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In Indiana, a vaunted Jewish studies program is upended by red-state politics over Israel and speech
A sudden change in leadership at Indiana University’s Jewish studies program has erupted into a bitter internal feud, pitting a new interim director against faculty and students who say he is undermining academic freedom and reshaping the program’s direction amid national tensions over Israel and campus speech.
The turmoil began with the abrupt replacement of the department’s longtime director, continued with a clash between the new director and an ardently pro-Palestinian graduate student, and culminated last week with a statement of support for the new director from the college’s dean.
The conflict, first reported by the student newspaper, began in August, when the longtime director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program, Mark Roseman, unexpectedly stepped down a year before his term ended. Roseman said he was told, without explanation, that IU’s newly installed chancellor, David Reingold, sought to replace him.
Günther Jikeli, a scholar of antisemitism and associate director of IU’s Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, stepped into the role.
Soon after taking over, Jikeli clashed with graduate student Sabina Ali, who identifies as Jewish and supports the Palestinian cause. He expelled her from a Zoom seminar for displaying a “Free Palestine” image and later denied her travel funding to present a paper critical of “Jewish indigeneity” claims related to Israel. Jikeli said her work was “political activism, not scholarship.”
Many of the Borns Jewish Studies faculty and graduate students have publicly sided against Jikeli, fearing that his actions will threaten academic freedom and damage the reputation of one of the oldest and most storied Jewish studies programs in the country.
“We used to have a Jewish studies program where we knew we had political differences, but we had really great academic working relationships,” said Sarah Imhoff, a tenured professor who has been at IU for 16 years. “And that has significantly deteriorated.”
At the same time, dozens of faculty at universities around the world, most of them in Jewish studies, have signed a letter to the dean supporting Jikeli. They wrote that he was “facing an entirely unwarranted political assault on his professional integrity and judgment.”
“What Professor Jikeli is trying to do is restore rigor and objectivity in the department,” Allon Friedman, a medical school professor on IU’s Indianapolis campus and leader of multiple pro-Israel advocacy groups in the state, told JTA.
Friedman continued, “We’ve seen over the last few decades a real deterioration — not only the quality of scholarship in Jewish Studies in particular, but also an injection of politics that is oftentimes anti-Israel, if not overtly antisemitic. That’s what we’re seeing here.”
Mark Roseman, former director of Indiana University’s Jewish Studies program, in a promotional video for the program, Oct. 28, 2015. (Screenshot via YouTube)
Jikeli, who is not Jewish, declined to comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for this story. Representatives for IU and the dean’s office did not return repeated requests for comment.
Jikeli’s appointment in August came as a surprise to Roseman, who directed Jewish Studies at IU from 2013 to 2020 before reassuming the position last year. Roseman, who unlike Jikeli is Jewish, told JTA he stepped down after Jikeli told him that Reingold, who was named chancellor in June, had privately offered the director role to him.
This was considered a highly unusual arrangement for an academic program, where directors are not typically forced out before the end of their term and any replacements would typically be vetted by committee.
“I was surprised by it, obviously. It didn’t make sense to me to continue not having the confidence of the campus leadership,” Roseman said. He added that, in his eyes, “the program operated very harmoniously.” He remains affiliated with the program as a tenured faculty.
Jikeli told the Indiana Daily Student that he, too, was given no reason for the leadership change. Seemingly no one in the program was. At a meeting with Rick Van Kooten, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Jewish studies faculty asked why their director was being replaced now.
“I can’t tell you that,” the dean responded, according to multiple accounts of the meeting.
This scene was part of a broader cultural shift at IU, where around 12% of the student body is Jewish — and where new personnel and new oversight have been installed at various levels in a broader effort to comply with the nationwide campus crackdown led by President Donald Trump.
Indiana’s Republican state legislature, following Trump’s model, has wrested control of public university governance and pressured IU to curb the power of faculty decision-making, leading to a broader revolt over free speech on campus. During last year’s pro-Palestinian encampments, state police dispatched snipers to campus rooftops as a peacekeeping measure in a much-criticized move.
After the encampments, IU, like other schools, convened an antisemitism advisory board. Roseman and Jikeli served on it together, along with Dean Van Kooten and others including an Indianapolis congregational rabbi. (Unlike similar antisemitism task forces at other schools, IU’s has not produced a formal report.)
