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Prominent Jewish leaders add to drumbeat of criticism of Israel’s new government
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A slate of 169 prominent American Jews, including former leaders of major mainstream Jewish organizations, called on U.S. politicians not to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a signal of worsening relations between the new far-right Israeli government and the U.S. Jewish community.
The statement Wednesday signals increased anxiety among Jewish leaders about how to maintain support for Israel when it is led by a government promoting policies alien to the values of an overwhelmingly liberal American Jewish community. It also departs substantially from a pro-Israel community that has sought to label various forms of criticizing Israel as antisemitic.
It comes just days after 134 historians of Jewish and Israeli history, based both in Israel and the United States, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of threatening the country’s existence through his agreement to far-reaching reforms advocated by his coalition partners on the far right.
It also comes just weeks after hundreds of rabbis from Reform, Orthodox and Conservative congregations said they would not allow extremist ministers in the new Cabinet to address their congregations and would encourage their Jewish communities to boycott them as well.
The statement by the prominent American Jews addresses the newly installed Congress, and anticipates increased U.S. Jewish criticism of Israel because of the new government in Jerusalem. Among its signatories are past leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations that have traditionally shied from Israel criticism, among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish federations system, as well as past leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements.
Notably absent are current leaders, who have been reluctant to speak out about new members of the Israeli government who want to greatly expand Jewish settlement in the West Bank, curb advocacy for minority rights and weaken Israel’s Supreme Court.
“As the 118th Congress begins its work, we believe it is important to state our concerns — which are widely shared by supporters of Israel here and around the world and by a significant number of Israelis — regarding some of the policies proposed by members of Israel’s new government,” the statement says.
It lists among those policies proposals by Netanyahu’s new government to weaken the independence of the judiciary, add restrictions to the Law of Return determining Jewish immigration, restrict non-Orthodox religious practice in Israel and expand Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.
“Our criticisms emanate from a love for Israel and a steadfast support for its security and well-being,” said the statement. “Some will try to dismiss their validity by labeling them antisemitic.” Instead, the statement said, the criticisms “reflect a real concern that the new government’s direction mirrors anti-democratic trends that we see arising elsewhere — in other nations and here in the U.S., rather than reinforcing the shared democratic values that are foundational to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
The statement notably appends a guide to detecting what is and isn’t antisemitic in discourse about Israel that differs markedly in its emphasis from a definition adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
The IHRA definition, which pro-Israel organizations have sought in recent years to introduce into legislation in the United States and elsewhere, focuses on Israel criticism that its authors deem antisemitic; the guide attached to Wednesday’s statement focuses instead on criticism of Israel that does not merit being called antisemitic.
“Mistaking political disagreements about Israel for antisemitism is counterproductive,” it says. “It diverts the debate away from the substance to whether something is — or is not — antisemitic. It hinders policy debate about Israel. It distracts from addressing real instances of antisemitism and bigotry.”
The guide issued alongside the statement also says anti-Zionism and Israel boycotts may in some instances not be antisemitic, a sharp difference from ministers of the new Israeli government who say unequivocally that those things are always antisemitic.
“Boycotting goods made in the West Bank and/or Israel is not antisemitic unless it specifically singles out Israel because of its Jewish character,” said the statement. Anti-Zionism can be antisemitic if it specifically denies the Jewish right to self-determination or it employs an antisemitic trope. But opposition to Zionism in and of itself is not necessarily antisemitic.”
Among the signatories are Tom Dine, the executive director of AIPAC in its period of massive growth in the 1980s; Alan Solow, who chaired the Conference of Presidents during the Obama presidency; Rabbi David Ellenson, the former president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary.
Other signatories include Rabbi David A. Teutsch, the former president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi David Saperstein, formerly the longtime head of Reform’s Religious Action Center; Joel Tauber, a former chairman of United Jewish Communities and the United Jewish Appeal, and Joe Kanfer, a former chairman of the Jewish Federations of North America.
Earlier this week, a slate of 134 historians of Jewish and Israeli history in Israeli American universities accused Netanyahu’s new government of “endangering the very existence of the State of Israel and the Israeli nation.” The statement said Netanyahu and his allies are dismantling the protections against government overreach that Israel’s founders deliberately put into place.
“Israel can be likened to a ship sailing the high seas,” the statement says. “The current government is taking out the keel, consciously dismantling the state’s institutions.”
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Poland’s Jewish museum director returns, 7 years after being pushed out by nationalist politics
(JTA) — The first director of Poland’s leading Jewish museum, squeezed out seven years ago by a nationalist government, is returning to the helm in a symbolic reversal.
Dariusz Stola steered the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw from its founding in 2014 to become a breakthrough in Poland’s recognition of its extinguished Jewish past.
But he clashed with the right-wing Law and Justice party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. The former culture minister accused him of “politicizing” the museum through explorations of antisemitism in Poland, and in 2019, he was pushed out despite winning a competition to extend his tenure.
Now, Stola has been reinstated by the new culture minister Marta Cienkowska, who was appointed in 2025 by centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk. His new term begins on March 1.
“In 2019, the then minister [Piotr] Gliński decided to ignore the results of the competition,” Cienkowska tweeted. “That appointment should have taken place six years ago. Dear Professor, good luck.”
Stola, a historian of Polish-Jewish relations and professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences, called his return to Polin “a victory of justice and rule of law.” When he was not reappointed in 2019, he chose to withdraw so that his deputy director Zygmunt Stępiński could take over. Stępiński will once again be his deputy.
“This confirms that the strategy we took in 2019 was right,” Stola said in an interview. “I lost only temporarily, and we have preserved the autonomy of the museum despite heavy political pressure.”
