Britain is facing an escalating threat from hostile states such as Russia, Iran, and China while the terrorism risk is “huge” with al Qaeda and Islamic State seeking to incite would-be attackers, the UK‘s domestic spy chief said on Thursday.

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said there had been a 35 percent increase in the number of people being investigated over state threat activity, saying hostile nations were consistently descending into the “ugly” methods usually employed by terrorists.

McCallum said his agency had disrupted “a stream of surveillance plots with hostile intent” from Russia and had tracked more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots.

“In 2025, MI5 is contending with more volume and more variety of threat from terrorists and state actors, than I’ve ever seen,” he said in his annual speech at MI5‘s headquarters in London.

Britain has repeatedly spoken of hostile action which it says is carried out by Russia, Iran, and China who all deny any of the accusations leveled in their direction.

Earlier this year, six Bulgarians were jailed for spying for Russia by carrying out surveillance on its behalf while five men were also convicted of carrying out an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London which British officials said had been ordered by Russia‘s Wagner mercenary group.

“With our partners across Europe, MI5 will keep detecting those who take orders from Russian thugs,” McCallum said.

“And we will keep following the trails back to those giving the orders, who imagine they’re anonymous and unfindable behind their screens. They’re not.”

He said China was guilty of cyber espionage, luring academics to China, interfering covertly in UK public life, and the harassing of pro-democracy dissidents in Britain.

On Iran, he said Tehran was “frantically” trying to silence its critics around the world, and cited how Australia had exposed Iranian involvement in antisemitic plots and Dutch authorities had revealed a failed assassination attempt.

He also said the terrorist threat to Britain remained “huge” with MI5 and police disrupting 19 late-stage attack plots since the start of 2020.

“Al Qaeda and Islamic State are once again becoming more ambitious, taking advantage of instability overseas to gain firmer footholds,” he said.

As he often does these days, Wesleyan University president Michael Roth recently delivered a lecture on another campus outlining all the reasons why academia should be more forcefully standing up to President Trump’s policies.

He peppered the lecture with Yiddish words. He laid thick on what he called his “Jewish accent.” A colleague came up to him afterwards. 

“You’re doing Jew-speak,” they told him.

Roth laughed recalling his response: “No s–t, Sherlock. That’s part of what I’m doing.”

What he’s doing, Roth told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a recent interview, is constantly reminding his potential critics who he is. For one, he’s the only university president in the country who openly, repeatedly rejects Trump’s claims that the administration’s campus crackdowns — rescinding grants, limiting international student visas, dismantling “DEI” — are a means of fighting antisemitism after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. 

For another, when his own school dealt with pro-Palestinian encampments last year, he made no secret of handling the matter diplomatically instead of through discipline — an approach that landed other university presidents in hot water, but not him.

And above all that, he’s proudly Jewish.

“If you’re going to accuse Wesleyan’s administration of being antisemitic, start with me. But don’t call me on Saturday,” Roth quipped. “Because I’m going to be in Torah study.”

Roth isn’t quite sure how he, the leader of a small-town Connecticut liberal arts school with a mere 3,000 students, became so unusual among his profession by defending what he sees as the central principles of academic freedom. 

“It’s a bit of a puzzle,” he told JTA. “I don’t think my view is very original. Any of the presidents I know at different schools probably have similar views.” His views also seem to align with most American Jews, at least according to polls, which show that nearly three-quarters of them also believe Trump is using antisemitism as an excuse to attack higher education.

In recent days, two other Jewish presidents, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University, have publicly rejected a Trump administration offer of “priority” funding that would have required them to bar some forms of speech, making them the only university leaders to do so. But Roth still stands out in the lengths he is going to rebuff Trump’s higher education policies — and to center his Jewish identity in doing so.

There he is, accepting a “courage award” from the literary free-speech group PEN America “for standing up to government assaults on higher education.” There he is, giving interviews in which he lambasts “prominent Jewish figures around the country who get comfortable with Trump, it seems to me, because they can say he’s fighting antisemitism: ‘He’s good for the Jews.’ It’s pathetic. It’s a travesty of Jewish values, in my view.”