One Jewish professor who had played a leading role in the encampments was disciplined over the summer after being found in violation of an “intellectual diversity” law recently passed by the state senate. That professor, Benjamin Robinson, has since been sanctioned by the school. The complaint said that by sharing his views on Israel and Gaza in one of his Germanic studies classes, he violated a state law that forbids faculty from discussing their views in the classroom if they are unrelated to the professor’s expertise.
Many saw the recent shutdown of the student newspaper as a further attempt to quash dissent. (IU walked back its decision last week, but not before having fired the student media director.)
At the same time, not all speech has been silenced on campus. Recently Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, spoke to 3,000 IU students as part of the Turning Point USA tour days before releasing a chummy interview with avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes.
Roseman alluded to such pressures in the Jewish studies program’s most recent alumni newsletter, dated fall 2025. In a “director’s report” written before he stepped down, he warns of recent actions from the state legislature forcing public universities to close programs that enroll under a certain threshold of majors. Such actions, he told alums, could jeopardize the program’s future.
The same newsletter included an “editor’s note” stating that Roseman would no longer be serving as director — and a welcome note from Jikeli. His primary concerns were different.
Günther Jikeli, a professor of antisemitism, addresses an audience in Cleveland, Ohio, Dec. 7, 2018. In 2025 Jikeli was installed as interim director of Indiana University’s Jewish Studies program over the wishes of some of his colleagues. (Screenshot via YouTube)
“Rising antisemitism is a challenge on campuses across the country,” Jikeli wrote. “While IU is not immune, we are fortunate to have strong partnerships and resources to address these concerns, and we will continue to work together to ensure that Jewish Studies remains a place of learning, resilience, and community.”
Roseman, a renowned British scholar of the Holocaust who most recently edited a comprehensive four-volume Cambridge history of the Shoah, had tried to keep a low profile on campus in the two years since the Hamas attacks and outbreak of war in Gaza. Even as IU, like many other schools, contended with encampments and accusations that Israel was committing genocide, the resident genocide scholar sought to keep his own views out of the spotlight, colleagues said.
That has not been the case with Jikeli, whose research specialties include monitoring antisemitism among pro-Palestinian supporters on Instagram and in European Muslim communities, including Syrian refugees. Last year he helped to organize a “Rally Against Hamas Propaganda” on campus, alongside the leaders of IU’s Hillel and Chabad centers and the president of Hoosiers for Israel. At the time, Jikeli told the Indiana Daily Student that the rally was not intended as a direct counter to the encampments.
Speaking to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, an activist group, over the summer prior to his appointment as director, Jikeli warned that tensions on campuses like his own were “entering a more dangerous phase.” He painted anti-Zionist activists in stark terms.
“We’re not just dealing with protests,” he said then. “We’re facing a hardened core of ideologically driven actors, empowered by digital amplification and real-world networks, who are reshaping campus discourse — and possibly campus safety — in deeply troubling ways.”
In the two months since Jikeli took over the Jewish studies director post, he has taken a harder line against a strain of pro-Palestinian activism that had been running through some aspects of the program. In his view, expressed in emails viewed by JTA, he is protecting the program from influence or activism that could harm its mission.
Indiana University graduate student Sabina Ali holds a sign with her name on it as members of the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition and its supporters picket while striking for union recognition in Bloomington, Indiana, April 25, 2022. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
His efforts soon focused on a chief adversary: Sabina Ali, a sixth-year doctoral student pursuing a Ph.D. in religious studies with a minor in Jewish studies and a former managing editor of the American Religion Journal, a scholarly publication based at IU.
Over email, Ali told JTA she identifies as “post-Soviet Jewish,” with a mixed family including Muslims. “My Jewish identity is inseparable from the struggle against all forms of oppression, including Israel’s ongoing occupation, apartheid, and genocide against Palestinians,” she wrote.
Last year Ali was one of dozens to sign an open letter from “Jewish Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni” protesting the university’s breaking up of a student encampment — a letter not signed by Roseman, Imhoff or any other current Jewish studies faculty save one. (An emeritus professor who is on the Jewish studies faculty advisory board also signed.) She supports a movement pressuring IU to divest from Israel, and her Zoom profile picture, visible when her camera is off, is a drawing of a woman wearing a keffiyeh accompanied by a Palestinian flag and the words “Free Palestine.”
