RSS
US Jewish day schools are enrolling Israeli children who have been displaced by war
(JTA) — More than a month after the start of the school year, Jewish day schools across the United States are experiencing a surge of new students: Israeli children whose own schools have been shuttered by war.
Within days after Hamas’ attack on Israel Oct. 7, Prizmah, the North American network for Jewish day schools, began getting calls from school leaders about accepting Israeli students amid the war.
So far, 50 schools have sent inquiries, according to CEO Paul Bernstein, trying to figure out everything from how to incorporate students who are not fluent in English to how to cover the unexpected expenses of new families who hadn’t planned on paying for school.
“It’s really not a trivial question to take in a student during the year,” Bernstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
And yet many of those schools have Israeli children newly on their rosters, with others joining them this week — a testament, Bernstein said, to the drive that Jewish day schools have to support Israel and Israelis.
“We think it’s an important contribution that a school can make to its community,” he said. “Of course, none of us wants Israelis to be disconnected from home and not able to be in Israel, but where they are here and with us, every school wants to do as much as possible to support them.”
Israeli schools were at the tail end of a Sukkot holiday break when Hamas attacked, sending the country into crisis and eliciting the largest-ever call-up of Israeli soldiers. Schools remained closed for more than a week before a scattershot reopening began, with some schools holding classes on Zoom and others, in relatively safe zones and with adequate bomb shelters, holding frequently interrupted classes in person. Two weeks after the attack, just 40% of the schools that are permitted to operate in person are doing so.
Given the uncertainty, some families that were visiting the United States during the holiday break have opted to stay. And others have chosen to join them, relocating temporarily from Israel for the relative safety and stability of the United States.
In northern New Jersey, 14 students from Israel had enrolled by the end of last week at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County. Another nine were in discussions about enrolling, according to Steve Freedman, the head of school, who said most of those who have enrolled so far have strong English proficiency and family connections in the area.
An Israeli flag flies outside the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County in New Milford, New Jersey, March 30, 2022. (Courtesy SSDS Communication))
Since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, four families at the school have already mourned relatives killed in Israel.
“It’s not like our children don’t know that there’s a war going on or a conflict, however it’s described to them by their parents, in Israel,” Freedman said. “So they know that there are families who are staying here right now during the war. And so they know that they’re welcoming children who left their home and they’re very excited to welcome them and be their friend and it’s actually very sweet.”
Homework is optional for the new Israeli students. As they adjust to their new school, expectations will change, but for now, teachers are “feeling out what they’re up to doing,” Freedman explained. For older students, who use MacBooks in the classroom, more laptops are being ordered.
“Our community is completely overwhelmed by what we’re doing in the most positive way,” Freedman said. “There’s a real sense of pride that our community is doing it.”
New students have also enrolled in schools in New York, Maryland, California and elsewhere in New Jersey. In most cases, the schools are not necessarily counting on any tuition payments.
“The mitzvah on our end is just taking them all in and the money’s not the issue,” said Freedman, whose school is taking the rare step of charging monthly tuition for the Israeli families, in acknowledgment of their desire to go home, and waiving payments for families for whom that is an impediment.
“They’re not receiving handouts. This is like a dignity thing,” he said. “And so we’re just feeling each family out so that they’re comfortable and can do what they can do without feeling badly in any way.”
The Rodeph Sholom School in Manhattan is taking the same approach, according to Danny Karpf, the head of school.
“We’re just saying, ‘Come,’” he said. “What we’re going to start doing is saying people can pay what they feel comfortable paying on a monthly basis, as they’re here.”
Across the board, the usual admissions process has been pared down to the basics.
“Let’s make sure we have a phone number, we know who the parent is, we can reach them in an emergency, we need to know if they have allergies,” Karpf said, rolling off the barebones requirements. “We need to know how old they are, so we know what class to put them in, and let’s figure it out.”
Many of the dozen or so new students at Rodeph Sholom do not speak English. But the school is already built for that, Karpf explained, with a program for kids who don’t speak English fluently, and a Hebrew program for Hebrew speakers.
The next steps, he said, are figuring out how to fit as many students as possible in the school, and then raising money to meet their needs. (An Israeli initiative to support Jewish day schools has distributed resources to support teaching about the war but not yet any funding.)
“We have so many families in our community who are directly affected in many ways,” Karpf said. “It’s a way for our children who were already here, whether they’re Israeli or not, to feel more proximate to the conflict in a meaningful way, where children can connect with children and know that they are actually making a difference in comforting and supporting and befriending children who are directly impacted by their family and friends being attacked.”
On Monday, the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy & Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, an Orthodox school in New Jersey, announced that it had already taken in 11 students from five families and expected more to come.
