Uncategorized
Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ron DeSantis may not have declared that he’s running for president yet, but his incipient campaign was on full display Thursday at a conference in Jerusalem, where he ran down a laundry list of issues relevant to Israel and American Jews.
Most of the Florida governor’s remarks reflected what has become Republican orthodoxy in the post-Donald Trump era: He supports Israeli West Bank settlements as well as keeping Jerusalem under full Israeli control. He wants the United States to be more aggressive toward Iran’s nuclear program. He vehemently opposes the movement to boycott Israel.
And he declined to take a position on the Israeli government’s effort to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power — which President Joe Biden has repeatedly criticized as a danger to Israeli democracy.
“We must also, in America, respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance,” he said. “You’re a smart country. You figure it out. It shouldn’t be for us to butt into these important issues.”.
He also pushed back at claims that his legislation has led to the banning of Holocaust books in his state, calling them “fake narratives” (though multiple Holocaust books have been banned). And, at a press conference, he signed a bill that aims to penalize antisemitic harassment. He also touted a new bill that gives vouchers worth thousands of dollars to parents who send their children to private schools.
“We’ve really seen a historic migration of American Jews and Israeli Americans moving to southern Florida,” he said. “It’s really, really boomed, and I think Florida’s policies have really reinforced that.”
DeSantis, who landed in Israel yesterday, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Thursday hosted by the Jerusalem Post at the Museum of Tolerance here. He received multiple standing ovations and cheers throughout the morning. At a press conference after his speech, some of his supporters sat among the journalists and clapped at his responses.
Israel is the latest on a four-stop international trip by DeSantis, who is expected to announce later this year that he will challenge former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. On the trip, he is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and other officials. His trip also includes stops in Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
“If there’s any announcements, those will come at the appropriate time,” he said in response to a question about his potential candidacy.
In his speech, DeSantis described his past support for Israel, advocating for the 2018 move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and, in 2019, holding a Florida cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He also told the crowd that he baptized his children with water from the Sea of Galilee and said he put a note in the Western Wall asking God to protect Florida from hurricane season.
An affinity for the Bible also played a role in DeSantis’ position on the West Bank, which he called “disputed” rather than “occupied.” He referred to the territory by the term “Judea and Samaria,” which is the Israeli government’s standard term for the area and also emphasizes its place in the Bible. He spoke of visits to the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel, as well as to the City of David, a Jewish neighborhood and archaeological site in eastern Jerusalem.
“We visited the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria,” he said during his speech regarding a previous trip. Later, at the press conference, he said, “Those are the most historic Jewish lands there are, going back thousands and thousands of years.”
He also came out staunchly in favor of continued Israeli control of eastern Jerusalem, claiming that it is the best way to ensure religious freedom in the city. Palestinians aspire for the city’s eastern area to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“With Israeli sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, people have the ability to practice their religion freely,” he said. “They have the ability to visit their sites freely. That would just actually not be true if that were in other hands.”
Although his Israel policies dovetail with those of Trump, and even though Trump’s Israel ambassador, David Friedman, was at the conference, DeSantis avoided saying the former president’s name in his speech, instead referring to “the previous administration.” He did say Trump’s name once during the press conference.
Following his speech, DeSantis announced partnerships with Israeli firms to develop tech products, and portrayed his state as an inviting home for Jews. He said the state had invested millions of dollars into synagogue security as well as Holocaust education. And he signed a bill that bans projecting threatening images on buildings without permission, as well as littering with the intent to intimidate.
Florida has seen an uptick recently in white supremacist activity. The Goyim Defense League, a far-right antisemitic group, relocated there last year. In October, several public spaces in Jacksonville displayed messages promoting the antisemitic ideas of rapper Kanye West. Neo-Nazis intimidated attendees at an Orlando-area Chabad center in February, and last week, police arrested a man for a March attack on a different Florida Chabad center.
