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Universities take action against pro-Israel faculty for inflammatory speech about Israel-Hamas war
(JTA) – A series of Jewish professors across the country have faced lawsuits, termination and suspension after making pro-Israel remarks that administrators say crossed the line into threatening speech.
Faculty members at New York University, the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University are among those who have been recently caught up in such controversies, as the campus climate around Israel continues to ferment in the weeks following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s war against the terror group in the Gaza Strip.
“This current situation has really been time for me to put my money where my mouth is as a free-speech attorney,” Samantha Harris, an attorney representing one of the professors, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Cases of universities disciplining pro-Israel rhetoric since Oct. 7 have been relatively rare, as some of the most prominent campus controversies have involved the reverse. Some schools, under pressure from pro-Israel donors, politicians and legal aid groups, have taken a series of actions against pro-Palestinian students, faculty and events.
Leaders of Cornell University condemned a professor who praised the Hamas attacks as “exhilarating”; he later took a leave of absence. The University of Arizona recently suspended two professors who praised Hamas as a “resistance group” and questioned whether it is antisemitic, according to a recording posted by a pro-Israel social media account.
And the heads of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, George Washington University, Columbia University and other schools have suspended pro-Palestinian student groups or disciplined students who participated in disruptive protests. The U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office recently opened a series of investigations into universities over their handling of campus antisemitism cases, including some that took clear action against anti-Israel activities. The presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania are testifying before Congress next week as lawmakers seek to question whether they have responded forcefully enough to antisemitism.
But the cases of these three men — all at private colleges, and two of whom work in life sciences — show that strident pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian rhetoric has also occasionally been subject to consequences on campus. The offenses range from stray harsh words about Hamas to a professor tweeting multiple times that all Palestinians are “animals.”
An NYU director, fired over retweets, sues the hospital
The former director of NYU’s cancer research center is suing the hospital for firing him over a series of online posts he shared about Hamas and its supporters in the West.
Dr. Benjamin Neel was booted from that position earlier this month over his posting of political cartoons depicting Hamas calling for “death to all Jews,” and for caricatures showing Westerners, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, supporting the atrocities Hamas committed. He remains a tenured professor and the head of a laboratory at NYU, according to The New York Times. Neel’s attorney did not respond to questions sent via email.
NYU Langone Health fired Neel at the same time as it also fired another doctor for social media activity praising Hamas’ attack. Neel’s lawsuit, filed Nov. 16, claims that this made his own termination “a casualty” of the university’s “ill-considered plan to feign the appearance of even-handedness.”
In a statement to JTA, NYU maintained that it had proper standing to fire Neel from the cancer research center over what it said was a clear violation of the university’s code of conduct, social media policy and commitment “to providing a safe and inclusive environment, free of discrimination, for all of our employees and patients.”
“Dr. Ben Neel, as a leader at our institution, disregarded these standards in a series of public social media posts and later locked his Twitter/X account,” NYU spokesperson Steve Ritea said. “NYU Langone stands by our decision and looks forward to defending it in court.”
One of the arguments put forth by Neel’s attorneys is that his own pro-Israel speech pales in comparison to that of some of his more senior Jewish colleagues in private emails to him, who described other universities in insulting terms for failing to discipline anti-Israel speech. But NYU said Neel was acting “hypocritically” by including these emails in his lawsuit.
“Some of those emails were critical of specific decisions by university leaders for not taking a stronger stance on the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and for not holding accountable those who engaged in discriminatory speech,” Ritea wrote. “Hypocritically, Dr. Neel is now lashing out for being held accountable for such conduct.”
At Johns Hopkins, a doctor is placed on leave over “disturbing” tweets
Another university hospital has also taken disciplinary measures against a Jewish program director and professor for his incendiary social media posts.
Johns Hopkins Medicine placed the director of its pediatric cardiac critical care program, Dr. Darren Klugman, on leave over a series of posts he wrote shortly after Oct. 7 that advocated violence against all Palestinians. Klugman is also a medical school professor.
Klugman’s posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, painted all Palestinians as “morally depraved” and “savage animals,” and called for them to be murdered or displaced. “Time to reclaim every inch of Israel for Jews,” he wrote on Oct. 8, according to screenshots published by the university’s newsletter and other outlets.
