It requires local educational agencies to take action if they find that instruction or school-sponsored materials are discriminatory.

By Shira Li Bartov, JTA

A California law to prevent antisemitism in schools will be enforced after a federal judge dismissed a challenge from teachers and students who said it violated free speech.

U.S. District Judge Noël Wise on Tuesday ruled against a lawsuit opposing Assembly Bill 715, which went into effect in January.

The new law introduces measures to curb the “widespread surge in antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying” faced by “Jewish and Israeli American pupils across California.”

As part of the law, California is establishing an Office of Civil Rights with a new statewide antisemitism prevention coordinator for public schools, who has not yet been appointed.

The law mandates teachers to provide “factually accurate” instruction rather than “advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship.”

It requires local educational agencies to take action if they find that instruction or school-sponsored materials are discriminatory.

A group of teachers, students, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed a challenge in November.

They said the law was unconstitutionally vague, chilled speech in the classroom about Palestinians and discriminated against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students and perspectives.

Wise said it was too soon to consider these claims, given the uncertainties still surrounding the new Office of Civil Rights, its leadership and how it will define and respond to antisemitism.

She also said that teachers and students did not provide sufficient evidence of infringements on free speech, and teachers could not claim speech rights on the job.

“Teacher Plaintiffs are not acting as private citizens and therefore do not have First Amendment rights while teaching,” Wise said in her ruling.

She also dismissed the claim that the law would discriminate against non-Jewish students.

“The existence of an Antisemitism Coordinator does not change the Office’s overarching purpose to stop discrimination generally; it merely reflects the State’s decision to accord specific funds to a specific problem,” she said.

Malak Afaneh, a staff attorney at ADC, said the group was reviewing the court’s decision and considering its options.

“AB 715 has already caused educators to alter the way they teach out of fear that classroom discussions or activities could trigger complaints or investigations,” Afaneh said in a statement.

“When teachers feel compelled to abandon cultural identity projects or avoid discussions about Palestine, it is students who are denied the opportunity to engage with diverse ideas and perspectives.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco celebrated Wise’s decision as “great news.”

“This ruling, and the fact that the case has been dismissed with prejudice, affirms that AB 715 is a strong, legitimate approach to protecting Jewish students—and all students—against harassment and discrimination,” the group said.

The post California law on antisemitism in schools will be enforced after free speech challenge is defeated appeared first on World Israel News.

Mamdani eliminated the city’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism immediately after taking office without replacing it with another framework.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a new campaign seeking his removal from office after the End Jew Hatred movement petitioned Gov. Kathy Hochul to invoke Section 9 of the New York Public Officers Law, arguing the mayor committed misconduct in office and failed to protect Jewish New Yorkers.

Organizers said they plan to submit the signatures directly to the Executive Chamber in Albany, citing provisions in the New York Constitution and Public Officers Law that allow a governor to remove a public official following charges, notice and a hearing.

The petition argues that the administration’s handling of antisemitism and public safety demonstrates a pattern of executive failures.

Among its central claims is that Mamdani eliminated the city’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism immediately after taking office without replacing it with another framework.

Petition organizers also cited police data released three months into Mamdani’s tenure showing hate crimes had risen by nearly 12% across New York City, with 55% of reported incidents directed against Jews, who make up roughly 10% of the city’s population.

The filing further references two stabbing attacks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on July 23 that occurred within four minutes and two blocks of one another.

The petition also criticizes the administration’s use of official city communication channels, pointing to a video describing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal and unwelcome in New York. Organizers said the video received more than 90 million views before Mamdani later acknowledged he lacked authority to arrest the Israeli leader.

Additional complaints include Mamdani’s veto of school safety legislation Intro 175-B, concerns over child welfare screening policies and allegations of retaliation against whistleblowers within the Department of Probation.

Separately, New York State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov announced he had filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding Mamdani.

The post Campaign seeks Mamdani’s removal for failing to protect Jewish New Yorkers appeared first on World Israel News.

Man convicted after repeatedly ramming his car into hasidic movement’s headquarters sentenced to time served, enabling him to be released from jail next week.

By World Israel News Staff

A federal judge has sentenced a New Jersey man who repeatedly drove his car into the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn to six months and one week in prison, rejecting prosecutors’ request to keep him incarcerated for eight additional months.

Dan Sohail, 36, had already spent approximately six months in custody by Wednesday’s sentencing and is expected to be released within about a week. US District Judge Eric Vitaliano also ordered him to pay approximately $19,000 in restitution for damage to the landmark Jewish institution at 770 Eastern Parkway.

Sohail pleaded guilty in May to intentionally damaging religious property. Federal sentencing guidelines reportedly called for a sentence of around six months, although the offense carried a statutory maximum of three years in prison.

Vitaliano rejected the Justice Department’s argument that a longer sentence was necessary to deter attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions amid rising antisemitic incidents in New York.

The judge said he was “somewhat saddened” that prosecutors appeared to be relying on the public’s initial perception that the incident was an antisemitic attack. He said the ramming had first been portrayed as an “I-hate-the-Jews crime, or, worse, an act-of-terrorism crime,” despite evidence that Sohail had been attempting to join or form a connection with the Jewish community.

Prosecutors had pointed to New York Police Department statistics showing that 80 of the city’s 146 reported hate-crime incidents since the beginning of the year had targeted Jews or Jewish institutions.

Vitaliano, however, cited a psychiatric evaluation and said Sohail’s mental-health problems “played an important role” in his actions.

“This is a sad tale,” the judge said.

Sohail’s defense attorney, Mia Eisner-Grynberg, said in court papers that her client suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder connected to a traumatic childhood. She said he had sought a sense of belonging through Judaism and had previously received a warm reception from rabbinical students at Chabad headquarters.

According to the defense, Sohail danced with members of the community and traveled to Israel after being encouraged to do so. His behavior reportedly became increasingly erratic and anxious following his return to the US, and the defense characterized the eventual ramming as an irrational attempt to obtain help rather than an expression of hostility toward Jews.

Sohail did not address the court during the sentencing hearing but thanked the judge after the sentence was announced. The judge said Sohail required continued psychological treatment and did not appear to harbor hatred toward Jews.

The attack occurred on the evening of January 28, when dozens of people were gathered at Chabad headquarters for events connected to the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson assuming leadership of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

According to federal prosecutors, Sohail arrived at a side entrance, got out of his vehicle and moved protective barriers that had been placed outside the building. He then motioned for nearby congregants to move away before returning to the car.

Sohail accelerated into the entrance, reversed and struck the building four more times. The impacts knocked a door from its hinges and badly damaged the front of his Honda Accord. No one was injured.

