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Why is the Ukraine war more Jewish than the Iranian uprising? A year after Mahsa Amini’s death, that should change.

(JTA) — I regularly post Middle Eastern Jewish feminist content on social media, so right when Mahsa Amini was murdered, TikTok’s algorithm flooded my account with videos of women from Iran, giving a play-by-play account of events.

Amini was a 22-year-old woman from Kurdistan, visiting her relatives in Tehran. Despite the fact that she was covered from head to toe, wearing the compulsory hijab, the “morality police” arrested and beat her to death because they did not approve of how she was dressed. That incident was Iran’s equivalent of George Floyd’s murder in the United States, and sparked a woman-led revolution throughout Iran and Kurdistan — with protesters flooding the streets, women publicly burning their hijabs, and police arresting tens of thousands of protesters, as well as brutally torturing and murdering hundreds. The incident shook me to my core and felt very personal to me, specifically as a Jew.

The degree to which the murder of a Muslim woman in Tehran affected a Jewish woman in Seattle might surprise many in the American Jewish community. To understand, let’s take a little trip back through time: Jews throughout the Middle East and North Africa hail from the Babylonian conquest of ancient Israel, Yehuda, which is how we got our name, Yehudim, or Jews. Fifty years after that conquest, the Persian empire conquered the Babylonian empire and not only allowed the Jews to go home, but helped rebuild the Temple — the wall still remaining today in Jerusalem. Many Jews nonetheless stayed put or migrated throughout the Asian and African continents — including my family, who remained on the land of Babylon until being exiled from Iraq in 1950. We are collectively known as the Mizrahim.

Contrary to popular belief, Arab Muslims are not indigenous throughout the Middle East and North Africa; rather, they rose up from the Arabian Peninsula and conquered the region, similar to the Christian crusaders of Europe. Many indigenous ethnicities and religions predated the Arab Muslim presence by well over a millennia — including Jews, Persians and Kurds. Still, all were subject to the whims of Muslim rule — including the injunction that all women, including Jewish women, had to wear the local variations of the hijab.

I inherited my grandmother’s abaya, a black silk head-to-toe garment that she wore in the blazing heat of Baghdad, day after day. In the introduction to first edition of my 2003 book, “The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage,” I talked about coming across this garment in the attic of my parents’ house in the Bay Area, where I grew up. After putting it on, I looked in the mirror — two brown eyes peering back at me, with my face and body otherwise shrouded in black.

How did my grandmother feel wearing it? I wondered. I will never know, because the stories of my family were filtered through my father, lacking the woman’s perspective.

When I first finished compiling and editing my anthology, 30 years ago, it was in fact called “Behind the Veil of Silence” — not only because of the theme of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish women physically wearing the veil, but also because of additionally being shrouded by a veil of obscurity in each of the communities to which we belong/don’t belong.

Case in point: Nobody wanted to publish the anthology for another decade — not the Jewish press, the people-of-color press, or the feminist press. I was told we needed to include Ashkenazi women, non-Jewish women of color, and even men, to make the book relevant or valid. Standing on principle and integrity, I insisted that we were relevant and valid in our own right, and over the years, could wallpaper my apartment with rejection letters.

Then 9/11 happened; consciousness shifted; I had several top literary agents fighting over the book; and ultimately, one of the many publishers I had approached years prior ended up publishing the book in 2003. By then, everyone was writing books about Middle Eastern women and veils, so I ended up having to change the title. The veil, however, remained and remains not only an apt metaphor for the invisibility of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish women, but also for our collective physical experience of donning the veil under Muslim rule.

Which all goes to say, the murder of Mahsa Amini, and the subsequent uprising in Iran, not only feel very personal to me, but are inextricably intertwined with Jewish identity and history. From this deeply personal and Jewish place, I wrote the poem “#MahsaAmini” just a day or two after Amini’s murder, and months later, I turned it into a song, incorporating the style of traditional Middle Eastern Jewish prayers. My band finished developing the song several weeks ago, just in time to release it on Saturday, the anniversary of Amini’s death.

On the day the song automatically begins streaming, I will be chanting the ancient Iraqi prayers for Rshana (Rosh Hashanah). Come to think of it, as the first woman worldwide that I know of to publicly lead Sephardi/Mizrahi prayers, starting back in the early 1990s, and having led the women’s section of an Iraqi synagogue in an uprising back in the 1980s, when I was just 14, the timing is perhaps a particularly fitting coincidence.

