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When Fighting Antisemitism, You Can’t Pick and Choose
Posters in Paris broadcasting the plight of Israeli hostages in Gaza covered over with pro-Palestinian messages. Photo: Reuters/Magali Cohen
JNS.org – It was one of those incidents that you never expect will happen to you, but when it does, it changes your life irrevocably.
On June 8, 2023, a Thursday, a 67-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman whose name was reported as “Sarah” was driving to her home in Créteil, a suburb in the southeastern outskirts of Paris. As she drove, a group of traffic cops who were sitting at a nearby gas station noticed that she was speeding. They duly pulled her over.
Clearly flustered and nervous as she sat talking to the police officers, who informed her that she was driving dangerously, Sarah accidentally released the brake on her car, backing into a police motorcycle that was parked behind her. Thinking that she was trying to flee the scene, the cops promptly arrested her and brought her to the police station in Créteil.
Absolutely terrified by this point, Sarah said in a later media interview that she lost consciousness. When she came around, she discovered that she was lying prostrate on the police station floor, handcuffed to a bench. When she realized that her wig, which she had worn since she married at the age of 18, according to the custom of Orthodox Jewish women, had been removed, she panicked.
An amateur video of the incident was shared with the French news website Mediapart, which posted it last week. It shows Sarah’s ordeal to its full, harrowing extent. “I’m a Jew!” Sarah declares with an ear-splitting scream. “I want my wig! My wig! My wig!” she continues, writhing helplessly on the floor as a policeman stands imperiously over her, sandwiching her legs between his feet.
The video also shows a disturbing level of contempt from the police officers. One of them describes Sarah as a feuj, an insulting French slang term for “Jew.” When a male officer finally returns with her wig, an exasperated female officer is then heard telling Sarah: Allez, putain (“Come on, bitch”).
From the police station, Sarah was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital, where her husband came to collect her. A doctor who examined her noted that she had suffered both bruising and psychological trauma. Nevertheless, on March 4, Sarah will go on trial, charged with “endangering the lives of others” due to her allegedly careless driving.
Sarah has herself now gone on the offensive, telling investigators from the General Inspectorate of the police that the removal of her wig represented the “ultimate humiliation” for an observant Jewish woman. She has also filed a complaint against the police, charging them with “sexist, antisemitic” violence towards her. “Créteil police know the city, they know that there is a sizable Jewish community, so they cannot claim to be unaware of what a wig means,” her lawyer, Arie Alimi, told the media.
Sarah’s case is significant for two reasons—one of them uncomplicated, the other far more complicated.
The uncomplicated reason is simply that the behavior of the French police was clearly antisemitic. The video suggests that they rather enjoyed having a vulnerable Jewish woman at their mercy, whom they essentially dehumanized. In a democracy, the police are accountable for their actions, and in this case, one can legitimately ask whether the officers who attended to Sarah at the police station should continue to serve on the force, particularly as they are in regular contact with other members of the Jewish community in Créteil.
The other reason is complicated because it involves overtly political considerations.
It is striking that Sarah’s case has been taken up by important swathes of the French left—a left that is normally at loggerheads with the Jewish community because of its consistent demonization of Israel. Counter-accusations of antisemitism are both frequent and hotly denied, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, which has triggered a vicious wave of antisemitism in France and other countries, frequently deploying progressive, anti-colonial messaging to camouflage what is—and what has always been—a deeply reactionary and backward form of prejudice.
Yet Sarah’s case has been reported on sympathetically and in detail in many organs of the French left, including L’Humanité—the daily paper of the French Communist Party, which once had the unenviable reputation of being the most slavishly pro-Moscow of all the European Communist parties affiliated with the late, unlamented Soviet Union.
Sarah has also won the support of parliamentarians from the far-left group La France Insoumise (or LFI, translated as “France Rising”), which occupies 75 of the 577 seats in the French National Assembly. In a social-media post, Mathilde Panot, who heads LFI’s parliamentary grouping, denounced “the sexist and antisemitic” treatment meted out to Sarah by police officers who had behaved with “dishonor,” and who should now be the subjects of a “rapid investigation and sanctions.”
While Sarah’s case against the police deserves the full backing of her fellow Jews, it behooves us to look critically at her other sources of support. When Panot and three of her LFI comrades turned up at last week’s memorial ceremony in Paris for the 42 French citizens who were among the more than 1,200 people murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, pro-Israel demonstrators on the sidelines barracked them, shouting, “LFI, Hamas thanks you.” Panot’s explanation for her attendance was her desire to call attention to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, whom LFI falsely believes, in common with much of the left globally, are undergoing a “genocide.”
