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Noam Chomsky, Ehud Barak, Leon Botstein and a Rothschild are among the names on Jeffrey Epstein’s newly uncovered calendar
(JTA) – The pioneering linguist and left-wing activist Noam Chomsky, the longtime Bard College president Leon Botstein, the filmmaker Woody Allen, and a former Israeli prime minister are among the Jewish names listed in a newly uncovered private calendar for the disgraced financier and child sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
Some of the names had previously been linked to Epstein, a hugely influential Jewish donor who used his largesse to obscure what investigators uncovered years ago as an elaborate underage sex trafficking ring. Epstein met with thousands of people over his career and the presence of their names does not itself indicate any evidence of misdeeds.
But the scheduling documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal yesterday indicate that some figures already known to be in his orbit had more frequent meetings with him than initially revealed in Epstein’s “black book” of personal contacts, or in his flight logs. They also reveal that some figures who weren’t previously known to have ties to Epstein did in fact meet regularly with him.
Epstein’s death in prison in 2019 was ruled a suicide but took place under mysterious circumstances that have led some to question the suicide determination. At the time, he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges following a Miami Herald investigation that uncovered his network of sexual abuse and high-profile connections.
The scheduled meetings revealed in the Journal’s report all occurred years after Epstein’s initial arrest for sex crimes in 2008. Among the more notable appointments in the calendar: a 2015 meeting with Chomsky, a longtime critic of Israel, and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, whose relationship with Epstein has received much scrutiny over the years.
Epstein had arranged the meeting for Chomsky and Barak to discuss “Israel’s policies with regard to Palestinian issues and the international arena,” Chomsky told the Journal.
Chomsky further said of Epstein, “I knew him and we met occasionally.” The two men had planned several meetings between 2015 and 2016, including a dinner between them, Woody Allen and Allen’s stepdaughter-turned-wife Soon-Yi Previn; and another meeting with a former Harvard University president.
Epstein’s calendar features other meetings with Barak, such as one that also included an executive at the consulting firm of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. According to previous reporting, Barak visited Epstein’s private island multiple times, and prominent former Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre alleged in court that Epstein had forced her to have sex with the former prime minister, as well as with prominent pro-Israel attorney Alan Dershowitz. Barak and Dershowitz have previously denied the allegations, which became an issue in Israeli politics in 2019.
Botstein, meanwhile, had scheduled dozens of meetings with Epstein to discuss the financier supporting various Bard programs. While Epstein did donate to Bard on occasion, Botstein described their relationship to the Wall Street Journal as “sadism on his part” because Epstein was frequently “dangling philanthropic support” he would not commit to.
Chomsky’s own connections to Epstein had not been previously reported. Botstein has told the press in the past about Epstein’s donations to Bard, but the extent of the two men’s personal relationship had not been previously disclosed. Allen’s own relationship with Epstein has been previously reported as well.
Both Chomsky and Botstein defended their decision to continue meeting with Epstein after his first sex trafficking convictions, with Chomsky saying that Epstein’s prison time indicated a “clean slate” and Botstein invoking Bard’s history of supporting prison rehabilitation programs.
Epstein also had more than a dozen meetings with Ariane de Rothschild, the chief executive of the Rothschild Group of Swiss Jewish bankers, who had married into the family and was the firm’s chair at the time. De Rothschild herself is not Jewish, but the family has been a prime target of antisemitic conspiracy theories for decades.
De Rothschild and Epstein had extensive financial and professional entanglements, the Journal reported, building off of previous reporting about their relationship that the Rothschild firm had denied. At one point Epstein had reportedly asked her to help him find a new female assistant, to which she replied, “I’ll ask around.” They also reportedly brokered multimillion dollar contracts between their two firms, and Epstein also connected her to Kathryn Ruemmler, a former Obama White House counsel who then worked for Goldman Sachs.
The firm now acknowledges that its earlier denial of a relationship between Epstein and de Rothschild was inaccurate.
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The post Noam Chomsky, Ehud Barak, Leon Botstein and a Rothschild are among the names on Jeffrey Epstein’s newly uncovered calendar appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.