The barbaric October 7 massacre was the largest slaughter of Jews in the Jewish holy land in almost 2,000 years. Gazans perpetrated the attack on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, when Jews celebrate finishing and restarting reading the Pentateuch each year. The pogrom was on Saturday, the Jewish holy day of rest. It was also on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, when Islamic Arab armies invaded Israel in 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
In covering the war in various articles on that dark day, The New York Times did not mention that thousands of Gazans decided to invade Israel during the joyful holiday of Simchat Torah. Whether deliberate or not, the large media company headquartered in the city with the largest number of Jews in the Jewish diaspora did not add color that the Palestinian jihadists murdered Jews while the Jewish State celebrated an important religious holiday.
Not so for the woke paper’s coverage of the Gazan-initiated war regarding Islamic holidays.
The Times made a point of telling its readers that the latest fighting in the War From Gaza happened during the month-long Islamic holiday of Ramadan. The insertion of the fact had nothing to do with recounting the military timeline in the sentence or paragraph. It had nothing to do with the entire article. Unless it was the Times’ intent to tell its readers that “the Israeli assault” happened while the parties were “negotiating the next steps in the truce” while Muslims in Gaza were celebrating a religious holiday, to make the Israelis out to be particularly heartless.
New York Times article on March 18, 2025
Perhaps it was just trying to inform its increasing Muslim readership that it the paper is halal.
The Times has long proved its anti-Israel and antisemitic bona fides. It is seemingly looking to promote its pro-Islamic credentials at this time.
Columbia University had a horrific record of antisemitism on campus in the years preceding the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel that ramped up even more Jew-hatred on campus. In 2019, Alums For Campus Fairness produced a 33-page report documenting dozens of incidents including swastikas drawn on walls, mezuzahs ripped from doors and Jewish history denial from Columbia professors.
Office of Jewish professor at Columbia University covered with swastikas in November 2018
After the October 7 Gazan massacre of Israelis, it became open season on Jews at the formerly esteemed school grounds.
The Jew hatred was so intense that a rabbi at the school advised Jewish students to leave campus because the administration had abandoned them. The school president was forced to resign as anti-Israel agitators broke into buildings and blocked access for Jewish students repeatedly, and the school took little to no action to protect Jewish students despite government warnings.
In light of the school administration’s inaction, the US government began to step in. It sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong on February 13, 2025 listing many of the antisemitic activities at the school, writing it was distressed that “Columbia has allowed these activities to continue.” It demanded that the school produce files related to eleven incidents which took place on campus from April 2024 through January 2025, within two weeks.
In March, the Trump administration began taking action, including suspending grants to the university and taking a leader of the anti-Israel horde into custody. The Trump Administration sent another letter to Columbia on March 13, 2025 demanding action because the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment.” (emphasis added)
These are all plain facts. Yet in news article after article, and opinion article after opinion over the weekend of March 15, the New York Times would not refer to antisemitism at Columbia. The preferred – and only – narrative was that President Trump was waging war on free speech and opinions he didn’t like.
Somehow, there was no anti-Jewish conduct anywhere at Columbia and Barnard, just a suppression of “pro-Palestinian” speech that created a “volatile and dangerous” atmosphere FOR THE PROTESTORS.
This was clearly deliberate. The Times was seeking to both inflame the public against the Trump Administration as well as to lay a foundational defense for foreign students on American campuses. Framing the situation as free speech versus systemic anti-Jewish conduct is a get-out-of-jail card that Hamas Defenders hope to play.
Jew hatred on college campuses is not just prevalent but systemic and buttressed by a progressive media. It is part of a socialist-jihadi alliance which aims to remove the beleaguered minority-minority from positions of power and influence and replace them with people from the Global South.
Those positions include the physical presence on college campuses as well as in their Jewish homeland.
To whitewash the blatant antisemitism at universities, the socialist-jihadi media avoids mentioning the Jew hatred and attempts to rally the world to save higher education.
The New York Times has attempted to reframe the antisemitic actions at Columbia as a confrontation between an authoritarian Trump Administration and free speech and higher education. In such worldview, the Jewish victims are omitted from the narrative, a nuisance in the progressives’ war for their victims of preference.
The United Nations has 193 countries in the General Assembly, and 134, roughly 70%, are located in what is generally called the “Global South”, a term that has emerged to replace “third world” and “developing economies.” The region accounts for about 80% of the global population, with the difference in figures mostly due to the two largest populations – India and China – being located in the region.
