Mike Huckabee, the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel, landed in the holy land to assume his new role and immediately went to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount. It is the holiest site where Jews can pray today, so he used the opportunity to address Jews in a call for peace.
Huckabee carried a small paper note from U.S. President Donald Trump praying for peace, which Huckabee inserted into a small crack in the ancient wall. He told those gathered that he and the president prayed that all the hostages violently taken by Gazans would be released to their families soon.
Mike Huckabee speaking at Western Wall about the “Judeo-Christian understanding that every life has worth and value.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Huckabee’s appointment as ambassador to Israel will “undermine the rights and safety of Muslim and Christian Palestinians, including American citizens living in or traveling to the region.” Somehow, a man devoted to peace for everyone – including Jews – and freedom for everyone – including hostages – is a threat to radical Muslim groups like CAIR and the Islamic Waqf.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, wearing a hostage support yellow ribbon pin, places a note into the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount, during Passover 2025
On the same day, Israel increased the number of Jewish visitors onto the Temple Mount to 180 at a time to accommodate demand. These were the largest sized groups according to the Islamic Waqf coming to “al Aqsa Mosque.” Aouni Bazbaz, head of international affairs for the waqf told Middle East Eye that the scene was “frightening” and portended Jews seeking to divide the holy compound into Jewish and Muslim sections like the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron.
To put the 180-person Jewish group in context, during Ramadan last month, Israel banned Jews visiting the site while 90,000 Muslims visited for prayers without putting anyone into a “group” for security. No one in Israel called the massive number of Muslim visitors “frightening.”
To add insult to the waqf’s smear, Bazbaz said Israel’s allowing both Jews and Muslims to pray in Hebron was “apartheid” and likely to happen in Jerusalem.
Islamic extremists want a purely Muslim holy land in the Jewish homeland, without basic human rights like prayer for non-Muslims. Dignity for other faiths is labeled “apartheid” in slurs likely to be adopted by the United Nations and “human rights” groups.
Radical Islamists and their supporters have attempted to enlist the world in banning Jews.
They have attempted to ban Jews from living in certain locations.
They have attempted to ban Jews from praying at their holiest locations.
They have attempted to ban Jews from having “normal” interactions with other groups under the banner of “BDS.”
They do this by placing Jews under concocted banners such as “illegal settlers” and “colonists.”
And they do this, whether Jews live in Jerusalem or not, in the “West Bank” or not, or in Israel or not.
If Jews want to visit their second holiest site of the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron, the anti-Jewish media bannerizes Jews regardless of the location of their homes.
The radical socialist-jihadi horde bannerize the Jewish holy site under their colonized name “Ibrahimi Mosque” because all of the other Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs buried at the site prove it is a site especially holy for Jews. They recharacterize Jews walking around as “storming” and “forcing” their way into places they do not belong.
Anti-Jewish organizations and governments label any Jew who wants to visit their holiest sites as “extremists,” while Muslims visiting the same sites which are less holy than for Jews receive no such callout.
Bannerizing Jews happens in the Jewish diaspora as groups block Jews from attending classes under the banner that Jews are “Zionists” and consequently “enemies” who must be confronted everywhere. People may just call Jews “they” under the banner “from Gaza to Detroit” or a complicit component of “the ownership class” and “empire.”
The blatant discrimination against Jews is happening with alarming frequency as people rename Jews and Jewish sites to mask the antisemitism. Bannerizing Jews is rank Jew hatred and must be confronted.
In the world of archaeology, there is nothing as prized as finding something in situ, meaning in its original place. The location helps provide archeologists with clues as to the surroundings’ age and usage, who lived in that location and the nature of society. Once an item moves, critical details of the environment are lost forever.
From that moment, the provenance is often a curiosity. Who owned the item and for how long? How did it come to find its way into this collection or that museum and what happened to the artifact over this time? These matters are often used to prove the subject’s authenticity, by tracing it back without interruption to the point of discovery.
When it comes to works of art (rather than archeological finds), provenance is less of a curiosity. Experts and viewers mostly focus on the art itself as well as the artist. The visual and message are the primary matters, not the journey of the art onto a museum’s wall.
Yet there are stories too remarkable to ignore. Sometimes the provenance is as much of the subject as the art itself, even reorienting the very perception of the artwork to modern viewers.
A Dutch Masterwork, As Seen By A Jew, A Nazi And Complicit Government
Consider the painting A River Landscape with a Waterfall (1660) by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682).
A River Landscape with a Waterfall (1660) by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682).
