United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.

US President Donald Trump filed an appeal of a ruling by an Obama-appointed federal judge which restored $2.7 billion in public grants he had impounded from Harvard University over its alleged failure to address campus antisemitism along with other faults.

The move aims to put Harvard on the back foot,  as his efforts to penalize the institution have run into repeated legal roadblocks despite that virtually every other elite institution he has targeted for reform — such as Columbia University, Brown University, and Northwestern University — decided that settling with Trump is preferable to fighting the administration.

As previously reported, by The Algemeiner, US federal judge Allison Burroughs ruled in September that Trump acted unconstitutionally when he confiscated about $2.2 billion in Harvard University’s research grants, charging that he had used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” Burroughs went on to argue that the federal government violated Harvard’s free speech rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment and that it was the job of courts to “ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations.”

The ruling conferred a major victory to Harvard, as it had been asked to grant to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers said would make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter the administration sent to Harvard president Alan Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — the policies called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of DEI initiatives,” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”

Harvard refused the president his wishes even after losing the money and took the issue to federal court. Meanwhile, it built a financial war chest, leveraging its GDP-sized assets to issue over $1 billion dollars in new debt and drawing on its substantial cash reserves to keep the lights on. It fought on even as it registered its largest budget deficit, $113 million, since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to The Harvard Crimson.

On Friday, Harvard told multiple outlets it is “confident that the Court of Appeals will affirm the district court’s opinion.”

The Harvard Corporation also said on Tuesday that the university will retain Alan Garber as president for an “indefinite” period. Garber was appointed in Jan. 2024 amid antisemitic, pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus and Harvard’s being pilloried over revelations that Garber’s predecessor, Harvard’s first Black president, Claudine Gay, is a serial plagiarist.

Under Garber’s leadership, Harvard has contested a slew of lawsuits accusing school officials of standing down while anti-Israel activists abused Jewish students. It settled some of the cases and prevailed in others. At the same time, Harvard agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. By all accounts, it is in no rush to settle its dispute with the Trump administration.

“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement. “Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

Arizona State University Chabad and Downtown Tempe hold Menorah lighting ceremony on Dec. 7, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum vis Reuters Connect

Before Hanukkah (and before the Bondi Beach massacre), my son asked me what the holiday is really about. Not the gifts, not the latkes, not even the oil that famously lasted eight days. “But what actually happened?” he pressed. He has been learning quite a bit in Hebrew school and pushed me: “How did a tiny group win when everyone thought they couldn’t?”

It’s a question that lands differently this year. I told him the truth: Hanukkah is the story of a small, outmatched community refusing to accept that the world’s hatred and power alignments would dictate their future.

The Maccabees were not the strongest or the most numerous. They weren’t protected by empires or alliances. They persevered because they believed their identity mattered, their way of life mattered, and their freedom to live as Jews mattered. And that conviction — rooted in faith, courage, and stubborn hope — carried them through the impossible.

He listened, nodded, and then asked the question so many Jewish parents have heard this year: “Is it like that now?”

I wish the analogy didn’t fit. My son is growing up in a moment when open antisemitism spreads faster than any ancient decree; when mobs surround synagogues, when Jewish students are told they don’t belong, when the Internet can turn ignorance into global hate in seconds. He sees the hate filled graffiti around our neighborhood. He hears others in the city talk about Israel with a hostility that has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with identity. He watches the news and senses the unease in our home when we talk about safety.

And so the Maccabean story is not abstract. It is a mirror.

For years, many of us lived Jewishly in a way that was proud but cautious — visible but not too visible, present but politely understated. 

So many American Jews assumed America would always be different, that the ancient need for Jewish vigilance was something our generation might finally outgrow. But my son’s question made clear that those days are gone. 

The world has changed, and our children deserve a model of Jewish life rooted not in caution, but in confidence.

The miracle of Hanukkah is not just that oil burned longer than nature allowed — it’s that Jews did. That our people insisted on lighting a flame even when the world around them demanded surrender. They restored the Temple not because victory was assured, but because Jewish life itself was worth defending whether or not anyone else agreed.

This year, the miracle feels less like ancient mythology and more like a living assignment. It reminds us that Jewish endurance has never depended on winning the popularity contest of nations. The Jewish people have always survived — and often thrived — by holding firm in who we are even when the world misunderstands, resents, or maligns us.

That lesson came into sharper focus when I showed my son the famous photograph in Kiel, Germany, in 1931 of a menorah in the window facing the Nazi flag across the street — one family defiantly insisting on light when every force around them demanded fear. He stared at it quietly. Then he looked out our own window, the same window where just weeks ago we saw protesters screaming about Jewish power, Zionism, and Israel with a rage meant to intimidate. They called for Israel’s destruction, the death of his family members living in Israel, and the murder of Jews in America for simply existing. It didn’t matter that this was New York, not 1930s Germany; the message was unmistakable.

So this year we have placed our menorah in the window — not tucked away, not dimmed, not hesitating. It is our declaration of resilience, a statement of presence, and a call to the world that Jewish life will not retreat. We will not cower. We will not waver in our right to be here, to belong, to live openly as Jews in the United States or anywhere else. We are resolute. We are defiant. And we are proud.