“This is going to be able to provide more tools to be able to combat antisemitic activity,” DeSantis said. ״If you have a synagogue and someone shines a swastika-like image on that, they have a right to do the image for themselves, but putting it on someone else’s property, they’re defining that in this bill as a trespass.”
The signing of that bill, and DeSantis’ contention that he supports Holocaust education, comes as legislation he signed has enabled parents in the state to pursue bans of Holocaust literature. A South Florida school district library removed a Holocaust-themed novel by Jodi Picoult in March, and this month, a high school in the state removed a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary from its shelves.
Despite those instances and other bans parents are seeking, DeSantis claimed that there was no significant campaign to ban Holocaust books. He called that allegation the “book ban hoax.”
“Those are all fake narratives,” he said. “We’ve provided curriculum transparency for parents, to make sure that the curriculum used in school is transparent and to make sure everything is age appropriate and is not conflicting with Florida standards. And so, what parents have identified unfortunately are pornographic images in books.”
The legislation, which has targeted books about sexuality and gender, is at the center of DeSantis’ campaign to limit or ban discussion of those topics in schools. The law, called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill and dubbed by critics as the “Don’t say gay” bill, also bans discussion of LGBTQ topics between kindergarten and third grade, among other measures. It is one of a series of recent state laws limiting transgender rights.
That law is also at the center of DeSantis’ feud with Disney, the state’s largest employer, which just sued the governor for allegedly punishing the company for its criticism of the law. At the press conference, DeSantis said the suit is about Disney wanting “to be able to control things without proper oversight.”
DeSantis did not refer specifically to the Anne Frank graphic novel in his remarks, and said Florida had “beefed up” Holocaust education in the state. But a Jewish ally of his who accompanied him on the trip, Republican state Rep. Randy Fine, defended banning the book, which he called the “Anne Frank pornography book.”
“I read the diary of Anne Frank many times as a kid and I don’t remember any of that stuff that they put in that graphic novel,” Fine told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And frankly that graphic novel is antisemitic. To sexualize the diary of Anne Frank in that sort of inappropriate way, it is antisemitic.”
When told that the passages, which are authentic and relate to Frank’s attraction to another girl as well as a description of her own genitalia, have been included in the diary for decades, Fine said that the graphic novel was inappropriate regardless because it depicted the passages in an image.
“It wasn’t just that the passages were in the book,” he said. “It was how they were visualized.”
—
The post Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jan Schakowsky retracts endorsement in a congressional race over candidate’s AIPAC funding
(JTA) — Rep. Jan Schakowsky withdrew her endorsement of a congressional candidate in a neighboring Illinois district on Thursday, citing the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby as a reason.
Schakowsky endorsed Donna Miller, the Cook County commissioner, in the 2nd Congressional District last month. Now, she said, she cannot let her endorsement stand.
“Illinois deserves leaders who put voters first, not AIPAC or out-of-state Trump donors,” said Schakowsky, who herself was an AIPAC stalwart early in her tenure. “I cannot support any candidate running for Congress who is funded by these outside interests.”
Schakowsky’s comments reflected the increasing toxicity of AIPAC’s brand in Democratic politics — and an acknowledgment that the pro-Israel group is in fact playing a role in the district ahead of next month’s primary election.
Like two other candidates in different Illinois races, Miller has received contributions from a number of AIPAC-affiliated donors. She has also gotten boosts from ads paid for by brand-new local groups that have been accused of being AIPAC shell organizations.
But AIPAC has not endorsed her, and it has not put its name, or that of its affiliated super PAC, United Democracy Project, on any of the ads.
The dustup comes as AIPAC prepares to hold a major convening behind closed doors.
Back in early 2020, nearly 20,000 people attended AIPAC’s policy conference in Washington, D.C. When the group resumed in-person gatherings post-pandemic in 2023, it stuck with much smaller, closed-door affairs.
