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A US military base canceled a children’s event celebrating a pioneering Jewish woman cyclist, citing DEI ban

(JTA) — A children’s museum housed on a U.S. military base cancelled a planned storytime reading celebrating the life of a pioneering 19th-century female Jewish cyclist earlier this year, after the book was flagged under a military-wide ban on “DEI” content.

The stated reason was because the book was about a woman, its author, Mary Boone, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“If they had actually read the book and found out it was about a Latvian Jewish immigrant, it would have been a double whammy,” Boone said.

The recently revealed reason for the cancellation is the latest example of how a broad crackdown on diversity initiatives throughout the U.S. military, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has pushed out Jewish representation as well.

Earlier this year the U.S. Naval Academy removed a display honoring Jewish female graduates ahead of a planned Hegseth visit. The academy also removed several books about Judaism and the Holocaust from its campus library, while leaving others including “Mein Kampf” intact. The Pentagon additionally removed content about Holocaust remembrance from its websites this spring, prompting a response from Jewish War Veterans of the USA.

The incidents all occurred this spring, immediately following Hegseth’s anti-DEI order. That was also when a military base near Tacoma, Washington, cancelled a planned reading of the children’s book “Pedal Pusher: How One Woman’s Bicycle Adventure Helped Change The World.” The picture book is a biography of Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, who in 1895 became the first woman to cycle around the world.

The talk featuring the book’s author was scheduled to be held this past March, during Women’s History Month, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home to around 110,000 people including service members and their families. Boone, a Tacoma resident, revealed the reasons behind the cancellation in a Seattle Times op-ed on Oct. 11, in recognition of Banned Books Week.

“Four days before the event, I was told it violated the administration’s executive order restricting so-called ‘radical’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across federal institutions,” she wrote. “Someone complained when they saw my story time being promoted. Museum higher-ups appealed to military attorneys, who ruled that the program about a pioneering cyclist was out of bounds.

“Let that sink in: the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military had effectively declared a woman on a bike too threatening for children.”

A representative for Joint Base Lewis-McChord declined to comment, citing reduced office functions owing to the ongoing government shutdown.

Boone, who is not Jewish but is married to a Jew, told JTA that she was led to believe someone on the base had complained after seeing a poster advertising the reading. She doubts that those objecting to the book had actually read it, but rather had reacted because “it was a book about a woman.”

A section of the book briefly mentions Kopchovsky’s Jewish and immigrant identity as one reason why her journey, as a mother of three circumnavigating the globe by bike in 1895, was so improbable.

“Annie was a Latvian Jewish immigrant, and this was a time when prejudice toward Jewish people was widespread,” the book reads.

Initially, Boone said, she had not planned to include the section in the book, which only runs to 700 words. “My editor called and said, ‘This is a huge part of her story you left out,’” the author recalled. She said she responded, “I’m not a Jewish writer. Can I tell this? She was like, ‘Yes, you can tell this.’” The passage made the book.

Greentrike, a nonprofit that operates the base’s museum as well as a different children’s museum in Tacoma, declined to comment. Another March event featuring Boone at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma, off base, went forward as scheduled.

The Seattle Times obtained an email from Greentrike outlining the military’s reasons for the book’s cancellation as part of the op-ed’s fact checking process.

In March, the museum had initially announced the events “in celebration of Women’s History Month,” saying the readings would be paired with children’s activities including bike safety lessons. A brief update announcing the military base event’s cancellation only stated that storytime “will not be taking place at this time and has been removed from the event calendar.”

Back in 1895, Kopchovsky set off on her bicycle journey from Boston as part of a wager between two men who had placed bets on whether it was possible for a woman to cycle around the world. Initially pedaling west, she reached Chicago and almost gave up before ditching her heavy women’s bicycle for a lighter and more practical men’s model, then set off back east — eventually sailing on to bike in Europe and Asia before heading back to Chicago.

During her travels, Kopchovsky went by “Annie Londonderry” — not to disguise her Jewish identity, but because she had struck a sponsorship deal with the mineral-water company Londonderry Lithia. She earned $10,000 for her ride and wrote often about it after her return, frequently embellishing her tales of derring-do.

Children on the base have still received multiple opportunities to hear about Kopchovsky. When the storytime cancellation was initially announced, Boone said, she was contacted by representatives from two public schools also housed on base. She wound up speaking at both of them, without incident.

