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UPenn to review event policies after Palestinian culture festival drew backlash
(JTA) — The University of Pennsylvania is launching a review of its policies “to be better aware of who is coming to campus,” the latest fallout from a recent Palestinian cultural festival featuring public figures accused of antisemitism.
The university also pledged last month to add antisemitism awareness training to its equity and inclusion programs for faculty, staff, and students.
The Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which ran Sep. 22-24 on Penn’s campus, attracted significant criticism from Jewish organizations that objected to names on the conference’s list of speakers. That roster included Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd frontman repeatedly accused of bigotry against Jews, along with others who, the group said, have used language that endorses Israel’s destruction.
In the leadup to the festival, the campus was also the site of two antisemitic incidents. On Sep. 13, a swastika was found in a painting booth in the school’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. A little more than a week later, a man who campus police said was “experiencing a crisis” entered Penn Hillel and vandalized the lobby, shouting profanities including “F—k the Jews” and “They killed JC,” a reference to the accusation that Jews killed Jesus.
Now, Scott Bok, who chairs the university’s board of trustees, has said the school will review its policies on allowing external groups to host events on campus, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The details and scope of the review are unclear, though it will not involve reviewing every on-campus speaker.
“Neither our board nor university leadership want to be in the business of vetting and approving each of the few thousand of speakers who are invited by faculty or student groups to speak on our campus each year,” Bok said. “That wouldn’t be appropriate. But our president has indicated that the university will look at some administrative processes to be better aware of who is coming to campus, particularly for large-scale events.”
The festival attracted 1,500 attendees, according to the Inquirer, though on the day he was scheduled to appear for a panel, Waters claimed in a video on Instagram that he was prohibited from entering Penn’s campus. The school denied that he was banned, and said it was given insufficient notice that he would be speaking in person, which would necessitate security upgrades. He appeared at the festival virtually.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.