Van Ruisdael was considered among the greatest landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age. While his peers Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) and Rembrandt (1606-1669) mostly painted people, Van Ruisdael painted scenes of nature.
In A River Landscape with a Waterfall, we see the artist’s work with contrasts. The right side of the painting is illuminated by the setting sun, with a solid house on a hill set under clouds. To the left is dark scene in the shadow of the sun. Broken branches lay on the rocks and a hint of a house protrudes from the standing leafy trees. A barely perceptible person makes his way towards that house before sunset. A stream separates the two sides of the painting with a small waterfall.
This is one of many waterfall paintings by Van Ruisdael during the middle of his life. Of them all, this one is the most serene, with the title’s inclusion of “river” and “waterfall” seemingly an exaggeration of a modest calm landscape.
The story of the painting’s journey to the Phoenix Art Museum where it is exhibited today was anything but calm.
In the mid-1930s, the painting came into the collection of Jacques Goudstikker (1897-1940), a Jewish Dutch art dealer who was among the foremost collectors of Old Master works. When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Nazi military leader Hermann Göring confiscated Goudstikker’s collection. Over the course of the war, Göring is estimated to have amassed over 4,000 works of art. Most of the art was taken from France, including from the Rothschild family. Goudstikker’s collection made up a sizable part of the non-French collection, as he was partial to landscapes and the Old Masters.
Jacques Goudstikker (1897-1940), a Jewish Dutch art dealer
As the war started, Goudstikker fled Holland with his wife and one year old son. They first went to England and then caught a boat to the United States. On the ship to America, Jacques accidentally walked into an open hatch and plummeted to the ground below, dying instantly. His wife and son made it to America without him.
At the end of the war, the Dutch government confiscated the looted Nazi art. Most of the paintings did not find their way back to the rightful owners as there were few notes about the provenance of each work. However, because Goudstikker was a leading arts dealer, he had ledgers with each work, including this Van Ruisdael painting. Despite the clear markings on the back of the painting with Goustikker’s seal, and Goustikker’s wife and family showing records of being the proper owners, the Dutch government would not release the painting to the family until 2002, 57 years later. The family sold the painting in 2007 to a doctor in Phoenix, Arizona who donated it to the Phoenix Art Museum in 2022, where it hangs today.
During World War II, private art collections like Goustikker’s were often seized by the Nazis, while those from public museums were better able to protect the most prized works.
To mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, the Mauritshuis public art museum in The Hague is having an exhibition until June 29, 2025 called “Facing the Storm – A Museum in Wartime.” It relays the efforts taken by the museum to hide its most valuable art from the Nazis. As described by the museum, “The exhibition will devote attention to the travels of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring during the war. The Mauritshuis had a bombproof ‘art bunker ’ in which it would store all its masterpieces overnight, bringing out a few – including the Girl – during the day…. During the course of the war, the most important works of art were taken to the various ‘National Storage Facilities’, where they remained until the war ended. During this time, the gallery walls at the Mauritshuis were a sorry sight, lined as they were with empty frames.” During some of the public showings during the war, Hitler featured his personal paintings and his book Mein Kampf alongside the museum’s Dutch masters.
Moving paintings from Dutch museum to hide from Nazi theft and bombings
There was a split dynamic between public and private museums as well as viewing art during the day and night during the war in Holland. Private collections were seized and public collections were hidden at night. When collections made it to the light of day, they were used as propaganda for Dutch residents and the enjoyment of Nazi officers who were able to walk the streets freely. Empty frames were like the disappeared Jews of Holland, perhaps hidden away like Anne Frank and her family, or shipped to Nazi concentration camps for liquidation.
Empty frames at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, July 1944
The background story and provenance of the Van Ruisdael painting is very much part of viewing the painting today. The pastoral scene of light and darkness owned by a Dutch Jewish family on the eve of World War II was seized – and enjoyed – by Nazi criminals. After the defeat of the Nazis, the Dutch government held onto the artwork and would not return it to the Jewish family which had to flea across the ocean to survive the Holocaust, even as the man who owned the painting did not survive.
To view the painting with such knowledge, the stream becomes an ocean which the Goudstikker family crossed to save themselves. They left their open, illuminated and public house on a hill for an unknown future. Indeed, Jacques’ untimely death during the journey is like the broken branches in the foreground of the painting.
