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India’s Bnei Menashe community in crisis as ethnic violence burns synagogues and displaces hundreds
(JTA) — For the past several years, life was good for Lalam Hangshing as president of the Bnei Menashe Council, the governing body for Jewish communities in the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram.
While living at his parents’ house, he and his wife enjoyed the clean air and beautiful scenery of Manipur, a state in northeast India home to close to 3 million people. Miles away, Hangshing rented out a newly-built four-story home to a film production company.
Everything changed on May 3, when rioting broke out between the ethnic majority Meiteis and the tribal minority Kukis, a violent conflagration that had been building up for years. Local groups say Meiteis began targeting Kuki institutions and razing homes to the ground, and Hangshing — also the general secretary of a Kuki-led political party — feared his house was next.
“When the problems started on the third of May, with military precision, the mobs went straight to [Kuki] houses,” Hangshing said. “They ransacked them and vandalized them and they burned each and every house in Imphal city within one and a half days.”
According to Shavei Israel, an NGO that helps “lost tribe” Jewish communities immigrate to Israel, over 1,000 members of the community, or 20% of their total, have been displaced. One community member was killed, and another was shot in the chest and is hospitalized. Two synagogues and mikvahs, or ritual baths, were burned down.
(Degel Menashe, an Israeli NGO that is dedicated to supporting the Bnei Menashe and has a longstanding feud with Shavei Israel, said one synagogue was burned.)
Hangshing is Kuki, as are the thousands of other Bnei Menashe Jews in Manipur. On May 4, Hangshing left his home and over a month later, has yet to return.
He spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Delhi, more than 1,000 miles from his home. His four-story house has been completely destroyed, but his parents’ home is somehow still standing. He worries about family possessions, such as religious books belonging to his father — who had helped found Manipur’s Jewish community — and a favorite set of golf clubs left behind, all in danger of being looted or destroyed any day now.
Another estimated 292 Bnei Menashe families have fled to Kuki-majority hill areas within Manipur or to the nearby state of Mizoram, according to Shavei Israel.
In Mizoram, over 100 Jews initially took refuge in the Shalom Tzion synagogue in Aizawl, in the houses of other Jewish families or at hotels, but most have moved to a paramilitary camp nearby. Community leaders say the refugees are not facing any immediate danger and have enough food and supplies thanks to the tens of thousands of dollars in aid rolling in from Shavei Israel and Degel Menashe.
“They basically just fled with their documents, and they have prayer books, their tefillin and ritual items, and the clothes on their back,” said Asaf Renthlei, a Mizoram Jewish community member and Degel Menashe volunteer. At relief camps, he said, community members have observed Shabbat every week since they fled.
“This is one of the gravest crises the Bnei Menashe in India have ever experienced,” said Michael Freund, who has been chairman of Shavei Israel since he founded the organization in 2002.
Over 100 Bnei Menashe have taken shelter in a synagogue in Mizoram. (Shavei Israel)
“A state gone rogue”
Violence broke out in Manipur state in early May when tribal groups launched a protest against the Meitei’s demand for Scheduled Tribe status, which is traditionally reserved for minority tribes such as the Kukis and ensures certain rights to education, government jobs and other privileges. The Kukis (which make up about 16% of the population and are majority Christian) say that the Meiteis (who make up 53% and are majority Hindu) already have outsized privilege and political representation.
The May 3 protest was only the spark that has ignited a conflict based on long-standing grievances against the Kuki minority, said Sushant Singh, a senior research fellow at India’s Centre for Policy Research.
“At the core of it, it is about Meiteis claiming that they are the original inhabitants of the state, Kukis are illegal immigrants, and… [the Meiteis] have been forced to occupy only 10% of the land,” Singh said. “And because of the special privileges that tribes have in India, they cannot go and occupy the land occupied by Kukis.”
As the conflict enters its second month, over 100 deaths have been recorded and an estimated 40,000 people have been displaced; some entire villages are destroyed and over 200 churches have been burned, as well as the two synagogues in the Imphal area. A statewide internet blackout has been in place since the beginning of May.
While both Kukis and Meiteis have participated in the violence, Kukis have “suffered the most,” and state police and security forces have joined Meitei groups in targeting Kukis, Singh said. Human Rights Watch has called on India to investigate police violence in Manipur, which local groups have disputed.
“It has essentially been a state gone rogue acting against a minority community,” Singh said.
