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At an American Jewish conference in Tel Aviv, protesters are driving the energy
TEL AVIV (JTA) — At a marquee conference of American Jewish leaders that kicked off tonight in Tel Aviv, the loudest cheers were for anti-government protesters, most of the energy could be found outside of the convention center’s gates, and the biggest news was who didn’t show up.
The General Assembly, the signature conference of the American Jewish organizational world, was meant to be a celebration of Israel’s 75th birthday and a testament to the enduring strength of ties between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. Sunday’s opening event, the Jewish Federations of North America said, was meant to pay tribute to that relationship — and feature speeches by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But in the face of loud protests outside the event, Netanyahu abruptly canceled his appearance on Sunday, citing a full schedule ahead of Israel’s Independence Day on Wednesday. Over the course of a series of speeches by international Jewish dignitaries, his name was not mentioned once.
Instead, both inside and outside the conference walls, the tone of the evening was set by the protesters. They gathered by the hundreds opposite one of the convention center’s entrances — and in smaller clusters around the building — giving the thousands American Jewish visitors a taste of the protest culture that has developed this year in Israel as huge numbers Israelis have taken to the streets to oppose Netanyahu’s sweeping proposals to sap the power of the judiciary.
From the stage, the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Tel Aviv was mostly business as usual — except that the prime minister backed out of attending. (Courtesy JFNA)
Protesters waved Israeli flags, chanted the word “democracy” syllable by syllable, and blew into small plastic horns whose blaring sound carried remarkably well — permeating the walls of the conference plenary session. An entrepreneur standing at a card table was selling packages each containing a horn and a small Israeli flag for, depending on who asked, either 20 or 30 shekels (roughly $5.50 or $8).
The most direct route from the train to the conference was blocked off, owing to Tel Aviv’s ongoing attempts to build a citywide light rail system. So, with roads closed, the best way to get from the train station to the event was to follow the protesters — identifiable by the huge Israeli flags they carried or wore around their necks. Many were also pushing strollers or walking dogs.
“Israel must be a free democracy,” protesters chanted as attendees exited the event. “Please help us. Fascism shall not pass.”
Most of the protesters were gathered far from the gate where conference participants actually entered. But they got a shout out in the conference program as well. Julie Platt, the Jewish Federations’ board chair, drew a sustained round of applause and whooping from the 2,000 attendees when she spoke about how inspiring the protests were.
“What is clear is how passionate we all are about Israel and how central Israel is to our lives,” Platt said. “Its struggles our are struggles, its success is our success, and its debates are our debates. To the leaders of Israel, including those attending tonight, we stand united in our support of dialogue and broad consensus based on mutual respect.”
Then, she added, “To the protesters exercising their democratic rights, we see you, we hear you and we are inspired by your love of Israel.”
When the Jewish Federations last held the General Assembly in Israel, in 2018, Netanyahu sat onstage for a Q&A with the group’s chairman for more than half an hour. In Netanyahu’s absence this year, the night’s keynote speaker was Israeli President Isaac Herzog. His role is largely ceremonial, but he has been spearheading dialogue about the judicial overhaul — as well as issuing dire threats about what may happen if that dialogue fails.
Herzog repeated a version of those warnings Sunday night, portraying the debate over judicial reform as a cautionary tale about the dangers of polarization.
“The fierce debate over Israel’s direction in recent months is a striking example of the ways that alienation between different groups, and polarization that festers for years, becomes corrosive and weakens the pillars that hold our nation together,” he said. “I am convinced that there is no greater existential threat to our people than the one that comes from within.”
In his speech, Herzog announced an initiative called “Voice of the People” that will be aimed at fostering dialogue between Jews of differing opinions across Israel and the Diaspora. That initiative will be anchored by a conference he called the “Jewish Davos,” in a nod to the Switzerland-based annual economics conference that is seen as a global meeting of the minds.
