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What It Really Means to Be the ‘People of the Book’
The room full of Torah scrolls in Miami. Photo: Pini Dunner.
This week, Jewish communities worldwide will read Parshat Yitro, which recounts one of the most defining moments in Jewish history — God’s giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. These directives weren’t just words; they were the first written texts of Jewish tradition, forming the foundation of the Five Books of Moses, known as the Torah — the cornerstone of the Jewish faith. It was this moment that earned the Jews the title “People of the Book.”
But what does being “the People of the Book” really mean? It’s a title we’ve embraced for centuries, and it carries more than one meaning. We’re the people who received the book — the Torah, a divine blueprint for life. We’re also the people whose story is told in the book — the Bible is our collective narrative.
And perhaps most importantly, we’re the ones who’ve placed books at the center of our culture and identity — studying them, teaching from them, and passing their wisdom down through generations. Books aren’t just tools for us — they’re at the heart of what it means to be Jewish.
Clearly, books have always been at the core of Jewish life, tools to uplift and guide. But this week, books hit the headlines for a very different reason. In East Jerusalem, two booksellers, Mahmoud Muna and Munir Muna, were arrested at their widely known bookselling establishment, Educational Bookshop.
Israeli police claim the shop was selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism, and the two owners are being held on charges of disrupting public order. Cue the predictable global outrage: protests, op-eds, and online campaigns demanding the release of these “innocent booksellers.” The shop, after all, is described by its supporters as a “place of coexistence” and “a cultural hub.” But, as it turns out, that is not quite the whole story.
A post by my friend Saul Sadka on X (formerly Twitter) really made me stop and think. Saul met Mahmoud Muna five years ago when he joined a delegation from a center-left American Jewish group visiting the bookstore. The goal of the visit was dialogue, to create an atmosphere of understanding by “hearing the other side.”
But what Saul experienced was something else entirely. Instead of a pleasant bridge-building conversation, he and the group got an hour-long lecture dripping with thinly veiled antisemitism. Mahmoud sneered at the group’s efforts at coexistence and peppered his talk with tropes about Jewish power and “oblique references to their lack of connection to the land.”
Most of the delegation nodded along, possibly because they didn’t detect the malice in the subtext. But Saul and a few others left feeling sick to their stomachs.
“It wasn’t just antisemitic,” Saul wrote. “It reeked of genuine animus. He really enjoyed watching the Jews nodding along, completely unaware they were being mocked.” What struck me most was not only that this wasn’t dialogue but that it was derision disguised as intellectualism — because it took place in a bookshop and was delivered by a supposedly well-educated bookshop proprietor.
And this brings us to the heart of the matter. For Jews, books are sacred not simply because they exist, but because of what they contain and how they’re used. From the moment we received the Torah at Mount Sinai, books have been tools to build a better world — guiding us to live with purpose and integrity.
Contrast that with people like the Munas, who use books to spread hate, justify violence, and incite division. In their hands, books become weapons. That’s what the police claim was happening at the Educational Bookshop, and Saul’s experience suggests those claims are far from baseless. It makes you wonder — not just about the books they were selling but also about the books they chose not to sell.
Of course, the world’s reaction has been as predictable as ever. Mahmoud and Munir Muna have been cast as martyrs of free speech, celebrated as cultural icons targeted by an oppressive regime. No one seems to care about the content of the books they’re accused of selling. No one considers the harm such incitement can cause. The narrative is already fixed: Israel is the villain, and the booksellers are the victims.
But here’s the thing: not all books are created equal. And not everyone who champions books is a true “person of the book.” Being “people of the book” isn’t about celebrating any book just because it has words on a page. Like anything good, books can also be misused for bad.
The Torah, given at Sinai, is the original good book. It’s not just a collection of opinions or ideas — it’s a guide for living, a set of timeless truths meant to ground us and elevate us. That’s why Jews have spent millennia studying it, debating it, and teaching it — not to tear others down, but to build ourselves and the world up.
But when books are turned into tools of destruction — when they’re filled with hate and used to justify violence — even the staunchest advocates of free speech have the right to stand up and say, “Not on our watch.” And that’s exactly what’s happening here.
The Educational Bookshop, far from being a “center of coexistence,” appears to have been a hub for something far more sinister. Mahmoud and Munir Muna are not champions of free speech; they seem to be peddlers of incitement, hiding in plain sight behind the veneer of intellectualism.
The story of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai reminds us that being “people of the book” is a mission, not merely a title. It’s about holding the written word to the highest standard — using it to enlighten, not to inflame.
Each year, as we read the Ten Commandments in synagogues around the world, we are reminded of our sacred duty to recommit to that mission. We must stand against those who twist the power of books, making it clear that the book is not a prop for the basest human instincts. Books are tools — and how we choose to use them defines who we are.
Mahmoud and Munir Muna may run a bookstore, but that doesn’t make them “people of the book.” For them, books appear to have become weapons — tools to ensnare others in pseudo-intellectual justifications for hatred and violence.