There he is, signing an open letter declaring that antisemitism “is being used as a pretext to abrogate students’ rights to free speech, and to deport non-citizen students.” The leaders of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group that has been suspended from multiple college campuses for disruptive protests, were on that letter. So was the leader of Wesleyan University. 

And there he is, telling JTA that so-called institutional neutrality positions, adopted by a range of universities amid the Israel-Gaza war (and supported by the Jewish campus group Hillel International), are “bogus.” 

A representative for the American Association of University Professors, a faculty union that has dropped its former opposition to boycotting Israel, praised Roth’s presence on the national stage.

“Michael Roth is criticizing the misuse of Title VI to define anti-semitism as criticism of Israel and its weaponization in the campaign to attack higher education. There is nothing startling about that position,” Joan W. Scott, a Jewish researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study who sits on the union’s academic freedom committee, told JTA.

Scott added, “I’d say Roth’s reasons for his courageous stance have to do with his integrity and perhaps his knowledge of history. He doesn’t want to be among those who, like Heidegger, thought that appeasing the regime in power was a safe position to take.” (A spokesperson for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a campus free-speech advocacy group that supports institutional neutrality, declined to comment on Roth.)

Roth’s profile has caught the attention of some Jewish families, including that of Mason Weisz of White Plains, New York, who said Roth was one reason that his son is a first-year at Wesleyan now. Weisz recalled hearing an NPR interview with Roth in April, after admissions decisions were out but before seniors had to pick their schools, as particularly pivotal.

The interview “in which he argues that Trump’s use of antisemitism to justify his strong-arming of universities actually is bad for the Jews, encapsulates everything I appreciated about Roth.” Weisz told JTA. “Here is a university president who is willing to risk going on record against the administration, again and again, to fight for academic integrity. He has a nuanced view of world events, an appreciation for true debate, and a fearlessness that I hope are an inspiration for Wesleyan’s faculty and students.”

Roth also earns good marks from some Jewish students on campus.

“He does care about Jewish students. He’s someone who does take their concerns seriously. And compared to other university presidents, he’s been better,” said Blake Fox, a Jewish senior at Wesleyan who identifies as pro-Israel and serves on the campus Chabad board. “He wants to be the ‘cool’ president.”

Fox says he had a good experience as a Jew at Wesleyan, in part because the encampments there never felt threatening (he noted the protest movement was much smaller at Wesleyan than it was at other schools). That was due, at least in part, to Roth’s efforts to peacefully negotiate an end to the encampments. 

Yet, Fox said, the president — whom he’s met several times — was also deeply concerned for the well-being of Jewish students. In meetings with Fox and other Jews on campus, Roth vowed to take action if any protesters ever threatened a Jewish student by name.

He also appreciated Roth standing up to Trump, particularly on issues of campus speech. “I’m pro-Israel, but I also support the First Amendment,” Fox said. “Even if there are individuals whose speech is bad, targeting them for deportation is a dangerous precedent, I think.”

Though a historically Methodist school, Wesleyan today has no religious affiliation and enrolls around 600 Jewish students — nearly 20% of the student body. There’s no Hillel, but the school’s Jewish community includes a full-time rabbi, student leadership, dedicated Jewish residential housing, and a unique, modern sukkah that has won architecture awards. The Wesleyan Jewish Community rabbi declined to comment for this story.

There’s also a Chabad outpost, which opened in 2011. Its director, Rabbi Levi Schectman, told JTA he was “grateful for the open door to the President’s office and for the strides that have been made so far,” adding, “There is still more work to be done so that all students feel heard and safe.” 

Schectman also said the Wesleyan Jewish community he interacts with is “living and thriving”: A recent “Mega Shabbat” gathering drew what he said was a center record attendance of 175 students.

And then, of course, there’s Roth, the school’s first Jewish president, who has held the post since 2007. A free-speech scholar, he’s published books about the campus environment, including one called “Safe Enough Spaces.” He grew up in a Reform household on Long Island and has written essays on Jewish identity, but considered himself “only modestly observant” until his father died 25 years ago. After that point, he said, he “began saying Kaddish and subsequently attending Torah study.”