“We are grateful to our JKHA faculty who are seamlessly transitioning students to their classrooms, working together with families to ensure their children acclimate and have a smooth transition to our school and to our students during this trying time,” the school wrote on Facebook.
In Maryland, a pair of Israeli siblings began classes Wednesday at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, a pluralistic school that already has resources in place to support Israeli students. (The school serves many families of Israeli diplomats assigned to Washington, D.C.). Three more students are set to start classes this week, including another pair of siblings, and inquiries have come to the elementary, middle and high school divisions.
The school — which is mournin a recent graduate killed Friday while serving in the Israeli army — has guidance counselors in place as well as a program for students who are not yet fluent in English. By the end of the week, the new students already had invitations for weekend activities, said Dorie Ravick, director of admissions at the lower school.
“I spoke to one of our current families who is having one of the new students over on Sunday. So they’re really doing their best to welcome everyone,” she said.
Ravick said not all of the children fully understood the reason for their new classmates.
“They don’t necessarily know why they’re coming because they’re still pretty little,” she said. “The younger ones are just excited to have a new friend.”
The welcoming committees have been out in full force at other schools, too, as local Jewish families look for ways to make a difference at a time of crisis.
“Our parents are tripping over each other to try to make these families feel welcome to the point that we have to say, ‘Give them some time. They need some time to acclimate,’” said Freedman, of Solomon Schechter Day School in New Jersey. “In really bad times, you’re seeing some of the best of who we are.”
—
The post US Jewish day schools are enrolling Israeli children who have been displaced by war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Radiohead Guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Israel’s Dudu Tassa Cancel Concerts After ‘Threats,’ BDS Pressure
Jonny Greenwood performs on stage at Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone with his band The Smile.
Photo: Valeria Magri / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Radiohead guitarist and keyboardist Jonny Greenwood and Israeli Mizrahi singer Dudu Tassa canceled two upcoming concerts together in the United Kingdom following “threats” by supporters of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, the two performers announced in a joint statement on Tuesday.
“The venues and their blameless staff have received enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed,” Greenwood and Tassa said in the statement. “Promoters of the shows can’t be expected to fund our, or our audience’s, protection.”
Greenwood and Tassa were expected to perform together in Bristol on June 23 and two days later in London. The British musician and Israeli singer released a joint album in 2023 titled “Jarak Qaribak,” which features vocalists and musicians from various countries in the Middle East. Tassa – who is of Iraqi, Jewish, and Yemeni descent – has been collaborating with Greenwood since 2008. Tassa’s band – Dudu Tassa and the Kuwaitis – was also Radiohead’s opening act for their spring tour in the US in 2017.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) claimed the concerts in Hackney Church in east London and the Lantern Hall at Bristol Beacon were canceled following “peaceful BDS pressure.” The anti-Israel campaign believe the shows “would have whitewashed Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and underlying settler-colonial apartheid.” They welcomed the cancellation of the two concerts and urged all venues to boycott future concerts by the duo. PACBI also reiterated calls to have venues boycott any future shows by Greenwood, including with Radiohead, “unless they convincingly distance themselves, at a minimum, from his consistent, shameful complicity in artwashing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
Radiohead has previously performed in Israel.
In their statement on Tuesday, Greenwood and Tassa condemned efforts by BDS supporters who pushed for the two concerts next month to be canceled.
“Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing,” they said. “Intimidating venues into pulling our shows won’t help achieve the peace and justice everyone in the Middle East deserves. This cancellation will be hailed as a victory by the campaigners behind it, but we see nothing to celebrate and don’t find that anything positive has been achieved.”
The musicians also pointed out that the performers featured on “Jarak Qaribak” hail from countries across the Middle East, including Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. “The silencing campaign has demanded that the venues ‘reaffirm [their] commitment to ethical, inclusive cultural programming.’ Just not this particular mix of cultures, apparently,” they said.
“For some on the right, we’re playing the ‘wrong’ kind of music — too inclusive, too aware of the rich and beautiful diversity of Middle Eastern culture. For some on the left, we’re only playing it to absolve ourselves of our collective sins. We dread the weaponization of this cancellation by reactionary figures as much as we lament its celebration by some progressives” Greenwood and Tassa added.
“We believe art exists above and beyond politics,” they further noted. “That art that seeks to establish the common identity of musicians across borders in the Middle East should be encouraged, not decried; and that artists should be free to express themselves regardless of their citizenship or their religion — and certainly regardless of the decisions made by their governments.”
Greenwood and Tassa additionally cited a statement made by a collective of British artists who recently defended the Irish rap trio Kneecap, after some of their concerts were canceled because of hateful comments made by group members, which include calling for the deaths of members of Parliament in the UK.