The incident initially sparked fears of an antisemitic terrorist attack. The New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force opened an investigation, and police increased security around synagogues and other houses of worship.

Investigators subsequently learned that Sohail had previously visited Chabad institutions and was seeking information about Judaism. Police said video showed him enthusiastically dancing with Orthodox Jewish men at the Brooklyn headquarters during an earlier visit.

Sohail reportedly told investigators that he had recently learned he might have Jewish ancestry and wanted to explore Jewish traditions. His father also told reporters that Sohail had considered converting to Judaism and had a history of psychological problems.

Nevertheless, Sohail’s actions on January 28 were clearly deliberate. Authorities said he removed barriers, warned people to get out of the way and repeatedly accelerated into the doorway. He initially claimed that he had lost control of the vehicle because he was wearing “clunky boots,” according to police.

When Sohail pleaded guilty, the Justice Department described the incident as an attack on religious freedom and emphasized that the building was not merely a local synagogue but the international center of the Chabad movement.

“By pleading guilty today, the defendant admitted that he intentionally damaged the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, a globally significant Jewish religious institution,” US Attorney Joseph Nocella said at the time.

Vitaliano’s sentence effectively accepted the defense’s position that Sohail should be punished for the serious property damage he caused but should not receive a sentence intended for an antisemitic attacker when the evidence did not establish an anti-Jewish motive.

The post Judge orders release of man who rammed into Chabad HQ, rules out antisemitism as motive appeared first on World Israel News.

Over the past three decades, the relationship has centered on links between Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital and Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, rather than broader civic exchanges.

By Kelly Hartog JTA

It was one kippah vs. a sea of keffiyehs, as Hackney Council gave initial approval on Tuesday night to begin the process of ending its nearly six-decade twinning relationship with the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

The motion, brought by the Green Party-led administration, was voted on and approved after councilors argued passionately for almost 30 minutes over whether ending the relationship was a moral imperative in light of the war in Gaza or that it would undermine one of the borough’s longest-standing examples of coexistence and dialogue.

The final tally, which has yet to be made public, follows the Green Party’s sweeping victory in Hackney’s May 7 local elections, when it won control of the council for the first time, capturing 42 of the borough’s 57 seats.

Labor, which had controlled Hackney for more than two decades, was reduced to nine seats, while the Conservatives held six.

Hackney is an inner London borough, home to one of Britain’s largest Jewish communities alongside a substantial Muslim population.

According to the council’s own report, which cites estimates from the Interlink Foundation, Hackney’s Orthodox Jewish community numbers between 27,405 and 29,460, or between 11.7% and 12.5% of the borough’s population.

According to the 2021 census, Hackney’s Jewish population is 6.7%, while its Muslim population is 13.3%.

The passage of the vote does not mean that the council will immediately sever ties with Haifa, which it has been twinned with since 1968.

Instead, the council voted to begin the formal process, including writing to the mayor of Haifa, conducting an equalities impact assessment, and establishing a cross-party working group before a final decision is brought before the full council.

Introducing the proposal, Green councilor Sam Mathys said the move fulfilled a central manifesto pledge made during the election campaign.

“For decades, we have witnessed human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, which has escalated to a horrifying and unprecedented scale over the past years,” she said, adding, “We want civic partnerships that are about fostering peace, justice, and equality.”

The council report notes that Haifa was originally selected because of its “harmonious multicultural, multi-faith populations and good records in community relations.”

Over the past three decades, the relationship has centered on links between Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital and Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, rather than broader civic exchanges.

Conservative councilor and Orthodox Jew Simche Steinberger argued the proposal ignored both the history and practical benefits of the partnership.

“You’ve not spoken to any of the six Jewish councilors about it,” he said.

Citing medical exchanges between the two hospitals, he added, “It’s probably the only twinning that actually does something because I remember a few years ago when the doctors from Haifa Hospital were here in Homerton teaching them what to do.”

He argued that councilors had been elected “for local issues, not for national issues” and called the proposal “a disgrace,” before urging them to withdraw the motion.

Labour councilor Ben Lucas likewise opposed the proposal despite saying his party was “unequivocal in our abhorrence of the devastation and violence in Gaza caused by the Israeli government” and “we utterly condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks.”

“The Labour group, in all good conscience, cannot support this paper,” he said.

Lucas described the twinning agreement as having been forged in 1968 in a spirit of working-class solidarity, a partnership that was “multi-faith, multi-ethnic, and built most notably on the noble idea of medical cooperation.”

He added, “Haifa is not perfect, but for those who want peace, it represents a model of coexistence, a fighting chance for peace.” He also noted that the Israeli city was home to “socialists and greens, aghast at the conflict and fighting for lasting solutions.”

“You’re punishing a people for the actions of a government,” he said, calling the proposal “a performative gesture.” He added, “Let’s be bridge builders, not burners.”

Former deputy mayor Anntoinette Bramble, speaking for Labour, also argued that twinning existed to preserve relationships precisely when disagreements arose.

She said the medical exchange partnerships strengthened communities by bringing together professionals and residents of different faiths and backgrounds.

“I’m perplexed by this proposal because it doesn’t seem to strengthen those communities,” she said. “What it seems to do is cause division.”

She also asked, “How can a transparent review that is nonpartisan already come with a decision before the review has begun? You need to be honest about what you’re doing here.”

Supporters argued that maintaining the relationship would conflict with Hackney’s stated commitment to human rights.

Green councilor Manal Massalha, who described herself as the granddaughter of Nakba survivors, spoke at length about conditions in Gaza and Judea and Samaria before declaring, “Never again is never again for everyone.”

“Respect for international law and human rights born from the ashes of the Holocaust, together with the ICJ’s findings on Israel’s unlawful occupation, requires us to reject dehumanization, military occupation, oppression, impunity, and racism,” she said.

Massalha rejected accusations that the proposal targeted Israelis or Jews. “De-twinning is not about opposing a people, a religion, or a culture. It’s about ensuring that our institutional relationships reflect those values.”

One of the proposal’s most vehement supporters was Green councilor Florence Schechter, who was raised in, but no longer practices Orthodox Judaism.

“It is my Jewish values that inform me. Hackney should no longer be twinned with Haifa,” she said, adding that fellow Green councilor Cathy Troupp, who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, shared her position.

Drawing on Jewish teachings, she argued, “When Gentiles open their newspapers or log into social media and they see the horrors that are being committed in Palestine, children maimed and murdered, prisoners mocked by soldiers, what will people think of all Jews?”

“It isn’t fair and it isn’t right that the actions of Israel should reflect on all Jewish people,” she added. “If the Jewish people of Britain want to fight rising antisemitism, the first thing they must do is condemn the genocide in Palestine.”