I recently let numerous Jewish media outlets know about the release, with little traction, and one responding that while it is “truly a powerful and important song…we don’t think there’s a clear enough Jewish component to cover.” Out of curiosity, I looked up articles on the Ukraine war in this very same outlet, and found numerous articles on the topic.

How is the Ukraine war more Jewish than the Iranian uprising? The difference is one of Ashkenazi perspective and frame of reference. Despite the strides of Jewish multiculturalism permeating mainstream Jewish consciousness; despite Persian Jewish history predating European Jewish history by as much as two millennia; and despite Mizrahim comprising between 50% and 70% of Israel’s Jewish population since the mid-20th century, “Iran” still does not equate with “Jewish,” whereas countries like Ukraine, Poland and Germany do.

It’s a vicious cycle: As Jewish institutes continue to fail entirely, or at least adequately, to teach about Jewish history and heritage from outside Central and Eastern Europe — despite ample opportunities and resources to do so — and as that which is Sephardi/Mizrahi and Ethiopian-Jewish continue to be treated as extracurricular and optional, contemporary issues significant for global Jewry will continue to seem entirely disconnected from Jewish relevance, and will be neither discussed nor taught, with the ignorance creating more ignorance.

The uprising raises so many decidedly Jewish questions: Where was the world’s outrage when Jews were being lynched publicly in Iran? How does the Persian Jewish community experience this new revolution? Can the older Iranians now recognize Jews as the canaries in the coal mine of the 1970s Iranian revolution?

Then there’s the fact that Jews are part of the revolutionary leadership in Iran. Take Armita Abbasi, a young woman whose name I deliberately speak in the #MahsaAmini song. After Abbasi led a demonstration, police arrested and gang-raped her repeatedly, otherwise tortured her, and barred her family from a hospital visit. Photos of Abbasi show her proudly wearing a Star of David necklace, and I imagine police were delighted by the two-for-one opportunity to destroy both a woman and a Jew.

The beauty of Jewish multicultural consciousness is that it inherently teaches there is no us/them. Jews are an integral part of the fabric of every society and culture around the world. We are the connecting thread, the bridge between the gaps of humanity. When we step into this consciousness, we can transmute divisive thinking that currently plagues our world. And perhaps then, we can truly serve as a light unto the nations.

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The post Why is the Ukraine war more Jewish than the Iranian uprising? A year after Mahsa Amini’s death, that should change. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Marco Rubio Says US Denying Visas to Foreigners ‘Celebrating’ Assassination of Charlie Kirk

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the US is denying visas to foreigners who publicly celebrate the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a move he cast as part of a broader posture against extremist rhetoric.

While traveling in the Middle East, Rubio told reporters that the State Department has been denying visas to individuals glorifying Kirk’s murder online. He added that officials are also reviewing existing visas and that he expects some to be revoked.

“It isn’t just about Charlie Kirk. If you’re a foreigner and you’re out there celebrating the assassination of someone who was speaking somewhere, I mean, we don’t want you in the country,” Rubio said. “Why would we want to give a visa to someone who think it’s good that someone was murdered in the public square? That’s just common sense to me.”

When asked if the US has actually revoked any visas yet, Rubio responded, “We’ve revoked visas of people. I don’t know if we’ve revoked visas of people that are inside the country. We’ve most certainly been denying visas.”

Rubio also addressed the issue in a social media post on X while sharing a video from a Fox News interview during which he was asked if he planned to restrict visa access or revoke visas for those celebrating Kirk’s killing.

“America will not host foreigners who celebrate the death of our fellow citizens,” Rubio said in the post accompanying the video. “Visa revocations are under way. If you are here on a visa and cheering on the public assassination of a political figure, prepare to be deported. You are not welcome in this country.”

Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and founder of the influential Turning Point USA organization, was shot and killed last week while speaking at Utah Valley University. Authorities have formally charged 22‑year‑old Tyler Robinson of Utah with aggravated murder and several related offenses, including discharge of a firearm, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.

Rubio’s announcement comes amid intensifying efforts by the Trump administration to expel foreigners who express support for violence or terrorism. The administration has launched an overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials describe as an effort to root out individuals deemed a potential threat to the country. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas.

