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Yeshiva University, a pillar of Orthodox Judaism, launches master’s program for Christian students
(JTA) — Emily Talento grew up with Jewish friends and relatives on Long Island, attending Passover seders, bar and bat mitzvahs and Shabbat dinners. When she arrived at Cedarville University, a private Baptist university in Ohio, she found herself explaining Jewish traditions to her many classmates who had never met a Jew before.
Now, Talento is continuing her Bible studies at a religious university. But it’s safe to say that she won’t encounter the same lack of knowledge about Jews this time. That’s because she’s one of eight Christian students embarking on a course of study at Yeshiva University that’s designed just for them.
In the two-year Hebraic Studies Program for Christian Students at the Modern Orthodox flagship, Talento and her cohort will take courses on Jewish history, biblical Hebrew, post-biblical literature and more.
“I’m excited that everything is coming from the Jewish perspective,” Talento said.
The new program is a joint initiative of Y.U. and the Philos Project, an organization that says it “seeks to promote positive Christian engagement in the Near East.” Philos is a partner of Passages — a Birthright-style program that brings young Christians on group tours of Israel — and it also organizes Christians to demonstrate against antisemitism.
The launch of the Christian students’ program is a sign of a growing bond between Orthodox Jews and religious Christians, who have increasingly found common cause on everything from conservative domestic politics to support for Israel. It is also an experiment in whether a school founded more than a century ago to accommodate the observances and sensibilities of Orthodox students in a majority-Christian country can now create an intentional space for Christians to study Judaism as well.
“Within the broader Protestant world, but particularly evangelicals, there’s been, I’d say in the last 50 years, just a really intense interest in the Jewish context of the New Testament, in particular Second Temple Judaism,” said Daniel Hummel, a historian of American religion and the author of “Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations.” (Philos, while founded by an evangelical Christian, identifies itself as ecumenical.)
That interest, Hummel said, has required encounters with Jews. “That’s sort of been the pattern,” he said. “You learn from Jews about their beliefs, and then you sort of take that thinking back to the New Testament texts, which then reshape how you read those texts.”
The program is part of an existing master’s degree program at Y.U.’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. Y.U.’s undergraduate programs are separated by gender, are explicitly geared toward Orthodox Jews and combine traditional Jewish text study with a secular college education. But the university’s graduate programs, including Revel, are open to non-Jews, and Revel describes itself as a “genuinely non-denominational school.”
This year’s “pilot class” of eight Christian graduate students, who come from a mix of evangelical, Pentecostal and Baptist backgrounds, began with Hebrew Bible courses this summer. The students hail from California, Texas, Nebraska, Virginia and Mozambique. Five students are studying remotely, and three plan to be on campus in New York beginning in the fall semester.
Christian students enrolled in the master’s program for Jewish studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, most of whom will study remotely, recently toured the New York campus. (Courtesy Yeshiva University)
“Our real goal is for the Christian students to gain a deeper understanding of the Jewish roots of Christianity,” said Jonathan Dauber, Revel’s director of external programming and Y.U.’s head of the Philos partnership. “It’s also a program that’s meant to foster dialogue and understanding between Jews and Christians because the Jewish students and Christian students are together.”
What sets the new program apart from the rest of the Jewish studies school is that it is a “curated pathway” for Christian students, Dauber said — though aside from the biblical Hebrew classes, the students will take the majority of their courses with other Revel students. Y.U. also hopes to create space outside of the formal classroom where students can interact, such as on a museum visit or via other cultural activities.
Some Christian groups and individuals have appropriated various Jewish rituals for Christian purposes, hosting “Christian seders,” blowing a shofar, or ram’s horn, at prayer or marketing Christian takes on the mezuzah. Those practices have also sparked backlash from both Jewish and Christian clergy. But Hummel felt that the Christian students in the Y.U. program would be unlikely to take on Jewish rituals or seek to missionize to their classmates.
“It’s Yeshiva that’s hosting it, and so the power dynamics are a bit different than if it was Christian space,” Hummel said. “It would be a real uphill battle for a Christian to go into Yeshiva University and expect some type of big success with conversion.”
Institutionally, Yeshiva University is not expecting proselytizing to be an issue either. Ahead of the program’s launch, the university’s rabbinic leadership even issued a ruling that the program was permissible according to Jewish law.