Nowadays Roth makes a point of involving himself in Jewish campus life — all forms of it. He spent Rosh Hashanah with the affiliated Jewish community, and, last year, caught a Shabbat service held at the pro-Palestinian student encampments. 

The latter group wasn’t too thrilled to see him there, he recalled; they’d been targeting him by name, often in insulting language. But he wanted to learn more about the Jews who were participating in the protests right outside his office. When one of them, an Israeli, personally apologized to Roth for the aggressive behavior of other encampment participants, he invited the student to his office and they had a long chat. “There were so many interesting conversations,” he said.

Of course, many Jews in academia know that merely being Jewish cannot protect oneself from charges of enabling antisemitism. It didn’t save Northwestern University president Michael Schill, who — like Roth — is a free-speech scholar who tried to deal with his school’s encampments through negotiation instead of by force. 

In so doing, Schill was hauled before Congress and lost the confidence of many of his Jewish faculty, staff and alums. The heads of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations of North America, both Northwestern alums, publicly aligned against him. Last month, Schill announced he was stepping down.

Roth doesn’t know Schill personally, but said he thought it was “just terrible” he had resigned. “I found it very sad that the board didn’t come to his defense in a way that allowed him to continue,” Roth said.

He acknowledges he’s in a better position to speak out than the heads of other universities, where hospitals and major research centers are more reliant on federal funding, and where instances of antisemitism had been more prevalent pre-Trump. 

Schools like Columbia have made significant concessions to Trump, including on antisemitism issues, in exchange for having their funding restored. Harvard, after initially putting up resistance to Trump’s demands, has now reportedly entered a negotiation phase; the University of California system has also been targeted for a $1 billion payout to the government. Last week, the Trump administration unveiled what it said was a new “compact” that schools would be required to sign to secure their federal funding; the demands include one to protect conservative viewpoints on campus.

Is Roth worried that Trump could turn on Wesleyan next? 

“Didn’t I say I was Jewish?” he responded, laughing. “Am I worried? Of course I’m worried. I’m a worrier… I would hate to put Wesleyan at risk.” But, he said, that wouldn’t stop him. “I have three grandchildren. I want them to grow up in a country where they don’t have to be brave to speak up.”

Now, as the two-year anniversary of Oct. 7 nears, Roth’s name is also on some things other Jewish leaders wouldn’t touch. 

He spoke to JTA while on the road to a literary festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, co-sponsored by the left-wing magazine Jewish Currents, which has emerged as one of the loudest voices in Judaism to oppose both Israel and communal American Jewish support for it. He would be appearing onstage with the journalist M. Gessen, who has compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany. 

Roth told JTA he hadn’t known that Jewish Currents was a co-sponsor when he agreed to take part in the festival. But, he added, it wouldn’t have changed anything about his appearance. He’ll talk to anybody Jewish. He’s appeared on their editor Peter Beinart’s podcast, and a while back he submitted a piece to the magazine that was rejected (“I guess it was insufficiently anti-Israel,” he mused) and wound up running in the Forward instead. 

He sees his own views on Israel as moderate. While he called for a ceasefire in March 2024, far earlier than many others in the Jewish world, he still refuses to call the Gaza war a genocide and remains adamant he supports “Israel’s right to exist.” He only blames Israel for what he said were the security failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack, which he had condemned immediately as “sickening.”

He takes Israel’s wartime behavior to task for “paving a path for egregious war crimes and a level of brutality and inhumanity that I never would have associated with the country.” Yet he remains “stunned,” even today, by what he called “the lack of basic sympathy, empathy, for the victims of those horrific murders” of Oct. 7. 

“I pride myself on being realistic about the persistence of antisemitism,” he said. “Still, the callousness with which some people greeted those horrors was very disturbing.” 

Yet when the encampments came for Wesleyan last spring, and some of their participants accused him directly of being complicit in genocide, Roth — unlike nearly every other university president — opted to negotiate with them. He wrote a piece in the New Republic declaring that he would not call the police, even though he knew the protesters to be in violation of some campus policies. 