Ali was drawn to Jewish studies, she said, “because my research engages core questions within the field while also expanding the field’s boundaries through critical approaches.” She also admired the work of the faculty, particularly Imhoff. “It matters deeply to me to be part of Jewish Studies because it is a field where I feel I can make meaningful contributions and connect it to broader interdisciplinary conversations,” she said.
When on campus she routinely wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headscarf that has been adopted by protesters on the left, to Jewish studies events — something she said she did without incident before Jikeli’s appointment.
“I am fully aware that not everyone in the program shares my political views or my fundamental moral conviction that occupation, apartheid, and genocide are unacceptable,” Ali told JTA. “Academic freedom does not require that everyone is comfortable.”
Before the leadership change, Ali’s politics encountered little pushback within Jewish studies — although some faculty and students had expressed discomfort behind closed doors. But under Jikeli, it quickly became an issue.
Her Zoom picture became a sticking point in September when it was visible during a program event, as Imhoff prepared to present her own latest research to colleagues. According to those in attendance at the Zoom lecture, Jikeli ordered Ali to remove the pro-Palestinian image or he’d kick her off the call. When she refused, he booted her — prompting a mass exodus from nearly all of her colleagues, who reconvened in a separate Zoom meeting, sans Jikeli, to discuss the research.
The incident infuriated many on campus who viewed Jikeli’s actions as a violation of academic freedom, with one professor calling his behavior “autocratic.”
In an email obtained by JTA, Ali wrote, “The irony is not lost on me that I — a Jewish student — was excluded from a Jewish Studies event for expressing solidarity with Palestinians, while you, a ‘scholar’ of antisemitism, used your authority to decide what kinds of Jewish expression are acceptable.”
Some, however, supported Jikeli.
“I do not think it was wrong of Dr. Jikeli to ask, or to insist, that a Zoom profile with said imagery and said language be removed, given the program that we’re in, given the times that we’re in,” Joanna Martin, a second-year doctoral student with a Jewish studies minor, told JTA.
Things shortly escalated when Jikeli vetoed Ali’s request for funding to present her research paper, “Weaponizing Indigeneity,” at a conference on religious studies. According to the paper’s abstract, “claims about ‘Jewish indigeneity’ to Palestine…are appropriated to justify the existence and actions of the settler-colonial nation-state of Israel and deployed to legitimize the possession of Palestine.”
The funding request, typically pro forma, had already been approved by the faculty committee overseeing graduate studies. The program director’s decision to unilaterally override the committee was, observers said, unprecedented.
No one before Jikeli had raised a flag about her research proposal. “In fact,” Ali said, “my advisors and committee members have told me that my research is innovative for Jewish studies.”
Jikeli defended his decision to faculty in a September email, obtained by JTA, saying Ali’s research was too politicized. He suggested that the Department of Religious Studies, Ali’s primary doctoral home, could fund her travel instead.
Jikeli explained in a follow-up email that he had to act “in the best interest of Jewish Studies as a program,” and believed that funding Ali “could have harmed Jewish Studies.” He added, “I understand that reasonable people may disagree on where exactly to draw such lines.”
Many in the program weren’t persuaded.
“Many of us feel like this current arrangement is not one we would want to continue,” Imhoff said. “I would like to find a way forward where we can support all graduate students and faculty who are doing serious research, regardless of their politics.”
“She’s a graduate student. We’re all graduate students. Part of our job here is to learn how to fit within this discipline, fit within the field, and push boundaries of what that’s supposed to look like,” Daniel Reischler, a third-year doctoral student, told JTA.
Ali’s activism, long tolerated in the program, was now a flashpoint. “My sense is this is just what he was hired to do, to deny Sabina funding,” one member of the Jewish Studies faculty said of Jikeli. Some have argued it is, in fact, Jikeli who is imposing personal politics on Ali’s research.
“People are paranoid,” Claire Richters, a sixth-year Ph.D. student, told JTA. She was one of three members of the Jewish Studies graduate student executive committee, including Reischler, who signed an open letter to Jikeli protesting his decision to withhold funding to Ali. “There’s just a worry that this will start extending to any issue that the director has a political disagreement with.”