“Nonpartisan, apolitical, Voice of the People will be a collaborative forum — one that can hold and reflect the full and diverse range of Jewish voices,” he said. “It will be a place where we can engage in serious, sensitive and strategic discussions on the most complex and pressing issues facing our people.”
If that conference happens, it would not be the first of its kind. Israeli President Shimon Peres, who served from 2007 to 2014, held an annual conference featuring famous names discussing hot-button issues. And historically, the federations’ General Assembly itself has been viewed as an ecumenical Jewish conference to discuss a wide range of issues.
Aside from that, the night’s program featured mainstays of traditional American Jewish gatherings celebrating Israel: a video with black-and-white stills from the country’s founding years, testimonials from Jewish immigrants to Israel from around the world, a performance by a musical group composed of Israeli soldiers. The conference will continue with a full day of sessions on Monday.
Near the end of the night, as the festivities were winding down, two people in the audience held up Israeli flags. One of them, in the corner, featured a quote from Israel’s national anthem that has become a protest slogan: “Free in our land.”
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Ilhan Omar Poses for Photo With Swedish MP Wearing Garment Depicting Erasure of Israel
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a press conference with activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) has come under fire after being spotted posing for a photo with Malcolm Jallow, a virulently anti-Israel member of the Swedish parliament.
The picture, which was posted on Jallow’s Instagram page on Sunday, showed the controversial Swedish politician posing alongside Omar and anti-Israel political pundit Medhi Hasan. Jallow draped a stole around his shoulders depicting the complete erasure of the state of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state.
“Spending these days with so many inspiring leaders from around the world — including two of the most inspiring and courageous voices of our time, Congresswoman @ilhanmn Omar and international journalist @mehdirhasan — has been like reigniting an inner flame. I feel recharged with energy, hope, and determination,” Jallow wrote on Instagram.
Jallow has an extensive history of attacking Israel and promoting antisemitic conspiracy tropes. For example, he has “liked” a comment on social media that accused Jewish organizations of participating in freemasonry, fueling a false conspiracy theory that claims a secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons is working to control the world.
The Gambian-born lawmaker also lambasted Sweden for its supposed complicitly in a “genocide” in Gaza and stated in another social media post that Europe “betrayed” the Palestinian enclave by “financing the bombs” and “legitimizing the apartheid & the occupation.” He further appeared to threaten Swedish civilians who support Israel, writing, “To every ordinary citizen who waved the flag of the oppressor & laughed while Gaza burned, We will not forget you. We know your names. We save your statements. We screenshot your posts.”
He also seemed to threaten legal action against Swedish citizens who publicly demonstrate support for Israel’s defensive military operations against Hanas.
“And one day, whether in courtrooms of law or the court of history, In this life or the hereafter, you will be held to account,” Jallow posted. “That is not a threat. That is a promise to the people of Gaza.”
“Why is the Swedish government complicit in Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinian people?” he added on Instagram.
Jallow has also criticized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for taking certain measures to combat antisemitism, arguing that such actions endanger the country’s Muslim population.
“The Swedish Prime Minister’s statement that antisemitism holds a ‘special status’ and is worse than anti-Muslim propaganda is deeply problematic and dangerous. It not only diminishes the severity of hatred against Muslims but also normalizes the growing Islamophobia in Sweden,” Jallow wrote in an official statement last year.
“Ranking hate and prioritizing one group’s suffering over another is not only ignorant and offensive — it undermines our collective struggle against all forms of intolerance and discrimination,” he continued.
Sweden has reported a notable increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, prompting alarm within both the Jewish community and governmental bodies.
According to a report released by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA) last year, hate crimes motivated by antisemitism in the country surged in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. The BRA found that police registered 110 complaints between the Hamas invasion and Dec. 31 in 2023, compared to just 24 incidents the prior year.