Even in that piece, he offered an ominous prediction: “My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the end will help the reactionary forces of populist authoritarianism.” 

Roth didn’t like many of the phrases his own campus protesters used, including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Yet he forcefully defended their right to say it, angering some Jews on campus as a result.

“I try to have it both ways,” he said — weighing his principled views on both Israel and protest. This can sometimes lead to very intricate needle-threading. He recalled how, when an address he gave to prospective students was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters unfolding a banner, he let them continue and even acknowledged the banner before pressing ahead.

Fox does take issue with some of Roth’s stances, including his opposition to institutional neutrality.

“I think he fundamentally misunderstands what institutional neutrality is,” Fox said. “We don’t need to hear your views on Ukraine. We don’t need to hear your views on Israel.” Having the school president call for a ceasefire, he thought, is “alienating both sides of campus.”

More significantly for his job, Roth has long opposed the movement to boycott and divest from Israel. This has angered activists at Wesleyan, who, like those at other schools, have made divestment a central demand. 

Last spring, in order to peacefully break up his school’s encampment movement, Roth had promised protest leaders they could make a case to the board for divestment that fall. When the board opted not to divest, a small number of protesters became angry and attempted to take over a university building. 

“They were not very civil to my staff members,” Roth recalled, describing the protesters as basically daring him to take action. 

That time, he did call the cops. 

—
The post Fearless or foolish? Michael Roth, Wesleyan’s Jewish president, stands apart in opposing Trump’s campus policies appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

דאָס איז איינער פֿון אַ סעריע קורצע אַרטיקלען אָנגעשריבן אױף אַ רעלאַטיװ גרינגן ייִדיש און געצילעװעט אױף סטודענטן. די מחברטע איז אַלײן אַ ייִדיש־סטודענטקע. דאָ קען מען לײענען די פֿריִערדיקע אַרטיקלען אין דער סעריע.

אַ נײַע אױסשטעלונג אינעם עסקענאַזי קונסט־מוזײ אין אינדיאַנער אוניװערסיטעט באַװײַזט װי אַזױ אַמעריקאַנער קינסטלער האָבן רעאַגירט אױפֿן גרויל פֿונעם חורבן. ס׳רובֿ פֿון זײ זענען געווען ייִדן, סײַ אימיגראַנטן סײַ הי־געבױרענע.

„דערמאָנונג און באַנײַונג׃ אַמעריקאַנער קינסטלער אונעם חורבן, 1970-1940“ איז די ערשטע אױסשטעלונג װאָס קאָנצענטרירט זיך אױפֿן חורבן אין דער אַמעריקאַנער קונסט בעת די 30 יאָר נאָך דער מלחמה — װען די ווירקונג פֿון דער שחיטה פֿון די אײראָפּעיִשע ייִדן איז נאָך אַלץ געװען פֿריש. די קינסטלער האָבן אױסגעדריקט טיפֿן שאָק און צער אױף פֿאַרשײדנאַרטיקע אופֿנים. דער אױסשטעלונגס־קאַטאַלאָג באַשרײַבט אַלע 74 װערק פֿון איבער דרײַ טוץ מאָלערס, סקולפּטאָרן און גראַפֿישע קינסטלער, און שטעלט זײ אינעם ייִדישן און אַמעריקאַנער קאָנטעקסט.

די אױסגעשטעלטע װערק פֿון איליאַ שאָר, רות װײַסבערג און פֿראַנק סטעלאַ באַהאַנדלען, דער עיקר, די פֿאַרטיליקונג פֿון דער ייִדיש־רעדנדיקער קולטור אין מיזרח־אײראָפּע. יעדער קינסטלער רעפּרעזענטירט אַ באַזונדערן קוקװינקל׃ שאָר ברענגט אַרײַן דעם פּערספּיקטיוו פֿון אַ ייִדישן אימיגראַנט; ווײַסבערג — פֿון אַ הי־געבױרענער ייִדישקע; און סטעלאַ — פֿון אַן אַמעריקאַנער נישט־ייִד.

