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Visiting Israel, Eric Adams meets with antigovernment protesters

(New York Jewish Week) — On his first trip to Israel as mayor, Eric Adams made all of the expected stops — meeting with the prime minister and president, visiting the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, sampling from the offerings of the country’s tech scene.
But he added another, less traditional agenda item: a meeting with two organizers of the ongoing mass protest movement against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul.
The 40-minute meeting, which took place Tuesday at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, made Adams one of the most influential officials in the United States to engage directly with the protest movement while on a visit to Israel.
Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate, did not meet with protest leaders on their own trips earlier this year.
Karine Nahon, one of the protest organizers who met with Adams, celebrated the meeting as a sign of her movement’s impact.
“The significance is, first of all, in the meeting itself — the fact that senior leaders are coming and are meeting with leaders of the protests,” Nahon, a professor who studies information and society at Israel’s Reichman University, told the New York Jewish Week. “I think that in the last eight months many of the things happening in Israel are stemming from the protests.”
The protest movement, which has brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets weekly since the beginning of the year, opposes the Israeli government’s ongoing effort to weaken the country’s Supreme Court. The first component of the legislation passed in July and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to resume pushing the plan forward in the fall.
Adams met with a range of religious and business leaders and said that the three-day trip is focused on fighting antisemitism, increasing public safety and deepening connections between New York City and Israel’s tech industry. He met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and Yisrael Gantz, an official from Israel’s West Bank settlements, among other dignitaries. He also visited the Western Wall — where a picture released by his office showed him wearing a bracelet that said “Hustle” while placing his hands on the wall’s stones — and laid a wreath at Yad Vashem.
Adams met with Netanyahu later on Tuesday and, in a press conference that day, declined to take a position on the judicial overhaul. That sets him apart from other Democratic leaders, including President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly cautioned against the legislation in strong terms.
“It was great to meet, also, the leaders of Israel’s protest movement and just hear their thoughts because these are historical moments and I think we should all watch the history play out in all of our countries,” Adams said. “And I just want it to be here, not to interfere, but just to learn. And I’m aware that my trip comes at a pivotal moment for Israel, and I believe the people of Israel will make the determination on how they want to move forward.”
He also tweeted a picture from the meeting, writing, “Had an honest conversation with two leaders in Israel’s protest movement this morning about numerous issues at play here. I appreciate the opportunity to hear their diverse perspective.”
The meeting was organized by the UJA-Federation of New York, which helped facilitate the mayor’s visit to Israel. Along with Nahon and the mayor, the meeting was attended by tech investor and fellow protest organizer Gigi Levy-Weiss and UJA-Federation CEO Eric Goldstein.
UJA-Federation, which is a funder of 70 Faces Media, the New York Jewish Week’s parent company, referred all questions about the meeting to the mayor’s office. His office, in turn, referred to his comments at the press conference.
Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime New York City political consultant, called Adams the “greeter in chief” and said he wasn’t surprised by the mayor’s meeting with protest leaders. The meeting, Sheinkopf said, could be part of Adams’ efforts to prove his bona fides to the city’s progressive Jewish voters.
“Adams is trying to be, when it comes to Israel and it comes to Jews, all things to all people,” Sheinkopf said. “He’s got a lock on the more conservative and Orthodox, Hasidic groups. What he needs to do is get more of the liberals, and they’re in places like the Upper West Side and Park Slope, and he needs to get more of their votes in 2025. It makes him appear evenhanded.”
Nahon said Adams largely stuck to asking questions in the meeting and didn’t express his opinion on the judicial overhaul, though she felt he understood the protests’ message.
She and Levy-Weiss, she said, aimed to describe the overhaul and why they believe it will harm Israeli democracy by undermining the country’s checks and balances and separation of powers.
“The importance of preserving Israel as a Jewish and democratic state — that’s what this fight is about,” Nahon said, describing their message to Adams. “And we said clearly, you can’t be only a Jewish state, because then you essentially lose all your legitimacy, everything we’ve built here over the past 75 years. On the other hand, you can’t be only a democratic state — this combination of Jewish and democratic is what sustains us.”
The overhaul’s proponents believe the legislation will curb an overly activist court system and allow the government to better represent the country’s right-wing majority. The overhaul did not feature in a nearly-three minute video Netanyahu’s office posted to social media, which showed Adams and the prime minister’s staffs meeting in a conference room as well as the mayor tasting some products of Israel’s food tech startups.
“Throughout his visit, Mayor Adams has engaged in a range of activities and met with a variety of individuals that represent the diversity of Israel,” a spokesperson for the Israeli consulate in New York told the New York Jewish Week when asked about the meeting with protest organizers. “We respect his approach and the freedom of dialogue it represents.”
Nahon said she hopes the meeting leads Adams and other officials to reflect the voices of Israel’s citizens in their views and remarks about the country.
“It’s very important that everyone who loves Israel and is friends with Israel embraces the Israeli public,” she said. “I want to see them make statements of support for the Israeli public that’s fighting.”
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The post Visiting Israel, Eric Adams meets with antigovernment protesters appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Germany’s Halt to Arms Exports to Israel Is Response to Gaza Expansion Plans, Chancellor Says

