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‘Mind your own business,’ Israel’s Diaspora minister tells US ambassador about judicial reform urging
(JTA) — The Israeli minister responsible for relations with Jews in the Diaspora has a message for the government of the country where most of them live: “Mind your own business.”
Amichai Chikli made the comment Sunday in a radio interview in Israel, where he was asked to address recent comments by U.S. ambassador Tom Nides, who said he was urging Israeli leaders to “pump the brakes” on their controversial effort to change the country’s judiciary.
Nides was echoing sentiments expressed by U.S. President Joe Biden about the judicial reform proposal, which would give the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, the power to overrule Supreme Court decisions. Biden said last week that both that checks and balances are part of the “genius” of democracy and that “building consensus for fundamental changes is really important.”
Nides said on a politics podcast that the Biden administration was pressing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek agreement rather than push the reforms through quickly. “We’re telling the prime minister, as I tell my kids, pump the brakes. Slow down, try to get a consensus, bring the parties together,” he said.
Chikli had a retort: “I say to the American ambassador, put on the brakes yourself and mind your own business,” he said. “You aren’t sovereign here, to get involved in the matter of judicial reform. We will be happy to discuss foreign and security matters with you. But respect our democracy.”
The message was in line with one that Chikli issued during his first public comments as Diaspora minister on American soil last month. And Netanyahu, too, appeared to reject the urging by Biden and Nides in a speech Sunday in Jerusalem to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella that includes a broad range of groups.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, Feb. 19, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
“All democracies should respect the will of other free peoples, just like we respect their democratic decisions,” Netanyahu said. (His speech focused largely on the threat posed by Iran.)
Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who is trying to broker a compromise that would tone down the proposals that have drawn dire warnings from business leaders, army commanders and democracy watchdogs, said Sunday that he believes a deal could be reached in a matter of days. But it is unclear how seriously Netanyahu and his allies in the government are taking the possibility of compromise, with a top minister, Bezalel Smotrich, vowing on Sunday to press forward with the legislative process.
In Israel, opposition to the proposed reforms appears only to have grown, with protests this weekend swelling to more than 220,000 people across several cities, according to their organizers. That would be equivalent to nearly than 2.5% of the country’s population.
Israelis protest against the government and its planned judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Feb. 18, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
In the United States, the proposed reforms have caused angst among some American Jews who fear that Israel increasingly does not reflect their values.
The moment is also exposing Israel to renewed criticism. “Do you think that democracy is in peril in Israel right now?” Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, was asked on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning. “I do,” Sanders said, saying as he has before that the United States should “put some strings attached” to the aid it delivers to Israel. “You cannot run a racist government, you cannot turn your back on the two-state solution, you cannot demean the Palestinian people there, you just can’t do and come to America and ask for money.”
Host Margaret Brennan asked whether he had spoken to the Biden administration about his feelings. “They’ve been very careful giving criticism of the Netanyahu government,” she noted.
“I am not careful about it,” Sanders responded. “I am embarrassed that in Israel you have a government of that nature right now.”
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The post ‘Mind your own business,’ Israel’s Diaspora minister tells US ambassador about judicial reform urging appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City
(JTA) — An Israeli man was indicted on Thursday in connection to the violent assault of a Catholic nun in Jerusalem last month, after prosecutors said he targeted her over her Christian identity.
Yona Schreiber, 36, from the West Bank settlement of Peduel, was arrested last week and has since been indicted on charges of “assault causing actual injury motivated by hostility toward the public on the grounds of religion, as well as simple assault,” the state attorney’s office said in a statement.
According to the indictment, Schreiber, who is Jewish, attacked the nun just outside of the Old City in Jerusalem because he identified her as a Catholic nun. Schreiber allegedly pushed and then kicked the nun as she was lying on the ground and also attacked a passerby who attempted to intervene.