The home and art the Goudstikkers left behind became a showcase for Nazi propaganda, like the house on the right side of the painting enjoying the full setting sun and completely exposed to the world. The dark left side of the painting are the works of art and the Jews of Holland who were hidden and transported to death camps, or perhaps they were lucky to leave the war early like the Goudstikkers, attempting to find a new uncertain home across the ocean. And even when they made it safely to the other side, did they get to enjoy their freedom, or were they fighting for their basic rights and property, such as against the Dutch government who would not surrender their art?
A painting made in the 17th century can be understood anew hundreds of years later because of its provenance. Journeys can shape the subject.
That is most certainly true of Jews, especially on Passover.
Passover Seder As Seen By A Guest
It is a tradition for hundreds, if not thousands of years to invite someone to a Passover seder. Inviting a guest unfamiliar with the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt over 3,000 years ago – especially for meals that do not have any children present – provides an opportunity to tell the story of the Jewish journey from slavery to freedom, and from Egypt to the Jewish Promised Land.
The seder uses a Haggadah, a standard text used by Jews around the world, which not only discusses the Exodus, but prior generations telling the story of the Exodus on Passover. The seder is both a story FROM 3,000 years ago at the point of origination, as well as the journey of that story over the intervening years until today.
The guest at the seder is not only learning about ancient Jewish history but seeing and hearing the provenance of that history.
A person can read the bible at any time of year to get a clinical understanding of the Exodus from Egypt. However, to sit at a seder is to see the redemption of Jews in a new light, incorporating the journeys they have taken over the centuries.
The story of the Exodus and the journey of Jews for millenia are too remarkable to ignore. Viewing both simultaneously is the magic of Passover, a gift for everyone attending a seder.
Well before the brutal October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel, antisemitism in the United States had reached horrific levels. Jews were shot in synagogues and supermarkets. Held hostage and hacked with machetes. Vilified by famous athletes and entertainers. Accused of being too powerful in the news and told by the leading powers in the country to hide their Jewishness.
“Experts” said that the antidote was to teach people about the Holocaust. If only potential Jew-haters saw what results from “big” antisemitism they would avoid smaller antisemitic acts.
The author Dara Horn scoffed at the idea in April 2023 and now in April 2025. She argues that a narrow focus on the Holocaust limits people to thinking that Jews were wiped out as a people in the past. Israel is framed as a consolation prize awarded by Europe to appease their guilt in the genocide. Lost is the rich history of Jews.
In fact, Jewish history is not passively lost but actively obliterated and vilified. To attend universities in America about “Palestinian Studies” is not a review of any positive history of Arabs in the small slice of the Middle East that Jews view as holy, rather a demonization of Jews.
Visit the University of California, Davis website regarding reading materials on “the Situation in Palestine and Israel,” last updated on October 18, 2023, right after thousands of Gazans massacred people in Israel. The materials are completely anti-Israel, whether books, blogs or articles. Israel is condemned as a “colonial project” over again, tied to “imperialism” and “militarism.” The boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS movement) is advanced everywhere. People are urged to “revolt” against Zionism and Zionists.
Nowhere is there an iota about the thousands of years of Jewish history in the land, nor about the centrality of Jerusalem in Judaism. Rather, it includes links to articles by groups like Palestinian Youth Movement which the Israeli government has tied to U.S.-designated terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Palestineism is not a study about Arab culture or history but a rank course in antisemitism, denying thousands of years of Jewish history and the centrality of the land – and Jerusalem in particular – in Judaism.
Jewish History In Israel and Judaism
There is over 3,000 years of history of Jews in the land of Israel. Well before the modern idea of countries was formulated, Jews lived throughout their holy land. They had kings and kingdoms. They had holy temples which Jews would visit at least three times every year, ensuring they remained close to Jerusalem.
Jews have been a majority of Jerusalem since the 1860s, before the advent of modern Zionism. For hundred of years, Jews have ended their passover seder with a call “Next year in Jerusalem!” The Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, was written in 1878, well before the First Zionist Congress, in a song about Jews being in Jerusalem and Zion. Israel is the only country in the world whose national anthem is all about its capital city.
There are certain religious Jewish practices that can only be observed in the land of Israel. Jews are the only religious group with a diaspora, defined as those Jews living outside of the land of Israel, because it is the only religion tied to a specific land.
A field in Israel with a sign that it observes “shmita,” meaning the land is resting, a Jewish tradition only observed in Israel in keeping with laws in the bible (photo: First One Through)
Whether one likes the current government of Israel and its policies is irrelevant. The LAND of Israel is the Jewish homeland. That fundamental fact is not only omitted but deliberately erased in socialist-jihadi schools like UC Davis.