Months later, after she went public with the initial cancellation, she was swarmed with speaking invitations and sales of her book picked up. Among the new connections she made were to distant relatives of Kopchovsky.

“It’s given me the opportunity to talk about her to a lot more people who are outraged that this book about a woman would be cancelled,” she said.

The post A US military base canceled a children’s event celebrating a pioneering Jewish woman cyclist, citing DEI ban appeared first on The Forward.

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‘We Stand Together’: UK Professors Call Out Harassment of Jewish Colleague Who Served in IDF

Illustrative: London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Hundreds of professors on Tuesday signed a petition calling for the end of an antisemitic hate campaign aimed at driving a Jewish Israeli professor from his job at City St. George’s, University of London because he served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the 1980s.

The professor, Michael Ben-Gad, has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine, the petition says. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.

“Regardless of diverse views on the recent Gaza war and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we deplore any campaign that seeks to intimidate and drive out lecturers because they are Israeli, Jewish, or members of any other group,” the professors’s petition says. “Academics and students have a right to go about their work at any university without facing harassment.”

It continues, “Attacks of this kind are intimidating, particularly to Jewish students, and set a precedent under which others could be targeted in the future. We wish to make clear to what appears to be a small, if very vocal, group that their mobbing tactics will not succeed. We stand together in support of Professor Ben-Gad and his personal and intellectual freedom as an academic.”

City Action for Palestine is one of London’s most notorious anti-Zionist groups, convulsing higher education campuses across the city with pro-Hamas demonstrations which demonize pro-Israel Jews, attack policies enacted to combat antisemitism, and amplify the propaganda of jihadist terror organizations. Ben-Gad is not its only victim, as the group has targeted Members of Parliament, the Union of Jewish Students, and City University London president Anthony Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the child of a Holocaust survivor.

Jews employed in higher education in Europe and America face an escalating climate of hate and intimidation.

Around the globe, in Alameda County, California, a professor is suing the University of California, Berkeley, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim the university’s own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation. According to court documents, a hiring official allegedly concluded that an Israeli professor working in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies would be unpalatable to students and faculty after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Dr. Yael Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”

Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation into Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance.

At George Washington University, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) issued an ominous warning to a professor who created a proposal to resettle residents of Gaza outside of the Palestinian enclave and remake it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism.

“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.

“The reason for the eviction is: your active role in incepting the genocide and planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” SJP’s message continued. “Your disgusting plan for the complete destruction and foreign occupation of Gaza and the colonial ‘re-education’ of Palestinians.”

Denouncing Pelzman as an “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”

In September, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), released survey results showing that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it.

Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent).

“Colleges and universities are meant to be open, safe, learning environments where faculty and students alike feel comfortable sharing ideas and having open discourse,” AEN executive director Miriam Elman said in a statement. “It’s disturbing, but perhaps unsurprising, that Jewish and Zionist faculty on campuses across the country are experiencing antisemitic hostility and retaliation for their beliefs.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Qatar, Turkey’s Expanding Roles in Gaza Could Strengthen Hamas Infrastructure, Experts Warn

Heavy machinery operates at a site where searches for deceased hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct, 7, 2023, attack on Israel are underway amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

As the fragile ceasefire in Gaza appears to hold, experts are warning about the expanding roles of Qatar and Turkey in reconstruction and post-war efforts, amid concerns that their involvement could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.

Last week, Qatar’s Minister of International Cooperation, Mariam bint Ali al-Misnad, announced new operations in the Gaza Strip to remove debris and restore infrastructure.

“As part of assistance to Gaza, the State of Qatar has commenced debris removal operations and opening of primary routes,” al-Misnad said in a press conference.

“The goal is to restore hope and return life to its normal course,” the Qatari official continued. “We take pride in belonging to a nation that makes humanity an obligation.”

Joining several world powers, Qatar has welcomed the US-backed peace plan aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, pledging to support reconstruction efforts in the war-torn enclave and to advance the next steps in ceasefire negotiations.

Alongside the United States and regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the two-year conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades.

However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.

Amid Qatar’s ongoing reconstruction efforts in Gaza, experts have warned that the heavy mechanical equipment might do more than clear debris and build roads, potentially aiding Hamas in restoring its terrorist infrastructure.

According to Natalie Ecanow, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Qatar’s involvement in the ceasefire plan is concerning, largely because of its decades-long relationship with Hamas.

“Qatar has long been a political and financial patron of Hamas and has previously signaled that it’s OK with the terror group surviving to rule another day. That’s incompatible with the Israeli and American position,” Ecanow told The Algemeiner.