Those concerns aren’t shared by everyone. “There’s a lot of, like, ‘Will my research be denied?’ And it’s like, you’re doing Holocaust studies. I doubt it,” Martin said. Declining to share her thoughts on Ali’s research and its appropriateness for Jewish Studies, she added, “The majority don’t have reason to be worried.”
The letter from outside faculty supporting Jikeli also defends the actions he took against Ali.
“First, there was good reason, we believe, to turn down a request for travel support to deliver a programmatic indictment of Israel as a colonialist power. Nothing in the abstract demonstrates any original arguments,” the letter states. “Second, the decision to disallow a student in an online seminar to replace her face with a political slogan and an anonymized portrait in a keffiyeh was responsible and appropriate.”
Among the letter’s signatories: Alvin Rosenfeld, who founded Jewish studies at IU.
A police officer with a gun stands on a Palestinian flag during the arrest of an activist on the third day of a pro-Palestinian protest camp at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, April 27, 2024. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Dean Van Kooten weighed in on the disputes with Ali in an internal email on Oct. 29.
He tried to walk a fine line. “I concur with the director’s decision to not use Borns Jewish Studies Program funding, particularly an IU foundation account[,] to fund the travel of the graduate student,” Van Kooten wrote in an email viewed by JTA. However, he added, Ali’s travel to the conference would still be funded, just from a different IU piggy bank. This would be done, he wrote, in the name of “respecting academic freedom.”
When it came to Zoomgate, Van Kooten was more circumspect. “Regarding the governance of the use of Zoom in department/program seminars, colloquia, etc., the college does not have a policy on this, and we don’t recommend one,” he wrote. Any Zoom policy going forward, he added, “should be voted on by the entire core faculty, and in consultation with Indiana University’s general counsel.”
The dean added that, in absence of any clear policy, “the convenor of an event must exercise sound judgment in balancing the importance of freedom of speech and expression [following university policies] with the obligation to maintain an inclusive learning environment, and limit disruptions when they occur.”
One graduate student told JTA the email felt like a “stalemate.” The work of the program goes on: This week its contemporary antisemitism center hosted a symposium on campus antisemitism, with many of its featured speakers having also signed the letter supporting Jikeli.
Unusually, the conference was supported with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Under Trump the NEH has defunded virtually every other Jewish humanities program, with the exception of the conservative Tikvah Fund. The current acting chair of the NEH was expected to attend IU’s conference.
For some broader observers of the Jewish studies space, who’d long seen Indiana as a beacon for the field, the situation is deeply troubling.
“Indiana is more than a red state. It has an incredible history of white supremacy,” said Riv-Ellen Prell, an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied the history of Jews on campus. “And here is IU, in the middle of this world, as this incredible magnet for Jewish students — because the Jewish studies program was so great, because they had a big Hillel.”
But with the forced changes, Prell said, the forces that shape higher education were sending a message: “‘We like these kinds of Jewish studies people. We don’t like those kinds of Jewish studies people.’”
Prell said that concerns about the appropriateness of Ali’s graduate studies were missing the point: that there were other ways the program’s director could have addressed them.
“This is where she is housed as a student, admitted as a student, and there is academic freedom, and there are faculty who wish to supervise and work with her,” Prell said. “If we are to begin saying, ‘Well, the faculty who work with these students aren’t allowed to teach or supervise people with this kind of work,’ then that is the death of academic freedom.”
Friedman sees things differently.
“It’s insane that we would even consider to pay for something like this,” he said, of Ali’s research. “What’s the point of a Jewish studies department if the students in the department are demonstrating that, not only do they know nothing about the history of the Jewish people, but they’re actively trying to undermine it? No one else would tolerate this.”
Jewish studies has increasingly been a growing lightning rod for Jewish campus politics, even before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s assault in Gaza; the spike in campus antisemitism, and Trump’s college crackdown.
At other schools, donors have pulled funding for Jewish and Israel studies programs over political disagreements with faculty on Israel. Some Jewish studies faculty have been targeted or muscled out of campus antisemitism task forces because of their perceived views on Israel, while others have led protests against their own task forces. At Columbia, which reached a settlement with the Trump administration to protect its funding after becoming the epicenter of student protests, some angry Jewish donors have opted to support Jewish Studies, but not the rest of the university.