It is time to rethink education and focus more on the land of Israel and its centrality to Jews and Judaism, than Holocaust studies. We need to prevent anti-Jewish lessons and teach Jewish education. To prevent another genocide of Jews, start with thousands of years of Jewish history and culture in the holy land, instead of classes about the European Holocaust.
The latest “Pro-Palestinian protest” at Columbia University, as liberal media likes to call it, included a series of chants to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish State.
Jewish students – almost all unmasked and sporting kaffiyehs to show solidarity with Gazan Arabs – chained themselves to Columbia’s gates and chanted to free Mahmoud Khalil and demanded the names of university trustees who handed over the names of students to the New York Police Department and federal immigration services.
It was a curious spectacle: Jewish students showed their faces as they demanded clarity regarding university due process and protections for fellow students, while students wearing masks for whom they were advocating, yelled antisemitic slogans as defined by the university.
If ever there was a group that took free speech arguments to the extreme, it is Jews that chain themselves to a fence to advocate for rights of students who despise them.
The Columbia chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were suspended by the university on Nov. 10, 2023, after the groups “repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events.” That has not kept them from storming the gates of the university, partnering with not-soon-enough-designated-terrorist group WithinOurLifetime.
Columbia’s chapter of JVP was more explicit about violence “by any means necessary,” like the October 7 massacre.
Somewhere in the middle of the pro-Palestinian Jewish community at Columbia is J Street U, which is an officially recognized student group on the university’s undergraduate website. The group is worried about antisemitic incidents and chants of “Pro-Palestinian protesters” but also wants to protect their speech and keep them from getting kicked off campus without due process.
SJP appreciates that sentiment but demands more of Jews, specifically calling for the end of Israel. The Tufts chapter of SJP said “While SJP recognizes that many Jewish people begin their anti-zionist political journey through J Street U and appreciates that J Street U’s Tufts chapter agrees that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not synonymous, it is crucial for students to refuse half-measures that condemn occupation while normalizing colonization.”
The Columbia and Barnard Hillel houses J Street U. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called Hillel and other Jewish groups “enemies of the Muslim community” for supporting Israel. It is seemingly lockstep with SJP and JVP that only Jews that call for destroying Israel “by any means necessary” can be considered allies.
There is a spectrum of left-wing Jews at Columbia and Barnard, ranging from virulently anti-Zionist, to modestly pro-Israel. Many are pro-Israel too, although they tend to be more centrist and right-leaning. The vast majority are targets of the pro-Palestinian gang. All of them are being ranked on an Israel litmus test for judgement, like no other diaspora community in the world.
Amid the rampant antisemitism at universities and claims of suppression of free speech, another troubling dynamic is emerging: the “al Aqsa-fication” of federal research grants to universities.
For background, the al Aqsa Mosque sits in the Old City of Jerusalem atop the Jewish Temple Mount. It is considered by Muslims to be its third most holy site. Muslims – and the United Nations – insist that the site is purely Islamic and prayer is only permissible to Muslims, despite the fact that it is the holiest site for Jews. The site’s religious matters are managed by a Jordanian Islamic waqf which insists that the “status quo” of barring non-Muslims from praying be maintained. They warn of violence and death should the status quo be altered.
Thousands of Jews praying at the Western Wall Plaza on Passover, beneath the Temple Mount which has a ban on Jewish prayer
And so it has begun for university federal grants, amid Hamas’s genocidal war which it named the “al Aqsa Flood.”
Americans are being schooled by liberals and scientists about the absolutely critical nature of the research work that universities perform. People are learning from the elite that people will die if their essential work stops due to a lack of funding. The academics bemoan any oversight that is not purely from within the academy, despite being funded by taxpayers.
Both al Aqsa (for Muslims) and federal research grants (for universities) see the root of the threat coming from Jews.
When Jews visit their holiest site on the Temple Mount, Islamic radicals claim they are desecrating it with “filthy feet.” University officials similarly think the government should be banned from any involvement in their work under the banner of “academic freedom.”
“Al-Aqsa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They [Jews] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, September 2015
When Islamic radicals promote violence at the Temple Mount to block any non-Islamic presence, their leaders shout “we welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” We are now witnessing professors rallying around universities, ripping up diplomas, locking arms with anti-Israel protestors and demanding that the universities not give an inch to the government’s demands to protect Jewish students.
University research is the academy’s al Aqsa Mosque. The liberal administrations are the waqf which demand absolute control. They are warning everyone that should the status quo change because Jewish human rights and dignity are trampled with impunity, people will die.