In one reply to a user who had suggested that Israel was calling for a “large-scale slaughter” and to “spread out massacres over a year to displace Palestinians,” Klugman wrote, “G-d willing.”
Klugman has since apologized for his posts, writing in a letter to colleagues, “These messages in no way reflect my beliefs, me as a person, a physician, a friend, or colleague.” His X account is no longer active.
Kim Hoppe, a spokesperson for Johns Hopkins Medicine, told JTA that Klugman will remain on leave while the university conducts “a thorough investigation” and called his posts “deeply disturbing.”
“Statements that explicitly threaten or extol violence against groups or individuals on the basis of national origin, race or religion violate our policies and do not represent our values,” Hoppe’s statement continued.
An online petition calling on Johns Hopkins to “remove” Klugman has garnered more than 8,000 signatures. In the Jewish conservative magazine Commentary last week, Washington Free Beacon writer Daniel Halper implored Johns Hopkins to “forgive Dr. Darren Klugman,” Klugman helped treat his daughter, who was born with congenital heart defects.
“His apology should be accepted,” Halper wrote. “As the father of a Klugman patient, I know he means it. Why? Because I witnessed with my own eyes how he delivered medical care.”
A USC professor is barred from campus over filmed anti-Hamas remarks
While Klugman was placed on leave over explicitly anti-Palestinian posts, a USC economics professor, John Strauss, was asked to stay off campus after students filmed him calling for the death of Hamas.
Strauss was also informed by USC’s provost that he is under investigation following several student complaints filed against him through the university’s Equal Employment Opportunity/Title IX office. Harris, his attorney, says it’s wrong for USC to be investigating him.
“I do not think the investigation is appropriate,” said Harris, a former attorney with the campus free-speech legal group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “University administrations perform absolutely no gatekeeping function when it comes to student complaints. They simply are categorically unwilling to say to a student, ‘No, I’m sorry, we have policies that protect the right to free speech.’”
Harris wouldn’t comment on Strauss’ legal strategy.
Strauss was filmed telling students, “Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are killed.” He made his remarks at a campus pro-Palestinian protest.
Some students and pro-Palestinian groups later claimed online that Strauss had been referring to all Palestinians, rather than just Hamas, and that he had stepped on their memorials to Gazans killed by the Israeli military. But Strauss told the Los Angeles Times that he wasn’t referring to all Palestinians and did not step on the memorial deliberately.
“I am Jewish and very pro-Israel, so I shouted, ‘Israel forever. Hamas are murderers,’” he said.
Harris told JTA that Strauss’ speech should be protected: “Saying ‘I hope people die’ is not a threat.”
Strauss will still be permitted to teach students virtually through the current semester, which ends this week. A USC spokesperson told JTA that Strauss “has in no way been disciplined for engaging in protective speech,” describing his removal from campus as “a precautionary measure” that’s “designed to minimize disruption in the classroom and to ensure a safe environment for both him and students.”
Harris disputed USC’s characterization of its actions toward Strauss. “It clearly is being considered a disciplinary measure,” she said. She also pointed to what she said was a “perceived double standard” in which universities are more willing to discipline inflammatory pro-Israel speech than pro-Palestinian comments, pointing to recent USC protests in which students chanted, “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution.”
“As far as I know, the people who chanted that are not under investigation,” she said.
A petition demanding USC bring Strauss back to campus has more than 19,000 signatures, while a competing petition demanding he be fired has a little over 7,200.
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The post Universities take action against pro-Israel faculty for inflammatory speech about Israel-Hamas war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
Meta Platforms, Inc. has banned the infamous Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) anti-Zionist student group from its platforms, a decision that the company says is irrevocable.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD is responsible for spreading pro-Hamas propaganda, assaulting Jewish students, and disrupting academic study at Columbia with unauthorized demonstrations and property destruction. Its behavior, among other factors, drove the Trump administration’s cancellation in March of $400 million in federal contracts and grants awarded to Columbia.