The UN has many committees and agencies. Of all of them, the UN Security Council is the most significant, being the sole entity that can pass international laws. It has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and ten non-permanent members which serve two year terms. More than 50 members of the UN have never served on the UNSC, including Israel.
The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, thinks that the current UNSC needs to be refashioned for the modern world. He bemoans the fact that no African country has a permanent seat on the council, and the ability for the five permanent members to veto resolutions has allowed some wars – like in Ukraine and Gaza – to continue for too long. He also believes that capitalism as dictated by the Global North has kept the Global South in poverty by charging higher rates of interest and not forgiving debt.
US President Joe Biden favored allowing two African countries to become permanent members of the UNSC but objected to their obtaining veto powers. He thought that the current system of veto rights already made the committee unproductive and adding more members with such rights would impede it further. Others countered that it was time to remove all veto rights. Still others like India, the world’s most populous country, demanded a seat on the committee as well. Arab countries took the opportunity to demand the same.
Negotiations will play out over 2025, with a new US administration under Donald Trump who is much more weary of multilateralism and the United Nations generally. The discussions will mainly focus on Africa, where most of the global growth in population is occurring.
China has invested heavily in Africa, accounting for roughly one-third of the infrastructure projects, and now has global trade of $282 billion with the continent. Its actions helped it surpass the United States in terms of popularity (58% to 56%). The US must consider how it interacts with the African continent directly and what steps it takes at the UN as it fights its shadow war with China.
Those who spend their lives focused on the UN and global politics have been debating which two countries should join the UNSC. If the seats go to the countries with the largest economies, it would favor South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion). If it is awarded based on population, it would go to Nigeria (232 million) and Ethiopia (132 million). Others consider the Democratic Republic of Congo (109 million and one of the fastest growing population at +3.3% in 2024) which has been decimated by ongoing violence. Including a country which has longed for peace might make sense at the Security Council.
For people who focus on another country which has dreamed of calm – the Jewish State of Israel – the changes to the UNSC are extremely important.
Overall, the Global South is much more anti-Israel than the Global North. All 28 countries that refuse to recognize the State of Israel are located there. Almost every country in the Global South recognizes Palestine while a minority of the Global North recognizes such entity.
Since the Iranian Proxies War on Israel, South Africa has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, claiming Israel’s defensive war was a “genocide.” Those joining South Africa were almost all from the Global South, with the exceptions of Belgium, Ireland and Spain from Europe.
The dynamic of a change at the UNSC will not only impact Israel but possibly Jews around the world as witnessed by the spike of global antisemitic attacks since the October 7 massacre. In the United States, the majority of international students at universities come from the Global South, and an empowerment of their voices at the Security Council may exacerbate Jew hatred everywhere.
While people are focused on the genocidal jihad that brought violence against Jews in Israel and the United States watching movies like October 8, attention must include the impending harm that may come to Jews everywhere with changes at the United Nations Security Council.
ACTION ITEM
Write the White House to share your concerns of changes to the United Nations Security Council
Hamas Defenders (like the Arab world and universities) and their defenders (politicians and progressive Jews) – HDDs – have tried to reeducate the West about both the English and Arabic languages.
At congressional hearings, HDDs told senators that “Intifada” just means “shaking off” and did not mean the slaughter of Jews, despite the Second Intifada killing 1,000 Jews – almost all civilians – and resulting in more restrictions on Palestinians, like the Security Barrier which ended that intifada.
Those hearings had the head of the Arab American Institute also share that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” is not a call for killing Jews but just the liberation of local Arabs.
That same speaker said that “Glory to our martyrs” plastered on buildings might only be interpreted as antisemitic if the buildings were synagogues or Jewish centers, but simply free speech if it was in public where Jews would see it going to school.
WESPAC-backed Palestine Youth Movement masked members plastering “Glory To Our Martyrs” on top of the map of Israel, at train stations in New York
HDDs said there was no hate crime when professors said the massive slaughter of Jews on October 7 was “exhilarating” to a crowd, or when students held signs pointing at Jews that read “al Qassam next targets.” Not just not a crime, but not even hate.
Masked Columbia student calling for Hamas missile strike on Jewish students
They accuse Jews of being too sensitive.
When HDDs accuse Israel of committing “genocide” and behaving like “Nazis” committing “ethnic cleansing” while engaged in “apartheid,” they attempt to strip the victims of European and Arab countries’ atrocities of their history and memory and desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews.
As HDDs refer to the raping of Jewish women, burning families alive and kidnapping Holocaust survivors a form of “justified resistance,” they seek to insult the memories of the Jewish dead and have the world condemn the innocent as evil “occupiers.”