Universities are bemoaning the “Judaization” of their research, as they feel under assault by unholy people in their sacred domain. When Israel introduced metal detectors onto the Temple Mount after Islamic radicals started to stockpile weapons on the site, the faithful rioted and managed to get Israel to remove the protective measures. The universities are now engaged in similar protests seeking the same goal: purity without oversight and guardrails.
Liberals see the Trump administration seizing grants like Jews moving into homes in Jerusalem’s Old City. A governmental audit of the purpose of research is vilified like archeological excavations near the Temple Mount. All are condemned as acts of sabotage which threaten the very stability of society.
The discussion of the government’s oversight and control of billions of dollars of research grants is inflaming passions. Like the Islamic faithful who rally when they see Jewish presence near al Aqsa, the global academy is outraged at the challenge to the “status quo” of unfiltered money. The Mourabitoun (men) and Mourabitat (women) on university campuses have taken up positions both physical and ideological.
University of Illinois professors protesting cuts to federal funding, February 2024Al Aqsa faithful in Karachi, Pakistan, April 2022. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
As the world watches Jews being routed from universities without basic protections, we are witnessing the emergence of a new blood libel, that Jews will be the root cause of millions of deaths as medical research is cut.
There is the holy and profane. The world is normalizing and entrenching antisemitism by placing the Islamic waqf and elite universities on the side of the angels, while simultaneously accusing Jews of being aligned with the underworld for the audacity of demanding basic human rights.
Columbia University is cycling through yet another president. The latest leader is Claire Shipman, who takes over the “Interim/ Acting” role from Katrina Armstrong, who had the title for a short few months.
In taking over the position, Shipman offered no words to alumni about 1) the rank antisemitism on campus, 2) the perceived threat to “free speech” which anti-Israel rioters use as a red herring to mask the stink of their abhorrent conduct, nor 3) the financial sword hanging over the institution with the Trump administration’s demand for change. Instead, Shipman said she would attempt to be “transparent” about her efforts to navigate through this challenging time and sought a “partnership” with alumni.
Will Shipman openly review her responses to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) demands, including that the university commit to $10 million for a Gaza “resilience fund” which will finance scholarships for as many as 40 students from the West Bank and Gaza for five years? Will Shipman partner with the Gaza Scholarship Initiative of the Center for Arab American Philanthropy in such effort? Will she feel compelled to have a similar donation drive for Israelis impacted by Hamas’s genocidal war?
CUAD wanted to make sure that antisemitic professors like Joseph Massad, who praised the October 7 massacre, would be “protected.” Will the school hire White Supremacists to teach students that Black people liked being slaves? Will Andrew Tate teach a class on Women’s Studies? Shipman’s letter said she “love[s] the sharp argument, the intellectual sprawl, the sense that anything feels possible.” Will vile racists be welcomed onto campus for a wide-ranging test of free speech?
CUAD demanded the reinstatement of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Will Shipman grant the KKK a chapter at Columbia as well?
Dozens of professors signed an open letter to university administrators to protect professors like Joseph Massad, including Columbia Law’s “Human Rights Institute” team of Kelsey Jost-Creegan and Bassam Khawaja. The institute is funded by Kathy Surace-Smith, a university trustee. Will fellow trustees sway Shipman’s course of actions?
How transparent will Shipman be with her alumni donors and what kind of feedback will she incorporate into her action plan?
She may think she’s deciding between constituents, aligning with either students, faculty, alumni, trustees, or the government with competing desires. She may be debating who will provide the most funding or people over the long term. Or perhaps she just wants to test the parameters of “intellectual sprawl,” tickling the edges of harassment and intimidation.
Would a Gaza fundraiser help clarify her calculus?
Shipman said she wants to hear from you. Contact her and the school at officeofthepresident@columbia.edu, alumdev@columbia.edu and secretary@columbia.edu. The phone number is (212) 854-9970
The religious Israeli singer Hanan Ben Ari came to Brooklyn on the night of March 30, 2025. His songs calling for peace and unity drawn from holy texts drew a crowd of Israeli expats, yeshivish men and women, Russian and American Jews. They sang and stood on their feet for the entire show.
Hanan Ben Ari’s presence also brought out a handful of anti-Israel protestors who waved Palestinian flags, placards about President Trump and shouts of “Zionism has got to go!” to let everyone coming to the concert know that the pro-Palestinian group hated THEM and their beliefs as much as the singer.
