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Why I spent Yom Kippur protecting Palestinian villagers from settler violence
(JTA) — When I was 18 years old, like many American Jews, I spent a gap year in Israel. At a right-wing army-prep program called Mechinat Yeud, located in the illegal settlement of Efrat, I learned Torah, went on hikes and practiced krav maga. I fondly look back at this year as a positive experience and a time when I matured as a young adult.
I also saw the daily mechanisms of the occupation, though I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate this.
Over that year, I saw Palestinians whose cars bore different license plates than those driven by Jews. I saw a checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank that was a formality to Jews like my friends and me but very real to the Palestinians living right next to us. Though I finished my year in Yeud with a strong desire to live in Israel, I also knew that I couldn’t be complicit in Palestinian oppression.
I eventually moved to Israel and threw myself into anti-occupation activism, spending weeks and months at a time in Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In addition to the bureaucratic oppression that Palestinians face on a daily basis, I saw — and sometimes was a victim of — the settler violence that plagues the West Bank.
During the American civil rights movement, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously referred to his protesting as “praying with his feet.” This past Yom Kippur, when the rabbis of the Talmud tell us to fully prostrate ourselves during prayer, I asked for forgiveness with my whole body by spending the Day of Atonement in Ein Rashash, a Palestinian Bedouin shepherding community located 22 miles northeast of Ramallah. Its residents had requested a 24/7 presence from solidarity activists due to threats from the nearby Israeli outpost of Malachi Hashalom.
According to a United Nations report released on Sept. 21, 1,105 Palestinians fled their homes and villages in 2022 and 2023. The report stated that settler violence is at a record high since the U.N. began documenting the trend in 2006.
This report includes the villages of Ein-Samia, Al-Qabun, al-Baqa and Ras al-Tin. All of these villages were located near Ein Rashash, and like Ein Rashash, the communities all relied on shepherding for their livelihood. Settler attacks in the Palestinian towns of Huwara and Turmus Aya, frequently described as pogroms, have received attention within Israel and internationally.
Ein Rashash has faced similar settler violence and harassment. Shortly upon entering the village, one can see where settlers shattered the windows of homes and destroyed an outhouse in an attack in June. The community is considering leaving their land just like the community of Ein-Samia and many others have done.
In response to this violence, a group of activists, most notably Rabbi Arik Ascherman, is spending long periods of time in Ein Rashash — located north of the ruins of Ein-Samia — to use our privilege as a de-escalating presence. When non-Palestinian activists are around, settler violence is less likely. Ein Rashash and the nearby villages are all located in Area C, the portion of the West Bank under full Israeli control as per the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian residents do not have Israeli citizenship, and they are subject to military law as opposed to the civil courts through which Israeli settlers are tried. “Protective Presence” activism is utilized in other communities in Area C that face regular threats of settler violence and home evictions, such as Masafer Yatta. I have done several shifts already, and I volunteered for the Yom Kippur shift.
I was accompanied by five other activists. The first thing we did was assign roles in case settlers came. Who would call the police or other activists? Who would film? Who would stand in front of a settler’s car if he tried to enter the village or drive through a flock of sheep? These are normal conversations in this line of work.
A window that residents of Ein Rashash say was shattered by Jewish settlers in an attack in June 2023. (Sam Stein)
There is no break during Protective Presence activism. Either there’s an immediate incident, or you’re waiting for the next one. Every unfamiliar car or person in the distance can be a settler coming to attack or harass or bringing soldiers to force Palestinians off their land. A drone from the nearby outpost hovered overhead for around 30 seconds, and I was on edge for the next hour. You sleep with one eye open. Jewish holidays often bring with them right-wing violence in Israel and the West Bank. Hate crimes were carried out in Bat Yam this year and last year, and in 2021 there was a settler pogrom in the Palestinian village of Mufagara.
This is exhausting and emotionally draining. Unlike many other Protective Presence shifts I have participated in, Yom Kippur ended without incident.
After 25 hours, I had the privilege of going home to Jerusalem. Palestinians do not have this option. This is their life.
According to Torah, on Yom Kippur the Israelites are told to “afflict themselves.” The rabbis concluded that self-affliction must refer to fasting, reasoning that “affliction” refers to something that, when taken to a certain extent, can lead to death.
Life under occupation can, and does, lead to death. One look at the statistics makes that all too clear. Since 2000, 10,667 Palestinians in the occupied territories have been killed by Israeli soldiers or civilians.
Protective Presence is my self-affliction. And yet, in homage to Yom Kippur’s imagery of being sealed in the Book of Life, life goes on. Activists laughed with and got to know each other and our Palestinian hosts. We read and we ate delicious homemade food. We didn’t embrace misery as a form of repentance. We embraced the full spectrum of life.
I believe fasting is mentally, physically and spiritually unhealthy. The only self-affliction I find meaningful is in sharing the pain — and the joy — of my fellow human beings, particularly in a way that lightens their pain and suffering. The people of Ein Rashash have told us that our presence is making their lives easier and helping them stay on their land. The children are laughing and playing in a way that they were not when we first started these shifts. This has been the most meaningful Yom Kippur I’ve ever had.
In Mishnah Yoma 8:9, we learn that repentance on Yom Kippur only allows us to atone for the sins between ourselves and God. For a sin against another person, one must “satisfy their fellow.” We don’t need to ask God for forgiveness. We must stand with the Palestinians suffering under Israeli rule, until they’re satisfied.
I know that it’s not a matter of if the settlers will be back, but when. For as long as that’s the case, I will continue to pray with my body and sometimes “self-afflict” in the name of justice and equality. The Talmud states self-affliction does not absolve one from their sins towards other people, only those towards God. And yet, our sins towards other people are the ones for which we direly need to repent.
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The post Why I spent Yom Kippur protecting Palestinian villagers from settler violence appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.