Mideast War blowback

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A 41-year-old Syrian national wounded 31 people, including two children who were left in critical condition, in arson attacks on Saturday in the German city of Essen, according to police and media reports from Sunday morning.

At around 5:10 p.m. on Saturday, the man set fire to a residential building on Altenessener Strasse, at the corner of Pielsticker Strasse, according to Bild. He later drove a few streets over, where he set fire to a second residence.

The fire service said that 31 people were wounded in the arson attacks, while Essen police placed the number at 30.

Tagesschau reported that people threw children from windows onto cushions on the street to escape the flames.

After setting off the fires, the man reportedly drove to Katernberger Strasse, where he rammed his car into a store before reversing and ramming into the building again.

The driver then continued to another shop on Katernberger Strasse, where he pulled out a machete and began threatening people. Nearby civilians, who threw objects in an attempt to distance the assailant, captured this component of the attack on video.

Sources told Bild that they arrested the man, who had burns on his hands, a few meters from the store. Tagesschau reported that he was known to the police before the incident.

Videos screenshotted by multiple German media outlets appeared to show the man wearing a Palestinian flag and Keffiyeh-patterned headband.

For the second time in a month, a Jewish student at the University of Pittsburgh was attacked in what may have been an antisemitic hate crime, according to multiple US news sites and the police on Saturday.

The incident, which happened at around 2 am on Friday, is being investigated separately by both the FBI and the University of Pittsburgh Police, NBC reported. The police classified it as a hate crime/assault.

According to police reports, the student - who has not been identified - was leaving the University's campus when a group of six to eight men assaulted him.

The student was wearing a Star of David necklace, according to Chabad of Pitt.
The victim told the police that when the group saw his necklace, they "hurled insults about Israel," and at least three of them punched and kicked him, according to CBS and Chabad.

The actors used antisemitic language," Pittsburgh University Police stated in a news release. "A bystander intervened and ended the assault."

The victim allegedly suffered a bruised lip.

Previous attack on Jewish students
In a previous incident on August 29, two Jewish students were attacked with a glass bottle by a man later named Jarrett Buba.

Buba was charged with two counts of simple assault and two counts of aggravated assault.
Two of the students received medical attention at the scene after being struck by the bottle. The suspect behind the attack was arrested by Pittsburgh police, and the university said that the suspect has no affiliation with the institution of recklessly endangering another person, two counts of harassment, and one count of resisting arrest.

Two anti-Zionist groups from two different U.S. universities shared a series of messages seemingly encouraging violence against Israel, including one, which called "death to Israel" a moral imperative.

On Saturday, the same day Hezbollah confirmed the death of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, University of Michigan's Jewish Voices for Peace chapter and University of Pennsylvania's UP Against the Occupation both shared a message to their Instagram pages, originally posted from an account called "disorientalizing," which called for Israel's destruction.

The message reads "'Death to Israel' is not just a threat. It is a moral imperative and the only acceptable solution. May the entire colony board to the ground for good."

The two groups also shared a post which praised Nasrallah and vowed to continue his "fire of resistance." "When a leader departs another rises," the message began. "While we today feel the bitterness of loss, we stand tall in facing this enemy who thought that targeting the leaders would break the will of resistance and people."

The end of the message reads, "The blood of these martyrs will form new fuel for the fire of resistance which will not die down until the liberation of Palestine and all occupied Arab lands."

UP Against the Occupation (u)PAO, on University of Pennsylvania's campus, is the new name for one of the school's anti-Israel student groups. Originally called Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine, the local chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization was forced to change its name in April after the University revoked its status as a registered student group.

According to Penn's Office of Student Affairs, the group "failed to comply with policies that govern student organizations at Penn, despite repeated efforts to engage with the group and to provide opportunities to resolve noncompliance." In response, u(PAO) released a statement calling the investigation a "sham," based on "baseless allegations of discrimination."

The Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor's Office arrested a 15-year-old Turkish-German teenager for allegedly planning Islamist-style attacks against European Jewry, Spiegel reported on Thursday.
The police reportedly classified the teenager as a “threat.”

The teenager had been in contact with Islamist terrorists online, according to Information obtained by the German news site. The Islamist had reportedly begun grooming the teenager to commit an attack following the stabbing spree committed by an ISIS-affiliated Syrian asylum-seeker in Solingen in August.

Germany’s Special Task Force (SEK) stormed the boy’s home at 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday, where they reportedly found data evidencing the teenager’s plans.

After looking at the suspect’s phone, police reportedly found he shared pro-ISIS videos on TikTok and was encouraged online to commit attacks on Jewish cultural communities and festivals. The attack was allegedly planned to be carried out during an upcoming school trip to Holland.