Yet Jikeli’s fear that the IU controversy “could harm Jewish Studies” seems to some a self-fulfilling prophecy. On social media, current and former IU Jewish Studies faculty were bemoaning the spiritual end of the program. And citing the interim director’s actions, some prospective graduate students have told faculty they are no longer interested in enrolling.
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The post In Indiana, a vaunted Jewish studies program is upended by red-state politics over Israel and speech appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Sen. Rand Paul’s Son Apologizes After Drunken Antisemitic Insults Against Catholic Congressman
US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is trailed by reporters as he arrives for the weekly Senate Republican caucus luncheon at the US Capitol in Washington, US, May 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
William Paul, the adult son of frequent Israel critic US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), has apologized following reports that he made antisemitic and homophobic statements while defending Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) at a Capitol Hill restaurant on Tuesday evening.
NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman witnessed the encounter at Tune Inn and wrote that the younger Paul, 33, sat a few seats down from Lawler at the bar when he introduced himself and told the congressman that if Massie lost in his upcoming primary, “your people” would be responsible.
Lawler, an Irish Catholic, asked, “My people?”
This prompted Paul to say, “Yeah, you Jews.”
Lawler then clarified his religious background, saying, “Do you think I’m Jewish? I’m not.”
Paul apologized for his error, replying, “Oh wow, I’m so sorry for calling you a Jew.”
Lawler later told reporters the comment was “just a remarkable statement in and of itself,” adding that “at one point, you know, said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die. And I think that’s f**king disgusting.”
Lawler told the New York Post that he responded to Paul mistakenly identifying him as a Jew with, “And even if I was, what’s the problem?”
“Then he got into the Middle East,” the lawmaker recounted. “And he was talking about, like, us trying to steal Iran’s land for the Jews and steal the West Bank, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Paul then reportedly proclaimed Jews were “un-American” and more loyal to Israel. Lawler argued back against Paul’s dual-loyalty accusations and accused him of being antisemitic.
“Paul Singer serves Israeli interests, not American interests,” Paul also said during the encounter, referring to the billionaire Republican donor and prominent Jewish supporter of pro-Israel causes.
Singer has supported Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL challenging Massie in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.
A new campaign ad that aired in Kentucky this week and was sponsored by Hold the Line PAC, a group backing Massie, characterized Singer as a “pro-trans billionaire” and featured a rainbow-colored Star of David behind his image while attacking Gallrein’s allies.
Critics condemned the imagery as antisemitic, arguing it invoked longstanding tropes about Jewish financial influence and used Jewish symbolism in a way designed to inflame cultural resentment.
Massie himself has been a fierce critic of Israel, condemning its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon and arguing that the Jewish state has targeted civilian infrastructure and should not receive assistance from the US.
US President Donald Trump has endorsed Gallrein and actively campaigned against Massie, who like Paul’s father is a libertarian-leaning Republican known for frequently breaking with party leadership and advocating an isolationist foreign policy.
During his outburst this week, the younger Paul also urged Lawler to watch far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson more and claimed that Massie and his father were the only legislators who care about America. In multiple postings on X, Paul promoted “Save the Republic Money Bomb” donations for Massie.
In December 2023, Massie sparked condemnation for posting a meme suggesting that Congress was more loyal to Zionism than “American patriotism.”
In recent years, meanwhile, Carlson has emerged as the leading anti-Israel commentator on the American political right, routinely advancing conspiracy theories condemning the Jewish state while heaping praise on Qatar, the longtime supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tuesday’s exchange concluded with Paul performing an obscene gesture.
Lawler responded by asking, “Did you just give me the middle finger?”
Paul replied, “I’m sorry, yeah, I did. I’m just really drunk. I’m going to leave.” He reportedly stumbled on his way leaving the bar.
Paul attempted to apologize on X on Wednesday from his @TastyBrew1776 account, writing, “Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem.” He has struggled with his alcohol use before, pleading guilty to a drunk driving charge in 2015.
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski responded to the apology.
“You don’t just have a drinking problem, you have a Jew-hating problem,” he posted. “The Jewish sages taught, ‘Wine goes in, and secrets come out.’ You need some Jewish friends so you can correct your image of Jews.”
Conservative columnist Bethany Mandel, an advocate for Jewish outreach to antisemites, responded with an invitation to Paul, asking him, “Care to come for Shabbat dinner sometime?”
