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Sustaining a Jewish Revival Rests on Visiting Israel
Debra Messing speaking at the “March for Israel” rally in Washington, DC on Nov. 14, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
In the months following the October 7 terrorist massacre in Israel, the polarizing void once felt across ideological Jewish lines has slowly dissolved, as Americans hailing from various religious and political streams unite in support of Israel.
Last year, as the Jewish State was consumed with a societal schism revolving around protests against the government’s proposed judicial reforms, the American media tried to showcase the divisions in US Jewish attitudes towards Israel. For instance, a 2021 poll of Jewish voters conducted by The Jewish Electoral Institute found that 38 percent of younger respondents under 40 agreed with the falsehood that Israel is an apartheid state. Sadly, the study confirmed the trend of an emergent generation of Jews harboring disturbing positions on Israel.
While the tragic events unfolding last fall may do little to sway this cadre of anti-Zionist Jews, the October 7 massacre did ignite an untapped appreciation felt for Israel by Jewish Americans, many of whom seemed to have little interest in it before. Those whose Jewish identity was reawakened on that horrific October day can harness that spirit and emphasize this moment by visiting Israel. Indeed, engaging with the land of Israel and its citizens will preserve a fresh reverence for peoplehood, while also helping strengthen the morale and economies of Israel and its citizens.
In November, approximately 300,000 people converged in Washington, D.C., in what was described as “both the largest ever pro-Israel gathering and the largest Jewish gathering in US history.” Apart from setting an attendance record, the March for Israel broke down religious barriers, with multiple encounters depicting observant Jews putting tefillin on young secular attendees, and with different groups coalescing around an inspiring moment and shared mission.
A Chabad survey of rabbis in America taken in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks reveals a significant increase in Jewish pride across communities, with 88.2 percent of respondents reporting that community members are feeling “a stronger connection to Israel and her people.” As Israelis grapple with security threats and the war’s looming impact on the country’s economy, Jewish Americans must seize on this devotional revival, whose sustenance relies on prioritizing travel to Israel.
According to The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), foreign tourism in Israel peaked in 2019, with direct tourism employment accounting for roughly 149,000 jobs, representing almost four percent of total employment in Israel. Prior to the outbreak of the Hamas war, Israel welcomed nearly three million tourists in 2023, with tourism revenue pouring a hefty $4.85 billion into the country’s economy. Interestingly, while tourism from the US was on track to surpass 2019 numbers, only a quarter of foreigners visiting Israel were Jewish, mirroring numbers recorded in previous years. Last year, Christian travelers comprised around half of all tourists and represented the largest denomination visiting the Jewish country.
While Israel’s reliance on its tech sector has shielded its financial industry from the catastrophic consequences that plague other economies during wartime, obligations surrounding reserve duty have contributed to a labor shortage, with some businesses forced to shut down temporarily when faced with an absence of workers. Israel’s Finance Ministry has stated that its budget deficit will likely reach six percent of its GDP, and that the war effort will cost at least another 50 billion NIS ($13.5 billion) in 2024.
Aside from the economic ramifications, October’s terror exposed a vulnerability that was exacerbated by the realities underscoring Israel’s enemies’ indiscriminate targeting of Jewish civilians. Among those murdered, tortured, raped, and taken hostage that day were activists committed to coexistence, with some survivors recounting stories of betrayal by Palestinians whom they once considered partners for peace. This depth of hatred demands a Jewish approach that upholds backing Israel regardless of which government holds power. Since October, several celebrities, including actors Jerry Seinfeld, Debra Messing, and Michael Rapaport, have displayed their solidarity by traveling to Israel, and visiting the sites impacted by the war.
But many of these celebrities also engaged in ordinary pursuits, highlighting Israel’s resilience. Soon after arriving in Israel, Jerry Seinfeld was pictured in Tel Aviv eating falafel, while Jewish influencer Montana Tucker led a flash mob on a picturesque beach boardwalk. The famous Israeli comedy show Eretz Nehederet also featured Rapaport, who participated in a parody about campus antisemitism. Their presence illustrates the value of sharing in food, dance, and laughter, even amidst the grief and trauma.
Over time, the enormity of the October 7 terrorist slaughter will dissipate, with some US Jews reverting to past tendencies and disassociating from the Jewish particularism that was rekindled this past fall. The statistics showing that only a quarter of all tourists in Israel are Jewish is a troubling indication that a lack of exposure to the land of Israel may be one justification behind a decade of Jewish disinterest in advocating on its behalf. Visiting Israel and engaging with its citizens is integral to nurturing the affection and enhancing relations between the two cultures.
While tourists inevitably assist in Israel’s economic recovery, absorbing the principles and learning the history tied to Jewish peoplehood is a far more valuable metric to measure one’s travel plans, with its benefits outlasting the short-term pleasures garnered by other foreign experiences.
Irit Tratt is an independent writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt
The post Sustaining a Jewish Revival Rests on Visiting Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.