During the operation, police arrested and released the suspect multiple times. He was initially placed in protective custody after the Solingen attack, according to Bild, but was released the same afternoon he was arrested. He was later detained again on September 9, at a fitness studio. Police reportedly were forced to overpower the suspect.

Officers in the Dutch police force have been refusing to protect Jewish targets, two officers told Nieuw Israëlisch Weekblad earlier this week.

Marcel de Weerd and Michel Theeboom, representing the Jewish Police Network, expressed concerns over changes they were seeing in the force.

“There are colleagues who no longer want to protect Jewish targets or events. They talk about ‘moral dilemmas,’ and I see a tendency emerging to give in to that. That would truly mark the beginning of the end. I’m concerned about that,” Theeboom said.

Adding to Theeboom’s claims, De Weerd said, “We see that leadership is struggling with this. Especially now, with the conflict in the Middle East, we risk drifting away from what we should stand for as a collective. We need to keep discussing this with each other.”

De Weerd also claimed that many of the younger officers he had encountered were ignorant of the country’s history, including the police’s role in World War II.

The officers later spoke with De Telegraaf, where they said that some members of the police expressed they didn’t want to be deployed at the Dutch National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam and refused food and drinks from the venue.

Mireille Beentjes, the police force's spokeswoman, told De Telegraaf she had heard of officers making moral objections, admitting there were “no strict policies.”

“We take moral objections into account when creating schedules. But if there’s an urgent task, you will be deployed, whether you want to or not," she said. “You are expected to behave professionally. Others shouldn’t notice anything.”

Beentjies claimed officers had been made to guard institutes and events that they found morally objectionable in other circumstances.

“It pains them when the Quran is burned, but at the same time, they still have to protect the people who do it,” Beentjes stressed.

According to the Brussels Signal, Commissioner of the Dutch National Police Janny Knol claimed, “Police officers are human beings and have the right to their own opinions and emotions.” However, he stressed, “But when it comes to people’s safety, that is our top priority. We are here for everyone. That is the foundation of our work as police officers.”

Nine Kooiman, President of the Dutch National Police Union, reportedly added, “If you keep giving in to everyone, there’s no end to it. You are in service of society and must be able to distance yourself from your personal considerations and emotions. A professional attitude.”

Koen Simmers, another official at the union, said, “It is unacceptable that there are police officers who refuse to carry out tasks and orders, such as protecting Jewish, Christian, Islamic institutions, demonstrations, or social events.

Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders condemned officers refusing to guard Jewish institutes.

As Israel escalates its fight against Hezbollah, Jewish security organizations are on particularly heightened alert ahead of the High Holidays.

But the terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction retains a formidable presence outside the Middle East, one that has survived Israel’s assault on the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure in Lebanon and Syria.

“The intelligence question that everyone is asking right now is: Hezbollah has been beaten badly recently, they are looking significantly diminished in stature, and are they looking to exact revenge?” said Kerry Sleeper, deputy director of intelligence and information sharing for the Secure Community Network, a consultancy for the national US Jewish community.

That question preoccupied Jewish security officials who met Monday afternoon in a closed-door meeting called by the Jewish Federations of North America. Already on alert in advance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and with anti-Israel demonstrations expected around the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught, the officials now worry Hezbollah’s overseas networks “are being folded into what is an incredibly toxic threat environment,” Sleeper said.

“The Jewish community is facing the most significant threat towards the community in modern history,” he said. “The combination of High Holidays, the 10/7 anniversary and now the potential for the world’s largest terrorist organization to exact revenge on either Israeli facilities, embassies or consulates, or prominent Jewish leaders or prominent Israeli leaders anywhere in the world.”

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who also once worked for the FBI and who studies counterterrorism, said he feared that Hezbollah, cornered, might well lash out.

“This is a situation where one fears Hezbollah might feel the need to do something, and they have a history of not making a distinction between Israeli and Jewish targets,” he said

Hezbollah’s readiness to exact revenge on Jews abroad is evident in how Nasrallah ascended to the terror group’s leadership. Israel assassinated his predecessor, Abbas al-Mussawi, in 1992. Nasrallah led the organization when it retaliated by carrying out two attacks in Buenos Aires, Argentina: one on the Israeli embassy there in 1992 and a massive attack on the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994 that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300. The group is also seen as responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in 2012 and a plot against Israeli tourists in Thailand in 2014.

Sleeper emphasized that US authorities have said there is no specific known threat to Jewish communities at this time.

“There have been no specific threats and I’m comfortable that our federal partners would let us know if they’re seeing something like that,” said Sleeper, a former assistant director at the FBI. “We’ve been in near constant contact with them at this point.”