This week, after several years in which the lobby grew increasingly radioactive, fueled by backlash against the war in Gaza, the only public sign of its conference came from acknowledgement in Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had canceled his plans to attend in person.
An AIPAC source confirmed late Thursday that a conference was taking place Sunday to Tuesday and said it would feature U.S. politicians from both parties as well as Israeli officials, including Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid, by video. The gathering would focus on “the evolving threats facing Israel; the negotiations with Iran; solidarity with the Iranian people seeking freedom from a brutal regime; continued U.S. security assistance; and expanding joint defense cooperation,” according to the source, who said the conference was meant “to further accelerate the community’s political efforts this election cycle.”
Even before that cycle got underway, AIPAC was looming large. Having targeted progressive politicians like “Squad” members Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush in 2024, AIPAC drew the ire of many on the left. And its public image has become increasingly scrutinized as it has supported unconditional military aid to Israel throughout its war in Gaza.
This month’s primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District was a coming-out party for AIPAC’s current strategy. There, it spent more than $2 million to attack a progressive Democrat, Tom Malinowski, who had joined dozens of his colleagues in saying he would support conditions on military aid to Israel under certain circumstances. An anti-Israel progressive prevailed.
Now, the group has shifted its energies to Illinois, one of the next states to hold primaries, scheduled for March 17.
The United Democracy Project has so far spent more than $750,000 in support of Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th Congressional District, according to its federal filings.
Conyears-Ervin, a former state representative, is up against a crowded field that includes state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who said he turned down support from UDP because he would not support unconditional military aid to Israel; Jason Friedman, a longtime Jewish federation leader and real estate developer; and Kina Collins, who protested for a ceasefire in Gaza in November 2023 with anti-Zionist groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow.
In three other races, the group has been accused of covertly backing candidates. Former Rep. Melissa Bean, state Sen. Laura Fine and Miller have not been formally endorsed by AIPAC, but have all received contributions from a number of donors who have also given to AIPAC. Fine raised $1.2 million last quarter — $1 million of which came from donors who’ve given to AIPAC-affiliated groups, according to the Washington Post, mostly from outside Illinois. Bean and Miller have reported more than $400,000 and $875,000 in donations from AIPAC donors, respectively.
They’ve also gotten boosts from ads paid for by Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now, a pair of new organizations that have been accused of being AIPAC shell organizations. Like the Malinowski attack ads and others from the UDP playbook, the ads did not mention Israel.
The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, another pro-Israel advocacy group, jumped in on Thursday, endorsing both Bean and Miller.
Fine’s opponents include Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive 26-year-old Palestinian-American who has called for an end to U.S. weapons sales to Israel and accuses Israel of committing genocide; and Daniel Biss, the Jewish mayor of Evanston who is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and supports the Block the Bombs Act that would limit some weapons from being sold to Israel.
One of Bean’s opponents in the 8th district, Junaid Ahmed, spoke against AIPAC at a joint press conference with Biss, plus candidates from the two other races where AIPAC is thought to have been spending. Ahmed’s platform includes ending all military aid to Israel and a right of return for Palestinians.
First elected in 1998, Schakowsky, who is Jewish, was once an AIPAC acolyte herself. Back in 2010, facing a challenger from the right who made Israel an issue in their campaign, she boasted of having a 100% record of voting with AIPAC; the lobby, meanwhile, said that it did not endorse candidates but noted that Schakowsky “has an excellent record on issues important to the pro-Israel community.” Over time, though, she emerged as a senior leader among the pro-Israel progressives, becoming a headliner at conferences of the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street and protesting against Israeli government actions. She announced last year that she would not run again.
Responding to Schakowsky’s endorsement reversal, Miller did not mention AIPAC. Noting that she and Schakowsky had been friends for decades, she said her campaign would continue to focus on affordability issues.
Schakowsky added that she would continue to endorse Biss, who’s been outspoken against AIPAC amid reports of its involvement in Illinois’ congressional races, to replace her.