Closing the debate, Mathys stressed that the vote marked “a first step,” saying the cross-party working group would hear from interested parties before bringing recommendations back to the council in January 2027.

Following the decision, Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg posted on X, “Tonight, the Hackney Green Party showed its ignorance and bigotry.” He added, “This vote represents the prioritization of spite over sense.”

The post London’s Hackney council gives initial nod to ending 58-year twinning with Haifa appeared first on World Israel News.

The suspect has an extensive criminal history, including dozens of prior arrests and documented mental-health incidents.

By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner

A hammer-wielding man entered a Jewish day camp in Queens on Tuesday and injured an 8-year-old child, further rattling a Jewish community already on edge after a string of violent incidents and amid criticism that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has failed to confront the city’s worsening climate of antisemitism.

The attack occurred at a summer camp operating on the campus of the Lev Leviev School, also known as Queens Gymnasia, in Forest Hills.

According to police and witnesses, the suspect entered the property carrying a hammer and shoved the child into a fence, causing a head injury.

The child was transported to a nearby hospital with injuries that authorities said were not life-threatening.

Camp counselors and security personnel quickly confronted the suspect and tackled him before police arrived.

During the struggle, officials said, the man bit one of the counselors. Officers recovered the hammer and took the suspect into custody. Charges are pending.

Police are investigating the circumstances of the attack, including whether it was motivated by antisemitic bias, but have not yet established a motive.

Queens Shmira, a volunteer Jewish public-safety organization that responded to the scene, said the suspect appeared to be emotionally disturbed and that there was no immediate evidence the incident constituted a hate crime.

According to law-enforcement sources, the suspect has an extensive criminal history, including dozens of prior arrests and documented mental-health incidents. Authorities said he had recently been released following an unrelated arrest.

The attack prompted a large emergency response and heightened concern among parents and staff.

Local officials praised the camp’s security personnel and counselors, saying their swift intervention likely prevented more serious injuries.

The incident comes amid a series of attacks that has left many Jewish New Yorkers increasingly fearful.

Last week, two men, one of them Jewish, were stabbed without apparent provocation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Witnesses alleged that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the assault, though police have not publicly confirmed a bias motive.

Anti-Jewish offenses continued to dominate New York City’s hate-crime statistics during the first half of 2026.

The NYPD recorded 178 confirmed anti-Jewish hate crimes, accounting for 55.3 percent of all confirmed hate crimes citywide, even though Jews comprise roughly 10 percent of the city’s population.

By comparison, police recorded 21 anti-Muslim hate crimes and 33 targeting people on the basis of sexual orientation, meaning anti-Jewish incidents outnumbered anti-Muslim offenses by more than eight to one.

The violence has intensified scrutiny of Mamdani’s relationship with the Jewish community. Jewish leaders have repeatedly accused the mayor of contributing to a hostile atmosphere through his rhetoric about Israel and his reluctance to forcefully condemn slogans widely regarded as threatening by Jewish New Yorkers.

Moshe Spern, president of United Jewish Teachers, recently warned that “inflammatory rhetoric” from Mamdani could “incite further hostility or targeting of Jewish institutions.”

The post Armed man attacks Jewish day camp in Queens appeared first on World Israel News.

US Holocaust Memorial Council chair invites Mamdani to museum over Gaza genocide claims.

By World Israel News Staff

The chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council has invited New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to tour the US Holocaust Memorial Museum after the mayor repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Jeffrey Miller, who leads the museum’s governing board, said he would personally arrange the Washington, D.C., visit and accompany Mamdani through the museum.

“My invitation is sincere. Come to the Museum. Learn what genocide actually means,” Miller wrote in a social media post.

Miller said elected officials have a responsibility to consider how their language affects the public, arguing that rhetoric portraying Israel as uniquely malevolent can contribute to hostility toward Jews.

The invitation came after the UJA-Federation of New York expressed concern over the stabbing of two men on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. One of the victims was Jewish, and authorities were investigating that portion of the attack as a possible hate crime.

Miller said the incident reinforced his concern about inflammatory rhetoric directed at Israel and the Jewish community.

He later told Fox News that he wanted Mamdani to confront the Holocaust’s “systematic attempt to annihilate an entire people.” Miller said the mayor could also visit Rwanda or speak with survivors of other recognized genocides.

Mamdani had not publicly responded to the invitation as of Wednesday morning.

The dispute follows Mamdani’s renewed attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he recently described as “a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Mamdani accused Netanyahu of responsibility for civilian deaths, restrictions on humanitarian assistance and attacks on medical facilities, journalists and aid workers during the Gaza war.

The mayor also reiterated his support for the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu, although he acknowledged that his administration lacks the legal authority to execute it.

“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said, while urging the federal government to join the court and act against Netanyahu.

Neither the US nor Israel is a member of the ICC. The Trump administration has rejected the court’s jurisdiction over Israeli officials and said Netanyahu would not be arrested if he traveled to the US.

Mamdani has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. During an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in October 2025, he said his support for international law led him to apply the term to the war.

The latest dispute is not Mamdani’s first confrontation with the Holocaust museum.

During his 2025 mayoral campaign, Mamdani resisted calls to condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada.” He noted that the museum had used the Arabic word “intifada,” meaning uprising, in Arabic-language material about the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The museum rejected that comparison, calling the use of the Jewish resistance against the Nazis to defend the modern slogan “outrageous and especially offensive to survivors.”

The post Washington Holocaust museum takes Mamdani to task for Gaza genocide claims appeared first on World Israel News.

2025 was deadliest year for antisemitic attacks in the diaspora in more than three decades, ADL report finds.

By World Israel News Staff

Twenty people were killed in antisemitic attacks across several countries in 2025, making it the deadliest year for antisemitic violence in the Jewish diaspora since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Argentina, according to a report released Wednesday.

The second annual J7 Report on Antisemitism documented more than 23,000 antisemitic incidents during 2025 in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US. Those countries are home to more than 90% of the Jewish population outside Israel.

The report found that the total number of antisemitic incidents across the seven countries was 136% higher than in 2022, the year before Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Violent antisemitic incidents were up 97% over the same period.

“Antisemitism in our seven countries is no longer a surge; it is our new normal. Governments must stop reacting after Jews are attacked and start acting before, with real security funding, stronger laws and social media platforms that enforce their own rules,” the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism said in a joint statement.

Fifteen people were murdered during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, two were killed at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, two were killed at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. and one person was killed in Boulder, Colorado.

Although the overall number of incidents declined in several countries during 2025, the report said antisemitism remained significantly above levels recorded before October 7.