While Jews constitute a small fraction of Sweden’s population, they have represented a disproportionately high share of religious-hate-crime victims. In 2020, for example, antisemitic incidents made up about 27 percent of all religion-based hate crimes documented by police despite Jews making up only 0.1 percent of the population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Omar for years has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress, calling on Washington to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state.
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Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder
Adolf Hitler had a sexual disorder that made it more likely for him to have a micro-penis, according to the first-ever analysis of his DNA. He also did not have the Jewish ancestors that some have claimed he had.
The analysis is being revealed in detail in “Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator,” a new documentary premiering Saturday night in the United Kingdom. The documentary looks at the researchers who decided to tackle the genetic makeup of one of history’s greatest villains, as well as what they learned — and cannot learn — from his DNA.
They found that he had Kallman syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by incomplete puberty, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday in the Times of London. They also found that he had genes making him more likely to have autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though they cautioned that the DNA alone is not sufficient to deliver a diagnosis.
Among those quoted in the documentary is the prominent British Jewish psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (father of actor Sacha). “Behavior is never 100% genetic,” he said in the Times report. “Associating Hitler’s extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses risks stigmatizing them, especially when the vast majority of people with these diagnoses are neither violent nor cruel, and many are the opposite.”
The analysis, conducted by a team led by a prominent British geneticist, is more definitive on the subject of Hitler’s possible Jewish ancestry. Rumors about such a background were prevalent during Hitler’s rise: In one notable example, a newspaper aligned with the Austrian chancellor who the following year would be assassinated by Nazis in 1933 challenged German authorities to disprove his Jewish ties.
And the rumors have endured: In 2022, Russia’s foreign minister repeated the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry to rebuff criticism that Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine, that it needed to be “denazified,” was undermined by the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish.
But while previous analyses of the DNA of Hitler’s relatives suggested that he may have had some genetic links to groups that he sought to destroy, including Jews, the new analysis, on Hitler’s own DNA, shows only Austrian German ancestry.
The analysis is based on a swatch of fabric stained with blood that a U.S. soldier cut from the couch upon which Hitler shot himself. The researchers were able to confirm without a doubt that the blood came from Hitler by comparing the DNA found in it to DNA previously confirmed to have come from one of his relatives.
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German Authorities Arrest Another Suspected Hamas Operative Amid Growing Terror Threat to Jews in Europe
Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski
As concern mounts over a potential surge in Hamas-linked attacks in Europe, German authorities have arrested another suspected member of the Palestinian terrorist group accused of acquiring firearms and ammunition to target Jewish communities.
On Tuesday, local police arrested Lebanese-born Borhan El-K, a suspected Hamas operative, after he crossed into Germany from the Czech Republic — part of an ongoing probe into the Islamist group’s network and operations across the continent.
The German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the suspect obtained an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols, and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in the country before handing the weapons to Wael FM, another suspected member of the terrorist group, in Berlin.
Local law enforcement arrested Lebanese-born Wael FM last month, along with two other German citizens, Adeb Al G and Ahmad I.
Prosecutors believe the three men acted as foreign operatives for Hamas and procured firearms and ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany.
Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.
Earlier this month, Mohammed A, another alleged member of the Palestinian terrorist group, was arrested in London at the request of German police. He is accused of taking five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G before moving them to Vienna for storage.
Last week, Vienna authorities uncovered a hidden arsenal linked to Hamas, reportedly intended for “potential terrorist attacks in Europe” targeting Jewish communities.
The Austrian government confirmed that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) has been conducting an internationally coordinated investigation into a global terrorist network with ties to the Islamist group.
During the investigation, Austrian authorities uncovered evidence suggesting that this group had brought weapons into the country for potential terrorist attacks in Europe.
For its part, Hamas issued a statement denying any connection to the criminal network, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”
However, experts have warned that Hamas has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.
Last month, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a study detailing how Hamas leaders in Lebanon have been directing operatives to establish “foreign operator” cells across Europe, collaborating with organized crime networks to acquire weapons and target Jewish communities abroad.
In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.