Though the government has called for a ceasefire and established a peace committee, those efforts to quell the violence have been unsuccessful. The military has implemented security measures and evacuated Kukis further into the hills and Meiteis into the plains, but Singh said this has only reinforced geographical divides, instead of facilitating a solution that could allow the two groups to live alongside one another in the future.
Citing the government’s failure to protect them, Kukis have called for separation from the state of Manipur. As the conflict stretches into its second month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to comment on the crisis in his country’s northeast.
“The army has been called in but they are very ineffective because it’s a civil war. They can’t take sides. They just stand around and when the firing gets too heavy, they stand aside so it’s left to us to fend for ourselves,” Hangshing said.
According to one organization, two of the community’s synagogues have burned down and another Torah scroll was torched. (Shavei Israel)
An appeal to Israel
The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of a “lost tribe” group, tracing their origins to the Israelite tribe of Menasseh. In 2005, a chief rabbi of Israel affirmed their identity as a “lost tribe” group with historic Jewish ties, but researchers have not found sufficient evidence to back the claim. Bnei Menashe Jews began immigrating to Israel in the 1990s, and because of their “lost tribe” status, they all undergo formal Orthodox conversions upon arrival. Around 5,000 remain in the states of Manipur and Mizoram today, and about 5,000 have already immigrated to Israel.
Many have struggled to gain entry into Israel over the past two decades, and they are now asking the Jewish state to expedite the immigration process to help them escape the violence. But despite recent celebrations surrounding the opening of a new Indian-Jewish cultural center in central Israel, to which Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog sent recorded blessings, Jerusalem has yet to publicly respond to the situation.
Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, visited India last month on a planned trip aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries. He did not comment on the matter, and his visit was cut short due to a military operation in Israel.
“I think under [Benjamin] Netanyahu, particularly in this stint as prime minister, there are very few expectations. He is very close to Mr. Modi’s government, so I don’t think anybody expects anything from Netanyahu,” Singh said.
The Bnei Menashe’s “grey zone” religious status, in the words of Renthlei, makes their immigration to Israel more complicated for them than most. Before the Bnei Menashe can even apply to immigrate, they must face a panel of rabbis — who usually come all the way to India — for interviews.
“It’s not like Ukraine. The Ukrainians are Jewish without any doubt. But the Bnei Menashe, we are in some gray zone of not exactly not Jews, but not exactly Jews also,” Renthlei said. “It’s unlikely that the Bnei Menashe would just be able to make aliyah, even in this situation, unlike the Ukrainians.” Thousands of Ukrainian Jews have immigrated to Israel since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps facilitate immigration, and the UJA-Federation of New York have provided funding to Shavei Israel to help displaced persons, representatives from Shavei said. The Jewish Agency, the ministry of aliyah and integration, and the Israeli consulate in India did not respond to JTA’s requests for comment.
“We’re too small to matter, I suppose,” said Isaac Thangjom, director of Degel Menashe. Thangjom, who lives in Israel, has been in contact with officials in the ministry of aliyah and integration.
“They are very concerned, but they haven’t given me any explicit answer despite my proddings,” he said. “Their responses have been very tepid.”
—
The post India’s Bnei Menashe community in crisis as ethnic violence burns synagogues and displaces hundreds appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Even Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied
האָסטו אַמאָל געטראַכט: „ווען איך וואָלט נאָר געהאַט דאָס אָדער יענץ, אָדער ווען מײַן מצבֿ וואָלט נאָר געווען אַנדערש, וואָלט איך געווען גליקלעך…“?
עס איז זייער אַנטמוטיקנדיק צו גלייבן אַז עס פֿעלט אונדז דאָס וואָס מיר דאַרפֿן כּדי צו דערגרייכן אונדזערע צילן און צו זײַן גליקלעך. און נאָך מער: ווען מען קומט צו אַזאַ מסקנה, פֿילט מען זיך ווי אַ קרבן פֿון די אומשטענדן, אוממעכטיק צו בײַטן די מציאות צום גוטן.
אָבער איז עס טאַקע אַזוי?
אין טיפֿן איז דאָס אַ פֿאַלשער חשבון. פֿרייד איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם וואָס מיר האָבן אָדער האָבן ניט, נאָר פֿון דעם ווי מיר קוקן אויף וואָס מיר האָבן און אויף וואָס עס פֿעלט אונדז.
אין דער וואָכעדיקער סדרה, בראשית, לייענען מיר וועגן בריאת־העולם און איר שפּיץ — די באַשאַפֿונג פֿון אָדם און חוה.