NYC mob waving flags of Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chanting for “Intifada revolution” in front of exhibit about the Gazan slaughter of innocents at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023
It is an attempted institutional gaslighting of Jews.
When HDDs testify that chants like “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” require “context” and must be “targeted and pervasive” in order for school administrations to even consider taking action, they don’t pause to consider Jews being locked in rooms for their safety or fleeing campus because schools won’t protect them. FOR MONTHS.
Jewish students in downtown NYC barricade themselves in a library from a horde
The Democratic Socialists have declared every White person and Israeli part of the colonialist regime and are therefore all guilty and thereby legitimate targets for violence. Even babies.
Democratic Socialists of America siding with Hamas arguing that all forms of violence are legitimate in an effort of “liberation”
Jewish HDDs (they are mostly in the second ‘D’ in HDD) accuse their fellow Jews of being tools of antisemitic Republicans who are using them to dismantle the education system and suppress free speech. They add that those Jews who complain about antisemitism are right-wing racists who are putting international and minority groups at risk by complaining to authorities.
That has become the American landscape into which Jews step out of their front doors every day. Walking the streets, quietly wearing a yellow ribbon for the hostages held by Gazans and members of the United Nations, they are accosted with accusations that Jews and Zionists are evil and deserve neither dignity nor empathy. Even more, that Jews must relinquish their history and rights or face the firing squad before a cheering crowd.
Diaspora Jews are being groomed for slaughter. The operators of the slaughterhouses are in the awkward early days of learning how to keep the human cattle from acting up as they get processed. For the moment, they are playing with language and attempting to invert victim and assailant to enlist sympathy from the masses to join in the massacre.
Watching their growing ranks including progressive and anti-Zionist Jews as well as politicians, empowers the HDD movement that it is on the right track.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace take over Trump Tower on March 13, 2025
The context of the Global Intifada is that Jews and the Jewish State are considered part of the White Imperialist and Capitalist world. All are inherently guilty and therefore should not be allowed to defend themselves. HDDs are telling you that to be on the right side of history, everyone has to take up the cause and confront Zionists and White people wherever they are.
The pathetic joke is that the mantra is being stoked principally by foreign actors of the Global South on American soil under our own noses.
Fewer people are going to college and graduate schools. Some of the drop-off relates to people having fewer children so the absolute number of people going to school has been declining. But the percentage of students going from high school to advanced degrees has also fallen considerably. Even in the years before the pandemic, the decline in high schoolers going to college dropped from 70% in 2016 to 63% in 2020. The figure dropped to 61.4% in 2023, with men being the most likely to skip college with only 57.6% opting for that education. The rates for Whites and Blacks were roughly the same at 59.9% and 59.6%, respectively, with Hispanics being lower at 51.8% and Asians surpassing every group at 84.7%. The overall impact can be seen in 2010 college enrollment of 10.2 million women and 7.8 million men, dropping to 8.9 million (-12.7%) and 6.5 million (-16.7%), respectively in 2021.
The reasons that most Americans are skipping college include a strong job market paying good wages, the desire to avoid college debt, people pursuing jobs that don’t require advanced degrees, and the ability to learn many skills online.
To address the declining enrollment, universities are taking many more international students. In the 2023/24 academic year, U.S. universities had over 1.1 million foreign students, a record. These students mostly came from the “Global South,” the emerging, principally non-White economies. The majority of students came from southeast Asia including India (331k), China (277k), Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Taiwan. No European country was in the top ten. The only countries in the top ten which are part of the Global North were South Korea and Canada. The countries with the largest spike in students over the past year were all from the Global South including Ghana (+45%), Bangladesh (+26%), India (+23%), Iran (+15%) and Nigeria (+13%).
Global North in blue and Global South in red
The student exchange is not reciprocal. Only 280,000 Americans studied abroad and the majority (64%) went to Europe, with Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France dominating the destinations. Two-thirds of those students identified as White.
The Americans abroad tended to go during their undergraduate years, spending just a few months away (only 2.4% went for a year). They tended to be women (67%), and studied business and management (20%) and social sciences (18%). This is in sharp contrast to international students coming to the United States who were typically graduate students pursuing a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at 56%.
The international students are older and come for longer periods of time. They often marry and have kids while pursuing their degrees, establishing a foothold in America, while Americans-in-Europe simply have a quick experience away from home.