CUAD first reported that Meta shuttered its Instagram account on Monday, denouncing the measure as being part of “a long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people.” Meta later justified the decision to Jewish Insider, explaining that CUAD had forced the company’s hand by ceaselessly transgressing the platform’s terms of use of agreement. Meta forbids groups which advocate violence to operate on Instagram, and CUAD has used its account to call for toppling the Israeli and US governments. Additionally, its Instagram account has been essential for promoting unlawful demonstrations CUAD continues to hold at Columbia University and for sharing resources that have helped its collaborators avoid punishment.
Meta told Jewish Insider that the group won’t be allowed back.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD’s activities have been described as a threat to the civil rights and security of Jewish Columbia University students.
Last April, CUAD members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unlawful gathering, hundreds of CUAD members and their affiliates reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order. During ensuing clashes with law enforcement, one student screamed “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” while others shouted, “Long live Hamas!” and filmed themselves praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the US-designated terrorist group.
In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, the group distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel. Several sections of the document were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
In February, CUAD committed infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts.
Following two occupations of administrative buildings at Barnard College, Laura Rosenbury, the school’s president, denounced the group as a paranoid hate-organization.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote in an op-ed published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve.”
Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is set to headline a conference that is also hosting a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization, according to documents obtained by The Algemeiner.
The Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) in New Jersey will hold its annual conference, titled “Grounded in Action: Exploring the Power of the Palestinian Diaspora,” from Thursday through Sunday. Wisam Rafeedie, a self-admitted member of the PFLP, will address the conference virtually on the 4th day of the event.
According to PACC’s website, the conference “is a call to recommit ourselves to amplifying and supporting the Palestinian voices and advocates who have long been at the forefront of our struggle.” PACC also calls on members of the Palestinian diaspora “to leverage our unique positions and power” to “push for meaningful action.””
Tlaib is scheduled to headline the event’s “Youth Day,” in which she will host a reading and signing for her new children’s book, Mama in Congress, alongside her son Adam Tlaib. According to Harper Collins, the book’s publisher, Mama in Congress will chronicle Tlaib’s journey from Detroit to the halls of the federal government. The book will also detail Tlaib’s supposed efforts in working toward “justice for all” in Congress.
The conference will include several workshops educating attendees on “resistance,” “solidarity,” and “collective struggle.” The event will also feature a session stressing the importance of “centering Palestinian prisoners.”
This is not the first time that Tlaib has come under scrutiny for attending a pro-Palestinian conference tied to terrorists. Last May, Tlaib came under fire for speaking at the “The People’s Conference for Palestine,” which also hosted Rafeedie among other individuals connected to terrorist groups. During that event, Rafeedie praised Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza and murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “resistance” against Israel. He defended and downplayed Hamas’s atrocities, saying that “Zionists lie like they breathe.”
“This is not a struggle between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is part of the resistance of the Palestinian people. The core issue is between the Palestinian people and the project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” Rafeedie said.
Rafeedie also called for the complete destruction of Israel and the replacement of the Jewish state with a “democratic” Palestine.
“There is no longer a place for the two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Rafeedie continued.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians and urged the Biden administration when it was in power to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid.
Tlaib’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her
An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A Brooklyn woman who was charged for a car crash on Saturday that killed a Jewish woman and her two young daughters has alleged in the past on social media that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is following her, a claim she also made to first responders after the fatal accident.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, is facing multiple charges, including three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault. Yarimi — a Brooklyn resident and wigmaker who is also a Jewish mother herself – was transported to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn in stable condition. She was then moved to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, according to reports.
The car crash killed Natasha Saada, 32, and her daughters – 8-year-old Diana and 6-year-old Deborah. Saada’s son Philip, 4, was injured in the crash and hospitalized at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park in critical condition. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Yarimi, a single mother who has a young daughter, and she is awaiting arraignment in connection to the crash that took place Saturday afternoon at an intersection on Ocean Parkway off Quentin Road in Midwood. Police said she was driving with a suspended license at the time of the crash.
“This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “A mother and two young children killed, another child fighting for his life, a family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant. The NYPD sends its condolences to the family of the victims.”
Yarimi, who shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, reportedly told first responders with the Jewish-led volunteer ambulance service Hatzalah that she was “possessed” and that she believes the CIA was pursing her.
