi’ite political Islam at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, has a different view. He told JNS that ending Iran’s nuclear program through military action is “not something the Trump administration is currently aiming for.”

Trump appears to want to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before turning to the military option—or authorizing Israel to do so.

Trump wants Tehran to negotiate and, according to Mansharof, “seeks to bring Iran to a point where the regime understands that the nuclear program not only fails to advance its goals but actually endangers it and Iran’s national security.”

It would be “appropriate” for Trump to set a time limit for the negotiations “in order to give them credibility and compel the Iranian side to take him seriously,” Mansharof said.

That being said, according to Mansharof, “Trump has made it clear that if Iran does not respond to his offer to negotiate, the US itself will attack Iran.”

He added that Trump “would support an Israeli strike against Iran and might even order the US military to join the Israeli attack and carry it out jointly—if he concludes that Tehran is unwilling to make sufficient concessions or is not showing seriousness in the negotiations.”

Mansharof also told JNS he believes Trump wants to make Iran understand that “continuing the current course—progress in the nuclear program, regional entrenchment, sponsoring Iran’s proxy network and developing the missile program—will harm the regime,” and therefore, it would be “in Iran’s own interest to reach an agreement with the US in these three areas.”

According to Misztal, however, the Trump administration “has not explicitly expressed its willingness to back an Israeli strike.”

“However,” he added, “the president’s general support for Israel and recent, increasingly bellicose warnings to Iran suggest that he is far more likely than any of his predecessors to not stop the Jewish state from doing whatever it feels is necessary to defend itself against the threat of a nuclear Iran.”

The threat is clear: Iran is aggressively advancing its belligerent agenda, disrupting the region as it pursues nuclear capabilities.

The IAEA report confirms what we already know

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) recently analyzed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s quarterly report, dated Feb. 26 and titled “Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015),” including Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In what should be highly concerning, the findings show that Iran “can convert its current stock of 60 percent enriched uranium into 174 kg [384 pounds] of weapon-grade uranium (WGU) in three weeks at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), enough for 7 nuclear weapons, taken as 25 kg [55 pounds] of WGU per weapon.”

Perhaps more worrying is that Iran “could produce its first quantity of 25 kg of WGU in Fordow in less than one week,” according to the findings.

Shockingly, the ISIS analysis notes that Iran’s “total stocks of enriched uranium and its centrifuge capacity at Fordow and the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) combined are sufficient to make enough WGU for over ten nuclear weapons in one month and 12-13 in two months.”

In addition, as in several past Iran Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards reports, the IAEA has been unable to obtain clear answers from Iran regarding the presence of “undeclared nuclear material and/or activities at four sites—Lavisan-Shian, Varamin, Marivan, and Turquzabad.”

The ISIS analysis highlights the IAEA’s “significantly reduced ability to monitor Iran’s complex and growing nuclear program.”

In short, the IAEA report confirms what we already know: Iran is on the march toward nuclearization and the IAEA lacks a clear picture of Iran’s activities.

Iran is developing its ballistic missile program

One could argue that Iran might be enriching uranium but has yet to further develop its nuclear payload delivery system.

But a March 16, 2025, report in The Maritime Executive magazine noted that MV Jairan, owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and the second of two Iranian cargo vessels that are believed to have loaded sodium perchlorate in China, was recently documented passing through the Straits of Malacca en route to Bandar Abbas.

“Sodium perchlorate is the primary feedstock for making ammonium perchlorate, used by Iranian solid-fueled ballistic missiles,” according to the report.

The ship is believed to have been carrying enough sodium perchlorate to refine sufficient ammonium perchlorate to fuel approximately 250 medium-range missiles of the types used by Iran to attack Israel in Operations True Promise-1 and 2—on April 13 and Oct. 1, 2024, respectively.

Current Iranian ballistic projectiles that use ammonium perchlorate include medium-range Kheibar Shekan and Fattah-1 missiles, and the shorter-range Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles.