The universities are very happy to have these paying students fill their classrooms which are being abandoned by Americans. In 2019 and 2020, 49% of all STEM master’s degrees and 57% of all STEM doctorate degrees were conferred to international students. The economics of running courses and an institution without half the students would have required eliminating courses and teachers, and perhaps shutting whole departments.
Technology companies want and need these skilled students as future employees. Google, Apple and Microsoft count on new STEM graduates to fill their ranks each year and lobby the government accordingly. Open Doors estimates that these international students contribute roughly $50 billion to the U.S. economy, or about $5,000 per student.
The U.S. government plays a heavy hand in all of this, not only seeking to salvage American university programs and building feeders to the American technology landscape, but on a political level as well.
Two situations highlight U.S. politics driving international students to these shores: Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As the United States ramped up pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its nuclear program from 2007 to 2015, the U.S. sought to reassure its ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is a foe of Iran. During those years, the number of Saudi students in American universities climbed from just a few thousand to over 61,000. The Saudi students learned courses like petroleum engineering to better extract and process oil, as well as nuclear physics to be able to build nuclear power on their own. Just after the nuclear agreement was signed, the number of Saudi students dropped significantly, down to under 15,000 in the 2023/24 academic year.
American politics playing out for international students from Israel is more explicit, and targets high school students, as long as they are Arabs.
On September 12, 2023, the U.S. embassy in Israel posted an advertisement that the U.S. State Department “is seeking a group of Arab citizens of Israel secondary school students to participate in a Study- in-the-USA initiative for high school students during the 2024-2025 school year.” (bold in original) It is backed by the YES Program Scholarship which gives “many countries with significant Muslim population an opportunity to study at American high schools and live with American host families for one academic year,” funding “all expenses in connection with the study tour including airfare, room and board, pocket money and most other costs.” It is part of the broad U.S. policy to make amends for the “War on Terror,” and selected only non-Jews from the Jewish State to learn in America.
The cherry-picking of certain types of international students demands a deeper exploration of the segments of the Global South that are in American schools.
The Global South has two principal regions as it relates to American immigrants: Latin America and everywhere else.
The United States was primarily populated by European migration from 1840 to 1920. World War I, the Great Depression and World War II stemmed immigration for several decades before it picked up with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Since that time, 49% of immigrants have come from Latin America and 27% from Asia. These groups are very different. The typical immigrant from Latin America had little formalized education (only 9% of Mexicans in the US in 2022 had a college degree). That compared to those from South Asia where 72% had a college degree, 55% from Central Asia and 49% from East and Southeast Asia.
Those coming from Latin America typically came for jobs not requiring a college degree while those coming from Asia came with degrees or obtained them at American universities.
The demographics between Latin America and Asia are also very different regarding religion.
About 50 million Muslims live in the Global North which has a population of roughly 1.6 billion, or about 3% of the population. It is even lower in Latin America which has roughly 4 million Muslims out of a population of 665 million, or about 0.6%. That is is sharp contrast to roughly 1.8 billion Muslims living in the Global South with a population of 6.4 billion, or roughly 28%, or 31% x-Latin America. If one were to exclude China as well which has around 25 million Muslims, the Global South is over 41% Muslim (x-China and x-Latin America).
While China does not resemble much of the Global South in both religious demographics and not having a history of European countries on its soil, it is now in an aggressive competitive battle against the Global North for power. As such, China is leveraging its regional position alongside the Global South to wage a cultural and economic war against the West.
China and the Global South have advanced efforts to promote anarchy in the United States alongside far-left non-White movements like Justice Democrats. The calls to Defund the Police and Abolish ICE were designed to tear down walls of protection and flood the United States with people from the Global South. The chants to “Globalize the Intifada” on American campuses and streets are calls to dismantle Western civilization’s capitalism and support for the Jewish State, with a broad redistribution of wealth and power to the preferred people in the Global South.
“Intifada” protest at Columbia University streets
When people in the Global North hear the chants of “Intifada,” they recognize the vile terrorism of Palestinian Arabs blowing up buses and pizza stores in the Second Intifada. However, the Global South considers it an Arabic term meaning “shaking off” the colonialism and imperialism of the West. The South’s overriding desire of taking on western civilization overwhelms the facts that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel and that the Intifada is a premeditated violent attack on civilians. The Islamist Global South rallies to its coreligionists.