Threats are most acute overseas, Sleeper said, noting among other incidents the arrests in December of Hezbollah operatives surveilling Jewish targets in Brazil. Law enforcement officials in multiple countries have also averted threats to Jewish targets by affiliates of other groups since October 7, including across Europe and in Argentina. Last month, police in Munich, Germany, killed a man with a gun who they believed was targeting the Israeli consulate there.

“The most likely two regions for that to occur that I know already have enhanced security because of the concerns would be Europe and Latin America, where they have significant numbers of operatives, where they have conducted significant pre-operational surveillance, where they have weapons caches and they are likely prepared to execute on an ops plan on short notice,” he said.

US authorities have in recent years jailed Hezbollah operatives who surveilled potential US targets, Levitt said, among them Ali Kournai in 2019 and Alexei Saab in 2023.

“If there’s a hardened Hezbollah guy who, like Karani, like Saab, were here for a specific purpose, and they were given a directive to do something, you know, they would try,” he said.

Jonathan Schanzer, a vice president at the Foundation of Democracies who tracks terrorist groups, said Hezbollah’s reach was long.

“I think there’s a probably greater likelihood of seeing Hezbollah activate cells or assassination units or what have you, in areas of weaker authority, in some of the kind of less security-minded European states or in Latin America,” he said. “But I wouldn’t rule out an attempt to cross into the United States, or an effort to activate cells that are already here.”

Levitt said Israel’s wiping out of much of Hezbollah’s leadership could conceivably inhibit an attack by disorienting the group and removing chains of command. On the other hand, he said, mid-level Hezbollah commanders might choose to act on their own.

He noted that Hezbollah’s Unit 910, the section responsible for overseas terrorist activity and sequestered from other parts of Hezbollah, is not known to have been degraded or eliminated.

Even absent the leadership, any plot for revenge is “still in the hands of people who are professional,” he said.

Amateurs also pose a threat, Levitt said. “Now is one of those moments where you have to be concerned that someone is seeing what’s going on, watching too many Al Manar clips in their mama’s basement, and decides to try and do something on their own,” he said, referring to the Hezbollah-run propaganda outlet.

One mitigating factor, Levitt said, is that a direct attack on the United States would likely draw the country into the fight, something that Hezbollah’s backers in Iran do not want, Levitt said.

“They understand that carrying out an attack in the United States is probably the only thing that can drag America more into this right now,” he said.

Sleeper shared the same assessment but noted that Iran and Hezbollah have in recent years hired organized crime proxies to carry out attacks on enemies abroad.

“They may very well try to distance themselves from an operation by leveraging or hiring criminal enterprises,” Sleeper said, noting Hezbollah’s own vast drug-running business.

The Hezbollah volatility adds to an already intense threat environment facing Jewish communities in the United States. In addition to ongoing threats from the far right, which security officials have long assessed as the most dangerous and where white supremacists have accelerated their activity in connection with the Israel-Hamas war, there is also a risk that anti-Israel demonstrations taking place during the period could result in clashes or violence. Synagogues have also been hit with a string of false bomb threats over the past year.

The violence in Lebanon is “likely to fuel or spike protest activity that was already planned for the coming week, with the anniversary of October 7, with the High Holidays, the so-called ‘Week of Rage’ that’s been called for on social media,” said Rafael Brinner, the community security program manager for the Jewish Community Federation in California’s Bay Area.

Brinner was referring to plans announced by Students for Justice in Palestine to hold demonstrations from October 7, the anniversary of the Hamas atrocities that saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, to October 11 — a period that overlaps with the beginning of Yom Kippur.

US Jewish worshipers should be prepared for a heightened security presence at their synagogues this week but should feel free and secure to attend Rosh Hashanah services, Sleeper said.

“We certainly do not want to convey any type of a message that is unsafe to go to their house of worship, that’s the very last thing we want to do,” he said. “In some areas, they will see a large presence of… police or armed guards, depending on each institution what they feel they need to do to provide the comfort for people to attend services.”

Jewish communities everywhere reacted with horror at last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, but the approaching one-year commemoration of the assault hits home particularly hard in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, which already marks a grim anniversary each October.

It was here on Oct. 27, 2018, that a gunman carried out the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, killing 11 worshippers from three congregations at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Adding to the intense feelings is the arrival of the Jewish High Holy Days — days that bracket the Oct. 7 anniversary with rituals focused on mortality and recalling the deaths of loved ones and ancient martyrs. Many are taking consolation in the rituals as they mark an emotionally fraught milestone.

“The trauma here runs deep in our community,” said Rabbi Seth Adelson of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue near Tree of Life in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the heart of Jewish Pittsburgh. “You can’t really separate the trauma of Jews being attacked in Pittsburgh and Jews being attacked in Israel.”

The Pittsburgh attack was carried out by a right-wing extremist who targeted Jews for their aid to immigrants. It was followed by widespread civic support for the Jewish community.