We can never accept such a betrayal of the written word. For us Jews, books are sacred tools to enhance life, uplift society, and bring light to the world. And that’ s a difference worth standing up for — and fighting for.
The post What It Really Means to Be the ‘People of the Book’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Education Secretary McMahon Hints at Possible Detente With Ivy League Amid Campus Antisemitism Fight
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 20, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon hinted at the possibility of unfreezing billions of dollars the federal government put on ice to punish elite universities it deemed as soft on campus antisemitism and excessively woke.
“It would be my goal that if colleges and universities are abiding by the laws of the United States and doing what we’re expecting of them, they could expect to have taxpayer funded programs,” McMahon told Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardener during an interview which aired on Tuesday on the news outlet’s YouTube channel.
Responding to an additional question Bloomberg posed regarding President Donald Trump’s saying recently that Harvard University — which lost over $2.26 billion during the spree of cuts — “is starting to behave” — McMahon agreed with the president, suggesting that Harvard and the administration are drawing near a compromise, perhaps even on reforms that conservatives have long said will make higher education more meritocratic and less ideologically biased.
“Clearly what he’s indicating is that we are, I think, making progress in some of the discussions, even though they [Harvard] have taken a hard line,” McMahon said. “They have, for instance, replaced their head of Middle East Studies. They have already put in place some of the things that we have talked about in our negotiations with Columbia.”
She added, however, that taxing Harvard’s $53.2 billion endowment, the value of which exceeds the gross domestic product of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and over 120 other nations, would benefit taxpayers. In April, Trump ordered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to review Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a measure that was cheered by populists while being regarded as extreme by others who argue that following through on the revocation stands to make American higher education less competitive.
“You know, these are really outstandingly large endowments — $53 billion, you know, for Harvard, and that money doesn’t just sit still,” McMahon continued. “It is invested, and if it’s invested well, they can expect a good return on that investment. And so, if citizens of our country are providing tax support to universities that do take federal dollars, then maybe some of that should come back.”
Later on in the interview, McMahon said that Columbia University and the Trump administration have weighed agreeing to a consent decree, in which neither party concedes fault, to resolve the government’s claims against the institution. Only days earlier, her Education Department said the university should lose its accreditation with the Middle States Commission for being “in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws.” Such a measure would be catastrophic to the institution, which is one of the oldest in the US.
“After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, Columbia University’s leadership acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus. This is not only immoral, but also unlawful,” McMahon said on June 4. “Accreditors have an enormous public responsibility as gatekeepers of federal student aid. They determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and Pell Grants. Just as the Department of Education has an obligation to uphold federal discrimination law, university accreditors have an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards.”
The Trump administration has launched a robust effort to fight antisemitism at every level of society. In February, it created a “multi-agency” Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Its “first priority will be to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” the US Justice Department said in a press release, which noted that the group will be housed inside the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and include representatives from the departments of education and health and human services.
The announcement came less than a week after Trump directed federal agencies to combat campus antisemitism and hold pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office. Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the new executive order, titled “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism,” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
The moves precipitated what became a fight over the future of elite higher education, against which conservatives have lodged a slew of criticisms for decades. In Harvard’s case, the administration called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
By that time, McMahon had already announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, securing the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, Princeton University saw hundreds of millions of dollars of its federal grants and funding suspended, as did Northwestern University, Cornell University, Brown University, and others.
The confiscations are now being fought in federal court, with Harvard University suing the administration to obtain a precedent setting summary judgement. Over a dozen institutions have sought and received permission to file an amicus brief on the school’s behalf.
“We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honor their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion,” Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, said in a statement announcing the legal action. “That is how we achieve academic excellence, safeguard open inquiry and freedom of speech, and conduct pioneering research — and how we advance the boundless exploration that propels our nation and its people into a better future.”
For some, Harvard’s allegations against the Trump administration are hollow.
“Claiming that the entire institution is exempt from any oversight or intervention is extraordinary,” Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April. “Moreover, the idea that cutting voluntary government funding is de facto denial of free speech also sounds exaggerated if not absurd. If an institution doesn’t want to be subjected to certain requirements in a relationship entered into voluntarily with the government, they shouldn’t take the money.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post US Education Secretary McMahon Hints at Possible Detente With Ivy League Amid Campus Antisemitism Fight first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Artist Exposes Plot to Poison, Attack Israelis at Boom Music Festival in Portugal
A look inside the 2023 Boom Festival in Portugal. Photo: YouTube screenshot
A Jewish artist revealed to Israel’s Kan news on Monday plans by far-left activists to attack and poison thousands of Israelis attending this year’s music and intercultural Boom Festival set to take place from July 17-24 in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal.
A woman from Portugal using the pseudonym Sarah said she was added to a WhatsApp group chat titled “Left wing argument” where the plans were discussed. She was included in the chat because of her work as an artist, but the group did not know that she was Jewish, she believes. Sarah shared with Kan screenshots of messages sent in the group chat that included discussions about torching the tents of Israelis attending the Boom Festival and spiking drugs at the biennial event.