וואָס קען זײַן אַ בעסערער בײַשפּיל, אַז גליק איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון אויסערלעכע אומשטענדן, ווי אָדם און חוה אין גן־עדן?
האָט זיי עפּעס געפֿעלט? ניין.
און דאָך האָבן זיי אַליין באַוויזן צו פֿאַרפּלאָנטערן דעם מצבֿ.
עס איז געווען בלויז איין בוים, פֿון וועמענס פֿרוכטן ג־ט האָט זיי פֿאַרווערט צו עסן, און זיי האָבן זיך ניט געקענט אײַנהאַלטן פֿון עסן דווקא פֿון יענעם בוים!
און נאָך מער: לויט דעם תּנא רבי מאיר איז דער בוים געווען אַ ווײַנשטאָק. זיי האָבן זיך געדאַרפֿט אָפּהאַלטן פֿון זײַנע פֿרוכטן בלויז עטלעכע שעה, ביז שבת וואָלט זיך אָנגעהויבן; דאַן וואָלטן זיי געקענט מאַכן קידוש אויפֿן ווײַן און אַזוי אײַנפֿירן אַן אייביקן שבת.
פֿאַר וואָס האָבן זיי ניט געקענט זיך אײַנהאַלטן?
עס איז אַ טייל פֿון אונדזער נאַטור צו וועלן דווקא דאָס וואָס מיר קענען ניט האָבן, און ניט אָפּצושאַצן ווי געהעריג דאָס וואָס מיר האָבן יאָ.
עס קלינגט כּמעט אומגלייבלעך — כאָטש דאָס געשעט צו אָפֿט — אָבער ווען ג־ט קומט צו אָדם און פֿאָדערט בײַ אים אַן ענטפֿער פֿאַר וואָס ער האָט געגעסן פֿון בוים, באַשולדיקט ער „די פֿרוי וואָס דו האָסט מיר געגעבן צו זײַן מיט מיר“, ווײַל זי האָט אים געגעבן צו עסן פֿון בוים.
וואָס פֿאַר אַן אומדאַנקבאַרקייט!
ג־ט האָט אים געגעבן אַ פֿרוי, ווײַל ער האָט געזען ווי שטאַרק אָדם לײַדט פֿון זײַן איינזאַמקייט. און אַנשטאָט אָפּצושאַצן דעם אוצר וואָס ער האָט באַקומען, קריטיקירט ער זי און באַשולדיקט זי.
אין אַ בריוו צו איינעם וואָס פֿלעגט זיך אָפֿט באַקלאָגן וועגן זײַן לעבן, שרײַבט דער ליובאַוויטשער רבי — זכותו יגן עלינו:
„אין דער וועלט אין וועלכער מיר לעבן, געפֿינט זיך אין אַלע זאַכן אַ געמיש פֿון גוטס און שלעכטס. דער מענטש דאַרף אויסקלײַבן אויף וועלכן פֿון די צוויי צדדים ער וויל לייגן דעם טראָפּ, אויף וועלכן ער וויל טראַכטן, און וועלכן ער וויל נאָכגיין…
„ווי באַלערנדיק איז דאָס וואָס אונדזערע חכמים זאָגן וועגן דעם וואָס אָדם איז געווען אַן אומדאַנקבאַרער: נאָך איידער ער איז פֿאַרטריבן געוואָרן פֿון גן־עדן — ווען ער האָט זיך נאָך געפֿונען אין אַ ממשותדיקן גן־עדן — האָט ער זיך שוין באַקלאָגט וועגן זײַן מצבֿ.
„פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט זענען געווען ייִדן, מענער און פֿרויען, וואָס האָבן געדאַנקט און געבענטשט דעם באַשעפֿער, און געזאָגט די ברכות השחר יעדן אינדערפֿרי, בשעת זיי האָבן געלעבט אונטער די שרעקלעכסטע באַדינגונגען אין די דײַטשישע קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן.
„אין דער ווירקלעכקייט וועט דער מצבֿ פֿון יעדן מענטש זיך געפֿינען ערגעץ צווישן די צוויי עקסטרעמען.