Addressing the admission of excessive drinking, Lawler told reporters, “That’s not an excuse for that type of hatred and vitriol. It’s my fourth year in Washington; that was arguably the most shocking thing I’ve witnessed.”
Lawler explained how he saw the encounter in the context of today’s rising antisemitism.
“But I mean, look, I think it speaks to a larger issue, obviously, in society and what we’re seeing among young people and what we see online,” he said. “And this is the level of hatred and vitriol, frankly, that some of my Jewish colleagues experience, but many of my constituents experience.”
Paul’s father chose not to comment on his son’s antisemitic outburst, saying to reporters on Wednesday only, “I don’t have anything for you.”
He and Massie have both faced substantial criticism for their positions on Israel.
On numerous occasions, Massie voted as the lone Republican in the House opposing bills supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism. In October 2023, he voted against House Resolution 771, which stated that Congress “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists” and “reaffirms the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security.” In September 2021 he was likewise the sole Republican to oppose the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act.
In May 2022, Massie earned the distinction of being the only member of Congress to oppose a resolution honoring Jewish Americans’ heritage and denouncing a rise in antisemitic violence. He also distinguished himself further on Nov. 28, 2023, as the only legislator to vote against a resolution reaffirming Israel’s right to exist.
In January 2024, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley condemned Massie as “the most anti-Israel Republican in Congress” and challenged her primary rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to denounce his support.
Paul has also faced opposition for his actions against the Jewish state. In November 2018, he blocked two bills to continue military funding of Israel. Then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said then that “at a time when Israel faces unprecedented threats, blocking a bipartisan bill that empowers the US to stand with Israel is inexplicable.” Paul claimed that he supported Israel and that his move was intended toward encouraging the Jewish state to support its own defense.
Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul — the father of Rand and grandfather of William — has faced accusations of bigotry for decades, originating in his decision to publish a series of 1980s newsletters bearing his name which promoted racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and conspiracy theories, including one since identified by analysts as disinformation deployed by the KGB accusing the United States of creating the AIDS virus.
According to former Cato President Ed Crane, Ron Paul once told him that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for the Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, antisemitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto.”
Rand has previously spoken fondly about the influence of one of his father’s antisemitic mentors, Murray Rothbard, the founder of the anarcho-capitalist and paleo-libertarian traditions who frequented the Paul family’s dinner table. During his career, Rothbard promoted Holocaust deniers, used antisemitic slurs in private correspondence, called for abolishing the Constitution to return to the Articles of Confederation, and urged Republicans to support former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
“I have one of the largest Jewish populations anywhere in the country in my congressional district, and I’m not going to stop standing up for my constituents,” Lawler told reporters. “I’m going to stand up for the Judeo-Christian values that are at the core of our nation, our Constitution, and our rule of law, as I reminded Mr. Paul.”
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Israel to Extend F-35 Flight Range in Push to Build Up Military Force
A US Marines F-35C Lightning II is staged for flight operations on the flight deck of the US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran from an undisclosed location March 3, 2026. Photo: US Navy/Handout via REUTERS
Amid a multi-front conflict and a broader drive to bolster its military capabilities, Israel has signed a new contract with Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyclone to develop an extended-range capability for the F-35 Lightning II, marking its latest effort to extend the aircraft’s operational reach and endurance.
On Thursday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced it signed a $34 million contract with Cyclone to develop and integrate external fuel tank systems for the Lockheed Martin-manufactured platform, aimed at enhancing its operational reach and in-flight persistence during extended missions.
Based on an existing Cyclone design used on F-16 aircraft, the system is expected to reduce reliance on aerial refueling and enhance the Israeli Air Force’s flexibility in long-range operations.
The aircraft integrates stealth capabilities, advanced data fusion, and internal weapons carriage, alongside Israeli-developed electronic warfare, communications, and computing systems that are incorporated into the US-built platform architecture.
Israeli officials said the agreement is part of a broader effort to strengthen domestic defense-production capabilities, improve readiness for a prolonged period of security challenges, and preserve Israel’s regional air and strategic superiority, amid an expanding multi-front conflict against Iran and its regional terrorist proxies.
After more than three years of war, Israel is now expected to increase defense spending over the next decade by roughly $95 billion, on top of an annual defense budget that has already grown from under $27 billion to nearly $40 billion.