On a human level, it’s hard to understand how someone could be moved (and understandably so) by the cries of a frail, elderly Jewish woman in police custody, yet dismiss the horrors of Oct. 7—the slaughter, the mutilation, the rape of untold young woman at a music festival—as so much “Zionist propaganda.” As long as that remains the case, politicians on the left who intervene only in those incidents of antisemitism are unconnected to Israel will never win the trust of the Jewish community.
Simply put, if you are going to fight antisemitism, you cannot pick and choose which incidents you focus upon on the basis of your ideological convictions. And since the far-left is not, for the foreseeable future, going to accept the contention that its attacks on Zionism and Israel’s legitimacy are forms of antisemitism, one has to probe the political price of acknowledging their support in cases like those of Sarah.
Because if Sarah had been a resident of the West Bank instead of Créteil, and if she had been pulled over by Palestinian Authority officers and then detained, facing treatment even worse than her humiliation by French police officers, LFI and those who share its worldview would have, at best, remained silent. Such hypocrisy would never pass muster on the left when it comes to racism against members of the black community, Muslims or any other minority. But Jews, as we have painfully learned yet again over the last four months, are different.
The post When Fighting Antisemitism, You Can’t Pick and Choose first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’
A Russian drone struck the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
A Russian drone struck the main Jewish school in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early on Wednesday, causing “significant structural damage” but resulting in no injuries at the school.
The drone hit hours before students were expected to arrive, but officials reported several injuries in a neighboring residential building. The drone caused heavy damage to several areas within the school, including classrooms, the student lounge, and a school shuttle, but spared a gas station located just 50 meters away.
Part of the Russian drone landed in the playground of the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
“The school’s reinforced windows, equipped with protective film, prevented further harm to the interior of the structure,” said a statement from the Or Avner Chabad educational network, which runs the Perlina school.
Damage to the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine caused by a Russian drone, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
Perlina’s principal, Elena Vasilivna, noted that the school also doubled as a home for some of its students.
“Some of our students are refugee children from other cities, and sometimes they have to sleep at the school; we have rooms specifically for such cases,” she told The Algemeiner.
Vasilivna noted that she had updated all the parents, “assuring them we would do everything to resume classes as quickly as possible.”
More damage caused by the Russian drone that hit the Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
“Throughout the war, we made sure to continue the school routine to provide the children with stability, a supportive atmosphere, and a place where they can play with their friends,” she added.
Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch also pledged the school would remain open, despite the attack. “Just as the school has remained operational throughout the war, so too will we continue to nurture our children’s souls, even in these challenging times,” he said.
Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch holds a fragment of a Russian drone that damaged the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
Markovitch hailed the “tremendous miracle” that students were not in the building at the time of the strike.
He visited the site of the impact, accompanied by several city officials, including Kyiv mayor and former boxing world champion, Vitalyi Klitschko.
Jewish communities in the embattled country, many of which are run by Chabad, maintain good relations with Ukrainian authorities.
President Volodymyr Zelensky even called Markovitch last week to wish him a happy birthday, gifting him a signed copy of his book with a personal dedication.
To mark 30 years since the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Ukrainian Postal Service recently issued a commemorative stamp featuring the famous 770 Chabad building located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in his honor and as a tribute to the Chabad movement and its activities in Ukraine.
Picture of the stamp.
Wednesday’s strike marked the 19th such assault on Kyiv by Russian forces in October alone, with more than 60 Iranian-produced Shahed drones launched across Ukraine that morning.
The post Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says
Smoke billows over Khiam, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
Lebanon’s prime minister expressed hope on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with Israel would be announced within days as Israel‘s public broadcaster published what it said was a draft agreement providing for an initial 60-day truce.
The document, which broadcaster Kan said was a leaked proposal written by Washington, said Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the 60-day ceasefire. It largely aligned with details reported earlier by Reuters based on two sources familiar with the matter.
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he had not believed a deal would be possible until after Tuesday’s US presidential election. But he said he became more optimistic after speaking on Wednesday with US envoy for the Middle East Amos Hochstein, who was due to travel to Israel on Thursday.
“Hochstein, during his call with me, suggested to me that we could reach an agreement before the end of the month and before Nov. 5,” Mikati told Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television.
“We are doing everything we can and we should remain optimistic that in the coming hours or days, we will have a ceasefire,” Mikati said.
The draft published by Kan was dated Saturday, and when asked to comment, White House national security spokesperson Sean Savett said: “There are many reports and drafts circulating. They do not reflect the current state of negotiations.”