Several of the online posts praising Kirk’s assassination have emerged from the Middle East, with individuals condemning the slain political activist over his vocal support for Israel. During his life, Kirk repeatedly spoke in defense of the Jewish state and expressed support for its military campaign in Gaza.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau concurred with Rubio’s statement, calling on consular officials to prevent the distribution of visas to anyone “praising, rationalizing, or making light of” the murder of Kirk.

Rubio has not explained the standards the State Department is using to determine what qualifies as “celebrating” the assassination. Some critics have speculated that this ambiguity could set up legal challenges from advocacy groups, who are already warning about the First Amendment and due process implications.

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‘Down With Fascists’: Columbia Activist Who Said ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live’ Celebrates Charlie Kirk’s Murder

Khymani James, Columbia University student who filmed himself saying Zionists should be murdered. Photo: Screenshot

A former leader of the anti-Israel movement at Columbia University expressed full support for the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.

Khymani James, who made the posts, was a “campus a leader in the pro-Palestinian student protest encampment” at Columbia, according to The New York Times.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, James posted on X, “More. MORE!!!,” referencing the killing. He followed up that post by saying, “Down with all the fascists 😍.” (He later also called California Gov. Gavin Newsom a fascist.)

In another post, James wrote, “‘Be careful what you post’ and it’s people rightfully celebrating the inevitable and just fate of fascists. anywho… NO ONE MOURNS THE WICKED 😩🤣.”

In addition to the posts he wrote, James also reposted statements such as “Thoughts and prayers for the bullet,” “rest in piss,” and “saw that s–t and started giggling and kicking my feet and shouting YOOOOOO.”

In James’s biography on the social platform X, he notes, “Anything I said, I meant it. DEATH TO EMPIRE.”

This is not the first time James has rhetorically supported violence. Last year, he was on video saying, “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and proclaiming that people should “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

He also said, “I don’t fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser. I fight to kill.”

The comments triggered widespread backlash, and James was suspended by Columbia. The incident also resulted in what was widely seen as an apology for James on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), one of the most notorious anti-Israel campus groups in the US. Months later, however, the group retracted its previous apology.

“All CUAD organizers were complicit in not maintaining our political line, keeping the statement public on our Instagram, and in neglecting the mental and physical safety of Khymani,” the post read. CUAD apologized for causing “irrevocable harm” to him.

Despite James’s comments about the possibility of murdering Zionists, CUAD’s post claimed that he was criticized and socially ostracized for “fight[ing] back against state violence.”

James also responded to this post, writing on X, “Thank you to my comrades for posting this beautiful, powerful letter. I never wrote the neo-liberal apology posted in late April, and I’m glad we’ve set the record straight once and for all. I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics.”

“Anything I said, I meant it,” he concluded.

Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during a speaking event at Utah Valley University, where he was engaging in dialogue with students. He is survived by his wife and two young children. A young Utah man — Tyler Robinson, 22 — was taken into custody last week as the suspected shooter, about 33 hours after the assassination, according to state and federal law enforcement.

Kirk was an outspoken supporter of Israel and advocate against antisemitism. He regularly debated students on the subject of Israel and brought his ideas to young people at a time when, according to recent polling, that age group was turning decidedly against the Jewish state.

“There’s a dark Jew hate out there, and I see it,” Kirk told a student during a podcast episode which aired earlier this year. “Don’t get yourself involved in that. I’m telling you it will rot your brain. It’s bad for your soul. It’s bad. It’s evil. I think it’s demonic.”

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Spain’s PM Sánchez Faces Backlash for Fueling Anti-Israel Hostility Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents

Cycling – Vuelta a Espana – Stage 21 – Alalpardo to Madrid – Madrid, Spain – Sept. 14, 2025: Barriers are smashed by anti-Israel protesters during Stage 21. Photo: REUTERS/Ana Beltran

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is facing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility after incidents at the Vuelta a España disrupted the prestigious cycling race.

Amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes and anti-Israel sentiment, Lorenzo Rodríguez, mayor of Castrillo Mota de Judíos in northern Spain, accused the country’s leader of “fueling a discourse of hatred” against Israel and the Jewish people.

“The government is fostering antisemitism that will prove deeply damaging for Spain,” Rodríguez said in an interview with the local outlet El Español.