The attacks have common threads, say local Jewish leaders. The synagogue attack violated the sanctuary of a place of worship. The Hamas attack has been followed by an upsurge of antisemitic incidents around the world.

“The similarity of what Oct. 7 and Oct. 27 hold together is a question of safety for Jews,” said Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, which aids those traumatized by the 2018 attack.

Emboldened far-right extremists have been spreading Holocaust denial and other antisemitic screeds. Some on the left have expressed antisemitism along with criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war, while debate persists over the line between robust criticism and hate speech.

Nationally, nearly two-thirds of Jews feel less secure than they did a year previously, according to an American Jewish Committee survey earlier this year.

In Pittsburgh, a man was charged in September for allegedly attacking two university students wearing yarmulkes, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.

A synagogue and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh office were targeted with graffiti. Parents of Jewish college students say their children have endured antisemitism amid protests critical of Israel.

Rabbi Daniel Yolkut of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill said it’s become “unremarkable” for his children to hear antisemitic slurs shouted by motorists.

Rabbi Adelson said that unlike in 2018, local Jews haven’t felt widespread community solidarity.

Shipments of arms used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

France is not a major weapons provider for Israel, shipping military equipment worth 30 million euros ($33 million) last year, according to the defense ministry's annual arms exports report.
"I think the priority today is to get back to a political solution (and) that arms used to fight in Gaza are halted. France doesn't ship any," Macron told France Inter radio.

Our priority now is to avoid escalation. The Lebanese people must not, in turn, be sacrificed; Lebanon cannot become another Gaza," he added.
Macron's comments come as his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is on a four-day trip to the Middle East, wrapping up on Monday in Israel as Paris looks to play a role in reviving diplomatic efforts.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine protesters marched through London on Saturday, as worldwide anti-Israel rallies took place ahead of the upcoming one year anniversary of October 7.
Social media and British news outlets depict protesters holding banners expressing support for Hezbollah and Hamas, such as "Hezbollah are not terrorists” and “I love Hezbollah”.

Other signs showed slogans such as "Don't want no two state, we want 1948" or "Zionism causes polio." Several featured the star in the Israeli flag replaced with a Nazi swastika.

According to the Met Police, Saturday's protest was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, with a counter-protest called Stop the Hate.

The Telegraph reported that the pro-Palestine marchers chanted “Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around" as they passed the British Library. The Telegraph also said that the anti-Israel crowd taunted the pro-Israel counter-protesters, saying to them “Freedom fighters, they will finish you all off!”


"The law is very clear – anyone displaying symbols, wording or otherwise indicating their support for a proscribed organisation risks arrest," the Metropolitan Police wrote.

According to the Met, officers made 17 arrests, including one person on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation. Seven were for public order offences, three of which were racially aggravated.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign said in a statement that they were marching "to demand that the British government finally ends its complicity in Israel’s genocide, and ends all arms trade with Israel and to demand freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.”

A man tried to self-immolate near the White House on Friday, according to videos seen on X/Twitter.

Protesters descended on a socialist city councilwoman’s office Sunday saying she is helping to fuel an anti-Israel tide of hate — as thousands separately rallied in Central Park in support of the hostages.

About 60 people gathered for a vigil outside the office of Brooklyn council member Shahana Hanif, who they accused of having a “lack of support for Jewish constituents.”

Hanif, who represents Kensington, Boro Park, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, and Cobble Hill, faced outrage from Jewish members of those communities just days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack when she posted tweets blaming Israel for the attack.

After holding a moment of silence for the roughly 1,200 people killed during the Oct. 7 and a prayer for the 101 still held hostage by the terror group Hamas, demonstrators outside her office Sunday read a petition calling on Hanif to “take concrete actions to support us in your new role as co-chair of the council’s Task Force to Combat Hate.

Across town in Central Park in Manhattan, the mother of 20-year-old hostage and New Jersey native Edan Alexander joined a crowd of demonstrators in erecting a “fence of hope,” which was adorned with photos of the hostages who still remain captive in Gaza.

Among the crowd in Central Park was also Moshe Lavi, the brother-in-law of hostage and father of two young daughters Omri Miran.

A New Jersey high school banned yellow ribbons meant to symbolize support for the Israeli hostages during a club fair — a “blatant’’ display of antisemitism, furious critics say.

Some Fair Lawn High School parents and the group StopAntisemitism also complained that the presence of Israel’s flag during the event, which was partly promoting a trip to Israel, was not allowed because the administration deemed it too “political” — while members of the Muslim Student Association were allowed to display a keffiyeh.

“What happened at Fair Lawn High School is an alarming case of hypocrisy and blatant antisemitism,” said Liora Rez, founder of StopAntisemitism. “This incident is nothing short of a direct violation of Jewish students’ rights to express their identity and humanitarian concerns.”