But Savett did not respond to a query on whether the version published by Kan was at least the basis for further negotiations.
The Israeli network said the draft had been presented to Israel‘s leaders. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.
Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have been fighting for the past year in parallel with Israel‘s war in Gaza after Hezbollah struck Israeli targets in solidarity with its ally Hamas in Gaza.
Since Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel, Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel almost daily with barrages of missiles, rocket, and drones. The relentless attacks have forced about 70,000 Israelis to flee the northern part of the country, and Israel’s government has vowed to push Hezbollah away from the Lebanon border to ensure the displaced citizens can return to their homes.
The conflict in Lebanon has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks, with most of the 2,800 deaths reported by the Lebanese health ministry for the past 12 months occurring in that period.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the leaked ceasefire proposal.
But the Iran-backed group’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said earlier on Wednesday that it would agree to a ceasefire within certain parameters if Israel wanted to stop the war, but that Israel had so far not agreed to any proposal that could be discussed.
The post Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
Anti-Israel faculty at George Washington University have founded a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter, according to an op-ed written by several professors who initiated the endeavor.
“As we pass one year of a genocide funded by the United States and US universities that has expanded to bombing campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, we and other conscientious members of GW’s faculty and staff have recently established a chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine,” professors Peter Calloway, Helen DeVinney, Amr Madkour, Sara Matthiesen, and Dara Orenstein wrote in the piece, which was published on Monday by The GW Hatchet. “Though our chapter includes many more faculty in solidarity with the students who are unable to be named publicly for fear of retaliation, we want students, community members, and the administration to know that there are faculty at GW who are aligned with the movement for a free Palestine.”
A spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group with numerous links to Islamist terror organizations, FJP chapters have been opening on colleges since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, its members, which include faculty employed by the most elite US colleges, fostered campus unrest, circulated antisemitic cartoons, and advocated severing ties with Israeli companies and institutions of higher education.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, in May, Harvard University’s FJP chapter published an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, and containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. FJP members have also fostered unrest to coerce university officials into accepting their demands, and attempted, in some instances, to prevent police from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
According to an AMCHA Initiative report published in September, titled “Academic Extremism: How a Faculty Network Fuels Campus Unrest,” the group’s presence throughout academia is insidious and should be scrutinized by lawmakers.
“Our investigation alarmingly reveals that campuses with FJP chapters are seeing assaults and death threats against Jewish students at rates multiple times higher than those without FJP groups, providing compelling evidence of the dangerous intersection between faculty activism and violent antisemitic behavior,” AMCHA said in a press release. “The presence of FJP chapters also correlates with the extended duration of protests and encampments, as well as with the passage of [boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement] resolutions on their campuses.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as a step toward the Jewish state’s destruction.
FJP, the report added, also “prolonged” the duration of “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protests on college campuses, in which students occupied a section of campus illegally and refused to leave unless administrators capitulated to demands for a boycott of Israel. It also said that such demonstrations lasted over four and a half times longer where FJP faculty were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students. Additionally, professors at FJP schools also spent 9.5 more days protesting than those at non-FJP schools.
Monday’s op-ed discussed extensively the disciplinary charges the university has filed against pro-Hamas protesters who occupied school property for several weeks during spring semester and committed other severe violations of school rules prohibiting unauthorized demonstrations and vandalism.
“Indeed, as GW faculty and staff, we bear witness alongside brave and visionary students — who are committed to disclosure and divestment and who call for our administration to treat students with dignity and respect using their voices, bodies, and organizing skills to fight for a better world for all,” they continued. “We urge the administration to drop the criminal disciplinary charges against students … and agree to students’ demands for disclosure of GW’s investments and divestments from entities enabling Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond.”
The op-ed did not mention any antisemitism emanating from the anti-Zionist movement, nor the racist behavior and rhetoric of pro-Hamas students — a subject which The Algemeiner has covered since it began last semester, when US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited George Washington’s campus to discuss the benefits of a career in foreign policy with African American students.
In a pamphlet distributed to everyone who showed up to Thomas-Greenfield’s event, the GW Student Coalition for Palestine (GWSCP) accused the ambassador of being a “puppet,” alluding to the fact that she is a Black woman holding a distinguished presidential appointment. GWSCP, in addition to comparing Thomas-Greenfield to enslaved overseers, appeared to suggest that the color of Greenfield’s skin excluded the possibility that she is an agent of her own destiny. Later, GWSCP encircled GW Dean of Student Affairs Colette Coleman while a member of the group began “clapping in her face” and others screamed that she should resign.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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