„מײַן כּוונה איז ניט אײַך צו מוסרן, נאָר אונטערצושטרײַכן אַ מציאות: וואָס פֿאַר אַ לעבן מיר לעבן — אַ לעבן פֿול מיט צופֿרידנקייט און באַדײַט, אָדער פֿאַרקערט — איז אין אַ גרויסער מאָס אָפּהענגיק פֿון אונדזער ווילנסקראַפֿט, וואָס באַשטימט צי מיר וועלן לייגן דעם טראָפּ אויף דעם פּאָזיטיוון אָדער אויף דעם נעגאַטיוון.“
מיר זײַנען מסוגל זיך צו באַקלאָגן אויף די באַדינגונגען אין גן־עדן און צו פֿילן הכּרת־הטובֿ, דאַנקשאַפֿט, אַפֿילו אין די אוממענטשלעכסטע באַדינגונגען פֿון אַ קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגער.
איינער פֿון די פּערזענלעכע געהילפֿן בײַם רבין, הרבֿ בערל ע״ה יוניק, האָט דערציילט, אַז דער רבי האָט אים אַמאָל פּריוואַט געזאָגט:
„איך האָב געאַרבעט אויף זיך צו זען שטענדיק די זאַכן אין אַ פּאָזיטיוון ליכט; ווען ניט, וואָלט איך ניט געקענט איבערלעבן.“
ווען מען ווייסט וויפֿל פּערזענלעכע ליידן פֿון פֿאַרשידענע מינים דער רבי האָט אַליין דורכגעמאַכט, אין צוגאָב צו דעם ווייטיק פֿון די המונים מענטשן וואָס האָבן מיט אים געטיילט זייערע פּערזענלעכע צרות, קען מען פֿאַרשטיין, אַז אַזאַ בליק אויפֿן לעבן איז גאָר ניט קיין קליינע דערגרייכונג.
דערפֿאַר איז די „ווערקצײַג“ פֿון דער וואָך צו טראַכטן וועגן די פֿאָלגנדיקע פֿראַגעס:
זענען די אומשטענדן פֿון דײַן לעבן גוט אָדער שלעכט אומאָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי — אָדער ווערן זיי פֿאַר דיר גוט אָדער שלעכט דווקא צוליב דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי?
ס׳איז דאָ אַ וואָרט וואָס מען האָט געהערט אין נאָמען פֿון דעם דריטן חב״ד רבי, דעם צמח צדק זצ״ל: „אַזוי ווי מען שטעלט זיך אַוועק שבת בראשית, אַזוי גייט אַוועק אויף דעם גאַנצן יאָר“. דריק איך אויס די האָפֿענונג אַז מיר זאָלן אין דעם אַלע מצליח זײַן און האָבן אַ גוט געבענטשט יאָר.
The post Even Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied appeared first on The Forward.
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ADL makes a play for the arts with new reports suggesting anti-Jewish bias in culture spaces
(JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League is alleging “systemic exclusion of Jewish and Israeli artists” in a trio of reports released Thursday focusing on the publishing, museums and entertainment spaces.
The reports, which the ADL calls its “State of the Arts” initiative, were shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in advance of their publication and come as Jews have expressed alarm about their treatment in a post-Oct. 7 cultural landscape. They include:
- Grades for 40 museums on Jewish and Israeli representation that the ADL says “reveal a pattern of erasure by omission,” including comparatively few recognitions of Jewish American Heritage Month.
- A “trend report” based on interviews with more than 30 Jewish authors and publishing professionals alleging boycotts and exclusions from the publishing industry based on their identities.
- A survey of 65 incidents of “Jewish, Israeli and openly Zionist artists fac[ing] growing scrutiny, protest, disruption and cancellation” from performance venues or pressure from pro-Palestinian groups since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel.
- ADL-approved guidelines for how venues should host and engage with Jewish artists.
The reports will be accompanied by a launch event Thursday evening at the Jewish Museum in New York, to be attended by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt as well as Jewish entertainers including actor Selma Blair and author and influencer Alyssa Rosenheck.
“We started to hear from patrons of the arts and artists and other people connected to museums that there was a real problem,” Shira Goodman, the ADL’s vice president of public affairs and special initiatives, told JTA in an interview about the genesis of the project.
As a result, the ADL started tracking Jewish and Israeli artists who had been targeted by protests. The group also heard from Jewish authors about the publishing industry, leading to an expansion of the project. Goodman said the team was motivated by the chance to leverage “boards of trustees and boards of directors, and donors, who might be able to have influence.”
“By shining a light on some of this, we might be able to have an effect and an impact,” she said.