About a third to 40% of the 35,000 residents in Fair Lawn in Bergen County, just 17 miles from New York City, are Jewish.

A Fair Lawn parent said the public school district’s failure to address complaints about alleged antisemitism has been a simmering issue for some time.

Fair Lawn High Principal Paul Gorski released a statement defending the school’s actions.

“We take pride in our Student Activities program as well as the leadership shown by both students and faculty,” Gorski wrote.

“During this year’s event, both the Muslim Student Association and the Jewish Student Union were asked to adjust items that were not part of their original displays. Both groups received the same instruction and were treated equally,” he said, adding, “no students were disciplined in connection with their participation at the Club Fair.”

He also said Fair Lawn High School participates in the Anti-Defamation League’s “No Place for Hate” initiative and was “proudly recognized” with a “Gold Star” distinction from it during a ceremony in May.

“We condemn antisemitism and remain steadfast in our commitment to creating an inclusive community where hate is not tolerated,” the principal’s statement said. “When we return to school after being closed for the Jewish holidays, we will engage in dialogue with our students and community. Hate has no home at Fair Lawn High School.”

The Tufts administration has imposed an “interim suspension” on Students for Justice in Palestine, as announced in an Instagram post by SJP on Friday evening.

“As evil and ridiculous as this suspension is, it is nothing compared to the violence our university supports in Palestine. It is Palestinian children who are being rushed to destroyed hospitals en masse all with snipers bullets in their heads and it is them not us that we want the focus to be on,” a representative for SJP wrote in a statement to the Daily.

Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations, provided further context regarding the university’s decision.

“Tufts University placed the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group on interim suspension due to multiple violations of university policies,” Collins wrote.

According to Collins, these violations include an SJP Instagram post from Sept. 30 where the group called for students to “Join the Student Intifada” at a protest scheduled for Oct. 7; the group’s march through the Science and Engineering Complex and blocking the entrance to another campus building during a demonstration on Sept. 12 and “ongoing non-compliance” with previous disciplinary actions the group faces from protests last spring. The group had already been placed on a “hold” due to these violations, Collins said.

“The suspension will remain in effect until the case is fully resolved. During this time, SJP must halt all activities, events, and meetings. Any attempt to continue operating during this suspension will result in serious disciplinary consequences for both the organization and its leaders,” Collins wrote.

Shortly after their suspension, Tufts SJP released a petition demanding the club’s immediate reinstatement.

Despite their suspension, Tufts SJP still plans to host a protest and sit-in on Oct. 7 at 12 p.m. on the Academic Quad. As per their Instagram, the protest marks the kickoff event for a subsequent “Week of Rage” from Oct. 7 to Oct. 13.

American Jews have experienced a historic “explosion of anti-Jewish hate since October 7,” according to new findings by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack.

CAM’s study, led by Dr. Ira Sheskin, found that of the 5.8 million Jews living in the United States, 3.5 million have directly experienced antisemitism since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War

The ADL survey found that there have been over 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the US since Oct. 7, which is the highest number of incidents ever recorded in the history of the ADL. This constitutes a 200% increase in incidents compared to the previous year.

This was corroborated by the FBI's Hate Crime Report, which, though only for the year 2023, found that Jews were the most targeted minority in the US. CAM found that one-fifth of Jewish children have personally experienced antisemitism in the last year, and one-quarter of Jewish adults have experienced antisemitism in their local community.

61% said they felt unsafe since October 7. Feelings of being unsafe were particularly high among college students, with nearly 40% saying they felt unsafe on campus due to their Jewish identity. Many college students also felt excluded due to being Jewish. In fact, of the incidents recorded by the ADL, 1200 happened on college campuses, marking a 500-percent increase.

When asked which group was behind their most serious incident of antisemitism, the majority of participants answered 'Pro-Palestinians,' followed by the far left, CAM found.

While CAM’s participants related their experiences for the purposes of the research, only 1 in 4 Jews reported incidents to non-family members. This appeared directly correlated with a lack of trust in security and law enforcement, with less than half of the respondents feeling that law enforcement was effective.

Influence on behavior
Furthermore, the CAM study found that the antisemitism experienced by American Jews has directly influenced their behavior, with many choosing to hide or suppress their Jewish identity for fear of antisemitism. Over a quarter of the CAM respondents said they now avoided displaying their Jewishness in the workplace, an increase of nearly 10% from before the war.

According to CAM, a quarter also said that their synagogue had been the target of antisemitic crimes, such as graffiti, threats, or attacks since October 7. Half the threats against synagogues were bomb threats, the ADL stated. Local businesses also reported a significant increase in antisemitic vandalism. Putting this into numbers, the ADL found that there were 8,015 incidents of verbal or written harassment, over 1,840 incidents of vandalism, and over 150 incidents of physical assault in the last year.