Some insist that Jews and Jewish institutions must bend — moderate our commitments, soften our existence, or “balance” our right to safety with demands that erase the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood itself.

Hanukkah teaches the opposite: Jews do not need to contort ourselves to appease ideologies that deny our very right to endure. We are allowed to exist openly. We are allowed to be strong. We are allowed to defend ourselves and our communities. We are allowed to assert that our story, our dignity, and our continuity matter. We are allowed to be proud of our faith, our history, and our place in the world.

And America, if it means what it says about pluralism, has obligations too. A free society does not ask minorities to hide the parts of themselves others find inconvenient. A healthy democracy protects its citizens especially when they are under threat — not only when they are easy to celebrate. Jewish belonging is not conditional. It is anchored in centuries of contribution to American civic, cultural, scientific, intellectual, and communal life. Our presence strengthens this nation; our resilience is not a provocation but a fulfillment of America’s promise.

When I look at my son, I see why this clarity matters. He deserves a Jewish life lived without apology or fear. He deserves a community that is strong, grounded, and proud. He deserves to inherit a tradition defined not by defensiveness, but by purpose.

So yes, I told him, the story of a small group doing the impossible resonates now. Not because we are powerless, but because the pressures to retreat, disappear, or doubt ourselves have returned with force. The right response — now as then — is illumination; bringing light into the world  

One candle does not drive away all darkness. It simply refuses to let the darkness win uncontested. That is what we are called to do right now: to insist on our visibility, to teach our children pride rather than dread, to speak plainly even when others prefer we whisper, and to bring light and enlightenment to a world that too often chooses shadows.

This year, as my son places our menorah in the window, he will know that he is part of that unbroken chain; that he, too, inherits the responsibility to kindle light in an age that would rather see it dimmed. And that the enduring miracle of our people is not simply that a flame once lasted eight days, but that we are still here, still proud, and still unafraid to light it again.

May that light shine powerfully, proudly, and without fear.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

(JTA) — The youngest victim of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre is known by just one name — but it’s all that’s needed to make her a symbol for her fellow Australians.

“I named her Matilda because she was our firstborn in Australia. And I thought that Matilda was the most Australian name that could ever exist,” her father Michael, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, said at a vigil earlier in the week. “So just remember – remember her name.”

The poem and song “Waltzing Matilda,” written in 1895, is considered an unofficial anthem in Australia, which has been rocked by the terror attack on Bondi Beach that killed 15 people attending a Hanukkah celebration.

At a vigil on Thursday night at Bondi Pavilion — a public space now transformed into a memorial flooded with flowers and displays of solidarity — hundreds of mourners gathered and sang the song to memorialize Matilda, who at 10 was the youngest among the dead.

Matilda had been filmed shortly before the attack admiring as her father put on tefillin, the phylacteries used in prayer that emissaries of Chabad, the group that organized the Hanukkah celebration, routinely help Jewish men put on to fulfill a religious commandment. She was shot while standing with her mother Valentyna and 6-year-old sister.

Seeking to protect their privacy, the family has asked that their last name not be published in the media. Instead, Matilda has become associated her middle name, Bee.

At the somber memorial, all of the attendees were given stickers with Matilda’s name alongside a smiling bumblebee clutching a menorah, a symbol that has become a quiet emblem of remembrance in the days since her death.

At her funeral on Thursday, held at the Chevra Kadisha Memorial Hall, mourners clutched bee balloons and placed bee posters on the exterior of their cars.

A giant plush bumblebee was placed on Matilda’s small white casket at the funeral, one similar to the many that now adorn the Bondi Pavilion flower memorial alongside illustrations of bumblebees.

On social media, parents and schools around the world have posted children’s illustrations and photos of bees at the request of Matilda’s parents, a tribute that has spread widely as a way of remembering her. On Facebook, Matilda’s father, Michael, has reposted many of the online memorials.

Build a Bear Workshop Australia also announced the production of a limited-edition plush bee in memory of Matilda, with all proceeds going to her family. A GoFundMe page set up by her language teacher has also drawn over $550,000 in donations.

“She loved the outdoors, animals, she went to school, she had friends, everybody loved her,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, whose son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was also killed in the attack, said during his eulogy for Matilda. “The tragic, so totally cruel, an unfathomable murder of young Matilda is something that’s painful to all of us as if our own daughter was taken from us.”

Valentyna said at the vigil that until Sunday, she had been happy that her family had moved from Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since Russia invaded in 2022.

“I came from Ukraine. I brought from Ukraine my oldest son, with him, and I was so happy that he’s not there right now. He’s not fighting for his land, and he’s safe here,” she said as she broke down in sobs. “I couldn’t imagine I would lose my daughter here.”

Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney, quoted from “Waltzing Matilda” at Matilda’s funeral.

“She bore the name Matilda to honor this great land, Australia’s heart and spirit forever hand in hand,” said Minns, who wore the bumblebee sticker on his lapel, according to ABC. “Her spirit like a swagman’s will never fade away. She’s waltzing with the angels, where love will always stay.”

The post ‘The most Australian name’: Matilda, the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach attack, embodies a nation’s grief appeared first on The Forward.