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This university helps Orthodox students make it big without compromising their religion
US Air Force judge advocate Rena Winick Weinstein wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life when she graduated high school.
As an Orthodox Jew, Weinstein was certain of one thing: She wanted to go to college in a place that would support her religious lifestyle — and help her find her professional path. So she enrolled at the Lander College for Women, a part of the Touro University System, designed to help observant Jews get an education without compromising their religious values.
Weinstein, now 25, ended up finding the spark for her unconventional career at Touro: She became interested in national security after taking a college counterterrorism course. She dabbled in a variety of pursuits after graduating, including selling real estate and learning Arabic, before deciding to study law at Georgetown University. She eventually landed a job in the US Air Force as an attorney known as a JAG, or judge advocate general.
“It was very helpful for me, now that I’m in an environment where there’s very little religion, to have that foundation of strong academics and a strong religious environment while in college,” Weinstein said, reflecting on her experience. “That was the cushion that allowed me to branch off into the secular world.”
These days Weinstein, who recently married, works at a fighter jet base in England, where she’s chief of international and operational law, dealing with issues ranging from NATO readiness to military court martials.
“I’ve always been patriotic, so I felt it was important to show appreciation for the gifts we’ve received as Jews in America by joining the military,” said Weinstein, who previously spent a year and a half at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas with the 22 nd Air Refueling Wing. “I wanted to do more than sitting around at a think tank, talking about patriotism and values.”
Founded in 1971 to provide an environment where Orthodox Jews in New York could get a college education without foregoing their religious commitments, Touro is now a sprawling university system with over 19,000 students from many faith traditions spanning 35 different schools and spread out over four countries.
Yet Touro remains a place that not only accommodates Orthodox Jewish observance but embraces it. Classes are suspended on Jewish holidays, every campus offers kosher food and other special features are available, such as Sabbath-observant residency programs for medical students.
Jason Appleson, managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, credits his education not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive. (William Taufic)
“Throughout its 52-year history, Touro has been committed to making sure students succeed at the highest level professionally while upholding their Jewish values,” said Touro’s president, Dr. Alan Kadish, who has led Touro for the last 14 years, following the tenure of founding president Bernard Lander. “Working to create a better world and society is part of our mission.”
A variety of Touro alumni now working in high-powered fields said that going to a school that cultivated their professional skills and supported their religiosity gave them the early-career nurturing they needed to succeed as Orthodox Jews in the professional world.
Regina Davydova, who was born in Uzbekistan and immigrated to New York when she was 8, became interested in pursuing a career in medicine when she was a teenager. But as an Orthodox Jew, Davydova worried about how she would balance a demanding career with her religious observance and desire to raise a family.
She enrolled in the physician’s assistant program at Touro’s School of Health Sciences, which she said help set her up for success: She got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center following graduation, only two weeks after getting married. Sixteen years on, Davydova, now 38, is the chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division — and has a thriving Orthodox family.
“It’s incredible how we can rearrange skin and tissue to reconstruct any defects, and make the patient feel and look whole again,” Davydova said of her job. “It’s not just aesthetics, like most people think. We also do a lot of reconstruction in breast cancer or head and neck cancers.”
Like Davydova, Jason Appleson also chose a college based in large part on where he’d feel comfortable as an Orthodox Jew. At Touro’s Lander College for Men, the dual curriculum allows both for yeshiva study and obtaining professional and academic degrees.
“I liked the yeshiva-style program at Lander, the close-knit learning and the small size of the school,” said Appleson, who graduated in 2008 with a degree in finance.
“When it came to looking for jobs, I got a lot of attention,” he added. “At Lander, it was more about, ‘Let’s connect you with real people.’ Ultimately, that’s how I got my first job at Alliance Bernstein, through networking.”
After a stint at Alliance Bernstein, Appleson joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, followed by nine years at Chicago-based PT Asset Management. Now 38 and married with three children, Appleson is a managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, where he leads the municipal bond team.
He credits his education at Lander College not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed, but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive.
“One of the most difficult things if you go to a non-Jewish school is that no one’s working around your schedule,” said Appleson, a native of Nashville. “At Lander, you can celebrate Jewish holidays comfortably. Religion is not just a culture, it’s a lifestyle. I didn’t have to worry about kashrut or Shabbat.”
Regina Davydova, who got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center straight out of the physician’s assistant program at Touro University’s School of Health Sciences, is now chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division. (Marko Dashev)
Touro’s president said Shabbat observance isn’t a disadvantage, but an asset both in school and in professional life.