Banner with “Intifada” hung outside Columbia University
The population on America’s campuses does not resemble the rest of America. The disproportionate number of Asians and Muslims enrolled at America’s universities come from regions which are in active competition with the West, and embrace the Stateless Arabs from Palestine’s (SAPs) jihadi war against the Jews. The universities which enroll the international students of the Global South, attempt to tie them with American minority groups whose ancestors originated from those regions. Remarkably, a cause like Black Lives Matter which has nothing to do with the Global South, becomes hitched to the Israeli Defense Forces.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on hearing about antisemitism at universities showcasing “Intifada”
The declining enrollment at American universities has led to them being taken over by international students from Asia and Africa. This has led directly to antisemitism on campuses and in the streets. It was true before the October 7 massacre and has only accelerated since then.
New York City march to “Globalize the Intifada” in September 2021, two years before the October 7 massacre by Gazans
Americans and the Global North are watching the initial battles of the Global South on the beachheads of American universities and are dumbstruck. The West would be well served to reevaluate those international students admitted to study here, and use this time to prepare for the battles to come.
ACTION ITEM
Contact the White House to vet international students coming to study at American universities, trimming the numbers coming from the Global South and making their visas conditional to peaceful behavior.
The Global South in downtown New York City taunting Jews and Israelis attending an exhibition about music lovers slaughtered by Gazans on October 7, 2023
So why start another PAC that does the same thing? It’s not as though Bowman’s PAC is going after conservative non-White voters; it’s using the same alt-left agenda as Justice Democrats, including supporting Gazans who initiated and supported a jihadi genocidal massacre against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Bowman knows he has a terrible record. His brand is so tainted that he needed to go around the country including California and Virginia with other members of Congress to try to raise money during his failed primary run.
A new congressional run – perhaps this time for Rep. Ritchie Torres’s seat in NY-15 if Torres decides to run for governor against the unpopular Kathy Hochul – would require money that may not be so forthcoming to a censored former politician. As such, creating a new PAC BEFORE he announces his intention to enter a race, could give him several advantages:
He may be able to market the cause more successfully if it isn’t about him personally
He gets practice stumping and meeting donors without being forced to disclose his numerous failings
Bowman can use the Zeteo platform with Mehdi to go even more viciously anti-Israel than Justice Democrats may be willing to go, perhaps unlocking deep jihadi pockets
Disclosure rules are more lax for PACs. Pro-terrorist groups have easier times giving money to blind pools than individual candidates. Bowman can court antisemitic donors with greater ease
Should Bowman enter the race, he may attempt to repurpose this PAC to himself. This is a tactic that was used by Rick Scott who took over the New Republican PAC in 2016. Scott’s moves in this regard brought multiple investigations. As the non-partisan group OpenSecrets stated about the issue, “Federal law would prohibit an announced federal candidate or campaign from coordinating with either state-level committees or federal super PACs, which can take unlimited corporate money that federal candidates are not permitted to receive.” Campaign Legal Center wrote at that time “Campaign finance laws are in place to prevent schemes like this one that hide information from voters about which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our votes and our government.” Imagine these aren’t “wealthy special interests” seeking profit but groups out to destroy America and its allies.
Built to Win PAC may become the alt-left anti-Israel piggybank for Bowman and his co-host on Zeteo, Cori Bush, who made their losses all about the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC rather than their own failings.
Bowman’s reemergence on two platforms: Zeteo to engage the public in race-baiting, and with a PAC to draw in unlimited monies, is potentially a cause for serious alarm for the country, especially Jews in the midst of a horrifying spike in antisemitism.
The latest Batman movie franchise focused on his arch-villain Joker. The deranged psychopath had a restless fan club who relished Joker’s “resistance” and rejection of societal norms. The masses donned their own clown masks to feel empowered alongside their hero who took on authority in an attempt to unleash anarchy to redistribute wealth and power to the horde on the streets. Their affiliate masks also enabled themselves to remain anonymous to carry out mayhem without consequences.
The comic world is playing out in the real world as the genocidal jihadists of Hamas are celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza as well as several cities around the world. The depraved slaughtering of Jewish civilians inside Israel on October 7, 2023 was greeted with wide support in Gaza and east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL). Hamas enthusiasts outside the Middle East have likewise donned masks and attack and harass Jews and Jewish institutions around the world in support of a “global intifada” against Jews and their supporters.
Masked pro-Hamas people at Columbia University
Batman also wore a mask but for different reasons. He sought to protect society from the dark underbelly of man’s worst tendencies. He chose to remain anonymous so that he could work for society as a businessman, as well as to protect the people he loves from attack. He wanted his anonymity to be a motivator for the public, that anyone you saw on the street could be the secreted protector of peace.