While physical antisemitism was prevalent among the CAM responses, online antisemitism also increased, with over half of participants saying they had witnessed anti-Jewish content online and many having been directly targeted by it. Facebook surpassed X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok as the worst platform for antisemitic content, CAM added.

In terms of antisemitic tropes, many respondents in the CAM study reported hearing that Jews care too much about money, or that the Holocaust did not happen or was exaggerated. Many also said they had heard that US Jews care more about Israel than America. A month ahead of the US elections, a near majority of respondents said antisemitism was influential in their voting choices.

One year after Hamas militants orchestrated a violent attack in Israel, activists took to college campuses and city streets across the country to mark the anniversary, with some launching pro-Palestinian “week of rage” protests and others hosting remembrances of Israelis who were killed or taken hostage.

For many Jewish college students, it was a day to remember those killed a year ago and to pray for and demand the release of hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas. Virtually every campus Hillel planned a vigil of some kind, and Jewish federations planned hundreds of other community events. For some pro-Palestinian activists, Monday was a fresh opportunity to protest the Israeli incursion into Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 attack. Students for Justice in Palestine planned events across the country — at universities in Maryland, Colorado, California and beyond.

Cities across the country also saw protests and rallies, with a large gathering in New York City where about 1,500 protesters marched to support the Palestinian cause.

The events were emotionally charged, but mostly peaceful.

However, in Michigan, homes owned by the president and the chief investment officer at the University of Michigan were vandalized, the Detroit News reported. President Santa Ono’s home, in suburban Detroit, and the sidewalk in front were spray-painted with the words “intifada” and “coward,” and the investment officer’s home was defaced with similar messages. Separately, the News reported, police were investigating anti-Israeli vandalism at the Jewish Federation of Detroit.

And at the City College of New York’s Advanced Science Research Center in Hamilton Heights, vandals smashed windows and spray-painted “divest now” at the entrance Monday morning. A day earlier, someone spray-painted “Oct. 7 is forever” at Baruch College, another CUNY campus in Manhattan. The NYPD is investigating the incidents, CUNY officials confirmed.

The mood varied widely among Monday’s events. The large protest in Manhattan had a high-energy, even joyful, tenor. Near Columbia University, the gathering of Jews was somber.
At Columbia, the epicenter of last spring’s campus protests, members of the Jewish community staged an art installation Monday in the heart of campus that included large sculptures with photos of the Israeli hostages. Organizers hoped visitors would reflect on the Oct. 7 attack, when about 1,200 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage.

Barricades and security guards separated the Jewish students and their supporters from the pro-Palestinian protesters who walked out of class at the urging of Columbia University Apartheid Divest to protest the war in Gaza. More than 41,000 people have been killed there since the start of the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

By midday, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters, faces largely obscured by kaffiyehs, were mobilizing — out of classes, onto the steps of Low Memorial Library and then toward downtown Manhattan to join a march through the city. In a fluid mass, the group moved through campus, banging drums and cymbals and shouting, “Free, free Palestine!”

The pro-Israel side, outnumbered, responded by waving Israeli banners and blasting music, trying to drown out the chanting pro-Palestinian protesters.

“Let us mourn in peace!” the Jewish students chanted.

The pro-Israel group soon dissipated, with only a handful left as the pro-Palestinian group snaked around the library, yelling, “From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever!”
Many of the students then boarded subways downtown to join other protesters to march for the Palestinian cause.

Outside the New York Stock Exchange, Deborah Lee, 60, carried a poster of a woman mourning her child, originally made, she said, to protest the Iraq War.

“It’s just really sad that I had to pull it out again, because it’s clear that this is not just soldiers against soldiers,” she said. In March, she was charged with disorderly conduct after blocking the street in front of the Israeli Mission in New York as part of pro-Palestinian protests, she said. Now she was back again. “I took some time off work because I feel like our place is on the streets.”

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, said the group wanted to avoid violence.
“We’ve had bomb threats, death threats, and Zionist traps or counterprotesters trying to provoke us into violence. But we’re not going to be distracted,” she said Monday. “We’re going to seize this opportunity to make the world remember what is happening in Gaza.

Apartheid Divest leaders cautioned supporters on social media to remain masked, cover any identifying tattoos or piercings, avoid swiping their ID cards too near the rally time, and take other measures to avoid detection. “Stay safe! Be Brave!” the group said on Instagram. “The fight for liberation will always be risky. We must take the risk.”

Some of this week’s rallying cries from protesters centered on the death toll in Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 attack. Others celebrated the attack as the beginning of the end of Israel. The Rutgers-New Brunswick chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said on Instagram that Oct. 7 would be known as both the beginning of a “genocide” in Gaza and “the first day of Israel’s complete disintegration.”