The project follows the ADL’s campus antisemitism report cards, which launched in 2024 and assign letter grades to dozens of universities based on how well the group feels they have combated anti-Jewish sentiments. Criticized by many in higher education, and by some major Jewish groups including Hillel International, the report cards have nonetheless prompted several campuses to change or update their policies around Jewish issues.
That success led to the formation of a new ADL unit focused on ratings and assessments. Now, the watchdog’s attention is turning to the art world — at a moment when many eyes are trained on Jews and Israelis in those spaces.
Over the summer, a report from the literary free-speech group PEN America reached similar conclusions to the ADL on the exclusion felt by some Jewish and Israeli authors. The report led to deep internal divisions within PEN and the resignation of its president, who argued that the organization was not standing up for the free-speech rights of boycotters. New Jewish publishing initiatives aim to counteract what they say is the exclusion of Jewish voices in mainstream publishing.
Since Oct. 7, several pro-Israel Jewish artists, ranging from Jerry Seinfeld and Mayim Bialik to Matisyahu, have seen their events targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ADL’s report catalogs all these incidents and more, including demonstrations staged by neo-Nazis against Jewish-themed theatrical shows, which the ADL’s staff said they see as equivalent to pro-Palestinian protests.
“They’re equally disruptive and exclusionary of Jewish voices,” Luda Isakharov, associate director of the ADL’s Ratings and Assessments Institute, told JTA. “We treat them the same in our grading.”
In recent weeks, two Israel-related arts controversies have further complicated the picture of how Jews in the cultural landscape orient themselves around the issue. Jewish mogul Robert Kraft pressured Ed Sheeran to drop Macklemore from his tour over the latter’s onstage rhetoric about Israel. And the Israeli documentary “NAZA” is being targeted by right-wing Israelis over the film’s detailing of the conduct of war in Gaza.
ADL researchers had no involvement in PEN’s publishing report, Goodman said; their own report argues that PEN didn’t go far enough. And while Greenblatt himself posted approvingly of Kraft’s role in the Macklemore dust-up, Goodman said the ADL has not yet thought through how it would record incidents like the Kraft controversy or the “NAZA” disputes, in which Jews or Israelis are the ones leading the protesting.
“We’re encouraging people to let speech go forward, to let concerts go forward,” she said. “Typically we have not been supportive of boycotts.” The report’s incident catalog, the ADL said, instead focuses on Jewish or Israeli artists targeted on the basis of their identities.
Goodman added, “We do speak out because we want celebrities to know how painful their language is, and the examples that they can set and what the impacts are.”
Both the Kraft and “NAZA” incidents occurred after the ADL had finalized its report. An earlier example of attempted cancellation directed at the “NAZA” filmmakers, when the mayor of Miami Beach briefly threatened to evict a theater showing the directors’ previous movie in 2025, failed to make the ADL’s catalog, although the directors are Jewish and Israeli.
One conclusion to draw from entertainment spaces’ relationship to Jews and Israelis, the ADL told JTA, is that many often cite heightened security concerns as a reason not to engage with the topic.
The museum report, similar to the campus report cards, assigns ratings to each of the 40 surveyed institutions, including major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. Grades range from “Gold Standard,” which the ADL assigned only to the Berkeley Art Museum, to “Critically Deficient,” which it gave to 12 museums, including the Whitney and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The criteria include the number of Jewish and Israeli artists in each museum’s collection and whether or not they are presented with “Jewish framing.” Among those approvingly cited as representative of Jewish or Israeli art are left-wing Jewish artists such as Nan Goldin, as well as Arab-Israelis whose “art was very critical of Israel,” according to Isakharov. Goldin’s name does not appear in the early copy of the report shared by JTA, though other Israel-critical Jewish artists do.
The ADL also recorded whether a museum had been the site of a pro-Palestinian protest, and whether it had a process in place for identifying art that had been stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families.
Museum ratings also factor in an institution’s policies around anti-discrimination for Jews and Jewish programming — including for Jewish American Heritage Month, which ADL researchers said only one of the surveyed museums currently observes. Meanwhile, according to the ADL, 60% of the same museums observe other ethnic heritage months.
Some museums have already reached out to the ADL to say they would be sharing more of their policies related to anti-Jewish discrimination, Isakharov said.
Meanwhile, the ADL’s publishing report, similar to PEN’s, relies largely on anecdotal evidence about Jewish authors and subjects reportedly being passed over by agents, publishers or literary venues after Oct. 7.