“What started off was just silly ideas then started to become plans. And as you can see, it’s truly sinister,” she told Kan. “[There were] plans to defecate on Israelis tents, urinate in their food, set their tents on fire, put bad substances inside other substances that they may take, plans to upend them to make them feel uncomfortable. Plans to attack.”
“Their idea was that they needed to infiltrate the Boom Festival because a lot of Israelis go there after doing their service in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” Sarah added. “And they felt that it was unfair that [Israelis] should be included in the Boom [festival].”
One member of the group chat wrote: “They are all pretty much IOF [Israel Occupation Forces] veterans, boys and girls. I was thinking of giving them a taste of their own medicine. Wake them up and let them know that they are getting a humanitarian warning to leave their tents, make sure they are at a safe(ish) distance away, and then torch their tent. I’d let them know that I am the most moral arsonist in the world and then give them the strychnine drop to cheer them up.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strychnine is a highly toxic, crystalline alkaloid that if ingested, can lead to muscle spasms, seizures, and respiratory failure possibly leading to death and brain death within 15 to 30 minutes.
The same group chat member who talked about wanting to give Israelis the poisonous alkaloid also wrote: “Oh c’mon strychnine in their acid is not dismemberment of babies … they are all former or current IOF after all … what’s a little strychnine to people who have torn babies to shreds while wearing their mother’s stolen underwear?”
Another message in the group chat talked about support for the cultural boycott of Israelis, calling it “an excellent tactic of psychological warfare” and that “the entire world needs to adopt this tactic wherever Israelis are found … especially in the ‘culture’ sphere.”
Sarah said members of the group chat also had discussions in group phone calls about attacking Israelis at the Boom Festival and she listened in on those calls. She told Kan she was “absolutely appalled” by what she read and heard as part of the WhatsApp group chat.
“First of all, our nature party scene has always been very inclusive. We become one when we are on the dance floor,” she noted. “So, reading these vile, racist, actually criminal plans to hurt Israeli people, especially after what happened on 10/7 [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel], was really appalling to me. It’s victim-blaming.”
Sarah said she told festival organizers about the plot to target Israelis at the event, but that “nothing has been done about it.”
“Hence, I scrambled to try and warn the 4,000 Israelis that I know are coming to be on that dance floor. They need to be careful. There is a plan to hurt them,” she said. Sarah added that Boom festival organizers told her they would speak to Portuguese authorities about her concerns. She said she also spoke to police in Portugal but claimed they “just did not take me seriously at all.”
“After what we’ve seen in Washington and Boulder and in France, it’s imperative that this is taken seriously,” she stated.
Sarah recently moved out of Portugal because of “institutionalized antisemitism,” she told Kan, which included being spat on when she wore in public a Star of David and tags calling for the return of the hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The post Jewish Artist Exposes Plot to Poison, Attack Israelis at Boom Music Festival in Portugal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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French Teens Face Trial for Antisemitic Rape of 12-Year-Old Girl as Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Rise
Tens of thousands of French people march in Paris to protest against antisemitism. Photo: Screenshot
Nearly a year after the brutal gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, the trial of three French boys accused in the case began Wednesday — a crime that deeply shook the local Jewish community amid a surge in antisemitism and drew international outrage.
As France continues to grapple with a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes, a regional juvenile court in Nanterre, a suburb of western Paris, initiated a closed-door trial scheduled to run until Friday for the three assailants, all aged 13 to 14, accused in the attack.
Two of the three suspects are facing charges of group rape, physical violence, and death threats aggravated by antisemitic hatred. The third, the girl’s ex-boyfriend, is accused of threatening her and orchestrating the attack, also motivated by racist prejudice.
If convicted, the alleged rapists could face several years of incarceration in a juvenile facility.
However, because the girl’s ex-boyfriend was under 13 at the time of the attack, he will not face prison but will instead receive “educative measures” if found guilty.
According to police reports from the time, two French boys cornered the girl on June 15, 2024, inside an empty building in Courbevoie, a northwestern suburb of Paris, questioned her about her Jewish identity, and then physically assaulted and raped her.
The assailants also allegedly called her a “dirty Jew” and uttered other antisemitic remarks during the brutal gang-rape.
Local reports indicate that part of the assault was recorded, and at least one assailant allegedly demanded 200 euros from the girl to withhold the footage, which was eventually circulated.
The ex-boyfriend sent footage of the assault to a boy the girl had gone out with that afternoon, with the message “Look at your chick,” according to law enforcement. After receiving such a message, the boy informed the girl’s family, who found her an hour after the attack.
The brutal crime sparked outrage throughout France and among the Jewish community, unfolding against the backdrop of a disturbing surge in antisemitism that has gripped the country since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At the time, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of antisemitism” and called on schools to hold discussions on racism and hatred of Jews.
Antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews.
The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.
The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.
The post French Teens Face Trial for Antisemitic Rape of 12-Year-Old Girl as Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Rise first appeared on Algemeiner.com.