Incidents fell by 33% in the US, 20% in Australia and 16% in both Canada and France compared with the previous year. They increased by 5% in the UK, 4% in Argentina and less than 1% in Germany.

Compared with 2021, Australia recorded the sharpest increase in antisemitic incidents, rising 270%. Germany experienced a 215% increase, followed by the US at 131% and France at 124%.

Germany had the highest number of reported incidents relative to the size of its Jewish population, with nearly 70 incidents for every 1,000 Jewish residents. That rate was almost five times the rate in Australia, six times the rate in the UK and nearly 70 times the US rate.

The report identified anti-Zionism as a major motivation behind many of the incidents, accounting for 48% of reported cases in the UK, 45% in the US and 23% in Germany.

“ADL helped found the J7 in 2023 because no country can fight antisemitism alone, and this report shows exactly why,” Anti-Defamation League CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt said.

“2025 was one of the most violent years for American Jews on record: we were targeted an average of 17 times a day. This isn’t just an American crisis; every single J7 country remains dramatically above pre-October 7 levels. Antisemitism transcends borders, and our response must do so too,” he added.

This year’s report also examined antisemitism in Ireland, which is not a member of the J7 group. Ireland’s Jewish community, estimated at about 2,200 people, reported 143 antisemitic incidents over a six-month period, equivalent to 65 incidents for every 1,000 Jewish residents.

The report said Ireland currently has neither a national strategy for combating antisemitism nor dedicated security funding for its Jewish community.

The post Antisemitic violence surges worldwide as number of deadly attacks hits record high appeared first on World Israel News.

France recorded 1,320 antisemitic incidents in 2023, accounting for 53% of anti-religious acts, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

By Shira Li Bartov, JTA

Over a dozen Torah scrolls have been stolen from a French synagogue in an attack the local rabbi called “antisemitic.”

The burglary hit the Grand Synagogue of Levallois-Perret, a wealthy suburb of Paris, between Sunday night and Monday morning. Rabbi Chalom Lellouche said the Jewish community was “violated” by the theft.

“It is, of course, a criminal act, but it is also an antisemitic act that specifically targeted the Torah,” Lellouche said in a joint video statement on Monday with Philippe Cohen, the president of the local Jewish community association.

Levallois Mayor Agnès Pottier-Dumas said on Instagram that she learned with “shock and anger” of the attack, adding that “the antisemitic nature of this vile act must be condemned.”

She confirmed that municipal and national police were investigating.

The des Hauts-de-Seine prefecture, which handles local state administration, said on X that the stolen scrolls represented not just a “simple theft,” but “an entire community of believers that was wounded to the depths of its soul.”

Prefect Alexandre Brugère and elected officials met with Jewish communal leaders in Levallois on Monday evening, promising to identify the thieves and secure the return of the scrolls.

Cohen said the burglary was the work of a “professional team” that bypassed security systems and the synagogue’s security was being reassessed.

He called the incident “a profound spiritual trauma for the entire Jewish community in France and around the world.”

“It was the Torah — and only the Torah — that was targeted,” said Cohen. “No property was damaged, and nothing else was stolen apart from Torah items of immeasurable value.”

France recorded 1,320 antisemitic incidents in 2023, accounting for 53% of anti-religious acts, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Jews make up less than 1% of the French population.

The post More than dozen Torah scrolls stolen from Paris synagogue appeared first on World Israel News.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vows action against antisemitism after Jewish-owned Toronto bakeries targeted.

By World Israel News Staff

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged federal support for efforts to combat antisemitism after two locations of a prominent Jewish-owned Toronto bakery chain were targeted in apparently coordinated overnight attacks.

Police are investigating incidents at two Kiva’s Bagel Bar locations after a dark-colored SUV was seen outside both businesses about an hour apart late Saturday and early Sunday. Both restaurants were closed, and no injuries were reported.

Carney said Monday that he was “appalled” by the attacks on businesses he described as longstanding gathering places for Toronto’s Jewish community.

“Jewish Canadians should be able to live, work, and worship free from fear, intimidation, and hate,” Carney said.

He added that the federal government was “absolute in our commitment to combatting the scourge of antisemitism” and expressed support for the police investigation.

The first incident occurred at approximately 11:15 p.m. Saturday at the Kiva’s location near Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue West, according to the Toronto Police Service.

Police said a dark-colored SUV stopped in front of the restaurant before its front glass shattered. The vehicle then fled south on Carpenter Road.

About an hour later, at approximately 12:15 a.m. Sunday, a vehicle matching the same general description pulled up outside the Kiva’s branch near Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West.

A firearm was discharged from inside the vehicle, striking the restaurant’s front windows, police said. Investigators found evidence of gunfire at the scene.

Police are handling the incidents as two firearm-discharge investigations and believe the same SUV may have been involved in both. Authorities released an image of the vehicle Monday and began canvassing the surrounding areas for security, cellphone and dashboard-camera footage.

No suspects had been identified publicly, and police had not established a motive. The investigations are being led by Toronto’s Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force with assistance from the Hate Crime Unit.

Duty Inspector Scott Bradbury acknowledged that the attacks were particularly alarming for “members of the Jewish community,” while cautioning during the initial stages of the investigation that police had not yet determined the full connection between the incidents.

The fact that two branches of the same Jewish-owned chain were targeted within roughly an hour led political and Jewish community leaders to describe the attacks as deliberate.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow called the incidents “vile and unacceptable.”

“We all have a responsibility to stand against hate,” Chow said. “I will always stand with Toronto’s Jewish community against antisemitism.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was “totally disgusted” by the attacks and demanded that those responsible be prosecuted.

“I expect all those responsible to be found, prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Ford said.

Ford issued his statement after a separate shooting was reported near the US Consulate in Toronto on Monday. Police had not connected that incident to the attacks on Kiva’s.

Jewish organizations said the bakery attacks were the latest in a continuing series of shootings, vandalism and intimidation directed at Jewish institutions and businesses in Canada.

B’nai Brith Canada described the incidents as part of a “relentless and escalating campaign of antisemitic intimidation.” The organization said it had documented 27 violent incidents targeting Canada’s Jewish community during the first seven months of 2026.

“These attacks are evidence of a systemic national crisis that governments can no longer address through statements of concern, temporary security measures and responses issued only after another Jewish institution has been targeted,” B’nai Brith said.

Noah Shack, chief executive of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said repeated attacks had destroyed the Jewish community’s sense of normalcy and security.

He said Canadians should be able to have breakfast with their families at a neighborhood restaurant without encountering police tape and another investigation into gunfire.

“Enough is enough,” Shack said.

The attacks occurred less than two months after Carney delivered a major address at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple in which he said antisemitism had reached levels not seen in Canada since World War II.

“Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” Carney said during the June speech.

According to figures cited by the federal government, more than two-thirds of Canada’s religion-motivated hate crimes in 2024 were directed at Jews, although Jewish Canadians account for approximately 1% of the country’s population.

Carney’s government has proposed legislation strengthening criminal penalties for hate-motivated offenses and intimidation near religious and community institutions. It has also committed an additional $75 million to a federal program that helps vulnerable institutions pay for security personnel, protective infrastructure and emergency training.

The post Canadian PM announces crackdown on antisemitism after attacks on Jewish bakeries appeared first on World Israel News.

The Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides protection to Britain’s Jewish community, recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom in 2025.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Britain’s Jewish community is confronting another series of suspected antisemitic attacks after several vehicles belonging to Haredi residents in Greater Manchester were vandalized, just days after three Jewish people were injured in a drive-by BB gun shooting nearby.

The vehicles were targeted at around 3 a.m. on Saturday during Shabbat. Residents of Leicester and Middleton streets discovered later that morning that the windows of several cars had been smashed.

Manchester Shomrim, a volunteer security organization serving the area’s Orthodox Jewish community, said it was assisting police by collecting surveillance footage and information from residents as investigators worked to identify those responsible.

The vandalism occurred days after three Jewish adults were injured in an apparent antisemitic attack in Salford, a city within Greater Manchester that is home to a large Haredi population.

At around 10 p.m. on July 20, a BB gun was fired from a passing vehicle at members of the Jewish community on Leicester Road, according to Greater Manchester Police.

All three victims suffered minor injuries.

Following an examination of surveillance footage, police arrested two suspects on suspicion of religiously aggravated common assault. The investigation remains ongoing.

“Threats to our communities will not be tolerated, and we’re continuing to enhance our security in Jewish communities across Greater Manchester to help keep them safe on our streets,” police said.

The incidents have added to concerns over the security of British Jews, who have faced persistently elevated levels of antisemitism since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides protection to Britain’s Jewish community, recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom in 2023.

That was the second-highest annual total in the organization’s history and a 4 percent increase from 2024.

The number was more than double the 1,662 incidents recorded in 2022, the final full year before the Oct. 7 atrocities and subsequent war in Gaza.

The group recorded an average of 308 incidents per month in 2025, exactly twice the monthly average during the year preceding the Hamas attack.

Greater London accounted for 1,844 incidents, while Greater Manchester recorded 425. Physical attacks included 170 assaults and four incidents involving grievous bodily harm or a threat to life.

The latest incidents follow a string of violent attacks and acts of harassment directed at visibly Jewish residents in London.

Two men were recently given six-week prison sentences, suspended for 12 months, after traveling to the heavily Jewish Stamford Hill area to film antisemitic content for TikTok.

Adam Bedoui and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, both 21, targeted a Jewish man with abuse while filming the encounter.

Bousloub later told police that he had brought a fishing rod to the neighborhood to imitate social media videos in which participants claimed to be “fishing for Jews.”

The pair pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated intentional harassment. In addition to the suspended sentences, both were ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 20 days of rehabilitation activity.

In another Stamford Hill incident in May, a man allegedly attacked several Orthodox Jewish women at a bus stop with a belt while shouting racist abuse.

The suspect, Francis Achile, was charged with aggravated assault, two counts of assault by beating, racially aggravated harassment, and racially aggravated assault. Shomrim volunteers who responded to the attack said the suspect also spat at them.

On the same day, Syeda Khatun, 39, approached children waiting outside a Jewish school and began shouting antisemitic abuse, according to prosecutors. She then struck a father in the face and pulled his beard after he confronted her over her treatment of the children.

Khatun was convicted earlier this month of multiple racially aggravated offenses.

The attacks came shortly after two Orthodox Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north London, on April 29 in an incident police classified as an antisemitic terrorist attack.

The following day, Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre raised the national terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe,” meaning an attack was considered highly likely within the following six months.

Government officials said the decision followed the Golders Green stabbing but was not based solely on that attack.

They also cited the rising threat posed by Islamist and extreme-right terrorism, as well as concerns that foreign states were encouraging violence against targets including the Jewish community.

The British government subsequently announced an additional 25 million pounds in funding to protect Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centers, bringing total security spending for the Jewish community this year to a record 58 million pounds.

The post Manchester’s Jewish community faces renewed wave of antisemitic attacks appeared first on World Israel News.

The editorial said Carlson had embraced what it called an “eccentric, toxic agenda.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

President Donald Trump shared a social media post criticizing media personality Tucker Carlson over what it described as his reported antisemitism, using the phrase “Jew derangement syndrome,” after Carlson announced he was leaving the Republican Party.

The post, written by American media personality Wayne Allyn Root, cited a New York Post editorial criticizing Carlson and argued that the former Fox News host had “caught a case of ‘Jew Derangement Syndrome.'”

Root wrote that it “led him down a dark, destructive path. A conservative patriot hero who destroyed his life and committed career suicide. Never seen this before. Tragic.”

Root’s post followed Carlson’s announcement that he was leaving the Republican Party.

The New York Post editorial also sharply criticized Carlson’s departure, stating that the “only sensible response is, ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.'”

The editorial said Carlson had embraced what it called an “eccentric, toxic agenda,” describing him as “mysteriously pro-Vladimir Putin,” “obsessively anti-Israel,” and “weirdly ashamed of America.”

It also argued that Republicans should welcome Carlson’s decision to leave the party.

Carlson, a former Fox News host, has been a vocal critic of Israel. Alongside Candace Owens, he has frequently criticized the country and has often made statements conveying the view that Israel exerts shadow control over the United States.

Critics of Carlson have argued that he has helped mainstream and amplify antisemitic rhetoric by giving a platform to white supremacists, invoking coded references to shadowy elites and promoting conspiracy theories alleging that Israel manipulates U.S. foreign policy and controls American politicians.

The exchange drew further attention to Carlson’s break with the Republican Party as debate continued over his positions on Israel, U.S. foreign policy and antisemitism, following the criticism amplified by Trump on social media.

The post Trump boosts post blasting Tucker Carlson for ‘Jew Derangement Syndrome’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Benjamin Netanyahu rips New York’s mayor over his push to have the Israeli premier arrested, accuses Mamdani of fueling anti-Jewish bigotry.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of encouraging hostility toward Jews and Israel after the mayor called for federal authorities to arrest the Israeli leader if he visits New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

“He’s fomenting hate,” Netanyahu said Sunday during an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.

“He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu added. “But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”

Netanyahu confirmed that he intends to travel to New York in September to address the annual gathering of world leaders, despite Mamdani’s declaration that the Israeli prime minister is unwelcome in the city.

