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As a child of survivors, I see my parents in every Ethiopian immigrant to Israel
(JTA) — Recently, I watched a mother reunite with her son for the first time in 41 years.
On May 9, I was part of a delegation of the Jewish Agency for Israel that accompanied Ethiopian olim (immigrants) from Addis Ababa to Ben Gurion Airport and new lives in Israel. The mother had made aliyah in 1982 as part of Operation Moses, when Ethiopian Jewish immigrants trekked for weeks through the Sudan, hiding out from authorities in the daytime and walking by moonlight, to reach Israeli Mossad agents, who were secretly facilitating their transport to Israel.
But the son, due to family circumstances, was left behind. And here she was on the tarmac, praying and crying, and the embrace they had when the now grown man walked down the stairs, that depth of emotion after decades of waiting and yearning, was something that I will never forget.
The Ethiopian Jewish community dates back some 2,500 years, from around the time of the destruction of the First Temple. We know that they have always yearned, from generation to generation, to be in Jerusalem. Most of the Ethiopian Jews emigrated to Israel during the 1970s and 1980s and in one weekend in May 1992, a covert Israeli operation, dubbed Operation Solomon, airlifted more than 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over 36 hours. Those coming today are being reunited with family members who came during one of these earlier operations.
On my four-day trip from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I listened to the stories of incredible perseverance, and of heartrending suffering, among Ethiopian Jews — our brothers and sisters. Close to 100,000 of them have made their way to Israel over the past 40-plus years, fulfilling this community’s centuries-long quest to come to Israel.
I heard about the Ethiopian Israeli who, as a 15-year-old, marched through Sudan with his family and lost three of his siblings to starvation. I heard the stories of families waiting, for months or years, for that moment of aliyah, as clandestine negotiations among government negotiators dragged on. It was so powerful to hear of the sacrifices they made and how strong the dream was, and is today, of coming to Jerusalem, to Israel.
RELATED: How Israel’s Falash Mura immigration from Ethiopia became a painful 30-year saga
And I thought of my own family’s journey — a different time, under different circumstances. But also a Jewish journey of perseverance, suffering and, for the fortunate among us, survival.
My parents were born in Poland in the 1930s. During World War II, my father and his family survived in a Siberian labor camp and then in a remote part of Poland. My mother’s family managed to get work papers, but her father did not have them. He survived the war by hiding under the floorboards of a barn on a farm where they were living. The woman who owned the farm did not know they were Jewish, so it was a harrowing day-to-day existence.
But my mother and father survived, managed to make it to liberation, and eventually came to the United States. They were first sponsored by the Birmingham, Alabama, Jewish community, and then made their way to New York and New Jersey, where our family has built a new life. We now have fourth-generation children growing up here in New Jersey, and we feel so fortunate for the lives we have.
Here is the essential difference from their story and mine: For my family, there was no state of Israel. Many members of my family perished in the Holocaust. There was nowhere for them to go.
This drives what I do. Today, everything has changed because we have a state of Israel, and we have a Jewish Agency that ensures that Jews can make aliyah and helps them make new lives in Israel.
Last year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I traveled to Poland and stood at the border as thousands of Ukrainian refugees streamed across. I was standing only a few miles from where my grandfather hid under the floorboards of that barn about 80 years earlier. Back then, there was no one there to protect my family, no one to do anything for them. And here I was in 2022 standing amid a massive array of aid agencies, and the very first thing these refugees saw — whether they were Jewish or not — were signs with the Star of David, marking the Jewish Agency, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other Jewish groups.
While there has been significant hardship and struggle for the first generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, it was incredibly inspiring for me to meet members of the second generation — those who made the trek as children or teenagers in the 1980s and ’90s — who are now Israeli adults in positions of leadership and significant responsibilities. We heard from Havtamo Yosef, who immigrated as a young child from Ethiopia with his parents, and then watched his father become a street sweeper and his mother a housecleaner while he was growing up. Now he heads up the entire Ethiopian Aliyah and Absorption services for the Jewish Agency, ensuring that there are stronger absorption procedures, better education and firmer foundations for better lives for these new immigrants than there ever was for his family.
While there was no Israel for my family when we were refugees, there were — in Birmingham, Alabama; in Hillside, New Jersey; and everywhere along the way of my family’s journey — people who thought outside of themselves, who cared and took care of my relatives. This is my legacy and what motivates me today.
So when I stood on the tarmac at Ben Gurion earlier this month, I cried tears of sadness at the long family separations and tears of joy that today this Jewish journey continues, from Ukraine and Russia and Ethiopia to Israel. Today, there is a place to go and a people to welcome Jews on that tarmac, with an Israeli flag, a smile and a warm embrace, and a promise of better lives in freedom.
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California Judge Blocks Challenge to State K-12 Antisemitism Law
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters in Los Angeles, California, US, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: Daniel Cole via Reuters Connect.