“The Philos students also understand that themselves, that their purpose is to study and to learn about Judaism, that it’s not to try to convince or persuade,” Dauber said. “So that’s really not something that we’re worried about.”
Jews and Christians have studied together in religiously affiliated academic settings in the past. In 2018, Philos ran a leadership program for its Black members at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, where they met with rabbis and African-American pastors to discuss Black and Jewish relations. That same year, David Nekrutman became the first Orthodox Jew to graduate from Oral Roberts University, an evangelical private university, with a masters degree in Christian studies.
The Y.U. program is different because students will undertake sustained enrollment at an Orthodox school.
“This is, in a lot of ways, an experiment,” said Robert Nicholson, president and founder of the Philos Project. “Can Christians and Orthodox Jews study together? Does it even work?”
He added, “Just the mere fact of forging a partnership with an Orthodox institution, to me, is a way of moving the ball down the field in Jewish-Christian relations.”
Hummel said that the partnership “isn’t just out of nowhere.” Modern Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians also share what Hummel referred to as a “theological framework” around Zionism, which is understood as “a real covenant between God and the Jewish people that entails Jews being able to control their homeland.”
Talento, who came in not knowing the Hebrew alphabet, has enjoyed her classes so far. Learning to read biblical Hebrew is “something I couldn’t even imagine being able to do,” Talento said. Knowing Hebrew, she says, lets her “get more into the mindset of the author than you could reading a translated, English-language” text.
Later, she’ll be taking a class on the history of Judaism from the fall of the Second Temple through the Holocaust, and a class on Paul the Apostle, titled “Paul: Profile of a First-Century Jew.” It will be offered in the fall over Zoom and is open to any master’s degree student.
Talento, who has gone on a Passages trip to Israel, is not sure what she will do when she graduates from the program. She has worked for Passages in the past and has attended pro-Israel conferences held by advocacy organizations such as StandWithUs and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. She is considering pursuing a career in the nonprofit world, working for Philos, or elsewhere in Israel advocacy.
“God only gives me the next step,” she said. “If you would have told me I was doing this a year ago, I would have said, ‘This is so cool — but I don’t even know how I was going to get there.’”
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Amsterdam Mayor to Apologize to Jewish Community for City’s World War II Persecution
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema attends a press conference following the violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer team, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
Amsterdam authorities will issue an official apology to the local Jewish community for the city’s role in the persecution of Jews during World War II at a Holocaust commemoration next week, Dutch media reported.
The city’s mayor, Femke Halsema, will deliver the formal apology on April 24, during events for Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).
Every year, the Dutch capital commemorates Holocaust victims at Amsterdam’s Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, originally opened in 1892 and situated in the heart of the city’s Jewish quarter. In 1942, the building was repurposed by Nazi German occupiers as a collection point for Amsterdam Jews before their deportation to Westerbork transit camp and other concentration camps.
According to the Dutch news site Het Parool, Amsterdam authorities will also allocate €25 million to bolster Jewish life in the city, supporting cultural and social programs designed to help the community feel safer and freely practice their traditions.
As in many other countries across Europe, antisemitism has sharply risen in the Netherlands following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, with incidents spiking by 800 percent in the weeks after the Palestinian terrorist organization’s atrocities.
Last year, Israeli soccer fans were violently attacked in Amsterdam after watching the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team compete against the Dutch club Ajax in a European League match. At the time, Halsema called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” who went “Jew hunting.”
With Amsterdam’s announcement, Halsema will be the first mayor in the country to publicly apologize for and recognize a city’s role in the persecution of Jews during World War II.
The mayor’s expected apology follows an investigation by the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies (NIOD) into the role of Amsterdam’s municipal services in the persecution of Jews during the Nazi occupation. Previous reports revealed that police took part in raids, the city handed over Jewish residents’ addresses to the Nazis, and municipal trams were used to transport thousands to deportation points.
In 2020, then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who currently serves as secretary general of NATO, issued a public apology for the Dutch government’s wartime actions.
Last year, Halsema announced the city would give up the money it received during the war for transporting Jews to deportation sites, a sum originally equivalent to about €61,000 today. The municipality rounded the amount up to €100,000 and paid it into a fund managed by the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO), which can decide how the money is used.
During World War II, the Netherlands had the highest percentage of Jewish victims in Western Europe, with three-quarters of its Jewish population being murdered.