Regional concerns over striking Iran

If the US and/or Israel do ultimately strike Iran, Mansharof believes the Sunni states in the region “will respond with concern, fearing they might become targets of an Iranian retaliatory strike.”

Iran’s proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen—now severely weakened—“will limit Iran’s ability to respond to an attack, but it still has the potential to be dangerous,” Mansharof said.

In his view, “guarantees from the Trump administration are necessary” to ensure that the US will safeguard the security of regional Sunni states.

According to Misztal, “the regional response will almost certainly be determined by the effectiveness of any strike on Iran and the forcefulness of the United States in deterring an Iranian retaliation.”

He suggested that “it is possible to imagine another situation like we saw on April 13, 2024: the United States together with international and regional forces acting in concert to warn and defend Israel from Iranian retaliation.”

Now is the time to destroy the Iranian nuclear threat

According to Mansharof, “now is the time to address the Iranian issue at its root. Israel and the U.S. should jointly develop a comprehensive strategy against the Iranian threat in its various components.”

If Tehran is weakened, according to Mansharof, “in both Iraq and Lebanon, voices calling for reconciliation with Israel—currently suppressed by Iran’s proxy network—would gain strength. Without Iran, Saudi Arabia would have no barrier preventing it from joining the Abraham Accords, and the circle of peace in the region would expand significantly.”

Neutralizing the Iranian threat “would also benefit European national security, according to Mansharof. “The same applies to Africa, where Iran promotes ‘Shi’itization,’ particularly in Nigeria, where it supports the local Islamic movement.”

Mansharof told JNS that weakening Iran “would significantly advance global stability, as there is no continent today where Iran does not operate in some form.”

Misztal told JNS that “after decades of both the United States and Israel vowing to prevent a nuclear Iran, actually doing so would have dramatically beneficial repercussions around the world.”

He seemed to agree with Mansharof, saying that “in the Middle East, it would usher in the potential for a new, peaceful and cooperative region by lifting the Iranian threat that has held the region hostage for at least the last decade, reestablishing Israel as a regional superpower not to be trifled with, and re-opening the path to normalization with Saudi Arabia and others.”

The post Now is The Time to Destroy the Iranian Threat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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New York Times Stokes New Fear About Israeli ‘Occupation’ — of Syria

An Israeli tank crosses the ceasefire line between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights, Dec. 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon

The New York Times recently published an elaborate “interactive” article critical of Israel for becoming involved in Syria.

“Israel has built a growing network of outposts and fortifications in Syria and Lebanon, deepening concerns about a protracted occupation in parts of the two countries,” the article said, without specifying whose “concerns,” other than the Times’ editors, were being deepened.

“There are signs that Israel appears prepared to remain indefinitely, a visual analysis by the New York Times has found,” the article reported, under the headline, “Israel Digs in Beyond Its Northern Border.”

An analysis by me has found that this is a fine example of one of the long-running issues in New York Times coverage of the Middle East — a double standard, holding Israel up to criticism for activities that are ignored or not criticized when they are conducted by other regional or global powers.

The Times attacked Israeli involvement in Syria and Lebanon while making no mention of Turkish, Russian, or US presence in those places. An evenhanded look at the scramble for power and influence in post-Bashar al-Assad Syria would be a newsworthy story. But the global left-wing audience the Times is trying to serve seems less interested in nonpartisan Syria coverage than it does in Israel-bashing that portrays the Jewish state as an occupying power.

Of the three Times reporters credited on the story, two — Samuel Granados and Sanjana Varghese — are European. Granados is a graduate of the University of Málaga in Spain and is based in Spain, according to his LinkedIn profile and a Nov. 21, 2024, Times announcement of his hiring. Varghese “was raised in Bahrain, and she has been based in London for nine years. She is a graduate of King’s College London,” according to a June 2024 Times announcement of her hiring. The Times noted that she “worked as a freelance journalist for a range of outlets, including … Al Jazeera.” Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has called the Qatar-controlled Al Jazeera a “terror channel.”