Also at Rutgers on Monday, Jewish groups joined forces to erect a memorial to those killed and taken hostage. More than 1,400 ribbons were placed in small cups and set in Voorhees Mall, each representing a person murdered, rescued or still being held. One of the goals, said organizer Mitch Wolf: “To show the people at Rutgers the fact of what happened on 10/7 last year, and the atrocities committed by Hamas.

At the University of California at Los Angeles, Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, stood in front of 1,200 flags that had been planted on a campus lawn, one for each person killed a year ago. He held a sign reading, “My son is held hostage. I want to stop the war in Gaza. Ask me why.” He’s was at UCLA as part of a U.S. tour to advocate for a hostage deal and cease-fire.

Later, about 200 people met at UCLA Hillel to honor the victims of Oct. 7, then marched mostly in silence to Bruin Plaza. As he walked, Evan DiPietro, 29, held up a picture of 24-year-old Daniel Goltman who was killed in the Hamas attack. Looking back at antisemitism over the past year, DiPietro said, “Growing up Jewish, this is the first time in my life I’ve felt afraid to be a Jew.”

On Monday, about 300 people gathered with masks or kiffeyahs covering their faces at UCLA’s Dickson Plaza. A few people held flags and signs and beat on drums.

Outside of the main entrance to Columbia University on Broadway on Monday, a group of pro-Israel demonstrators gathered in a cordoned-off area. They were praying for those killed a year ago and for hostages still held by Hamas, draped in American and Israeli flags. Some signs read: “This Jew will not be silenced”; others featured the faces of missing hostages. The group mixed patriotic American music with songs in Hebrew.

A speaker warned them not to engage with other protesters. “This day is not about them,” he said. “This day is about us.”

Columbia administrators, who had already decided to keep the once-open campus closed to the public, sharply tightened restrictions on campus Sunday night. Interim president Katrina Armstrong announced that fewer gates would be open, more public safety officers would be visible, only people with school IDs would be allowed through the gates, and most buildings on the school’s Morningside campus would be locked overnight Sunday.

On campus Monday, some students hurried to their classes, heads down, but others lingered to take in the scene.

A Jewish woman was attacked by knife-wielding aggressors in the 19th District of Paris on Monday, the French CNews channel reported.

According to the report, three individuals attacked the woman, threatening her with a knife while calling her antisemitic slurs, including referencing the October 7 massacre.

Masked pro-Palestine protesters wearing keffiyehs took over the office of Steven Prawer, a Jewish professor at the University of Melbourne (UMelb), Australia, on Wednesday, in an alleged protest over his academic connection to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The group, University of Melbourne for Palestine, posted multiple pictures and videos to their Instagram in which they can be seen invading the professor’s office and staging a sit-in. They can also be seen chanting and covering the door of his office in pro-Palestine stickers and signs.

One sticker said “antisemitism is a crime, anti-Zionism is a duty,” and the two signs read “Steven Prawer, your work will break your soul before it breaks the resistance” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The group said that they discovered pro-Israel memorabilia in Prawer’s office, including a picture of a sticker for Tel Aviv University with the world Shalom [peace] on it.

In another video, a woman wearing a keffiyeh and a mask interrogates Prawer as he talks to the police outside the office. When he attempts to walk away, the woman follows him and continues to ask questions about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

Prawer, an engineering professor and head of the UMelb Materials Institute, is the academic lead of the Jerusalem-Melbourne Joint PhD program.

This, according to the protesters, was the reason for their actions. In a poster stuck on the wall of Prawer’s office, the group wrote, “Prawer spearheads a number of research projects in collaboration with Israeli research institutes, academics, and universities, such as a recent project with the Israeli Center of Advanced Diamond Technology.”

They demanded that UMelb implement a scholarship for Palestinian students.
The university called the police on the protesters – who subsequently asked for more people to join them to increase their numbers – and is still trying to identify the students as they were masked.

The university’s Vice Chancellor, Duncan Maskell, wrote a letter to faculty and students following the incident, calling it an “attempt to harass and intimidate.”
“I am shocked and appalled,” he wrote. “This type of behavior is completely and utterly unacceptable.”

“Intentional acts of intimidation, violence, vilification, or antisemitism will not be tolerated.”
Maskell added that if the protesters were identified as UMelb students or staff, the university would not hesitate to initiate disciplinary procedures.

Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson went on Melbourne’s Radio 3AQ to speak about the incident with host Jacqui Felgate.

Henderson referred to Prof. Prawer as a “very distinguished academic” who was “essentially attacked” by a group of protesters who invaded his office.

“Not physically attacked but intimidated, threatened, and traumatized,” she added.
“I am pleased the university called the police and the students did leave, but they also yelled out some shocking antisemitic slogans, accused him of being a war criminal and this is just untenable.”