Bruce Wayne explains why he wears a mask during The Dark Knight Rises
Jews have a tradition of wearing costumes during the holiday of Purim which commemorates when a genocidal lunatic sought to kill the Jews in Persia (modern Iran) 2,400 years ago but failed to do so. The Persian Jews were able to turn the genocide on its head, first killing the evil instigator, his family and 500 associates, before wiping out 75,000 enemies in the provinces. These days, some Jews dress up like characters from the story as conveyed in the Scroll of Esther, while others dress in costumes to comment on current events.
For Purim 2025, I suggest that people honor the memory of the Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, who were four years old and nine months, respectively, when they were seized by members of the political-terrorist group Hamas and other Gazans on October 7, 2023. The children’s bodies were returned in coffins to Israel this week.
The Bibas boys loved Batman. Many pictures have circulated online of the two redheads wearing Batman masks as well as their parents wearing Batman attire when they enjoyed a peaceful life in their small kibbutz in Israel.
Putting on a Batman mask with a bright red wig for Purim will not just show solidarity with the murdered small innocent boys, but declare that one stands for justice, peace, family and civility. It also highlights our determination to eradicate evil and those who wish to destroy the world behind the masks of madmen.
J.D. Vance’s 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, began with a short story of how everyone in his small town would come to the street and stand when a funeral hearse passed by. When he asked his grandmother the reason for the tradition she replied “because honey, we’re hill people. And we respect our dead.”
It was an interesting device to educate readers that they were about to be introduced to a subset of society. They may know Americans and people from Kentucky, but the “hill people” in Vance’s life had a special bond. Whether living or dead, old or young, they stood together and apart from others, even while a casual eye might miss the divide.
Rabbi Scott Kahn, a Jewish American-Israeli podcaster of a show called Orthodox Conundrum, posed a similar story as a question while he was on a tour in the U.S. from his home in Israel, in the fall of 2024. He provocatively asked a gathering of Orthodox Jews whether a cleft had opened between the American and Israeli Orthodox communities over the current war from Gaza. He observed that while U.S. Orthodox Jews remained the most committed to Israel in terms of visiting, moving and supporting Israel, he felt that support waning as the latest war extended past one year.
When some from the audience protested that many of the people present had children who volunteered for the Israeli army, Kahn paused to admit that while true, American Jews simply no longer understood the pain of Israeli Jews who get up and go to funerals and shiva houses week after week, for so long.
The global modern Orthodox community in which Kahn felt completely at home for so long seemingly was fracturing before him into distinct Israeli and diaspora communities.
Some weeks later, Kahn shared the story on his podcast with three panelists – Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, Dr. Logan Levkoff, and Shira Katz Shaulov – the first two from the U.S. and last from Israel. Halfway into the talk (38:30) he shared the conversation above to get reactions from the panel. Shaulov observed that the gap was more of a distinction between expecting sympathy and empathy. While the American Orthodox community may continue to have sympathy with their brothers and sisters in Israel, the local toll of the war made empathy virtually impossible.
The panel noted that Israelis often go to a wedding and a funeral on the same day in the same community for people the same ages. It has been brutal and exhausting, and they have been doing so for over a year. Every day they fear a knock at the door or observe their neighbors getting terrible news and gather together as a shaken community for mutual support.
That huddle is physical, local, tangible. And creates lasting and specialized bonds.
And many Israeli Jews feel that Jews in the diaspora are not present in the circle, and cannot comprehend the anguish.
The fatigue and emotional strain of this war has adjusted the contours of the Orthodox community in ways Kahn may well understand and appreciate but is despondent over as well. While the values and ritual practices may remain very similar, Diaspora Jews remain thousands of miles away from Israel during this massive pivot in history.
Respecting the dead alongside the living reinforces community. It remains true after shiva.
When Hostages Square in Tel Aviv gets dismantled – hopefully sometime soon when everyone returns home – Israel cannot only be left with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Har Herzl national cemetery. The country must consider how the Jewish diaspora can properly engage with the fallen and injured, as well as their families and communities in the years ahead.
President Donald Trump once again turned to the Orthodox community to give a benediction on behalf of American Jewry at his inauguration. Yesterday, it was Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University, a modern Orthodox institution. At his last inauguration in 2017, Trump called upon Rabbi Haskel Lookstein who had overseen the conversion of his daughter Ivanka, leader of Kehilat Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue in New York City, and Head of the Ramaz School, a modern Orthodox K-12 school. Liberal alumni of Ramaz objected to Rabbi Lookstein participating in the inauguration so the rabbi backed out, and was replaced by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, also an Orthodox rabbi.