She has made similar claims about the CIA many times on Instagram, a former customer of hers told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. The source, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased a wig from Yarimi several years ago and has been following her on social media for a number of years. Yarimi has 16,000 followers on Instagram and screenshots of her since-deleted posts, obtained by The Algemeiner, confirm she previously believed that the CIA is tracking her.
“It’s very convenient to plead insanity. But it’s not new. She is actually insane. This is [an] old topic,” the former client told The Algemeiner. “She thinks that she’s been followed by CIA for a long, long time already. She truly believes that CIA is spying on her … But only people who follow her [on social media] and know her for a long time would know this. She’s sick.”
In one since-deleted Instagram post, Yarimi wrote in part about the CIA: “They have control of EVERYONE here in this world BESIDES ME … when I went to Miami, it all clicked … once they knew that I knew, they followed me around the hotel, dressed up as young parents with a doona [stroller] and disco outfits like I was stupid and didn’t know who they were … if anything they stuck out like glue.”
“It was the government, blackjack, and the CIA who manipulated everyone and took control of everyone’s mind but because I was the catalyst and the sacrificial lamb so they did their best to break me,” she wrote in a separate post that has also been deleted. “They experimented (abused) me and that’s when they cloned my daughter and I so when I die, they could reinsert me into the crowd and make me into another person.”
Yarimi previously had a highlight on her Instagram page where she talked about demons and the CIA, but it has since been deleted, her former customer told The Algemeiner. Yarimi also wrote on her Instagram Story once that she believes Hollywood is trying to clone people to look like her.
“Why do you think most of the girls in Hollywood have similar features to me like Rita Ora & Jane the Virgin etc,” Yarimi once wrote on Instagram, as seen in a screenshot shared with The Algemeiner. “Wake up, this is not just happening in Hollywood. This is happening right here in the Jewish community in Brooklyn.”
Not long after she uploaded the Instagram posts, Yarimi was admitted to a psychiatric ward and when she returned to social media, she spoke about the experience, the source told The Algemeiner.
“After the above posts she was locked up for two weeks in a psych ward. She’s very public. She went live when paramedics broke into her house and took her. She came back online two weeks later and spoke about her psych ward experience,” Yarimi’s follower said. “And it was saved in her [Instagram] highlights as well … It was horrible.”
The Algemeiner has seen a copy of Yarimi’s Instagram video that shows police drag her out of bed after she refused their orders to get up by herself. In the clip, three police officers are seen in her bedroom and a fourth is standing by the doorway.
Another longtime Instagram follower of Yamini’s described her as “delusional” when speaking to The Algemeiner, and confirmed that Yamini has spoken online repeatedly in the past about how she believes the CIA is tracking her.
In December 2024, Yarimi won a $2 million settlement from the city of New York after she filed a lawsuit claiming that former NYPD Officer George Mastrokostas repeatedly raped her for several years after falsely arresting her.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Deputy Chief Richie Taylor attended the funeral for Saada and her daughters on Sunday in Brooklyn before their bodies were flown to Israel for burial. Saada is survived by her husband, Sidney Saada, her sons Philip and Jacob, her parents and three siblings. Adams called the crash “a tragic accident of a Shakespearean proportion.”
“A mother going for a simple stroll on a sunny day was struck and killed. As we pray for their families and this entire community, the city mourns this loss,” he added.
Police said Yarimi was driving a blue Audi A3 sedan when she rear-ended a 2023 silver Toyota Camry with TLC plates that was carrying four passengers – a mother and three children. NYPD Commissioner Tisch said the force of the crash caused the Toyota Camry to be pushed aside, while the Audi moved forward, crashing into Saada and her children as they were crossing the street before the car overturned. Saada and her two daughters were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Toyota Camry, a 62-year-old man, was hospitalized in stable condition. The four passengers inside his car sustained minor injuries and were also hospitalized, according to Tisch.
Yarimi’s car had 99 parking and camera violations between August 2023 and March 2025, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets, Eyewitness News ABC 7 reported, citing a website that tracks vehicle violations using city data. She had nearly $10,500 in fines and a car with the same license plate as Yarimi’s still has $1,345 in unpaid fines, the news outlet also revealed.
The post Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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