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Weeks after taking fire from ADL, Adidas to partner with it on fighting antisemitism in sports
(JTA) — Three weeks after saying he was “alarmed” by Adidas’ ties to Kanye West, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, donned the company’s sneakers for his group’s “Never is Now” conference in New York City.
The about-face happened after Adidas ended its relationship with West weeks after the rapper began making antisemitic comments, satisfying the ADL’s demands. Now, Adidas is making a major donation to the anti-hate group and working with it to fight antisemitism among student and professional athletes.
The news was first reported by eJewishPhilanthropy on Thursday, during the ADL conference where a top Adidas official spoke.
“We don’t always get things right. We are not perfect,” Rupert Campbell, the president of Adidas North America, said at the conference. “But in this case, we know without a doubt, we made the right decision. We know that without a doubt the racist and antisemitic hate speech by our former partner violated our values. We took action to begin dismantling the partnership. This took time given the complexity of the partnership. But we remain committed to living our values.”
The new program includes the creation of an anti-bigotry curriculum to be disseminated among student athletes, according to eJewishPhilanthropy, and will see Adidas focus on enlisting professional athletes in the fight against antisemitism.
“While I wish they did it sooner, Adidas — to their credit — made it abundantly clear that they would not do business with bigots,” Greenblatt said. “And today I am so pleased that they are here at Never Is Now to announce an incredible commitment that demonstrates that their dedication to fighting antisemitism will last long beyond this moment.”
The ADL was one of the many Jewish organizations to call out Adidas for its silence after West began making antisemitic comments last month. The company had been sharply criticized for waiting too long to sever its ties with West, whose Yeezy line of shoes brought the company well over $1 billion last year.
The German company — which has a Nazi past that its website does not acknowledge — will continue to sell West-designed shoes, without the Yeezy name or other branding, it announced on Wednesday.
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The post Weeks after taking fire from ADL, Adidas to partner with it on fighting antisemitism in sports appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.