Trump’s selection of Orthodox rabbis stands in sharp contrast to every other president who chose non-Orthodox rabbis. In 2021, during Joe Biden’s inauguration at the height of the pandemic in a virtual ceremony, Sharon Brous of IKAR in Los Angeles and Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City spoke. The two female rabbis are on the far-left of the religious and political spectrum, with the latter being married to Randi Weingarten, the powerful far-left leader of the American Federation of Teachers which only backs Democratic politicians.
The divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism is now beyond the confines of keeping kosher and Shabbat observance. There is a clear divide politically and about Israel as well.
According to a May 2021 Pew Research poll, Orthodox Jews preferences for the Republican and Democratic parties were 75% and 20%, respectively. Conservative and Reform Jews tilted towards the Democratic Party by a mirrored amount. An incredible 81% of Orthodox Jews approved of Trump’s job performance, while a similar percentage of non-Orthodox Jews disapproved of Trump’s performance.
These sentiments are echoed in the divide in the Jewish communities’ feelings about a range of issues including Israel and the treatment of American Jews. The majority of Orthodox Jews approved Trump’s handling of immigration, the environment, Israel and his treatment of Jews in the United States, while non-Orthodox Jews were much more split.
These polls were taken well before the October 7, 2023 massacre by Palestinian Arab terrorists of civilians in Israel, and the horrifying cheers of jubilation from the socialist-jihadi alliance on American campuses and in Congress. Since then, even Conservative Jews have begun to migrate towards the Republican Party (now almost one-half from just over one-quarter 3.5 years ago), while Reform and unaffiliated Jews remain entrenched with Democrats, according to an October 2024 poll by the Manhattan Institute.
It should not come as a surprise to see Trump invite an Orthodox rabbi to Washington, D.C., even while they make up a small percentage of Jews in America. It will be interesting to see if the Jewish Conservative movement continues to shift away from the Democratic Party and become a fixture in Washington during the Trump Administration.
The sorry state of Columbia University’s treatment of Jews is apparent to all. The administration, teachers and student-led groups have participated in the harassment, intimidation and assault on Jews and Jewish life on campus before the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led massacre and very significantly thereafter.
It is now manifest that graduates of the school – including some Jews, remarkably – have bonded with Hamas and rationalized its barbarism and whitewashed its antisemitism.
Consider anti-Israel Jewish alum Anna Baltzer. According to her Wikipedia page, Baltzer has written a number of books, and it seems that Noam Chomsky is a fan of her 2014 book “Witness in Palestine,” which details “Palestinian resistance” against the existence of Jews in the land of Israel. On November 12, 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led massacre, she wrote on the socialist-jihadi site Common Dreams an opinion piece titled “Hamas Didn’t Attack Israelis Because They Are Jewish,” in which she attempted to argue that Hamas killed Israelis because Israeli Jews are White supremacist colonial invaders, not because of their religion.
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” (Opening)
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” (Preamble)
“raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.” (Article 3)
“Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)… there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him” (Article 7)
“Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land” (Article 12)
“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.” (Article 15)
The Charter would go on to spin a bunch of Jew-hatred conspiracy theories lifted from the forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which has NOTHING to do with the conflict in the land.
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children… [Jews] attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money” (Article 20)
“With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein…. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.” (Article 22)
“The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… using all evil and contemptible ways… infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations… aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion…. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.” (Article 28)
“the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control.” (Article 30)
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.… here is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one’s country, the dispersion of citizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values… fight with the warmongering Jews.” (Article 32)
So how does this Ivy League-educated anti-Israel Jew deal with these facts? She pointed to Hamas’s revised charter of 2017 which says in Article 16 “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”
The list of Palestinian anti-Jewish non-Israeli physical attacks is long.
Hamas and its leaders have long denigrated Jews, calling them “the brothers of apes and pigs,” and told their followers that “Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” among many other insults.
The list of Palestinian anti-Jewish non-Israeli verbal attacks is long.
Surely Baltzer knows all of this. So why make an argument that is plainly untrue, and why do it to fellow Jews?
While not all Jews are pro-Israel (or eat kosher, live in Israel, celebrate Jewish holidays or a variety of things that are inherently Jewish), some – like Baltzer – are anti-Israel. They may hate some government policies, the entire government, or the entire state. They may actually not hate Israel but are eager to see local Arabs achieve a state of their own.