The Law and Justice government has made controlling Polish-Jewish history a core part of its platform, promising to revive Poland’s pride in its past and eradicate a so-called “pedagogy of shame.” That narrative stifled research on Polish antisemitism and Poles who killed Jews during and after the Holocaust.
Stola drew particular ire from party officials with a 2018 exhibit that documented Poland’s state-sponsored antisemitic campaign of 1968, which purged Jews from their workplaces and forced about 13,000 to emigrate. Former culture minister Piotr Glinski said afterwards that Stola imposed “very aggressive politics” on the museum.
In 2018, the country passed a law that outlawed accusing Poland or the Polish people of complicity in Nazi crimes. The infraction was later downgraded from a crime punishable with prison time to a civil offense, but critics say it had a chilling effect on historical research.
Stola’s reinstatement represents a gradual shift back to investigations of Polish-Jewish history, across cultural and academic institutions, that were dashed by the previous government. Only in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union fell, did Poland begin efforts to reconcile with the murder of 3 million Jews there and the intertwining of Jewish and Polish history.
Though a centrist coalition led by Tusk has governed Poland since 2023, Law and Justice clawed back a sweeping victory with the election of Karol Nawrocki as president last year. Nawrocki, a right-wing historian, has played a crucial role in the party’s efforts to rewrite Poland’s Holocaust history — making Stola’s reappointment a rebuke of the country’s largest political party by its governing coalition.
“The mission of the museum is even more important today, in the face of the dark forces distorting the memory of the Polish-Jewish past,” said Stola.
The post Poland’s Jewish museum director returns, 7 years after being pushed out by nationalist politics appeared first on The Forward.
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India’s Modi Visits Israel, Expresses Support for Jewish State as US-Iran Tensions Mount
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a welcome ceremony upon Modi’s arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit that both countries have cast as a chance to deepen relations, as regional concerns mount over the risk of military conflict between the United States and Iran.
In an address to the Israeli parliament, Modi told lawmakers that India stood with Israel “with full conviction” as he shared his nation’s condolences over the October 2023 Hamas attack.
“Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards,” he said.
Both Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also addressed the parliament, spoke of terrorist attacks that their nations had faced, with Netanyahu saying India and Israel both faced the challenge of confronting “radical Islam.”
Some opposition lawmakers briefly walked out of the special session, protesting at the speaker’s decision not to invite the head of the Supreme Court, but returned for Modi‘s remarks.
Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which the speaker belongs to, has had a confrontational relationship with the court.
Modi, a Hindu nationalist, became the first prime minister in India’s history to visit Israel in 2017, during which he and Netanyahu took a barefoot stroll on a beach in the northern port city of Haifa.
Both still in power nearly nine years later, the two leaders, who describe one another as friends, are expected to hold talks on artificial intelligence as well as defense at a time when Israel is seeking to increase its military exports.
An Israeli government official said Modi‘s visit would “pave the way for new partnerships and collaborations across many fields.” Bilateral ties were on the cusp of a significant upgrade, an Israeli foreign ministry official said.
US MILITARY BUILDUP NEAR IRAN
Modi is visiting as the United States deploys a vast naval force near Iran‘s coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic, with the two countries at an impasse in talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. The Pentagon has also deployed an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean, bound for Israel‘s coast.
A US attack on Iran could draw Iranian retaliation against Israel as well as US military facilities in Gulf Arab countries, where millions of Indians live and work and send home billions of dollars of remittances each year.
In his speech to lawmakers, Modi vaguely spoke about the challenges facing stability in the region, acknowledging that the landscape had become more challenging in recent years, but made no mention of the US military build-up, or of Iran.
He backed the US plan to end the war in Gaza, telling the parliament that it could lead to peace “for all people of the region, including by addressing the Palestinian issue.”
“The road to peace is not always easy. But India joins you and the world for dialogue, peace, and stability in this region,” Modi said.
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CIA Launches Fresh Social Media Push to Recruit Iranians as Trump Threatens Military Action
The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency is shown at the entrance of the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, US, Sept. 24, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The US Central Intelligence Agency has posted on social media new Farsi-language instructions for Iranians wishing to securely contact the spy service.
The CIA recruitment effort comes amid a massive buildup of US military forces in the Middle East that President Donald Trump could order to attack Iran if talks with the US set for Thursday fail to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump began laying out the case for a possible US operation in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, saying he would not allow the Islamic Republic, which he called the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, to have a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking a nuclear arsenal.
“They [Iran‘s leaders] want to start all over again, and are, at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions,” he said, accusing Iran of restarting its nuclear program, working to build missiles that “soon” would be capable of reaching the United States, and of being responsible for roadside bombings that have killed US service members and civilians.
“The [Iranian] regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate,” the Republican president said about 90 minutes into his annual address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives.
The CIA posted its Farsi-language message on Tuesday on its X, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube accounts.
The message is the latest in a series by the CIA aimed at enlisting sources in Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia.
The agency urged Iranians wishing to make contact to “take appropriate action” to protect themselves before doing so and avoid using work computers or their phones.
“Use a new, disposable device, if possible” and “be aware of your surroundings and who may be able to see your screen or activity,” continued the message, adding that those who make contact, provide their locations, names, job titles and “access to information or skills of interest to our agency.”
Those individuals, said the message, should use a trusted Virtual Private Network “not headquartered in Russia, Iran, or China,” or the Tor Network, which encrypts data and hides the user’s IP address.
The CIA declined to comment. Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet Iranian officials led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Geneva on Thursday for a new round of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump has threatened military action if the talks fail to reach an agreement, or if Tehran executes people arrested for participating in nationwide anti-government demonstrations in January.
Rights groups say thousands of people were killed in the government crackdown on the protests, the worst domestic unrest in Iran since the era of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.