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
Germany’s decision to curb arms exports to Israel comes in response to Israel’s plan to expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.
“We cannot deliver weapons into a conflict that is now being pursued exclusively by military means,” Merz said. “We want to help diplomatically, and we are doing so.”
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to take this historically fraught step.
The chancellor said in the interview that the expansion of Israel’s operations in Gaza could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and would require the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza.
“Where are these people supposed to go?” Merz said. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
Nevertheless, the principles of Germany’s Israel policy remain unchanged, the chancellor said.
“Germany has stood firmly by Israel’s side for 80 years. That will not change,” Merz said.
Germany is Israel’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the US and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, principally because of its historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
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Newsom Calls Trump’s $1 Billion UCLA Settlement Offer Extortion, Says California Won’t Bow

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference, accompanied by members of the Texas Democratic legislators, at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, California, U.S., August 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Saturday that a $1 billion settlement offer by President Donald Trump’s administration for UCLA amounted to political extortion to which the state will not bow.
The University of California says it is reviewing a $1 billion settlement offer by the Trump administration for UCLA after the government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over pro-Palestinian protests.
UCLA, which is part of the University of California system, said this week the government froze $584 million in funding. Trump has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over anti-Israel student protests.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the DOJ (Department of Justice) to kneecap America’s #1 public university system — freezing medical & science funding until @UCLA pays his $1 billion ransom,” the office of Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post.
“California won’t bow to Trump’s disgusting political extortion,” it added.
“This isn’t about protecting Jewish students – it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president.”
The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests and in doing so violated Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights. The White House had no immediate comment beyond the offer.
Experts have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the Republican president’s threats. The University of California says paying such a large settlement would “completely devastate” the institution.
Large demonstrations took place at UCLA last year. Last week, UCLA agreed to pay over $6 million to settle a lawsuit by some students and a professor who alleged antisemitism. It was also sued this year over a 2024 violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters.
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Trump Nominates State Dept Spokeswoman Bruce as US Deputy Representative to UN

FILE PHOTO: U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce speaks during her first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations.
Bruce has been the State Department spokesperson since Trump took office in January.
In a post on social media in which Trump announced her nomination, the president said she did a “fantastic job” as State Department spokesperson. Bruce will need to be confirmed for the role by the US Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority.
During press briefings, she has defended the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions ranging from an immigration crackdown and visa revocations to US responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, including a widely condemned armed private aid operation in the Palestinian territory.
Bruce was previously a political contributor and commentator on Fox News for over 20 years.
She has also authored books like “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda” that criticized liberals and left-leaning viewpoints.
In a post after Trump’s announcement, Bruce thanked him and suggested that the role was a “few weeks” away. Neither Trump nor Bruce mentioned an exact timeline in their online posts.
“Now I’m blessed that in the next few weeks my commitment to advancing America First leadership and values continues on the global stage in this new post,” Bruce wrote on X.
Trump has picked former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz to be his U.N. envoy. Waltz’s Senate confirmation for that role, wherein he will be Bruce’s boss, is still due.
Waltz was Trump’s national security adviser until he was ousted on May 1 after he was caught up in a March scandal involving a Signal chat among top Trump national security aides on military strikes in Yemen. Trump then nominated Waltz as his U.N. ambassador.