“Better late than never,” Ronny Naftaniel, a prominent member of the Dutch Jewish community, told Het Parool. “It would be good if the apology was not just about the war, but also about the period immediately afterwards, given the cold reception that returned Jews received at the time.”
The post Amsterdam Mayor to Apologize to Jewish Community for City’s World War II Persecution first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Alleged Arsonist Targeted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Over Palestinian Stance, Police Say
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania State Police provide an update on the act of arson that took place at the Governor’s Residence, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US, April 13, 2025. Photo: Commonwealth Media Services/Handout via REUTERS
The suspected arsonist who allegedly tried to kill Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro set fire to his official residence out of anger over the governor’s perceived stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a search warrant signed by State Police.
The suspect, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, called 911 prior to the attack and accused Shapiro of orchestrating nefarious “plans” against the Palestinian people. Balmer also referred to Shapiro, who is Jewish, as a “monster,” according to the search warrant, which was obtained by the PennLive news outlet.
Balmer told emergency operators that Shapiro “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” and demanded that the governor “stop having my friends killed.”
The suspect continued, telling operators, “Our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Corporal Benjamin Forsythe of the Pennsylvania State Police said in a warrant to obtain Balmer’s devices that the suspect set fire to Shapiro’s residence, the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, over the alleged ongoing “injustices to the people of Palestine” and his Jewish faith.
Shapiro’s residence was set ablaze on Sunday morning, hours after the governor hosted a gathering to celebrate the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Shapiro said that he, his wife, and his children were awakened by state troopers knocking on their door at 2 am. The governor and his family immediately evacuated the premises and were unscathed.
According to police, Balmer scaled a nearly 7-foot-high security fence and evaded authorities before breaking into the governor’s mansion. The suspect was able to remain in Shapiro’s home for around a minute before throwing Molotov cocktails and escaping.
The suspect later revealed to police that he planned to beat Shapiro with a sledgehammer if he encountered him after gaining access into his residence, according to authorities.
Balmer, who was charged with eight crimes by authorities, including serious felonies such as attempted homicide, terrorism, and arson. The suspect faces potentially 100 years in jail. He has been denied bail.
Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel. In the days following Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Shapiro issued statements condemning the Palestinian terrorist group and gave a speech at a local synagogue. The governor also ordered the US and Pennsylvania Commonwealth flags to fly at half-mast outside the state capitol to honor the victims.
Shapiro has condemned protests against Israeli- and Jewish-owned businesses in Pennsylvania as “antisemitic” and resisted demands to call for a “ceasefire” in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The governor revised the state codes of conduct to bar government employees from participating in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior.
Shapiro’s strident support of Israel in the wake of Oct. 7 also incensed many pro-Palestinian activists, resulting in the governor being dubbed “Genocide Josh” by far-left demonstrators.
In a statement, US Attorney General Pam Bondi condemned the attack targeting Shapiro. However, Bondi did not clarify whether she plans on opening a federal case against the suspect.
“It is absolutely horrific what happened to him,” Bondi said. “We have been praying for Josh, for his family. Those photos, it was horrible. I firmly believe that they wanted to kill him. The defendant allegedly said he was going to use a hammer if he could have gotten to the governor. I’ve known the governor many, many years. It is horrible, and yes, we are working with state authorities to — it’s now a pending investigation — anything we can to help convict the person that did this and keep them behind bars as long as possible,” Bondi said.
In statements to reporters, Shapiro refused to accuse the suspect of antisemitism, saying that he would allow prosecutors to determine the motivation.
“I know that there are people out there who want to ascribe their own viewpoints as to what happened here and why. … I choose not to participate in that,” Shapiro said.
“Prosecutors will ultimately determine what motivated this. The district attorney and the Department of Justice can comment on that further,” Shapiro added.
The post Alleged Arsonist Targeted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Over Palestinian Stance, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Backlash Grows in UK as Hamas Mounts Legal Challenge Against Terrorist Designation
Demonstrators hold Israeli and British flags outside the Law Courts, during a march against antisemitism, after an increase in the UK, during a temporary truce between the Palestinian Islamist terrorists Hamas and Israel, in London, Britain, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Susannah Ireland
A growing wave of condemnation is mounting in the UK after lawyers representing the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas sought to challenge the organization’s terrorist designation, prompting fierce criticism from British Members of Parliament and Jewish organizations.
Last week, Hamas filed a legal petition arguing for its removal from the United Kingdom’s list of proscribed terrorist groups, describing itself as “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.”