“We feel the need to register our opposition to any political repression of artistic freedom,” dozens of bands and singers said in defense of Kneecap. “In a democracy, no political figures or political parties should have the right to dictate who does and does not play at music festivals or gigs that will be enjoyed by thousands of people.”
Greenwood and Tassa said in their statement: “We have no judgment to pass on Kneecap but note how sad it is that those supporting their freedom of expression are the same ones most determined to restrict ours.”
“We feel great admiration, love. and respect for all the performers in this band, especially the Arab musicians and singers who have shown amazing bravery and conviction in contributing to our first record, and in touring with us,” they said in conclusion. “Their artistic achievements are toweringly important, and we hope one day you will get to hear us play these songs – love songs mostly … If that happens, it won’t be a victory for any country, religion or political cause. It’ll be a victory for our shared love and respect of the music – and of each other.”
Greenwood and Tassa also faced backlash from BDS supporters, including threats, when they performed together in festivals across Europe in the summer of 2024. The duo’s concert in Israel that same year was also condemned by pro-BDS activists, who seek to isolate Israel internationally as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Greenwood is married to Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, whose nephew was killed in 2024 while serving in the Israel Defense Forces during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Last year, she wrote an op-ed for Haaretz defending her husband’s decision to perform in Israel while condemning boycotters who were “demonizing Israelis and Jews.”
The post Radiohead Guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Israel’s Dudu Tassa Cancel Concerts After ‘Threats,’ BDS Pressure first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
New York Legal Aid Union Accused of Blocking Antisemitism Reforms
Illustrative: Anti-Israel demonstrators protest near the Met Gala, an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, in New York City, US, May 5, 2025. Photo: Ryan Murphy via Reuters Connect.
A New York area labor union has been accused of enabling antisemitic discrimination in complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), both US government agencies, The Algemeiner has learned.
Submitted by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Tuesday, the complaints charge that the New York Legal Assistance Group’s (NYLAG) union — A Better NYLAG (ABN) — “actively obstructed” measures that would have reduced antisemitic activity at the nonprofit, which receives copious public funding from the local government. After nearly two years of alleged abuses and smear campaigns, the Brandeis Center said, Jewish NYLAG employees are seeking a legal remedy as a last resort to protect their rights and save an institution at risk of losing its reputation for fostering justice and equality before the law.
“Jewish American union members, like all other working people, are entitled to union representation that supports them fairly and equally against toxic environments,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a press release announcing the actions. “In this case, the union actually made things worse, actively attempting to block management efforts to address a workplace that had been made inhospitable for Jewish workers. This is exactly the opposite of what unions should be doing.”
Marcus, a former assistant secretary for civil rights at the US Education Department, added, “We must hold labor unions accountable when they exacerbate antisemitic environments, just as we do with universities, public schools, and other institutions.”
According to the complaints, antisemitism emerged at NYLAG and ABN following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, with employees using the workspace as a platform for endorsing the terrorist organization’s atrocities of rape and murder of the young and elderly. After, for example, NYLAG attempted to console Jewish employees by sending an email which acknowledged the severity of Hamas’s violence, ABN followed up by accusing Israel of “occupation and war crimes.” Such behavior continued in different forms at NYLAG, wholly endorsed by ABN, the Brandeis Center said.
At one point, a NYLAG employee allegedly distributed buttons which said, “Resisting colonialism is not terrorism.” Soon, pro-Hamas arts and crafts began appearing in NYLAG common spaces. “Respect existence or expect resistance,” said one homemade poster to which its creator clipped red and green butterflies. “Long live the resistance,” said another. Facing a deluge of complaints from outraged Jewish employees, NYLAG’s general counsel imposed a neutrality policy on the organization’s common spaces, forbidding partisan political expression that deviated from its purpose.
Rather than facilitating the policy’s success as an antidiscrimination measure, ABN, a chapter of United Autoworkers of America (UAW), accused the nonprofit of violating the “the National Labor Relations Act, which protects our right to protest unfair working conditions” and declared its intent to “file an unfair labor practice” charge against it. Avoiding a protracted legal fight with its own union, NYLAG never enforced the rule despite pleas from Jewish employees.
“These signs demonstrate propaganda meant to demonize Jews and/or Zionists and Israel,” one employee wrote to upper management just last month, according to the complaint. “I am unable to work in this environment, so I often work in areas of the office without so many sings. These signs are having the discriminatory effect of pushing Jewish people and/or Zionists out of these spaces. As a Jewish person, I should not have to work in such close proximity to signs that direct hatred towards me.”
The complaint requests relief which would enforce ABN’s compliance with fair representations guaranteed in NLRA bylaws and terminate its “interference” with NYLAG’s efforts to purge its organization of antisemitism.