“By and large, people can succeed as observant Jews in almost any area, but the problem of time management is mitigated by the restorative effects of Shabbos and holidays,” Kadish said. “It does mean that in certain professions you might be working on Sundays when you otherwise might not be. But I firmly believe the reset really helps.”
Florida native Israel Ackerman went to the Lander College for Men, availing himself of the night classes and flexible schedule so he could complete the rigorous pre-med science program while spending his mornings studying in yeshiva. Then he went to Touro’s medical school, New York Medical College, in Valhalla, New York.
“Specifically in the field of medicine, it can be a struggle to find institutions where you can observe Shabbat and Jewish holidays during busy hospital rotations,” Ackerman said.
After graduating, he did his fellowship in ophthalmology at the University of Texas-Southwestern and now works in Dallas as an eye surgeon.
Moshe Serwatien, a student at New York Medical College who did his undergraduate studies at Lander, said the intensity at Lander both of the pre-med academics and his own yeshiva studies prepared him well for the demands of medical school. Faculty at Touro also helped him with the medical school application process.
“My rabbis at Lander held me to a very high level of academic excellence and intellectual standards, so I was quite prepared for the rigors of medical school,” Serwatien said.
Ultimately, many alumni say, the seeds for their professional success were planted at Touro.
“My time at Lander,” said Appleson, the bond manager, “prepared me to work with some of the best and brightest in the industry.”
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The post This university helps Orthodox students make it big without compromising their religion appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Al Jazeera Hit With Defamation Lawsuit by Syrian Jewish Ex-Refugee
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
A defamation lawsuit was filed against the Qatar-based Al Jazeera media network on Wednesday by Abraham Hamra, a Syrian pro-Israel advocate and lawyer.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Hamra “is a Jewish refugee from Syria, born in Damascus. He fled Syria with his parents and siblings in 1994 at the age of eight, following the partial lifting of restrictions on Jewish emigration by the Syrian regime under President Hafez al-Assad in 1992.”
The Algemeiner obtained a copy of the complaint, which explains that, on Aug. 25, Al Jazeera posted a video claiming that Hamra was paid by the Israeli government to visit an aid site of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel- and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, operating independently from UN-backed mechanisms.
“This accusation is false in its entirety. Plaintiff has never received any payment, compensation, or financial incentive from the Israeli government or any affiliated entity for visiting aid sites in Gaza,” the lawsuit claims.
“The visit by Plaintiff related to Israel and Gaza was undertaken independently, in his personal capacity, on his own dime, as an advocate for his community and to bear witness against misinformation,” the suit continues.
The UN and critics of Israel have expressed concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach one of its four food distribution points, at times creating chaotic scenes where Israeli forces have used gunfire to control the crowd.
However, supporters of the GHF argue that it bypasses the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which often steals humanitarian supplies for its own purposes and sells the rest at inflated prices. The GHF has called on the UN to publicly condemn the killing of aid workers in Gaza and to collaborate in order to provide relief to the enclave’s population, accusing the UN of perpetuating a “vast disinformation campaign” aimed at tarnishing the foundation’s image.
The lawsuit notes that the social media post from Al Jazeera, which included the image of Hamra, “cites no sources for the ‘reportedly paid’ claim, and publicly available information about Plaintiff, including his professional bio, social media posts, and known activities, demonstrates he is an independent US attorney with no financial ties to foreign governments.”
Al Jazeera also “failed to conduct even basic fact-checking, such as contacting Plaintiff for comment or verifying the allegation, despite their status as a major media network with resources to do so,” according to the lawsuit.
Al Jazeera did not respond to a request for comment from The Algemeiner.
The lawsuit argues why the allegedly false claim rises to the level of libel, saying it “constitutes libel per se under New York law because it accuses Plaintiff of committing a serious crime, namely, violating FARA [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] by acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Israel, and tends to injure him in his profession as a lawyer.”
“FARA requires individuals acting as agents of foreign principals to register with the US Department of Justice, and failure to do so is a federal offense punishable by fines and imprisonment,” the suit says. “By falsely alleging Plaintiff was paid by a foreign government to promote its interests, the statement implies criminal conduct and undermines his professional integrity.”
Consequently, Hamra is seeking payment for damages of at least $1,00,000 and requesting a trial by jury.