“Sánchez’s moves are less about serious foreign policy and more about deflecting attention from his trials and failures in governance,” he continued. “Spain isn’t leading anything — it’s merely whitewashing Hamas and other terrorist groups.”

On Sunday, anti-Israel protests forced the finale of the Vuelta a España cycle race to be abandoned as police tried to quell demonstrations against the participation of an Israeli team.

In his interview, Rodríguez blamed Sánchez for fostering a hostile climate in Spain, saying the country is witnessing “hatred toward an entire people.”

He also criticized the Spanish leader for failing to take a strong stand on other international crises, including those in Russia and Venezuela.

“We all recognize that the Palestinian people are suffering, but the solution cannot be to blame the Jewish people,” Rodríguez said.

“People are afraid. There’s growing concern because our town was recently targeted,” he continued. “We are being singled out and threatened even though we have nothing to do with this war.”

Before the incidents on Sunday that led to the race’s cancellation, Sánchez expressed “admiration for the Spanish people mobilizing for just causes like Palestine” through their protests.

Madrid’s Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida strongly condemned Sánchez’s statement, accusing him of encouraging hostility and fueling tensions.

“The prime minister is directly responsible for this violence, as his statements this morning helped instigate the protests,” Martinez-Almeida said after the race was canceled.

“Today is the saddest day since I took office as mayor of this great city,” he continued.

Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, also criticized Sánchez’s remarks, accusing him of stoking division to maintain his hold on power.

“The psychopath has taken his militias to the streets,” Abascal wrote in a post on X. “He doesn’t care about Gaza. He doesn’t care about Spain. He doesn’t care about anything. But he wants violence in the streets to maintain power.”

Shortly after the incidents, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) publicly denounced the violence, urging authorities to respond quickly and decisively.

“Violence and intimidation have no place in a democratic society and cannot be excused under the guise of freedom of expression,” FCJE said in a statement.

“These violent demonstrations fuel hatred and contribute to a concerning rise in antisemitism in Spain, which we have been warning about over the past two years,” the statement read. “It is unacceptable that violence is justified on ideological grounds and hostility is directed toward the Jewish community”

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has become one of Israel’s fiercest critics, a stance that has only intensified in recent months, coinciding with a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents targeting the local Jewish community — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions.

On Monday, Sánchez called for Israel to be barred from international sports events after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the finale of the Vuelta cycling race in chaotic scenes in Madrid.

“The sports organizations should ask whether it’s ethical for Israel to continue participating in international competitions. Why was Russia expelled after invading Ukraine, yet Israel is not expelled after the invasion of Gaza?” Sánchez said while speaking to members of his Socialist Party.

“Until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be allowed to participate in any international competition,” the Spanish leader continued.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned Sánchez’s remarks, labeling him “an antisemite and a liar.”

“Did Israel invade Gaza on Oct. 7th or did the Hamas terror state invade Israel and commit the worst massacre against the Jews since the Holocaust?” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas started the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when it led an invasion of southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence against the Israeli people.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities and political rule in Gaza.

As part of its anti-Israel campaign, Spain announced on Tuesday that it will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates, citing the country’s military offensive against Hamas in the war-torn enclave.

Last week, Sánchez also unveiled new policies targeting Israel over the war in Gaza, including an arms embargo and a ban on certain Israeli goods.

The Spanish government announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians,” block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace, and enforce an embargo on products from Israeli communities in the West Bank.

In one of its latest attempts to curb Israel’s defensive campaign in Gaza, Spain has canceled a €700 million ($825 million) deal for Israeli-designed rocket launchers, as the government conducts a broader review to systematically phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.

Saar has denounced Sánchez’s latest actions, accusing the government in Madrid of antisemitism and of pursuing an escalating anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining the Jewish state on the international stage.

“The government of Spain is leading a hostile, anti-Israel line, marked by wild, hate-filled rhetoric,” Saar wrote in a post on X, accusing Sánchez’s “corrupt” administration of trying to “divert attention from grave corruption scandals.”

“The obsessive activism of the current Spanish government against Israel stands out in light of its ties with dark, tyrannical regimes — from Iran’s ayatollahs to [Nicolás] Maduro’s government in Venezuela,” the Israeli diplomat continued.

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