A US federal judge in California has struck down a challenge to the state’s new K-12 antisemitism law, a measure which established a new Office for Civil Rights and other protections for Jewish students.
The law, also known as Assembly Bill 715 (AB 715), is California’s response to an epidemic of antisemitism in K-12 schools, which, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, has produced a slew of complaints alleging civil rights violations. It calls for creating an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially barring antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
Since its signing by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, the law has been challenged by individuals and groups who argue that it violates the First Amendment. One such party is middle school teacher Andrea Prichett, who sued the state government in November to halt the law’s implementation. She was joined by the “LA Educators for Justice in Palestine” group, which has advocated adding “ethnic studies” programs to K-12 school widely criticized for not only teaching a biased, anti-Israel history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also allegedly promoting other concepts that foster racial division and grievance.
In the suit, Prichett argued that the K-12 antisemitism law was “hastily written” and “singled out for punishment” anti-Zionist viewpoints. She also criticized the law because it “empowers anyone to file a complaint claiming classroom content and instructional materials criticize Israel and Zionism,” preventing teachers “from freely discussing these critical issues.”
Writing in Wednesday’s decision, Judge Noël Wise, appointed by former US President Joe Biden in 2024, said the plaintiffs’ argument is specious.
“With the enactment of AB 715, this yet to be appointed Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator will eventually be involved in how local schools ‘handle’ antisemitism. While this may include the administration of antisemitic discrimination complaints, it does not follow that the complaints will be judged more harshly than current complaints,” she wrote. “Plaintiffs have not shown that the mere existence of AB 715, even with its forceful precatory language about antisemitism, means public school administrators will be more likely than they are now to find that antisemitism complaints are meritorious.”
Furthermore, Wise noted that even if what Prichett and LA Educators for Justice in Palestine is true, it fails legally for asserting public teachers’ right to unfettered free speech, which does not exist for government employees while they are at work. Teachers may comment on matters of public interest, she explained, citing past jurisprudence by the US Supreme Court, but it cannot interfere with government’s advancing its “legitimate interests.” When they speak in the classroom or on a public school campus, Wise stressed, they do so not as private citizens but as state officials speaking “with the voice of the government” — a fact which allows government to steer or proscribe what is said on its behalf.
She continued, “As public school education belongs to the government, the government may regulate Teacher Plaintiffs [sic] speech to accord with the government’s education goals. It is of no significance that the curricula and the attendant speech required to teach it may advance a single viewpoint to the exclusion of another.”
Jewish civil rights groups on Wednesday commended the decision for drawing on established legal precedent and affirming California’s right to fight discrimination.
“The court correctly acknowledged that public school teachers do not have free speech rights in the classroom, because when they deliver lessons to students they are speaking on behalf of the government,” said Carly Gammill, director of legal policy and litigation at StandWithUs Saidoff Law. “While teachers can speak freely in their private lives, they cannot use K-12 public education as a platform for bigotry against Jews or other groups. School districts and state officials have both a right and a responsibility to protect students from instruction that crosses the line into antisemitism.”
The American Jewish Committee also issued a statement, with its chief executive officer Ted Deutch saying, “Public schools need to be welcoming to all, including Jews, and must not be used as platforms for teachers to express individual political views. Bias and discrimination that can lead to outright antisemitism has no place in California — or any — classrooms.”
Antisemitic incidents in California schools include vandalism and assault. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment.
In Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials were accused of ignoring complaints about discrimination and tacitly approving hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School (BUSD), for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.
California is not alone in dealing with the issue. Pennsylvania has a significant K-12 antisemitism problem as well, a fact acknowledged recently by a surrogate of the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro following the US Congress announcing an investigation into antisemitism in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and a disturbing anti-Israel statement at a high school in the Wissahickon School District.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital in Dec. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Florida Sees Three Antisemitic Incidents in One Week as State Pushes Back
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participates in a Fox News Channel’s Democracy 2024: Fox News Town Hall ahead of the caucus vote in Des Moines, Iowa, US, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Scott Morgan
Communities in Florida’s Jupiter and West Palm Beach saw three acts of antisemitic intimidation last week, part of a trend of hate targeting local Jews this year as the state government moves to respond forcefully.
At the Jupiter Civic Center Beach, a vandal used bright orange spray-paint to write “Kill Jews” on two beach crossovers, according to a report from WPTV, West Palm Beach’s NBC affiliate, which confirmed two instances of the genocidal slogan vandalized in the town, both on government property. Each case of vandalism has been covered up, though not fully removed, according to video footage.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office also said that its Targeted Violence Unit was investigating a “suspicious call” at a Kosher restaurant in West Palm Beach.
“You don’t know who that individual is who’s going to take it upon themselves to act and move beyond words,” Josephine Gon, executive director of the Palm Beach Center to Combat Antisemitism and Hatred with the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, warned WPTV in an interview. “That’s what is so serious right now. It’s a very fertile environment for bad actors.”