שאָר (1961-1904) איז געבױרן געװאָרן בײַ אַ חסידישער משפּחה אין זלאָטשאָוו, גאַליציע, און האָט אימיגרירט אין די פֿאַראײניקטע שטאַטן אין 1941. אין דער אויסשטעלונג געפֿינען זיך אַ פּאָר פֿון זײַנע אילוסטראַציעס פֿון The Earth Is the Lord’s — אַ פּאָפּולער בוך פֿון אַבֿרהם יהושע העשל פּובליקירט אױף ענגליש אין 1950. דאָס בוך פֿאַראײביקט דעם אָנדענק פֿון דער פֿאַרשװוּנדענער חסידישער װעלט, װאָס האָט געבליט במשך פֿון 200 יאָר אין מיזרח־אײראָפּע.

דזשעניפֿער מאַקאָמאַס, די אױסשטעלונגס־קוראַטאָרשע, האָט מיר דערצײלט אַז שאָרס אילוסטראַציעס רופֿן אַרױס טראַדיציאָנעלע פּאַפּירשניטן, װאָס ייִדן מאַכן שוין הונדערטער יאָרן לאַנג אין שײַכות מיטן יום־טובֿ שבֿועות. שאָר אַלײן האָט געשאַפֿן זילבערנע יודאַיִקאַ, אַזױ װי תּורה־קרױנען און קידוש־בעכערס, און זײַנע בילדער אין העשלס בוך באַװײַזן די השפּעה פֿון מעטאַל־װערק. די אילוסטראַציעס מאָלן אױס טעמעס אַזױ װי אַ רבֿ מיט אַ ספֿר־תּורה, מענער און ייִנגלעך װאָס טאַנצן עקסטאַטיש אין אַ שיל, און אַ ייִד װאָס לייגט תּפֿילין אױפֿן קעפּל פֿון זײַן קלײנעם זון. דאָ זעט מען שאָרס זכרונות פֿון דער פֿרומער חסידישער װעלט פֿון זײַנע קינדעריאָרן. די מאַסיװע, שװאַרץ־װײַסע פֿיגורן רופֿן אַרױס אַ פֿאַרשװוּנדן ייִראת־⁠שמימדיק שטײגער לעבן.

רות װײַסבערג, וואָס איז געבױרן געװאָרן אין שיקאַגע אין 1942, האָט געטרױערט איבער אַ װעלט װאָס זי האָט נישט פּערזענלעך געקענט. אין 1971 האָט זי געשאַפֿן „דאָס שטעטל׃ אַ נסיעה און אַן אָנדענק“, אַ קינסטלערס בוך מיט נײַן בילדער װעגן דער אויסראָטונג פֿון מיזרח־אײראָפּעיִש ייִדיש לעבן. מאַקאָמאַס האָט מיר דערקלערט אַז װײַסבערג האָט זיך אינספּירירט פֿון אַ יזכּור־בוך געשאַפֿן פֿון איר באָבען פֿון דער מוטערס צד. „ווען זי האָט אַנטדעקט דאָס דאָזיקע יזכּור־בוך האָט עס ממש טראַנספֿאָרמירט איר לעבן און קונסט,“ האָט מאַקאָמאַס געזאָגט.

נאָך אַ װיכטיקער קװאַל פֿון ווײַסבערגס „שטעטל“ אַלבאָם איז געװען ביכער פֿאָטאָגראַפֿיעס פֿון פֿאַרמלחמהדיק ייִדיש לעבן ווי למשל „די פֿאַרשװוּנדענע װעלט“, אַ באַנד מיט 530 בילדער אַראָפּגענומען פֿון פֿאָטאָגראַפֿן װי ראָמאַן װישניאַק און אַלטער קאַציזנע, פּובליקירט פֿונעם פֿאָרװערטס־פֿאַרבאַנד אין 1947 (און װאָס איז אַלײן אין דער אױסשטעלונג). װישניאַקס „פּױלישע ייִדן׃ אַ בילדער-פּינקס“ פֿון 1947 האָט זי אױך אינספּירירט; װי אױך „הילצערנע שילן“, אַ פּױליש בוך פּובליקירט אױף ענגליש אין 1959, װעגן די אַלטע שילן װאָס זענען אַלע אָפּגעברענט געװאָרן פֿון די נאַציס. װײַסבערג האָט אָנגעהױבן מיט די דאָזיקע פֿאָטאָגראַפֿיעס און זײ איבערגעמאַכט.