The prime minister said he would use his UN address to defend Israel, the Jewish people and the US-Israel alliance.

Mamdani said last week that New York City does not possess the independent legal authority to enforce the arrest warrant issued against Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court. He instead urged the Trump administration and federal law enforcement agencies to carry out the warrant.

In a video statement, Mamdani said Netanyahu was “not welcome in New York City” and repeated his position that the Israeli leader should face trial in The Hague.

Mamdani had pledged during his mayoral campaign to have Netanyahu arrested if the prime minister entered the city. His administration subsequently reviewed the city’s legal powers and concluded that municipal authorities could not independently execute an ICC warrant.

During a separate City Hall press conference, Mamdani described Netanyahu as “the architect of the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” while saying, “My administration will follow all applicable local laws.”

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity connected to the Gaza war. The accusations have not been tested at trial, and Netanyahu has rejected both the court’s jurisdiction and its findings.

Neither Israel nor the US is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC.

President Donald Trump has also assured Netanyahu that he “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Netanyahu on Sunday called the allegations against him “bogus” and sought to connect the warrant to the misconduct scandal surrounding former ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who originally requested the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

ICC member states voted Friday to remove Khan from office after concluding that he had committed serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty. Khan, who has denied wrongdoing, has said he plans to challenge the decision.

Khan’s removal does not automatically invalidate arrest warrants previously approved by ICC judges, including the warrant against Netanyahu.

Netanyahu also warned that longstanding bipartisan support for Israel in the US was weakening as progressive Democrats adopted increasingly hostile positions toward the Jewish state. He said Jewish residents of New York were feeling increasingly uncomfortable amid rising antisemitism.

The confrontation underscored the widening political divide between Israel’s government and Mamdani, one of the most prominent anti-Israel elected officials in the US.

Mamdani’s office did not immediately issue a new response to Netanyahu’s remarks Sunday.

The post Mamdani ‘fomenting hate’ against Jews, says Netanyahu appeared first on World Israel News.

The US Department of Education has said it is investigating dozens of other colleges and universities accused of failing to address campus antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Reed College in Portland, Oregon, will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism as part of a settlement resolving a federal civil rights complaint that alleged school officials allowed antisemitic harassment to escalate into an assault involving a potentially deadly object.

As first reported by The Free Press, the liberal arts college, founded in 1908, agreed to adopt the widely used IHRA definition following discussions with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The complaint stemmed from a harrowing May 2024 incident in which members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) allegedly threw rocks through the dormitory window of a Jewish female student, striking her in the head.

The assault followed months of harassment and abuse, including the desecration of her mezuzah.

In a statement announcing the settlement, Reed said it was committed to ensuring that such failures are not repeated. The Brandeis Center, however, credited the Trump administration with pressing the college to act.

“This is one of the most significant OCR campus antisemitism settlements under the current administration, building on our prior settlements with Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley,” Brandeis Center chairman and co-founder Kenneth L. Marcus said in a statement.

“Reed College allowed antisemitism to fester, leading to a student being struck in the head with a rock. No institution should be the scene of that kind of violence.”

The IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries, including the United States and Israel — adopted its working definition of antisemitism in 2016.

Since then, the definition has been endorsed by numerous Jewish organizations and lawmakers across the political spectrum and adopted by hundreds of governments and public institutions, including the US State Department.

According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

It adds that rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism may be directed against Jewish or non-Jewish individuals, their property, Jewish communal institutions, or religious facilities.

The definition also provides contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, workplaces, and religious settings.

Alongside traditional forms of anti-Jewish hatred and Holocaust denial, the examples include demonizing Israel, denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, and applying standards to Israel that are not expected of other democratic countries.

“This settlement is what accountability looks like, and it should not be the exception. It should be the standard every school holds itself to before, rather than after, a student is hurt,” [ATTRIBUTION] said.

“Reed College is now bound to real reforms that demonstrate what it means for a college to combat antisemitism forcefully. In particular, it is crucial that Reed’s policies acknowledge that anti-Zionist harassment can constitute a violation of civil rights.”

The US Department of Education has said it is investigating dozens of other colleges and universities accused of failing to address campus antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

During the turbulent 2023-2024 academic year, Jewish students across the country reported being spat on, assaulted, threatened, and excluded from areas of their own campuses.

The Trump administration has also frozen or withdrawn billions of dollars in federal funding from higher education institutions, demanding that they address antisemitism and adopt other reforms supported by conservatives.

Some institutions, including Harvard University, have challenged the administration in court. Others have reached settlements or announced their own antisemitism initiatives, often while avoiding admissions of wrongdoing that could expose them to further federal scrutiny.

Despite these actions, campus antisemitism remains a politically fraught issue for the Trump administration.

Some Jewish students and advocates welcome the administration’s willingness to impose substantial consequences on universities accused of tolerating anti-Jewish discrimination.

Others are uncomfortable with Jewish civil rights becoming entangled with a broader conservative campaign against higher education.

Critics also argue that sweeping funding cuts can damage medical research, academic programs, and Jewish students themselves without directly addressing the conduct that created hostile campus environments.

These tensions have at times led Jewish academics and advocacy groups to criticize the administration, including over federal efforts to collect information about Jewish faculty members who reported experiencing antisemitism.

On Wednesday, the ADL said the administration had, in this case, pursued a time-tested civil rights process capable of producing lasting institutional change.

“We are pleased that Reed College has committed to meaningful, immediate, and long-term action to ensure that the civil rights of Jewish students on campus are protected and affirmed that antisemitism has no place on campus,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.

“This outcome demonstrates how the Title VI process can work to effectively protect Jewish students. We are deeply grateful for the Office for Civil Rights’ dedication and assistance in resolving this case.”

The post Trump civil rights office compels Reed College to adopt IHRA definition of antisemitism over hate incident appeared first on World Israel News.

It’s laughable that Harvard is billing these particular “changes” as leaps of progress against Jewish discrimination.

By Ira Stoll, The Washington Free Beacon

Adding a course taught by a professor who accuses Israel of genocide. Hiring another professor who describes his own work as “counter-Zionist.” Launching a student journal of erotic poetry and “support for Palestinian Liberation.”

Appointing another scholar to a visiting professorship that already existed and has been refilled annually for nearly a decade.

Adding a course on antisemitism taught by a professor who backs a definition of antisemitism embraced by boycott-Israel advocates.

Harvard and ten of the nation’s biggest-name appellate lawyers are brazenly trying to pass all these steps off to federal judges as proof that the university is moving to address what even the university itself concedes in its latest court filing has been “disturbing, offensive, and vile treatment of Jewish students.”