Anti-Israel protestors yell at Jews going to concert at Brooklyn, March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)
As the State of Israel continued to decimate the terrorists of Gaza, the mood was both happy and somber. Happy that many hostages were home, as well as pleased that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Gazan terrorist were being brought to justice. Yet also sad that dozens of hostages remain in Gaza after 571 days, that so many people have been killed, and that there’s no clear sight to peace. Hanan made those points directly and repeatedly throughout the night, that he doesn’t want to beat the Gazans; he just wants a peaceful world.
Hanan Ben Ari singing “Shemesh” in Brooklyn, NY on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)
Hanan discussed one member of his crew who had lived alongside Gaza, who was killed in the first days of the war. He told the audience about two members of the crew who remained captives of Gazan terrorists, and the audience shouted to “Bring them home!”
Screen showing two members of Hanan’s crew still held by Gazan terrorists.
But Hanan also celebrated three former hostages held by the Gazan terrorists who were freed and at the show that night. The crowd cheered as the singer introduced them and shared everyone’s sentiments how happy they were. Hanan shared a story that one of the hostages told him, that he couldn’t believe how many people around the world were praying for his well being. Hanan added that one day soon, that will be the norm, that everyone will pray for each other’s well being, even in times of peace.
The show was definitely charged with Israeli energy. In the lobby of the concert hall, people from the Israeli American Council were getting people to sign onto the World Zionist Congress election to vote for the IAC slate. People in the crowd carried Israeli flags. Almost the entirety of the concert was in Hebrew.
Audience at Hanan Ben Ari concert holding Israeli flag, March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)
And the artist himself did the same. He brought out a flag and sang “Am Yisrael Chai!” “The nation of Israel lives!” to an adoring audience.
Hanan Ben Ari holding Israeli flag at Brooklyn concert on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)
The concert ended with the singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem by the band. Almost all of the audience stood and sang along, with some Ultra Orthodox Jews sitting out because while they are believers in the LAND of Israel, the Jewish people and Judaism, they oppose the secular Jewish state.
Audience waves Israeli flags at Hanan Ben Ari concert in Brooklyn on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)
As rain fell on a cold early spring night, the small crowd of anti-Israel protestors left. The Jewish crowd poured into the light showers outside. And the heart of Israel who has sung hundreds of times at Israeli army bases and at the beds of wounded Israeli soldiers, packed his gear to fly to Miami for a last U.S. show before heading to Israel for Passover.
People call Israelis “sabras” because they resemble the cactus fruit which is prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside. Lost in that analogy is the warmth of the heart, which would rather be sweet and accessible to everyone without thorns, even in a defensive war.
In the year 2000, the United Arab Emirates president Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Nahayan announced a $2.5 million gift to the Harvard Divinity School to endow a professorship of Islamic studies “to promote a better understanding of Islam among the non-Muslim people of the world.” In 2003, after students at Harvard flagged the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed International Center for Coordination and Follow-Up (ZICCF) long list of anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish speakers and articles, Harvard felt compelled to return the gift. The Sheik announced closing the center with a press release that acknowledged that ZICCF “had engaged in a discourse that starkly contradicted the principles of interfaith tolerance.”
MEMRI noted that its work and translation of Arabic into English helped shed light on the centres conspiracy theories including that America and Israel committed the attacks of 9/11, that the Protocol of the Elders of Zion is true, as well as Holocaust deniers.
The Arab world was apoplectic at the closing of the centre and Harvard’s return of the gift. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in London wrote that ZICCF had “an educational mission that allows the exploration of various points of view on issues of international significance. But it was accused of radicalism when the Americans and Zionists did not like the opinions expressed in it… The Centre was obliterated in order to silence it and to make an example to others. And the astonishing thing about all this is that it happened amidst calls to democratize the Arab world… to allow freedom of expression and to fight despotic regimes… [It] shows that the fierce influence that Zionism has on the American decision-making has extended outside the U.S.”
Twenty years later, the fountain of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism under the cloak of free speech is home-grown and widespread.
Columbia University student holding sign with arrow at fellow students holding Israeli and American flags to be targets of Hamas rockets
This is not a problem that can be cancelled with a returned check. It is now an ingrained feature of the American educational system.
President Donald Trump announced his intention to root out the problem. He announced plans to close the Department of Education, to revoke visas and expel foreign students who promote terrorist groups and ideologies, and to withhold U.S. government grants to institutions that have essentially Americanized the Zayed International Centre.