Florida has seen multiple efforts in recent weeks and months to counter those who target Jewish citizens.
On Dec. 8, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” DeSantis said of the designations on social media.
CAIR-National and CAIR-Florida responded in a joint statement.
“From the moment Ron DeSantis took office as Florida governor, he has prioritized serving the Israeli government over serving the people of Florida,” the statement read. “He hosted his very first official cabinet meeting in Israel. He diverted millions in Florida taxpayer dollars to the Israeli government’s bonds. He threatened to shut down every Florida college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, only to back off when CAIR sued him in federal court.”
CAIR compared DeSantis to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (whose state also designated the group as a terrorist organization this year), describing him as “an Israel First politician who wants to smear and silence Americans, especially American Muslims, critical of US support for Israel’s war crimes.”
On Dec. 15, CAIR announced the filing of a lawsuit against DeSantis in response to the terrorism designation.
The legal system in Florida has prosecuted several individuals accused of antisemitic acts this year.
In October, Florida state Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the arrest and prosecution of Nicholas Ray of Spring, Texas who allegedly had made death threats under a ”zionistarescum” X account against Jews he believed responsible for the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk the prior month.
In August, John Kevin Lapinski, Jr., 41, received a 25-year federal prison sentence from US District Judge Rodney Smith in Miami due to his terrorist plans to attack Jewish Americans and Black Americans in Florida. US Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said at the time that “this defendant stockpiled weapons, tactical gear, and detailed attack plans to terrorize Jewish and Black Americans in our communities. His intent was not abstract — it was written on his maps, his targets, and his so-called hit list.”
Also in August, police charged a Florida State University (FSU) graduate student for an alleged assault of a Jewish peer captured on video.
In April, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism announced it had found that Phoenix Ikner, 21, the alleged attacker behind a shooting at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee which caused two deaths and six injuries, had expressed an interest in Nazism, using Third Reich terminology to name himself in online games.
“What we’re seeing — if in fact this individual has extremist views, and it seems at the very least he was exposed to extremism — is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that eventually leads to violence,” said Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative research at the ADL’s Center on Extremism
A hearing for Ikner occurred on Nov. 13 in Tallahassee. His trial has been pushed back to March 30 due to a change of counsel.
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London Denies Star of David Removed From Israeli Flag During New Year’s Eve Special After Facing Backlash
Flags displayed on the London Eye during the British capital’s New Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan denied speculation that the British capital deliberately removed the Star of David from the Israeli flag that was displayed during the city’s New Year’s Eve fireworks spectacle on Wednesday night.
Flags from around the world were projected onto the London Eye Ferris wheel to form the European Union flag, in an effort to celebrate the diversity of people in London and “send a message of unity for 2026,” according to the mayor’s office. It was displayed as part of the city’s celebration to welcome the new year, but some viewers noticed that Israel’s flag appeared simply as a white rectangle with two blue stripes. The iconic Star of David that is typically in the center of the flag was not clearly visible, which prompted some social media users to claim the symbol of Jewish identity was “removed” or “erased.”
However, City Hall quickly released a statement insisting that the animated flags were very small and moved too quickly to appear clearly to all viewers. The visibility issues affected other blue and white national flags as well that were included in the sequence, including those of Guatemala, Argentina, and Honduras.
“A range of flags were displayed on the London Eye to represent the wide variety of countries of origin of people who live in and contribute to the success of London,” said a City Hall spokesperson, as cited by The Standard. “These animated flags were small and moving so were not all entirely clear at every point as they gradually formed into the Union Flag.”
The group London Jewish Forum (LJF) shared a video on social media that showed the Star of David very faintly on the Israeli flag in the New Year’s Eve display. In a released statement, LJF agreed with City Hall that the issue with the Star of David was because “elements were not always clearly visible at every moment due to the scale and motion of the animation.”
“There is no evidence that this was antisemitic or that the Israeli flag was singled out,” the group added. “The footage and the organizers’ explanation are consistent on this point. We also understand why people are watching these details closely right now. When antisemitism is rising, symbolism carries weight and scrutiny is natural. In this case, though, what we are seeing does not suggest intent or targeting.”
Other images projected as part of London’s celebration for 2026 on Wednesday night honored England’’ women’s rugby team the Red Roses for winning the Rugby World Cup, the Lionesses soccer team being victorious in the Euros, and Europe’s triumph over the US in the Ryder Cup. It also featured visuals and songs from “Wicked: For Good,” as well as a message from the film’s Grammy, Emmy, and Tony-winning actress, London native Cynthia Erivo.
Roughly 100,000 people lined the banks of the River Thames on Wednesday night to watch what was considered the largest annual firework display in Europe, according to the mayor’s office. The event featured more than 12,000 fireworks and over 400 lights.