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Threats to kill Jewish students at Cornell prompt police to monitor kosher dining hall
(JTA) — Police at Cornell University were called to the school’s kosher dining hall, and the campus Hillel warned students to stay away from it, after anonymous antisemitic posts on a Greek life website that included threats to “shoot up” the building and kill and rape Jewish students.
The posts, whose text has circulated widely on social media, were published Saturday and Sunday under pseudonyms including “hamas,” “jew evil,” “jew jenocide,” “hamas warrior” and “kill jews.” The posts have titles such as “jewish people need to be killed,” “eliminate jewish living from cornell campus” and “gonna shoot up 104 west,” the name of the kosher dining hall.
The posts were made on Greekrank, a site that students at the Ivy League school and others use to rate fraternities and sororities. “If i see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat,” read another post by a user called “hamas” that was viewed directly by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “If i see another pig female jew i will drag you away and ràpe you and throw you off a cliff. if i see another pig baby jew i will behead you in front of your parents.”
The university’s president denounced the posts, which come three weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel killed and wounded thousands and during Israel’s ensuing war against the terror group in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian groups at a series of campuses have celebrated or endorsed Hamas’ attack, and Jewish students have been barricaded in buildings amid pro-Palestinian protests. Other Jewish students have been assaulted or taken part in violent altercations. On Thursday, the White House condemned “antisemitic messages being conveyed on college campuses.”
At Cornell, a professor called the Hamas attack “exhilarating” before later apologizing. (He is now on leave.) Last week, the campus was graffitied with the messages “Israel is fascist,” “Zionism = genocide” and “F— Israel,” according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
On Sunday evening, Cornell Hillel posted a statement to Instagram advising people to keep away from the kosher dining hall, where police were on site to monitor the situation.
“Cornell Hillel is aware of a threatening statement that was directed toward the building at 104West, which houses the university’s kosher and multicultural dining hall, as well as more generally toward Jewish students, faculty, and staff,” the statement read. “At this time, we advise that students and staff avoid the building out of an abundance of caution.”
The dining hall also includes halal, Seventh-day Adventist, vegetarian, vegan and other meal options. It is situated next to Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living. Cornell Hillel and the Center for Jewish Living could not be reached for comment.
In a statement emailed to the campus community, Cornell University President Martha Pollack called the threats “horrendous” and “absolutely intolerable.”
“We will not tolerate antisemitism at Cornell,” she wrote. “The virulence and destructiveness of antisemitism is real and deeply impacting our Jewish students faculty and staff, as well as the entire Cornell community. This incident highlights the need to combat the forces that are dividing us and driving us toward hate.”
Pollack said campus police had also notified the FBI of a potential hate crime and that whoever posted the threats would be “punished to the full extent of the law.” Cornell Police referred JTA to Pollack’s statement.
Pollack has issued several previous statements about the violence in Israel, including a message of concern and a second condemning Hamas on Oct 10 and two statements distancing Cornell from community members who might have expressed support for the terrorist attack.
Talia Dror, a junior who is a pro-Israel activist, told JTA that the dining hall threats “terrified” her and that she was not leaving her house as a result.
“We’ve been told multiple times by the university that while they understood our concerns for personal safety, that they didn’t think actual physical safety would necessarily be an issue,” Dror said. “On a daily basis, I’m seeing what’s going on around the country and I think it’s absolutely absurd that university administrators are acting like such cowards and not making real statements or standing behind their Jewish students until there’s a physical threat to kill students.”
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The post Threats to kill Jewish students at Cornell prompt police to monitor kosher dining hall appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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