US President Donald Trump holds an executive order to start dismantling the Department of Education (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
It will not be enough.
Advancing Holocaust education in the schools will not be enough.
Providing transparency of foreign donations to schools through the DETERRENT Act will not be enough.
They are needed and helpful but systemic changes should be implemented throughout America’s schools.
Teacher unions – and all municipal unions – must be barred from contributing to any politician and making statements on any political races.
Tenure should be abolished in all schools.
Charter schools and private schools should receive funding proportionate with the number of students in the district attending those schools.
Schools that fail to teach minimum skills in critical subjects like math should be defunded and/or closed.
Teachers and administrators that vilify a segment of the population should be terminated and lose their pensions.
Other steps are also needed as people get their information from toxic sources outside of school. TikTok and any other foreign-owned media companies should be banned, based on a scale of level of concern of the country and content. Phones should be banned from classrooms so students can focus on learning skills and not lured by fake news and vortex of peer dynamics.
People may believe that the Trump administration’s actions to reverse both the decline of skills and increase in antisemitism in schools are draconian. In truth, a systemwide overhaul is needed.
Reed Rubinstein is a Senior Vice President of America First Legal and a former Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury. He was nominated to be a Legal Advisor to the State Department by President Trump and had a confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
During the hearing, only a handful of Democratic senators asked Rubinstein any questions, preferring to spend their time on Mike Huckabee who is nominated to be the US ambassador to Israel. Astonishingly, TWO of those senators – Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) accused Rubinstein of believing in and promoting false anti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories about the State Department and public school education.
Sheehan On Obama Administration Funding Group To Oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “Conspiracy Theory”
At 49:30 of the hearings, Sen. Shaheen said to Rubinstein “I’ve heard these conspiracy theories before. But I have been here through the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, through the Biden administration, and I can tell you that I never heard anybody at any of those administrations talking about a multi-front war trying to overthrow the Israeli government. I don’t believe it and I hear you saying that and try to justify that as a conspiracy theory.”
Sen. Shaheen gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025
One would hope that Shaheen, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has heard about the Obama administrations efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through a group called OneVoice Israel (OVI), as there was a formal investigation.
The Senate performed a review of almost $350,000 which were granted by the State Department to OVI in 2014. The grant was quite large for an international NGO, as most State Department overseas grants average around $15,000. OneVoice built a large database of Israeli voters and then “absorbed and funded an Israeli group named Victory15 or “V15” and launched a multimillion-dollar grassroots campaign in Israel. The campaign’s goal was to elect “anybody but Bibi [Netanyahu]” by mobilizing center-left voters,” according to the report.
OVI originally got its State Department grant in September 2013 to “execute a grassroots campaign in conjunction with Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to sustain negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.” The outreach effort was to run from October 15, 2013 to July 15, 2014, and the State Department made its final payment of grant funds to OVI on August 25, 2014, with the grant period ending on November 30, 2014. In addition to the $350,000 handed to OVI, the State Department gave the group $40,000 for outside consultants and another $115,000 to OneVoice Palestine, a sister NGO. It is estimated that over 1.3 million Israelis were exposed to OVI’s campaign, about 16% of the population.
By the end of the targeted grant period in July 2014, the Kerry Israeli-Palestinian peace plans were in shambles. By August, OVI leadership decided to use its now large infrastructure for direct political purposes, to “SHIFT SUPPORT WITHIN THE KNESSET AWAY FROM LIKUD/RIGHT WING COALITION BY ADVOCATING TO ‘SWING’ CENTRIST VOTER’S [sic] POLICIES AND SUPPORT POLITICAL CANDIDATES WHO EMBRACE AN EXPEDITED NEGOTIATION TOWARD A [TWO-STATE SOLUTION] AND THE END OF SETTLEMENT EXPANSION.” When Netanyahu announced new elections in December 2014, OVI quickly absorbed the “anybody but Bibi” V15 into its organization to oust Netanyahu.
The Senate initiated an inquiry into this funding matter in February 2015. It found that “OneVoice did inform at least two State Department officials of its political plans, and it did so during the grant period. The Department took no action in response.”
To summarize the facts in Sheehan’s dismissal of the “conspiracy theory,” the State Department handed roughly $500,000 in total to organizations which built up a large infrastructure inside Israel which was used to try to replace Netanyahu in the 2015 elections. It is unclear whether this was directly at the behest of the Obama Administration or was simply a byproduct of the anti-Netanyahu left-wing US State Department’s animus towards Netanyahu, engaging in election tampering against an American ally.