As the Times attempts to grow by catering to a global anti-Israel audience and by staffing its newsroom with non-Americans, it risks further alienating longtime readers in its hometown of New York.

I’m not suggesting that the Times should entirely avoid hiring non-Americans; some of the great Times journalists in history have been immigrants to America who proudly, patriotically appreciate their adopted home. But today’s Times sneers at that. The Times obituary for its former executive editor, Max Frankel, a Jewish immigrant to America from Nazi Germany, dripped with a kind of contempt:

He fell into a pattern of Cold War reporting that made no pretense of objectivity. Like a combat correspondent touting his side’s war, he wrote unashamedly of “the free world,” of Polish and Hungarian “patriots” yearning for liberation but “crushed” by Soviet tanks.

Today’s Times unashamedly implies Frankel should have been ashamed for siding with the free world against the Soviet communists.

But the New York Times appears to be approaching the war in Syria with the same editorial strategy with which it approached the war in Gaza: instead of aiming for balanced and complete coverage in every article, it has instead published articles that seem designed to be shared and read by partisans on either side. Perhaps that means the Times has elaborate graphics in the works depicting Turkish, Russian, and American incursions in Syria.

There’s plenty of material to work with there. The Alma Research and Education Center reported on March 25 that “Turkey plans to establish multiple bases to serve the Turkish Air Force, utilizing the infrastructure of Syrian airports in the Palmyra region (Palmyra Airport and T4).” It added that “in recent days there were reports indicating that Turkey has transported troops and military equipment to the Minaq military airport in northern Syria, now operating in Turkish-Syrian collaboration.”

The Pentagon announced on Dec. 19, 2024, that there are 2,000 US troops in Syria.

And Russia is trying to keep its Latakia naval base and Khmeimim air base in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported in early March 2025.

Until and unless elaborate New York Times graphics are devoted to those, too, it sure looks as if the newspaper is holding the Jewish state to a standard it doesn’t apply to other countries, singling out Israel for special negative treatment,

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

The post New York Times Stokes New Fear About Israeli ‘Occupation’ — of Syria first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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How a Hebrew Letter Can Teach Us the Lasting Power of Humility

Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921. Photo: public domain.

The great Hasidic master, Rav Nachman of Breslov, famously said, “If you believe you can break something, believe you can fix it.” A Hasidic wag later added, “But whatever you do, don’t believe you’re the one who invented the glue.”

There’s something deliciously Jewish about that second line. Yes, you matter and can improve things once you’ve messed up. But no, you didn’t invent the universe — or even the duct tape that holds it together. And in a world full of self-made people loudly proclaiming how fantastic they are, that kind of perspective is rare and precious.

Which brings me to Bern, Switzerland, in the year 1905 — and a young patent clerk who published four scientific papers that would change the world. One of them introduced what he called “the special theory of relativity.” Another explained the photoelectric effect, a physics phenomenon that would eventually win him the Nobel Prize.

Remarkably, the author of these revolutionary ideas was not a prestigious university professor or a celebrated scientific superstar. He was, quite literally, a nobody.

Albert Einstein was painfully aware of his limitations. Famously, he struggled with higher mathematics and had to engage a brilliant mathematician, Marcel Grossmann, to help him navigate the complex geometry needed for his theory of general relativity.

He was also completely uninterested in showmanship. He is purported to have once remarked, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

That line wasn’t false modesty. It reflected something real: Einstein’s capacity to listen to criticism, to seek help from others, to keep asking questions others thought were too naïve or too basic, and to admit when he was wrong — all of which allowed him to see what others missed.

Einstein wasn’t trying to be the smartest guy in the room. He was simply trying his hardest to understand how the universe worked. And as it turned out, it was that humility — genuine, grounded humility — that was the key to him unlocking the scientific secrets of the universe.

History is full of leaders and thinkers who were intellectually brilliant and enormously talented, but who sabotaged themselves through arrogance. Napoleon — an extraordinarily gifted human being — thought he was invincible. It didn’t end well.