Harvard’s legal, political, and public relations strategy in its faceoff with the Trump administration over billions in federal research funding became clearer this week with court filings in a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, President and Fellows of Harvard College v. US Department of Health and Human Services.

The federal government also filed a memorandum of law this week in a similar case, United States v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which is before Judge Richard Stearns in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

What Harvard has not done is survey Jewish students or the campus as a whole to see whether what it found in 2024—that Jewish students get an inferior campus experience—has changed.

The government’s federal filing notes Harvard’s own past findings:

“Substantial numbers of Jewish students indicated experiencing discomfort and alienation at Harvard … 26% felt physically unsafe and 44% felt mentally unsafe. Nearly half (49%) felt their well-being was not supported at Harvard … Almost 60% of Jewish students indicated they had experienced some form of discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus due to their views on current events.”

Harvard hasn’t collected or disclosed new or updated data on that, either.

Instead, Harvard’s ten outside lawyers, led by former George W. Bush administration solicitor general Paul Clement and including former Scalia clerk Scott Lehotsky, former Trump Organization lawyer and current Fox Corp. director William Burck, and former U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Joshua Levy, tell the court in its latest filing that “Harvard implemented many changes aimed at ensuring its campus is safe, fair, and welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students.”

An 11th-hour outside Harvard lawyer, Scott Keller, recently withdrew from the case to take the job of general counsel of Chevron.

Harvard’s filing says, “The University’s deans have implemented changes concerning appointments and curriculum (including bolstered course offerings and faculty focused on Jewish history and antisemitism).”

The court filing footnotes this claim to a Harvard “academic life” web page that really has to be seen to be believed. It’s one thing, in court or in the court of public opinion, to put your best foot forward.

It’s another thing to offer an account so selective and full of half-truths and spin that it winds up being misleading, a deception that is the opposite of Veritas.

I’m not saying that Harvard hasn’t improved from the nightmare it was or that it hasn’t put effort and resources into improving. But that Harvard is billing these particular “changes” as leaps of progress against discrimination is laughable.

Among the “changes” touted on the Harvard web page that is footnoted in the court filing, many reference the Harvard Divinity School:

— “In spring 2026, HDS added a new course on Jewish Ecology. ” That course was taught by Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg, who accuses Israel of genocide.

— “a new student journal on Jewish liturgy.” That’s Ashera, a journal of Palestinian liberation and erotic poetry that was actually “created” not by a student but by a professor, Shaul Magid, who advocates what he describes as “counter-Zionism.”

— “In June 2025, HDS hired for the position of the Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in Residence.”

That was Magid. In his 2023 book, The Necessity of Exile, Magid declared that “Israel is mired in an increasingly chauvinistic ethnonational project” and said that he doesn’t think “that liberalism and Zionism can be seen as compatible in any easy way. ”

The book, he writes, is “in some sense, anti-Zionist” or “more precisely … counter-Zionist.”

— “New faculty at Harvard Law School. In fall 2026, Harvard Law School will welcome a new faculty member as the Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph S. Gruss Visiting Professor in Talmudic Civil Law.”

This visiting professorship has existed since at least 2017, through the most vile periods of Harvard antisemitism. The person who will hold the position in the fall of 2026, Moshe Halbertal, was also there in 2018-2019.

And while Harvard may be bringing in traveling Talmud professors, it is also giving $90,000-a-year fellowships to four anti-Israel activists.

Harvard’s English and history departments also paid a $35,000 honorarium and $7,500 in travel expenses “for a 5-star hotel” to have Ta-Nehisi Coates appear on campus on September 24, 2025, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and “read from his chapter on Palestine,” according to documents released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Enumerating the changes with such specificity also risks contradicting Harvard’s other legal arguments.

Harvard is claiming a First Amendment right to teach whatever it wants without government interference and simultaneously telling the court to look favorably at all the new stuff it’s doing and faculty it’s hiring.

In addition to the filings from Harvard and the government, several “friend of the court” briefs were filed in the cases this week by other parties.

Hillel International filed a brief siding with Harvard against the Trump administration, signed by a lawyer, David Zimmer, who is a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

After a Harvard student who successfully sued, then settled with Harvard, Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, called Hillel out on the matter, Hillel moved to withdraw its brief, explaining that “authorization to file the brief was provided to counsel without the brief having gone through a required internal review process within Hillel.”

Another brief backing Harvard was filed by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Their lawyer is Naomi Shatz. Shatz was also the lawyer for Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a Harvard Divinity student from Ghana, charged with misdemeanor criminal charges of assault and battery and of interfering with the civil rights of a fellow student in what prosecutors said was an attack on Yoav Segev, an Israeli student at Harvard Business School.

Shatz’s defense strategy included telling a Boston judge that Segev “had no bruises. ” The civil rights charge was dismissed and the assault charge was dealt with by pretrial diversion to community service.

Shatz’s brief claims “identifying Jewish People as the Reason for Funding Cuts Will Create Backlash and Scapegoating of Jewish Students and Faculty,” which seems like circular logic—don’t crack down on campus antisemitism, because the antisemites might discriminate against the Jews even more fiercely in response to the enforcement.

A brief in the district court case from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Equal Rights Under the Law highlights a subtle legal issue that helps explain why Harvard is so eager to emphasize what it has done.

The Brandeis Center argues that the government does not need to prove “deliberate indifference.”

It says, “intentional discrimination may be proven by a number of different methods; all that is required is proof that persons were treated worse because of their protected category.”

As the court cases work their way through the system and Harvard works on its slow academic timeline to hire professors (a search is under way for a tenured full Yiddish professor to begin in July 2027 to replace Ruth Wisse, who retired in 2014), many talented Jewish students who might in past years have chosen Harvard are looking elsewhere.

The Hillel college guide lists the top 60 schools by Jewish population percentage. Brown, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Duke, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania all make the list. Harvard is absent.

The post Harvard touts ‘counter-Zionist’ professor and other anti-Israel appointees as evidence of progress against Jew-hate appeared first on World Israel News.

More than two-thirds of American Jews say New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is both anti-Israel and antisemitic; just 14% believe claims that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, while nearly four in five reject those accusations.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

A large majority of American Jews surveyed by the Jewish People Policy Institute reject accusations that Israel committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, while more than two-thirds view New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as both anti-Israel and antisemitic, according to the institute’s July 2026 Voice of the Jewish People index.

The survey, which focused on Jews who are connected to Jewish communal life, found that 78% of US respondents said Israel had not committed genocide during the war in Gaza.

Fourteen percent said Israel had committed genocide, while 8% said they did not have enough information to form an opinion.

