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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.”
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The post US Jewish day schools are enrolling Israeli children who have been displaced by war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Democrats in the US Congress are largely defending a leading anti-Israel agitator at Columbia University in New York following news of his arrest and detainment by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian from Syria who completed post-graduate studies at Columbia in December, was apprehended by federal authorities on Saturday night and transported to an immigration jail in Louisiana. The pro-Hamas activist was informed that his green card had been revoked and that he would be deported from the United States.
In a statement, the US Department of Homeland Security said ICE agents arrested Khalil “in support of” an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump aimed at combating antisemitism on university campuses.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security,” the department said.
US President Donald Trump defended Khalil’s arrest and said it will be the first of many.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitism, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Many are not students; they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
However, a federal judge in New York City on Monday ordered that Khalil not be deported by the Trump administration until the court ruled on a lawsuit presented by his lawyers. According to ICE, the activist is currently being held at the Lasalle Detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil’s case is set to be heard on Wednesday.
Many observers criticized Khalil’s arrest and detainment, arguing that the Trump administration both violated his right to due process and undermined free speech. Critics also argued that the Trump administration does not possess the right to unilaterally revoke green cards from legal residents.
Congressional Democrats largely condemned the ICE arrest of Khalil, arguing that the Trump administration should release the pro-Hamas activist immediately.
“The warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, lambasted the arrest, posted on social media that detaining a legal resident “for exercising his right to free speech is something we’d expect from Russia — NOT AMERICA [sic].”
The official BlueSky account of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused the Trump administration of seeking retribution against Khalil for expressing “his First Amendment rights in a way Donald Trump didn’t like” and condemned the White House for practicing “straight up authoritarianism.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most outspoken critics against Israel in Congress, said that Khalil’s arrest is part of a broader effort “to shred our constitutional rights to free speech and due process.” In addition, Tlaib spearheaded a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that Khalil be “freed from DHS custody immediately.” Thirteen other Democrats signed the letter.
The letter argued that Khalil has “not been charged or convicted of any crime” and that the Trump administration targeted him “solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader,” as well as his efforts in opposing Israel’s “brutal assault of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The missive also claimed that the arrest of Khalil represents another example of the Trump administration’s purported “anti-Palestinian racism” and accused the White House of trying to dismantle the “Palestine solidarity movement in this country.” The lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s tactics against Khalil “will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda.”
Some observers noted out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most vocal opponents of the Jewish state in the US Congress, did not sign onto the letter calling for Khalil’s release. Though Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out in defense of Khalil, some on the political left have repudiated her for not taking more strident anti-Israel stances in the 16 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel. The lawmaker came under fire by some of the political left last summer for calling for the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) also repudiated the arrest, writing that Khalil is “entitled to First Amendment protections like everyone in this country.”
Despite the widespread backlash over Khalil’s arrest, many congressional Republicans praised the announcement, arguing that the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to protect Jewish Americans and clamp down on antisemitism.
While at Columbia, Khalil spearheaded multiple pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus. He was a participant in Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a constellation of 100 anti-Israel campus organizations calling for the Ivy League institution to cut ties with the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of Khalil’s arrest, video circulated online showing the activist leading a takeover of a campus building at neighboring Barnard College. During the unsanctioned demonstration, activists spread pamphlets glorifying the Hamas Oct. 7 massacres across southern Israel.
In addition, Khalil helped lead the infamous Hamilton Hall takeover on Columbia’s campus in the final weeks of the 2023-2024 school year.
US Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended Khalil’s arrest, saying, “If you are on a student visa and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) condemned Democrats for “fighting for a pro-Hamas foreigner who has made life hell for Jews on campus.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) also lauded the detainment of Khalil, writing that “obtaining a US visa is a privilege, not a right. Friends of Hamas — don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 slaughters across Israel, Columbia University has emerged as a hotbed of anti-Israel student activism. Last spring, anti-Israel students and faculty erected a student encampment, protesting the university’s ties to the Jewish state. Moreover, Columbia has suffered an exodus of financial support from Jewish donors and alumni, alleging that the university has dragged its feet in combating antisemitism on campus.
Last week, the Trump administration cut $400 million in grants originally intended for Columbia, arguing that the university has not done enough to protect Jewish students. Mounting pressure from the Trump administration reportedly caused the university to collaborate with ICE to detain Khalil.
The post US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 16, 2024. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Majid Asgaripour via REUTERS
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they [the US] give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want,” state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has warned.
Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
The post Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Three young Syrian men rioted in front of the Jewish Museum in Munich this past weekend, spitting on photographs of Israeli hostages and deceased soldiers before one of the assailants threatened security personnel with a knife.
The incident, first reported by German media, was one of the latest antisemitic cases in a country that has experienced a surge in open hatred toward Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
During the Gaza conflict, the Jewish Museum has displayed photographs of hostages taken by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel as well as deceased Israeli soldiers, along with candles, to honor and remember them.
On Saturday afternoon, three men — Syrian citizens living in Austria — vandalized the memorial by spitting on it while shouting antisemitic slogans, the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Jüdische Allgemeine reported.
After witnessing the attack, two employees from the Jewish community’s security service tried to stop the assailants, who responded aggressively. One of the three men, a 19-year-old, allegedly kicked one of the employees before drawing a knife.
Several police officers assigned to protect the Jewish Center, located next to the museum, noticed the incident and intervened. Soon afterward, more than 30 officers arrived at the scene. Police and security guards had to threaten to use their firearms before the teenager dropped the knife.
According to local police, the man and his two accomplices, a 20-year-old and a 31-year-old, have all been arrested and are under investigation for threats, assault, defamation, and insulting the memory of the deceased.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over the case, with senior prosecutor Andreas Franck, who also serves as the antisemitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, overseeing the case.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview in 2023.
Earlier this year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the ongoing discrimination faced by the Jewish community, calling it “outrageous and shameful.”
Last month, Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, passed a motion to address antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in schools and universities, seeking to combat a surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and antisemitic incidents across the country.
Jewish students at German universities widely expressed a growing sense of insecurity and uneasiness following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, amid a slew of incidents purportedly meant to protest the war in Gaza.
The recently passed parliamentary motion stipulates that the federal government — in collaboration with the ministers of education and the German Rectors’ Conference, an association of state and state-recognized universities — must ensure that antisemitic behavior in educational institutions results in sanctions.
“This includes the consistent enforcement of house rules, temporary exclusion from classes or studies, and even … expulsion,” the motion reads.
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