More recently, genius tech entrepreneurs like Elizabeth Holmes believed they could outsmart investors, regulators, and even the laws of science — and they watched their empires crumble.

The thing is, humility doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself. It means thinking of yourself less. Which will mean you can grow, change, and learn — because you’re not busy defending or projecting your ego.

The greatest people aren’t necessarily flashy. But in the long run, they’re the ones who build greatness that lasts.

Tucked away in the opening verse of Vayikra is a minor detail offering a massive lesson in humility. Vayikra begins with the pasuk: וַיִּקְרָא אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר ה׳ אֵלָיו מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר – “He called to Moshe, and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying…”

Curiously, in the very first word — Vayikra — there’s a little anomaly. The final letter, the aleph, is written in miniature. Scribes are trained to make it noticeably tiny, almost like it’s embarrassed to be there — too shy to show its face.

The sages of the Talmud explain that this shrunken letter was Moshe’s doing. The word Vayikra denotes affection — it shows that God was calling Moshe with love in a way that indicated He was closer to Moshe than to anyone else.

But Moshe didn’t feel comfortable with that level of attention, even if it came from Heaven itself. So he shrunk the aleph, as if to say, “Yes, I was called — but I’m not interested in the spotlight.”

Here’s where it gets fascinating. The late Rosh Yeshiva of Ponevezh, Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, raised a powerful question. The Gemara in Menachot (29b) tells us that Rabbi Akiva could derive “mounds upon mounds of laws” from the tagin — the tiny decorative crowns that sit atop certain letters in the Torah.

And if Rabbi Akiva could expound deep halachic insights from something as small as a crown, then surely he could also extract meaning from the letters themselves — from their shape, their appearance, their subtle peculiarities. So how could Moshe shrink the aleph? Wouldn’t that deprive Rabbi Akiva — and, by extension, all of us — of the laws one can learn from a full-sized aleph?

Rav Shach’s answer is simply breathtaking. Sometimes, teaching a human attribute is more important than teaching a law. Sometimes, the example a leader sets through character leaves a deeper and more enduring imprint than any legal lesson.

The lesson of the small aleph isn’t encoded in halacha — it’s etched into the soul. Moshe Rabbeinu was the greatest prophet who ever lived. But he’s remembered not just for what he did, but for who he was, as the Torah tells us: “And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more so than any man on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3).

And if that message had to come at the “cost” of a few halachic insights, so be it. Because a Torah without humility might be intellectually dazzling — but it wouldn’t be divine.

Humility isn’t merely a footnote in the story of greatness. It is the story. A few years ago, at a private event for young tech innovators, the keynote speaker was Tim Cook, Apple’s quiet and reserved CEO.

During the Q&A after his talk, someone asked him how he managed to step into Steve Jobs’ shoes without trying to be Steve Jobs. Cook smiled and said, “I learned early on that if you try to emulate someone else’s greatness, you’ll miss your own.” Brilliant.

Then he shared how he asked Apple’s top team to be brutally honest with him when he first took over. “Tell me what you think I’m doing wrong,” he said. “I can’t learn if I’m only hearing what I want to hear.”

That attitude of humility and openness didn’t just preserve Apple’s legacy. It strengthened it. Because Tim Cook wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He was trying to do the job as best he could, which meant being honest about what he didn’t know.

This is precisely what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks meant when he wrote: “Those who have humility are open to things greater than themselves while those who lack it are not. That is why those who lack it make you feel small, while those who have it make you feel enlarged. Their humility inspires greatness in others.”

Moshe’s small aleph may have taken away a few halachot — but it gave us something even greater: a model of leadership that doesn’t shrink others in order to feel tall. A model of behavior that lifts people up precisely because it doesn’t need the spotlight.

And in a world obsessed with being constantly seen and heard, that might just be the most powerful kind of greatness there is.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.

The post How a Hebrew Letter Can Teach Us the Lasting Power of Humility first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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