Biss responded enthusiastically on Thursday. “Proud to be endorsed by @RepSchakowsky,” he tweeted, “and proud to NOT be endorsed by AIPAC and MAGA donors.”
The post Jan Schakowsky retracts endorsement in a congressional race over candidate’s AIPAC funding appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Door-to-Door Anti-Israel Boycott Campaigns in Britain Raise Alarm Bells Over Hostile Environment Toward Jews
Protesters from “Palestine Action” demonstrate on the roof of Guardtech Group in Brandon, Suffolk, Britain, July 1, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Across Britain, local Jewish communities are raising alarms bells over pro-Palestinian boycott activists going door-to-door to track residents who refuse to shun Israeli products, fueling an increasingly hostile and intimidating environment for Jews and Israelis.
Earlier this week, South Yorkshire Police, which serves Sheffield and surrounding areas in northern England, opened an investigation following a violent clash in the Woodseats neighborhood, in the southern part of the city, between the anti-Israel activists demanding residents boycott Israeli goods and opponents who called them “Jew hunters.”
Known as Sheffield Apartheid Free Zone (SAFZ), this anti-Israel group has been active for months across neighborhoods in Sheffield and other parts of the United Kingdom.
As part of a broader effort to undermine the Jewish state internationally, the group distributes materials urging boycotts of Israeli products, claiming that “Israel thrives on international support.”
“When we choose not to buy Israeli goods, it hurts them in the most central place – their economy. Boycotts have worked before. They were a powerful factor in ending apartheid in South Africa and together we can replicate that success,” says one of the group’s propaganda materials.
Sparking outrage among local Jewish communities and political leaders, the group reportedly tracks residents’ responses, noting whether they are “no answer, not interested, or supportive.”
Earlier this week, a violent confrontation erupted in the Woodseats neighborhood in northern England after pro-Israel activists who had learned of the group’s activities on social media arrived on the scene.
Jean Hatchet, a local activist, confronted the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators, following them through the streets while shouting “Jew hunters are coming” and waving a sign reading “No tolerance for Jew hatred.”
According to Hatchet’s testimony, one group member snatched the sign from her hands and struck her on the head, prompting her to file a police complaint alleging assault motivated by religion.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Hatchet claimed the group actively maintains a “blacklist” of anyone who supports Israel.
“They’re taking addresses of people who don’t agree with their point of view,” the pro-Israel activist said. “We have data protection regulations in this country and they’re committing acts that cross the boundaries of what’s permitted.”
Similar door-to-door boycott campaigns have been reported in Bristol and Hackney in England, Cardiff in Wales, and Belfast and Glasgow in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Last Saturday, pro-Palestinian activists were filmed going door-to-door in Brighton, a coastal city in southern England, asking residents to sign pledges to boycott Israeli products.
Vicky Bogel, founder of the pro-Israel group “Jewish and Proud” in Brighton, denounced the incident after witnessing eight teams of volunteers moving systematically from house to house with clipboards and lists of addresses.
“They found out who has ‘Zionist tendencies’ and who doesn’t and where they live,” Bogel told the Jewish Chronicle. “This is cunning and dangerous activity; we’re talking about an intimidation campaign at another level.”
Peter Kyle, the British trade secretary and a member of Parliament representing Brighton, strongly condemned these latest incidents, calling for police investigations into the groups for potential hate crimes and incitement.
However, Sussex Police, which covers the Brighton area, said that “there is currently no evidence of criminal activity,” while acknowledging that the reports are under review.
The Israeli embassy in London also condemned the incidents, calling them a “disgrace” and warning that such campaigns fuel intimidation and hostility toward Jewish communities across the country.
“Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation,” the statement read.
“Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest chapters of European history,” it continued. “Decent people should call this out, clearly and without hesitation.”
What happened in Brighton and Sheffield was a disgrace. Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation.
Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest… pic.twitter.com/BO7IhidcuW
— Israel in the UK
(@IsraelinUK) February 18, 2026
Earlier this month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, revealed in an annual report that it recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025, the second-highest total ever in a single calendar year and an increase of 4 percent from the 3,556 in 2024.
Last year averaged 308 antisemitic incidents each month — an exact doubling of the 154 monthly average in the year before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Antisemitic incidents had fallen from the record high of 4,298 in 2023, which analysts say was fueled by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack — the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Uncategorized
Two Men Spit, Say ‘Free Palestine’ as They Attempt to Gain Access to Jewish Center in Dallas
Two young men who attempted to gain entry to a Jewish life center in Dallas by claiming to be window cleaners. Photo: Screenshot
Jewish community leaders on Monday denounced an antisemitic incident in which two men trespassed the grounds of the Olami Dallas Center in Texas and demanded entry to the home of its rabbi by claiming to be window cleaners.
According to StandWithUs, the perpetrators rang the doorbell of Rabbi Yaakov Rubin, who refused to let them, in response to which one of the men spat on the property as the other said “Free Palestine.” StandWithUs added that they also said “fake Jews” during their attempt to gain access to the building.
However, after realizing they were caught on camera, one of the perpetrators then yelled: “I love the Jews.”
StandWithUs shared video footage of the incident.
“There’s much brazenness required to walk up to a house, in an attempt to intimidate a Jewish Life center, and its host family, ring the doorbell, and say, ‘Free Palestine,’” Rubin said in a statement included in a press release StandWithUs issued following the incident. “This requires us to be that much bolder and proud of our Jewishness and Israel, through open pride, a strong sense of identity and nurturing our mission from G-d. We don’t run, won’t hide, we will be a light to the world.”
The incident at the Olami center comes amid a period of anti-Jewish violence in the US that is unprecedented in the country’s history. Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Jews have been murdered on the streets of Washington D.C., firebombed in Colorado with Molotov cocktails, and gang assaulted. In a recent incident just last month, a young man apparently radicalized by the far right set the Beth Israel Congregation on fire over its “Jewish ties,” a catastrophic event which has shut down the Jewish house of worship for the foreseeable future. Another arsonist struck the San Francisco Hillel building in December.
In Monday’s press release, Jordan Cope, director for policy and education at StandWithUs, said this latest incident is a reminder of the degree to which antisemitism is coupled with anti-Zionism.
“The youth’s mention of ‘fake Jews’ before his subsequent ‘free Palestine’ assertion followed by his ‘I love the Jews’ comments, is a clear reminder of how bigots all too often disingenuously disguise their antisemitism as a matter of Middle Eastern politics,” Cope said. “Efforts to intimidate the Jewish people into abandoning their pride of their indigenous homeless ultimately seek to intimidate Jews into silence and submission at a time where antisemitism continues to run rife throughout the West.”
He added, “Antisemitism is an age-old hatred. Anti-Israel sentiment is its newest spear.”
For several consecutive years, antisemitism in the US has surged to break “all previous annual records,” according to a series of reports issued by the ADL since it began recording data on antisemitic incidents.
The FBI disclosed similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
The wave of hatred has changed how American Jews perceive their status in America.
According to the results of a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federations of North America, a majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US.
A striking 57 percent reported believing “that antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience,” the organizations disclosed, while 55 percent said they have personally witnessed or been subjected to antisemitic hatred, including physical assaults, threats, and harassment, in the past year.
The survey results revealed other disturbing trends: Jewish victims are internalizing their experiences, as 74 percent did not report what happened to them to “any institution or organization”; Jewish youth are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, having faced communications which aim to exclude Jews or delegitimize their concerns about rising hate; roughly a third of survey respondents show symptoms of anxiety; and the cultural climate has fostered a sense in the Jewish community that the non-Jewish community would not act as a moral guardrail against violence and threats.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.