תקיפת הנזירה אתמול באזור קבר דוד בירושלים – שוטרי מרחב דוד איתרו את החשוד (36) ועצרו אותו בחשד לתקיפה ממניע גזעני >>> pic.twitter.com/agRpznR84X
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) April 30, 2026
The nun, a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research, suffered bruises on her face and leg due to the attack, the state attorney’s office said.
The attack, which drew condemnation from Catholic leaders as well as faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, comes amid mounting concern over hostility toward Christian clergy and holy sites in Israel.
Cases of Jews harassing Christians have risen sharply in recent years. Last month, the IDF punished a soldier who was filmed bludgeoning a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon. This week, the IDF also announced that it would discipline a different soldier who was seen placing a cigarette into the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a photo posted on social media.
Israel’s attorney general asked the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, where the indictment was filed, to hold Schreiber in detention for the duration of the legal proceeding.
The assault carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, which could increase to six years if prosecutors prove the attack was motivated by religious bias.
The post Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’
(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish real estate mogul Steven Roth compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “tax the rich” rhetoric this week to racial slurs and pro-Palestinian rhetoric on an earnings call for his company, Vornado Realty Trust.
“I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Roth said, referring to the phrase commonly used at pro-Palestinian protests that many Jewish groups consider antisemitic.
The remark by Roth, who has long been a notable philanthropist to Jewish causes, adds to mounting tensions between New York business leaders and Mamdani over his recently announced “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued at more than $5 million.
During the call Tuesday, Roth also expressed support for Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, whose $238 million dollar penthouse was featured in a video by Mamdani announcing plans for the tax last month.
“We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,” Roth said. “The ugly, unnecessary video stunt is personal for Ken and sort of personal for me.”
Roth’s comments touched on a longstanding source of friction between Mamdani and some New York Jewish leaders, who have criticized the mayor over his views on Israel and his previous defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” another common pro-Palestinian slogan viewed by some as a call to violence against Jews.
In the wake of Mamdani’s election, some Jewish business leaders, including Dave Portnoy, the Jewish founder of Barstool Sports, said that they planned to leave the city altogether, citing the mayor’s fiscal policies and concerns about antisemitism under his leadership.
In a statement responding to Roth’s comments, Mamdani’s office said that he wanted all New Yorkers to succeed, including “business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America.”
“That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink,” the statement continued. “The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share.”
The post Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison
(JTA) — The man charged with carrying out a deadly firebombing attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last year was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday after pleading guilty to muder and dozens of other charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was arrested at the scene of the attack on the demonstrators last June, pleaded guilty to 101 charges, including 52 counts of attempted murder and one count of murder for the death of Karen Diamond, an 82-year-old victim of the attack who later died of her wounds.
During the June attack, Soliman shouted “free Palestine” and threw two molotov cocktails at the group, Run for Their Lives, injuring over a dozen people. According to an earlier court filing, Soliman said that he had staged the attack, which prosecutors said he planned for a year, because he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
Soliman has separately pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, for which prosecutors could potentially seek the death penalty.
“If I went back, I would not have done this as this is not according to the teaching of Islam,” Soliman said during the sentencing hearing, adding that he wanted federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty. “What I did came out of myself and only myself.”
During his remarks, Soliman argued that he had not been driven by anti-Jewish animus. He later said that Zionism was “the enemy” and that it was his “right” to be against Israel.
Chief District Judge Nancy W. Salomone rejected Mr. Soliman’s arguments, telling him that his “choices were acts of terror, and they victimized an entire community,” according to the New York Times.
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she said.
In a statement read earlier in court by a prosecutor, Diamond’s sons, Andrew and Ethan Diamond, asked that Soliman not be allowed to see his family again “since he is responsible for our mother never seeing her family again,” according to the Associated Press.
They said that Diamond had suffered “indescribable pain” for over three weeks before her death, adding that “in those weeks, we learned the full meaning of the expressions ‘living hell’ and ‘fate worse than death.’”
The post Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison appeared first on The Forward.