למשל „נסיעה-1“ פֿון „שטעטל“ איז באַזירט אױף אַ פֿאָטאָ פֿון „הילצערנע שילן“. אַ שיל פֿאַרנעמט כּמעט דאָס גאַנצע בילד, אָבער ווערט געשילדערט װי אַ מיראַזש. דער הימל זעט אױס צעשמאָלצן פֿון פֿײַער אָדער פֿון אױפֿרײַסן. אין דער פֿאָדערגרונט איז דער דורכזעיִקער פֿיגור פֿון אַן עלטערער פֿרױ — אַ פּנים אַ פֿאַנטאָם אָדער געדעכעניש. לעבן איר שטײען עטלעכע שװאַרצע געשטאַלטן, אפֿשר פֿאַרברענטע בלומען אָדער שטעכלדראָט. אין „1938“ האָט װײַסבערג געניצט אַ פֿאָטאָגראַפֿיע פֿון װישניאַקס „פּױלישע ייִדן“. אין דער פֿאָטאָ גײן דרײַ מענער אין שװאַרצע מאַנטלען אין דער גאַס; אין װײַסבערגס באַאַרבעטונג זענען צװײ פֿון זײ נעלם געװאָרן. עס בלײַבט איבער נאָר דער שאָטנדיקער פֿיגור אױף די טרעפּ. עס האָט זיך שוין אָנגעהויבן די פֿאַרשװינדונג פֿון אַ פֿאָלק.

פֿראַנק סטעלאַ (2024-1936), אַ באַקאַנטער אַבסטראַקטער קינסטלער, איז געװען אַ קאַטױל פֿון מאַסאַטשוסעטס. מאַקאָמאַס האָט דערקלערט אַז דער ייִדישער אַרכיטעקט ריטשאַרד מײַער האָט געשאָנקען סטעלאַן אַן עקזעמפּלאַר פֿון „הילצערנע שילן“, װאָס האָט אינספּירירט סטעלאַס „פּױליש דאָרף“ סעריע פֿון 1974-1971 (נישט געקוקט אױפֿן װאָרט „פּױליש“ האָט סטעלאַ באַשטעטיקט אַז די װערק באַהאַנדלען צעשטערטע שילן). די סעריע באַשטײט פֿון 130 אַבסטראַקטע געאָמעטרישע געשטאַלטן. דאָ קען מען זען דאָס בילד „לונע“, װאָס איז אין דער אױסשטעלונג. לױט מעקאָמעסן רופֿן די הילצערנע פֿאָרעמס פֿון „פּױליש דאָרף“ אַרױס דאָס האָלץ פֿון די שילן, און די העלע קאָלירן דערמאָנען אין די פֿאַרביקע װאַנט־מאָלערײַען אינעװײניק.

די קונסטװערק פֿון שאָר, װײַסבערג און סטעלאַ היטן אױף דעם זכּרון פֿון אַ ברוטאַל פֿאַרטיליקטער קולטור, װאָס האָט געבליט אין מיזרח־אײראָפּע במשך פֿון הונדערטער יאָרן. „׳זכור׳ („געדענקט“) איז צװישן די יסוד־פּרינציפּן פֿון דער ייִדישער אמונה“, האָט מאַקאָמאַס געזאָגט. „די קינסטלער האַלטן מיט אָפּשײַ דעם דאָזיקן פּרינציפּ דורך קונסט. זײ מאַכן פֿאַר אומפֿאַרגעסלעך אַ װעלט װאָס איז כּמעט אָפּגעװישט געװאָרן.“

The post Exhibit: How the horror of the Holocaust impacted American artists appeared first on The Forward.