To put that $0.5 million in perspective, the entire Israeli budget for the 2015 election was $62 million.
Kaine On K-12 Public School Anti-Israel, Antisemitic, Woke Education “Conspiracy Theory”
At 1:24:45 of the hearing, Sen. Kaine took aim at a post that Rubinstein made on LinkedIn saying “‘K-12 teachers are almost all products of extreme left teachers’ training programs in the colleges, then the same leftist antisemite professors provide training on MENA [Middle East and North America] and other issues. The system is not fixable.'” Kaine continued “A lot of us on the committee have parents, spouses, kids who are K-12 teachers who work in education programs, training K-12 teachers. A lot of us like me were governors appointing boards of universities with intimate knowledge of teacher training programs. There can be a bad apple in any organization but I got to say I read a comment like that – and it strikes me along the lines of what Senator Shaheen was asking – a kind of political fantasy or conspiracy that doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing that a careful lawyer offering narrow advice would say.”
Sen. Kaine gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025
Perhaps Kaine is ignorant or has put on blinders about the hatred being instilled by public school teachers into the next generation of students. Here are just a few:
The non-partisan American Jewish Committee (AJC) issued a report in December 2024 that “Leaders and activists within the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) have waged an aggressive campaign that has encouraged K-12 teachers to become pro-Palestinian activists and bring anti-Israel propaganda into their classrooms.” The documented MTA initiatives included “promoting multipleone-sidedanti-Israel resolutions,… Sponsoring programming, including a webinar that purported to address “anti-Palestinian racism” which was dedicated to attacking the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state,” and “curating and promoting on its website anti-Israel educational resources that it encourages members to bring back to their schools.”
In October 2023, right after the Hamas October 7 massacre in Israel, the Oakland Education Association, a teacher’s union, condemned “apartheid” and “genocidal” Israel. The OEA handed out material from Teach Palestine, with curriculums for educators. It suggested that in situations that get “pushback from Zionist parents,” to pivot the conversation to “compare youth incarceration in the U.S. and Palestine.”
In November 2023, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT 59) union produced a resolution which “condemn the role our government plays in supporting the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which lies at the root of the Palestinian Israeli conflict.”
Teacher union in Minnesota calling Israel an “apartheid” country and at fault for the Hamas-initiated war
In February 2025, the Santa Ana Unified School District of California settled a lawsuit for using “courses that were developed in secret and infected with anti-Semitism.” Committees at the school said “Jews are the oppressors,” and “racist” and worked with outside groups who decried “Zionist control.”
There is a new group called The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (founded mostly by professors of the University of Santa Ana) which is trying to decouple the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies program in universities, and place it in “settler colonial studies” and put it in the context of “repressive work and solidarities” since “Zionism’s project extends beyond the borders of Palestine.” These efforts are being pushed in the University of California school systems and at New York University. The organization markets a “toolkit” for use by anti-Israel protestors.
Also in May 2024, Portland Oregon’s teacher union, the Portland Association of Teachers, had a meeting about how to teach students both inside and outside of the classroom how to be anti-Zionists, complete with a website to disseminate propaganda.
Professors all over the country have given “extra credit” to students who participate in anti-Israel protests. Students for Justice in Palestine are encouraging it on social media.
There are cases all around the country. In addition to Teach Palestine, teachers are encouraged to use materials from “Decolonize Palestine,” which is designed with animation for young students. It vilifies Israel as a racist colonial endeavor always designed to oppress local Arabs.
In July 2024, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union and teachers union with around 3 million members held its annual meeting. It included resolutions to boycott Israel and praise the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel (NBI 8). NBI 9 urged the NEA and other trade unions to “pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, to stop funding it.” NBI 74 sought to publish a list of government officials who accept money from groups supporting Israel.
In April 2021, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) which has roughly 1.7 members said that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class,… who want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.” Herself a Jew, her large base got the message that Jews are the 1% who are coming to steal opportunities from the 99%. In AFT’s July 2024 annual convention, there were seven anti-Israel resolutions.
While Jews are suffering a horrible spike of antisemitism in the United States in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews in Israel in 1,000 years, two Democratic senators took public aim at a Jew for supposedly promoting “conspiracy theories” about anti-Israel and antisemitic activity. It was gaslighting at the highest level, an affront to Jews everywhere.
ACTION ITEMS
Contact Sen. Shaheen and Sen. Kaine about your extreme disappointment with their public gaslighting of Jews about antisemitism and anti-Israel activities in the United States today.