In Tuesday’s press release, Brandeis Center senior counsel and former New York City Council member Rory Lancman said, “These Jewish legal services attorneys have dedicated their professional lives to representing poor and marginalized New Yorkers facing eviction, deportation, and loss of access to health care and other critical government services, so imagine their shock and disappointment when their own union sided with those marginalizing them and fomenting an antisemitic, toxic work environment.”
More Jewish professionals are experiencing workplace discrimination, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
According to a new study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department, antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate.
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish health-care professionals employed by campus-based medical centers reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author Alexandra Fishman said on Monday in a statement. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New York Legal Aid Union Accused of Blocking Antisemitism Reforms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Lawmakers Pen Letter to Wikimedia Foundation Expressing ‘Concern’ Over Anti-Israel Bias
The US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
A bipartisan group of 23 US lawmakers sent a letter to the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website expressing concern over allegedly explicit and extensive anti-Israel bias demonstrated on the popular online encyclopedia.
The letter, which was sent on April 30, called on the Wikimedia Foundation to tackle “antisemitism, anti-Israel bias, and the potential abuse of Wikipedia by coordinated actors.”
The move by US lawmakers comes amid mounting scrutiny over the practices of Wikipedia’s editing process, with critics alleging that high-ranking editors of the online encyclopedia have abused their power to portray Israel in an overtly biased and negative light.
Among those who signed onto the letter were: Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Ted Lieu (D-CA), George Latimer (D-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (D-PA), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Don Bacon (R-NE), Grace Meng (D-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Thomas Kean (R-NJ).
The letter cited a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an advocacy organization that combats antisemitism, which accused a group of “malicious” Wikipedia editors of violating the website’s policies for over two decades by coordinating the insertion of anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives and lies into articles. Specifically, according to the letter, the report found at least “30 Wikipedia editors who have significantly undermined the platform’s credibility, making more than 1.5 million edits over the past decade to gradually and systematically distort neutral narratives on articles related to Israel, pushing an antisemitic, pro-Hamas, anti-Zionist, and anti-Israel agenda.”
The letter alleged that this “long-running, coordinated scheme” at Wikipedia undermines the site’s commitment to presenting information on controversial topics in a fair and neutral manner.
Last week, the US Justice Department under President Donald Trump said it launched an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation amid accusations that the online encyclopedia it operates has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel. Edward Martin, the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a letter to the nonprofit, warning the organization that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law.
Meanwhile, the lawmakers in their own letter called on Wikimedia to implement a series of changes to ensure accuracy and non-biased editing on the website. They urged the nonprofit to investigate whether these editors were “covertly acting” on behalf of “Iran, Hamas, and other antagonistic foreign entities” and suggested the online encyclopedia enhance oversight of editors to prevent “biased or coordinated manipulation of content.”
The legislators requested information on how Wikimedia plans on preventing future issues of “antisemitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Israel bias among its editors.” Moreover, the letter demanded the organization provide Congress “data on content disputes, edit reversions, and administrator actions related to antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel bias.”
Wikipedia has been embroiled in controversy over allegations that its editors have spearheaded campaigns to defame Israel, casting doubt over the site’s commitment to providing information on controversial subjects in a factual and neutral manner. A group of high-ranking Wikipedia editors has engaged in an elaborate and systematic effort to depict the Jewish state’s history in an overtly negative light, according to investigative reports by Pirate Wires and Jewish Journal.
The cohort of Wikipedia editors has softened the image of Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas through removing any mention of their 1988 charter, which calls for the complete massacre of Jews and elimination of Israel. The editors also edited an article on Zionism, describing the movement for Jewish self-determination as “an ethnocultural nationalistmovement” which was “pursued through the colonization of Palestine.”
“Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible,” the Wikipedia article on Zionism read.
Though the editors have steadily embedded an anti-Israel bias for years, efforts ramped up shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to researchers and investigative journalists. The group, for example, added an article titled “Gaza Genocide” in November 2024, heavily implying that Israel has waged a campaign of ethnic extermination in the Gaza enclave.
Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) announced on April 25 that it had banned two editors from the popular online encyclopedia over “off-wiki misconduct” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The committee revealed that it had reviewed a 244-page dossier which exposed the conduct of members participating in the “Tech For Palestine” Discord channel.
“The Arbitration Committee has reviewed a dossier of ‘Tech4Palestine’ Discord server related evidence and has determined that, as of this time, the concerns raised have been adequately addressed,” ArbCom wrote. “The evidence has been retained by the committee to be used, if necessary, to corroborate additional evidence received.”
The post US Lawmakers Pen Letter to Wikimedia Foundation Expressing ‘Concern’ Over Anti-Israel Bias first appeared on Algemeiner.com.