So how can people like Baltzer willfully ignore the deep Jew-hatred of Hamas? How and why do they try to convince fellow Jews that despite everything Hamas says and does, its radical views of Islam and jihad are somehow not toxic to Jews everywhere?
It’s a variant of the Stockholm Syndrome. In the case of Stockholm, an abused person develops a strong bond with their abuser and defends their actions in a strange twist of empathy. In this iteration, which I call the Columbia Syndrome, the root source is not purely from the ABUSER’S actions, but from the desire of someone to purge a part of their identity.
In an effort to rid oneself of a component of the Jewish collective – Israel in this case – a person bonds with someone who similarly attacks that element (Hamas, here). The fact that the abuser is not solely focused on that narrow element, or gives some soft talking points as cover to mask the general hatred in order to enlist people to the cause, is excused. The person suffering from Columbia Syndrome wants to expunge a core association so profoundly, that they will empathize with groups or people who despise them completely.
Columbia University did not originate this phenomenon and the phenomenon is not confined to anti-Israel Jews. People like Peter Beinart (Yale alum) have long been attempting to shield antisemites like Rep. Rashida Tlaib of charges of Jew-hatred. Brown University held a panel discussion about antisemitism which included Jews and non-Jews that echoed each other that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel, and to combat antisemitism one needed to be anti-Israel. Student groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow routinely link arms with those with extensive antisemitic credentials.
But Columbia stands above the rest.
Home to Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi, the school has long served as a fountain of denial of Jewish history and heritage. Today it is home to Joseph Massad, who celebrated the October 7 massacre of Jews and said that the Jews of the Old Testament are really “Palestinian Hebrews.”
Columbia is where students hoist banners calling for an “intifada” and point to Jews to be the next victims for Hamas.
Columbia is where socialist-jihadi politicians come to fawn on students harassing Jews.
Rep. Ilhan Omar at Columbia “encampment”
And Columbia is located in the largest Jewish diaspora community in the world, New York City. The university has the largest percentage of Jews of all the Ivy League schools, according to Hillel, and likely the largest Jewish alumni network of the Ivies.
Jews on campus and Jewish alumni witness the vocal anti-Israel fervor and must make a decision of how to respond: fight, flight, join or ignore. Many students worked very hard to gain admission to the institution to get a good education, and are loathe to leave the school or exert the physical and mental energy required to fight the tide of hatred. The majority of Jewish students are left with the choice to either listen to the toxicity or join the seemingly popular horde.
The Columbia environment echoes the school curricula of UNRWA, the temporary United Nations agency to care for descendants of Palestinian Arabs who left Israel at its founding. They are lied to that Jews are “colonialists” and “invaders” who “stole the land” from local Arabs. They are taught that all of Israel is an illegal “Zionist project” which should be terminated and handed to the stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs).
In such framework, Columbia Jews hear teachers and students echo the Democratic Socialists of America who argue that every Israeli Jew cannot be considered a civilian and is fair game for Palestinian Arabs “deploying violence to liberate themselves.”
Israeli Jews are no longer victims and Palestinians can longer be considered terrorists in such mindset. Even Arab men stabbing children to death while they slept, as happened in 2011, was supported by 51% of Arabs in Gaza. Some Columbia allies of SAPs may find the actions and associated support for killing children abhorrent but believe it has context for which Israel is solely to blame.
The depravity is appalling but it is part of the culture; it is deeply embedded in the Palestinian historical narrative at this point. The “allies” of SAPs have ingested the toxicity, including anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian Jews. What may have begun as just wanting SAPs to have freedom or an objection of Israeli policies, became a marriage made in hell.
Anti-Israel Jews try to cleanse Palestinian terrorists of antisemitism to rationalize their allegiance and to get fellow Jews to join the self-immolation. Rather than rethink the dangerous dynamic, the anti-Israel Jews affix themselves to people who want to see them dead – after they help destroy Jewish relatives.
People suffering from Columbia Syndrome are not only convinced that they are acting rationally but also morally. Like Jews who push for laws to ban the ritual slaughter of meat or circumcision, they concoct moral arguments for such actions. Driven by their profound desire to amputate part of their ethnicity and culture, they embrace people and movements which want to decapitate them.
Too many Jews are suffering from Columbia Syndrome in which they join forces with Hamas and other vicious antisemites to amputate any tinge of Zionism in their comportment. While Stockholm syndrome is understood by society to develop from a trauma-related experience, unfortunately, Columbia syndrome is viewed by a socialist-jihadist culture as a form of moral awakening.
First One Through 