“Much of what’s going on is happening below the surface,” Isakharov told JTA. “It’s oftentimes a last-minute drop, a gut feeling that authors have, and that makes it so hard to prove.”
One of the authors the ADL plans to spotlight prominently is Rosenheck, a photographer, influencer and author of the memoir “White. Blond. Jew.” She will be speaking at the ADL’s launch event Thursday. Rosenheck has a previous relationship with the ADL, having appeared at its “Never Is Now” summit last year, and has also spoken at the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Rosenheck’s book launch event in Nashville was cancelled by an independent bookseller earlier this year citing security concerns, an incident condemned by the local federation.
“This is what literary antisemitism looks like,” Rosenheck is quoted as saying in the ADL report, referring to her experience with the bookstore as well as negative posts about her book online.
Some Jewish scholars of publishing trends are critical of reports that suggest Jewish authors and subjects are facing discrimination. Such conclusions, they say, fail to make the case that Jews have been treated unfairly outside of industry norms.
Wellesley College professor Josh Lambert and Emory University professor Dan Sinykin, in a joint report also published Thursday, accuse the ADL’s study of being promoted by “political motivations.”
“The ADL’s report features quotes by a handful of right-wing activists (without acknowledging them as such), conflates Jews and Zionists, and opposes boycotts — all familiar strategies to suppress leftist Jewish and pro-Palestinian expression,” Lambert and Sinykin write in the left-wing magazine Jewish Currents.
The two present their own data suggesting that Jewish- and Israeli-themed fiction, after declining in 2024, actually entered an upswing in 2025. They also challenge some of the claims made by the PEN report’s key interview subjects, including the number of Jewish books one Jewish agent claimed to have signed since Oct. 7. Their story has prompted a correction on the PEN report.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post ADL makes a play for the arts with new reports suggesting anti-Jewish bias in culture spaces appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu pledges new security measures in wake of FlyDubai attack
(JTA) — President Donald Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “at length” about the flydubai attack on Wednesday, while the United Arab Emirates said it was opening an investigation into the incident.
The UAE noted in a statement that the investigation included looking at “any and all possible connection to terrorist intent” after one pilot attacked another on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv and appeared to try to down the plane.
Netanyahu also spoke to UAE leaders about the event, acknowledging as of Wednesday night that it couldn’t be ruled out that the attacker was acting out of mental illness rather than political motivations.
He told CBS News that the co-pilot allegedly behind the attack is being interrogated in Saudi Arabia, where the plane eventually landed. “He will be investigated, interrogated, we’ll join the investigation and find out.”
While Netanyahu pointed to Israel having received signs that Iran, particularly through its proxies, was looking to attack Israelis abroad, he told CBS that “It’s too early to say there was Iranian collusion here.”
He noted that Israel is “concerned” about the safety of other flights to Israel and that flydubai flights were suspended for the next few days. At the same time Israel is trying to put in place additional security checks and close the loopholes that had led to this incident. He pointed out that most screening protocols have until now been aimed at passengers rather than pilots.
“We’re going to have Israeli planes fly to Dubai and bring the thousands and thousands of Israelis” back home, he said.
He also referred to reports of terror attacks being planned by Iran before the Oct. 27 national elections, necessitating extra vigilance on the part of the government.
Both Trump and Netauand praised the heroism of Israel passenger Yaniv Hayun, who first entered the cockpit and saved the plane from near-certain disaster.
Trump told the media that Netanyahu had told him “an incredible story” about what happened, though he noted he hadn’t himself verified the details.
“An Israeli plumber, never flew a plane, was rarely in planes, very rarely flew,” Trump said referring to Hayun, “having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted the stick and leveled out the plane before it crashed.”
Trump noted that Hayun attributed his knowledge of what to do to being a regular watcher of the TV show “Air Disasters.”
“He happened to be a Jewish plumber,” Trump noted, apparently making the comment to a staffer nearby who is Jewish himself and whom Trump called “very proud” of the passenger.
Netanyahu himself told Fox News that Hayun’s “act of unbelievable courage” saved the plane from disaster.
“It’s incredible heroism. I don’t know how he did it.”
He continued, “He managed to enter the cockpit, he saw the attacker trying to jam the instruments. He grabbed him from behind, pulled the stick back,” and then two other people on the plane headed off the attacker while reserve pilots on the plane took over.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu pledges new security measures in wake of FlyDubai attack appeared first on The Forward.