Earlier this month, Israel also announced a major expansion of its combat air fleet, effectively doubling its planned procurement of F-35 Lightning II aircraft from 50 to 100, while increasing its next-generation F-15 Eagle fleet from 25 to 50, as part of one of its largest long-term force modernization programs in decades.
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I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
Because there have been many public misstatements and mischaracterizations, I believe it is incumbent on me as chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary to clarify the facts about our invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to serve as our commencement speaker this year.
Herzog’s leadership and public service reflect the core principles and values that underlie JTS’s enduring commitment to the state of Israel, and to a vision of Zionism that is central to our institution. His life and work, including his advocacy for strengthening Israel’s democracy and his defense of a two-state solution, align with JTS’s mission.
Our seminary’s leadership felt that awarding him an honorary degree, and having our students hear him speak directly to them, would be both a privilege and fully consistent with our love for Israel and the people of Israel. (Herzog can no longer attend the commencement in person, but will be delivering his commencement address virtually, and will receive his honorary degree in person at some date in the future.)
I am proud that JTS serves as a forum for respectful disagreement, which our choice of Herzog as speaker prompted. The Jewish world encompasses a wide range of perspectives, particularly regarding the political situation in Israel. That diversity of thought exists both within our classrooms and beyond. I welcome the voices of those who may disagree.
What is regrettable is the extent to which respectful disagreement has been drowned out by a public media spectacle.
After our initial announcement of Herzog as commencement speaker, six seniors in JTS’s undergraduate dual-degree programs with Barnard College and Columbia University wrote a letter expressing their opposition to our decision.
Those students’ concerns focused on the policies of the Israeli government in its recent wars, and in no way challenged the legitimacy of the state of Israel. They also asked some additional students and alumni of other JTS schools to sign on in support of their objections. This list of supporters included four rabbinical students, three of whom are first-year students.
As too often happens in such circumstances, the letter was shared more widely, without the students’ prior knowledge or consent. This was dismaying to several of the students, who had intended to hand deliver it to me to spark conversation. What should have been a private exchange between students and their administrators escalated in alarming ways.
The authors were publicly criticized, misidentified as rabbinical students, and labeled “anti-Zionist,” including by some parties who purport to care deeply about JTS. Calls were made for their expulsion, and unfounded accusations were directed at their characters.
Few individuals from the community called me for clarification about what was actually transpiring before rushing to judgment publicly. Absent was the principle of “dan l’chav zechut” — that we should assume the best unless proven otherwise. I was deeply saddened by the outcry.
Here’s what actually happened: After I was made aware of this letter, I invited the undergraduates who authored it to meet with me for an extended and honest conversation. What they said in that conversation made it clear that anyone who labels them as anti-Zionist is misguided.
Rather, they are thoughtful individuals whose consciences are deeply troubled by many of the actions of Israel’s current government. Our conversation gave us an opportunity to discuss the role of dissent within a committed community, the importance of understanding the totality of a public figure’s career rather than focusing on isolated statements, and the distinct responsibilities of the offices of prime minister and president of Israel.
We at JTS take our responsibility as educators seriously. First and foremost, we are here to teach our students to engage with difficult issues thoughtfully, navigate disagreement and move forward in constructive and meaningful ways.
But just as important is our obligation to support and defend them when they are portrayed unfairly in public forums by those who do not know them as we do.
We take equal pride in the students who wrote the letter raising concerns about Herzog’s role in commencement, and those who wrote a letter to me expressing strong support for it — a response I heard echoed by many.
As Noam Pianko wrote in the Forward, this kind of thoughtful and respectful exchange about Israel and Zionism at JTS is not new; it is part of a longstanding tradition and precisely the kind of engagement we should continue to foster. One of our students who favored Herzog’s appearance reflected that in our courses, “the focus is not on advancing a single vision of Zionism but on confronting the deep and often irreconcilable disagreements within it. We read competing Zionist thinkers … Each author offers fundamentally different answers to what a Jewish state should be and what it should prioritize.”
We hope the Jewish community joins us in taking pride in the thoughtful young people who are working to navigate a complex Jewish world. By embracing, supporting and educating them, we can help ensure they remain deeply connected to the Jewish community, continue to be nourished by it, and contribute to its future in meaningful ways.
The post I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement appeared first on The Forward.