Riverway Law submitted a claim to UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on behalf of senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, who also provided a witness statement in the case. Given that accepting funds from Hamas would violate British law, the firm is providing pro bono representation to the terrorist group.
“The British government’s decision to proscribe Hamas is an unjust one that is symptomatic of its unwavering support for Zionism, apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century,” the filing reads. “Hamas does not and never has posed a threat to Britain, despite the latter’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of our people.”
Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, had been banned in Britain since 2001, but the Interior Ministry broadened the ban to include the group’s political entities in 2021, arguing that Hamas functions as a unified organization rather than separate branches.
“I would be very surprised if the British government agrees to remove Hamas from the proscribed list,” Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, told The Algemeiner in an exclusive interview.
“The UK is not entirely sympathetic to Israel, but it’s still very unlikely they would rule in favor of Hamas.”
In applying for removal from the list of proscribed organizations, Turner explained that Hamas does not deny being a terrorist group but rather argues that it is undesirable for it to remain banned.
In its filing, Riverway Law outlines three primary grounds for why Hamas should be removed from the terrorist list. The first argument contends that the UK’s ongoing proscription of Hamas violates international law, including the British government’s obligation not to be complicit in genocide, which Hamas claims is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.
Additionally, it highlights the UK’s alleged responsibility to end “the unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories,” referencing the 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal.
The second argument claims that proscribing Hamas violates the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as UK law prohibits the promotion or support of proscribed organizations. Hamas argues that this ban restricts open debate on the Palestinian issue and peaceful demonstrations, while also being discriminatory since Israel is not similarly proscribed.
The third argument asserts that the proscription is disproportionate and not sufficiently justified. Hamas argues that there is no direct threat to the UK, that its violence is a “legitimate response to occupation,” and that the proscription undermines Palestinians’ democratic will when they elected Hamas.
The terrorist group violently eliminated its Palestinian opposition in a brief conflict in 2007, when Hamas took full control of Gaza after winning legislative elections the prior year.
Turner countered that all three arguments lack merit, emphasizing that rights such as freedom of expression and assembly can be lawfully restricted under UK and international law to protect national security, public safety, and the rights or property of others.
He also pointed out that Hamas still holds 59 of the hostages abducted during its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and that hostage-taking is a crime against humanity under international conventions.
“Hamas is a very vicious terrorist organization,” he told The Algemeiner.
Earlier this week, British Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick announced that he had reported Riverway Law attorney Fahad Ansari for supporting Hamas and jihad, as well as the firm’s potential breach of sanctions regulations.
“The legal profession is being damaged by ideologues exploiting their status to platform extremism,” Jenrick wrote in a post on the X social media platform. “This isn’t about free speech. It’s about a man who repeatedly crosses the line into open support for terrorism — all while the authorities look away.”
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel also criticized the legal effort, calling Hamas an “evil Iranian-backed terrorist organization, which kidnaps, tortures, and murders people, including British nationals.”
More British citizens (18) were killed during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 onslaught than in any foreign terrorist attack since Al Qaeda struck the US on Sept. 11, 2001.
“They pose an ongoing threat to our security and to the peace and stability of the Middle East and have weapons and training facilities that put lives at risk and threaten our interests,” Patel said in a statement. “They show no respect for human rights, life, and dignity and have oppressed people living in Gaza for too long.”
“Those campaigning to end the proscription of Hamas fail to understand the seriousness of the threats this terrorist organization poses,” the statement read.
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a UK-based Jewish civil rights group, also dismissed the case as a “bad-faith attempt to promote genocidal antisemitism,” rejecting the argument that proscribing Hamas stifles political engagement. They argued that it’s still possible to campaign for Palestinian rights, criticize Israel, or support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without endorsing Hamas or terrorism.
Riverway Law’s legal challenge on behalf of Hamas came less than a month after a group of British lawmakers released a new and extensive report documenting the atrocities of the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 atrocities across southern Israel.
The report showed that, in total, about 7,000 Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,182 people, wounded more than 4,000 others, and kidnapped 251 hostages — 210 living and 41 dead bodies at the time of their abduction — during the onslaught. The study detailed Hamas’s planning, the weapons used, and the violence which occurred at each location, including gristly details of sexual violence, torture, and the desecration of corpses.
The post Backlash Grows in UK as Hamas Mounts Legal Challenge Against Terrorist Designation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.