Read the lawsuit here: Hamra v Al Jazeera ECF No. 1 Complaint
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US Lawmakers Launch Investigation Into Wikipedia Over Claims of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias
US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Photo: Reuters
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has opened an investigation into the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the popular online encyclopedia to spread anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Republican Reps James Comer (KY), who chairs the committee, and Nancy Mace (SC), who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology, and government innovation, on Wednesday sent a letter to Maryana Iskander, chief executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, asking the nonprofit to turn over records showing how the platform polices disinformation campaigns that target articles related to Israel and the Middle East.
The lawmakers cited studies showing that pro-Russia networks and other state-backed operations have sought to manipulate Wikipedia entries on conflicts involving Israel, often by inserting anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway Western audiences. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for example, published a report earlier this year arguing that “malicious” Wikipedia editors have inserted anti-Israel bias onto the site, oftentimes violating the organization’s neutrality policies in the process.
Meanwhile, a report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found evidence of Russian-linked attempts to shape narratives used to train AI chatbots by twisting information about Israel.
“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by US taxpayer dollars to influence US public opinion,” Comer and Mace wrote. They emphasized the importance of stopping organized attempts to “inject bias into important and sensitive topics.”
Specifically, the committee is demanding records on possible coordination by nation-states or academic institutions to influence Wikipedia pages, internal arbitration files documenting how the site has handled editor misconduct, identifying data for accounts flagged for suspicious activity, and any analysis showing patterns of manipulation tied to antisemitism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The letter also requests details of Wikipedia’s editorial policies to ensure neutrality and prevent the spread of bias.
Although the committee acknowledged that most online platforms face disinformation threats, the letter stressed that Wikipedia’s outsized influence as one of the most visited websites in the world and a key training source for artificial intelligence systems makes it especially important to prevent anti-Israel narratives from taking root unchecked.
The Wikimedia Foundation has previously stated that it takes action against volunteer editors who violate neutrality rules, but lawmakers say further transparency is needed to guarantee accountability.
However, a detailed investigation by Pirate Wires in October 2024 revealed that a powerful group of roughly 40 Wikipedia editors coordinated to “delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light, and reshape the narrative around Israel with alarming influence,” particularly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Notably, one editor removed mention of Hamas’s 1988 charter, which calls for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, from the Hamas article just six weeks after the attack. The group also reportedly sought to suppress documented human-rights abuses by Iran, and a related effort by a Discord-based collective known as “Tech For Palestine” coordinated mass editing of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a report by the Jewish Journal, Wikipedia’s arbitration committee (ArbCom) permanently banned two editors outright for engaging in off-platform coordination tied to the “Tech for Palestine” Discord campaign, citing violations of policies. Additionally, the committee imposed indefinite topic bans on eight editors in the Israeli-Palestinian area for disruptive behavior such as non-neutral editing, personal insults, and misrepresentation of sources. In December 2024, ArbCom permanently banned two anti-Israel editors and placed restrictions on three others for violation of site policies in the Israeli-Palestinian topic area.
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Tunisian Brothers to Face Trial for Cutting Down Olive Tree Honoring Murdered Jew Ilan Halimi in France
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
Two Tunisian twin brothers have been arrested in France after allegedly cutting down an olive tree that had been planted to honor Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man tortured to death nearly a decade ago.
According to the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, two 19-year-old undocumented men with prior convictions for theft and violence were arrested for vandalizing Halimi’s memorial in the northern Paris suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court on Wednesday and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
Both suspects were taken into custody around noon on Monday while returning to the crime scene, French media reported.
Investigators tracked them down after discovering two slices of watermelon left by the perpetrators at the base of the olive tree, which contained their DNA.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
Hervé Chevreau, the mayor of Épinay, announced that a new memorial tree will be planted in the second half of September.
After the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the incident, vowing that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“Felling the tree in honor of Ilan Halimi is a second attempt on his life,” the French leader said in a post on X.
Halimi’s sister, Anne-Laure Abitbol, also condemned the incident, warning that public denunciations are no longer enough and calling for concrete action.
“In France, we are no longer safe, neither alive nor dead,” Abitbol told RTL in an interview.
“I feel less safe in France,” she said. “By recognizing a Palestinian state, Macron is encouraging antisemitism and failing to take action against antisemitic attacks in the country.”
Last month, Macron announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Israeli officials have criticized the move, which was followed by several other Western countries, calling it a “reward for terrorism.”
France’s Jewish community has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
According to the French Interior Ministry, 646 antisemitic incidents were recorded from January to June this year — a drop from the previous year’s first-half record high but a 112.5 percent increase compared with the same period in 2023, when 304 incidents were reported.