As Doha begins debris removal operations in the enclave, Hamas has reportedly requested “specialized equipment” to recover the remains of deceased Israeli hostages, some of whom the Islamist group says cannot be retrieved without such machinery, for transfer to Israel as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

Ecanow also argued that Qatar only intensified its push for reconstruction and ceasefire efforts after Israel’s Sept. 9 strike against Hamas leaders in Doha, which exposed the country’s vulnerability and prompted it to move quickly on the deal.

“The ceasefire is on shaky ground, which isn’t wholly surprising,” Ecanow told The Algemeiner. “At the end of the day, Hamas is a terrorist group that has repeatedly shown little regard for ceasefire deals.”

“It’s also important to remember that the hostage release was only one part of a multi-phase plan for Gaza. There were almost certain to be roadblocks along the way,” she continued.

Meanwhile, Israel is also concerned about Turkey’s potential influence in Gaza after the war, given its role as a major international backer of Hamas and its openly hostile stance toward the Jewish state.

On Monday, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli rejected any possibility of Turkey playing a role in US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “is a sworn enemy of Israel and the West, a jihadist in a suit,” Chikli said.

“We will not tolerate a Turkish presence, not on our northern border and not on our southern border,” the Israeli official continued, referring to Israel’s borders with the Gaza Strip to the south and Syria to the north.

Last week, Erdogan joined several Arab countries in pledging support for Trump’s Gaza peace plan, vowing to help manage post-war efforts in the enclave.

Among other initiatives, Turkey has committed to deploying search and rescue teams to Gaza to recover the bodies of slain hostages, who are to be returned to Israel as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal, and to support reconstruction across the enclave.

Under Trump’s plan, Turkey is also expected to join a multinational task force responsible for overseeing the ceasefire and training local security forces.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly rejected Turkey’s participation in the International Stabilization Force, calling it a “red line.”

Turkey, a longtime backer of Hamas, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel on the international stage, even going so far as to threaten an invasion of the Jewish state and calling on the United Nations to use force if Jerusalem failed to halt its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

Erdogan has frequently defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he describes as Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, while erroneously accusing Israel of committing genocide.

As part of his long history of anti-Israel rhetoric, Erdogan has also falsely accused the Jewish state of running “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu to Hitler multiple times before.

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Federal judge allows Northwestern to block enrollment for students who boycotted antisemitism training

A federal judge in Chicago allowed Northwestern University to discipline students who refused to watch an antisemitism training video.

Judge Georgia Alexakis declined Monday to issue a restraining order in a lawsuit filed by Northwestern Graduate Workers for Palestine and two graduate students. The plaintiffs claimed that an antisemitism training required by the school for enrollment was biased and discriminatory toward Palestinian and Arab students.

“Northwestern University’s Training is not intended to foster a civil and collaborative workplace or remedy discrimination but rather is aimed at suppressing political anti-Zionist speech and speech critical of Israel,” the complaint read.

The “Antisemitism Here/Now” training video, produced by the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, the city’s Jewish federation, did not ask students to agree with its contents. Fewer than three dozen students declined to watch it in protest.

Attorneys for Northwestern said that 16 students currently face enrollment holds for failing to watch the training, though they added that they were unsure if all students affected did so out of protest.

In her ruling, Alexakis acknowledged that the graduate students affected by the holds face “irreparable harm,” but said that the student’s lawyers had failed to prove  Northwestern had a discriminatory motive in requiring the video.

“Because the plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden in this threshold inquiry, we do not move on to conduct a balancing of the harms,” Alexakis said in her ruling, according to the school’s student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. “For that reason, I have to deny the motion.”

The complaint also criticized the school for adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which the complaint said “effectively limits Arab students, and particularly Palestinian students, in their expressions of nationalist aspirations and protest against mistreatment of their ethnic group.”

The antisemitism training was announced by Northwestern in March in an email to the student body that cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.”

“The truth is that Northwestern’s antisemitism training discriminates against Jewish students who are anti-Zionist, against Palestinian students, and against all people of good conscience, and it has nothing to do with Jewish safety,” said Jonah Rubin, the manager for campus organizing for Jewish Voice for Peace, at a press conference. “It’s about Northwestern trying to cozy up to an increasingly authoritarian administration.”


The post Federal judge allows Northwestern to block enrollment for students who boycotted antisemitism training appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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