Rejection of the genocide accusation was even higher among respondents in Canada, at 87%, and Britain, at 81%.

JPPI said the results differed significantly from recent surveys of the broader American public, which found higher levels of support for the accusation or uncertainty over whether it was justified.

The institute’s index regularly surveys Jews in the US, Canada and Britain about issues involving Israel, Jewish communities and international affairs. The panel is intended to represent Jews who are actively connected to Jewish communal institutions or to Israel, rather than the entire Jewish population.

The survey also found that 69% of American Jews consider Mamdani to be both anti-Israel and antisemitic, an increase from the institute’s findings the previous year.

Another 20% said Mamdani was anti-Israel but not antisemitic. Just 7% said he was neither anti-Israel nor antisemitic.

The share of respondents who said they were unfamiliar with Mamdani or unable to assess him declined substantially over the past year, suggesting that he has become a more prominent and divisive figure among American Jews.

The survey also found a sharp decline in confidence that the military campaign against Iran had achieved its objectives.

In March, during Operation Roaring Lion, 66% of US respondents described the campaign as successful. By July, that figure had fallen to 36%, while 61% said the campaign had failed to accomplish its goals.

A similar decline was recorded in Canada, where the share describing the campaign as successful fell from 70% in March to 40% in July. Among British respondents, it dropped from 75% to 47%.

Despite their disappointment with the campaign’s results, most respondents did not believe the US had used excessive force against Iran.

Fifty-six percent of US respondents said the American military campaign had not gone far enough, compared with 28% who said it had gone too far. The view that insufficient force was used was shared by 73% of respondents in Canada and 67% in Britain.

The findings suggest that criticism of the campaign was directed primarily at its scope and effectiveness, rather than at the decision to use military force.

The survey found strong support for Israel coordinating its policies with the US government while retaining the ability to act independently.

Eighty-three percent of US respondents said Israel should seek to coordinate with Washington but should follow what it considers to be its own interests when disagreements arise.

That position was supported by 84% of Canadian respondents and 92% of those in Britain. Only small minorities said Israel should almost always follow the US government’s position or disregard it entirely.

Views of the US as an ally were more divided.

Eighteen percent of US respondents said the US was a truer friend of Israel than it had been in the past, while 17% said the relationship was unchanged.

Twenty-eight percent said the US was less friendly toward Israel than before, 27% said they were uncertain whether it could still be considered a friend, and 7% said it was clearly not a friend.

Taken together, 35% placed the US in the negative or strongly skeptical categories.

President Donald Trump’s ratings on his handling of Iran recovered slightly in July but remained substantially below their March level.

The share of US respondents describing Trump as a good leader on Iran fell from 46% in March to 40% in May and 21% in June. It rose to 32% in July, while 62% continued to rate his leadership negatively.

Political affiliation was the strongest predictor of respondents’ views.

Among those identifying as very conservative, 87% rated Trump positively, as did 68% of respondents who leaned conservative.

Among those identifying as very liberal, 87% described him as a “very bad” leader on the Iran issue, with another 6% rating him somewhat negatively.

Centrist respondents were almost evenly divided, with 40% rating Trump positively and 49% negatively.

The partisan split was also evident when respondents were grouped according to their vote in the 2024 presidential election. Eighty percent of Trump voters rated him positively, while 77% of Kamala Harris voters described him as a very bad leader.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ratings on Iran also declined, though more gradually.

The share of respondents describing Netanyahu as a good leader on the issue fell from 53% in March to 41% in July. Forty-nine percent rated his leadership negatively.

Among very conservative respondents, 67% described Netanyahu as a very good leader, with 95% rating him positively overall. Among very liberal respondents, 69% rated him very negatively.

JPPI CEO Dr. Shuki Friedman said the findings showed that Jews who remain connected to the US Jewish community and to Israel have largely rejected international accusations against the Jewish state.

“The findings illustrate the extent to which American Jews connected to the community and to Israel refuse to adopt the international narrative against Israel,” Friedman said.

“An overwhelming majority rejects the ‘genocide’ accusation and clearly recognizes the problems presented by figures such as Mamdani.”

Friedman added that respondents in the US, Canada and Britain broadly supported Israel’s right to act according to its own interests, even when those interests conflict with Washington’s position.

“These figures illustrate the challenge facing connected American Jews, caught between antisemitism on the one hand and an administration that does not always take Israel into account, even when it is Republican,” he said.

The post Poll: Vast majority of US Jews view Mamdani as antisemitic, reject Gaza genocide claims appeared first on World Israel News.

Sa’ar: “Months of incitement against the Jewish state from Mamdani have helped create a climate in which Jews are targeted.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani drew criticism after delaying his public response to the stabbing of two men, including one who was visibly Jewish, outside an Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side during Tisha b’Av on Thursday, while other elected officials and community leaders quickly condemned the attack.

Fox News noted that Mamdani posted about a new tax initiative targeting millionaires in the hours after the attack as officials expressed shock and wished the victims a speedy recovery.

Mamdani later issued a statement saying: “I have been briefed on today’s horrifying stabbings on the Upper West Side, where an Asian man and a Jewish man were attacked. According to witness and victim statements, the perpetrator yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks. I am relieved that both victims are in stable condition.”

“The NYPD responded immediately and arrested Raul Morales in connection with both assaults—and I am grateful to the officers for their swift response.”

The New York Police Department said both victims were taken to a hospital in stable condition. One victim was initially listed in critical condition, but both are now expected to survive, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

Tisch identified the suspect as Raul Morales, 51, and said no additional suspects were being sought.

“Detectives continue to investigate the case and determine the motive, but according to statements from the victims and eyewitnesses, Morales shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks. The NYPD (New York Police Department) is examining whether this was a hate crime,” she said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar blamed Mamdani’s rhetoric on Israel for contributing to antisemitic violence.

“I am appalled by the horrific antisemitic stabbing attack in New York. Appalled but sadly not surprised,” Sa’ar wrote on X.

“This violence did not happen in a vacuum. Months of incitement against the Jewish state from Mamdani have helped create a climate in which Jews are targeted.”

“Words have consequences. Mamdani must end the incitement, confront antisemitism with resolve, and act now to protect the city’s Jewish community,” he added.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also posted on X that the attack appeared to be antisemitic, writing, “Disgusted by what appears to be another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they’re Jewish.”

“The strength of New York has always been our ability to live together across every faith and background. Anyone who tries to tear that apart will be met with the full force of the law. New York will stand with our Jewish community today, tomorrow, and always.”

The post Mamdani slow to condemn ‘Allahu Akbar’ attacker who stabbed Jew outside NYC synagogue appeared first on World Israel News.