Felgate added that the protesters also shouted: “Zionists are genocidal maniacs,” and that in a week where Australia’s Jewish community was commemorating the “horrific attack” of October 7, the timing of this incident was “absolutely shocking.”

Felgate added that the protesters also shouted: “Zionists are genocidal maniacs,” and that in a week where Australia’s Jewish community was commemorating the “horrific attack” of October 7, the timing of this incident was “absolutely shocking.”

“They clearly only want to traumatize and inflict as much suffering on Jewish academics and Jewish students [as they can],” said Henderson.

Dirty Jew” and “We will do another October 7” are just two examples of the antisemitic verbal abuse comments hurled at Jewish middle and high school students in France, as revealed in a compilation of testimonies published by the Union of High School Students in France (ULJF) this week.

The Union gathered multiple testimonies which laid bare the antisemitism in the French secondary system, choosing to publish ten of them on Sunday. While a lot has been said about antisemitism within French universities, less is said in the media about what school students experience. The students’ names were altered to protect them from further abuse.

In one particularly shocking testimony, a student, Adam, who attends a middle school in Paris, reported being in the changing rooms after sport when other students in his class pointed to the showers and said, "Adam, you're going to die in there like in 1939-1945".

Holocaust references and threats appeared in several of the testimonies: The classmates of one girl, Solal, made Nazi salutes at her in class. When her mother complained to the parent’s representative, they told her the matter did not concern them, as they themselves were not Jewish.

Solal reported being ostracized and isolated from her peers.

Dan, a student at a Parisian secondary school, received messages saying “dirty Jew” and “we will f*** you like Hitler did” in an Instagram group.

He reported that the person who sent the message later waited for him after class with a gang and tried to beat him up. He was able to escape.

Aside from Holocaust-related abuse, the Israel-Hamas War was the incentive for a lot of the antisemitism conveyed in the testimonies.

One student, Simon, said that his History teacher gave a class on the theme of the “genocide in Gaza.” However, according to him, she made no mention of the October 7 massacre, the actions of Hamas, or the Israeli hostages.

Raphael, a high school student, said that one of his classmates enthusiastically supported the October 7 massacre.
During an event on the theme of countries of origin, another student, David, mentioned Israel in a video. In response, a group of students reportedly threatened him by saying "the Jewish nation doesn't deserve to exist, we need to go f*** it up".
In an online group, one of Nathan’s classmates wrote, "Someone in this group supports the genocide in Palestine".
Another classmate subsequently admitted to Nathan that "the other guys don't like you because you're Jewish".
When giving an oral presentation on the fate of Egyptian Jews during the Suez Crisis for her Baccalaureate, Judith was told "your subject is irrelevant, the Jews got on very well with the Egyptian population.”

Educating against antisemitism
The President of ULJF, Liam Szlafmyc, spoke to The Jerusalem Post about the testimonies, the situation of antisemitism in French education, and what can be done to combat it. The ten testimonies published are just a sample of around 40 collected so far, the rest being more violent than the ones released so far, Szlafmyc said.

“We wanted to show the reality on the ground of the antisemitic aggressions Jewish students face,” he told The Post

He added that the aim of publishing was to show that the situation is more serious than the data shows.
While the majority of the antisemitism in the testimonies is verbal in nature, the threats are nevertheless violent. Most of the antisemitism, Szlafmyc continued, relates to the war in Gaza and to Israel.

“The reality is, almost every
Jewish student in France has experienced antisemitism,” he said.

This ranges from evocations of Nazism and the Holocaust to antisemitism under the guise of anti-Zionism to support for the October 7 massacre, he added.

“Especially on social media platforms, the students don’t realize they are being antisemitic, they think it’s just anti-Zionism.”

“What we saw is that antisemitism in high school is very often related to Israel, and so what we do is explain to them what Judaism is, what Zionism is, what has happened to the hostages, what Hamas is, and what the Islamic Republic of Iran is.”

Another issue is that many students, and indeed French people in general, still see antisemitism as something of the Right when, in reality, it can be found in all parts of society, including on the Left.

“Even when it comes to things like the Dreyfus affair, many don’t realize that a lot of the people against Dreyfus were on the Left.”

Szlafmyc added that the French elections have shown the Jewish community that antisemitism is not just prevalent in Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National but also in the left-wing France Insoumise.

For the second time since May, police say shots were fired at a Jewish girls elementary school in Toronto.

Around 4 a.m. Saturday, Toronto police received a report of a smashed window at the Bais Chaya Mushka Girls Elementary School, Insp. Paul Krawczyk told reporters Saturday afternoon. Upon further investigation, police determined the window, along with other parts of the building, had been struck by gunfire.

No one was at the school at the time of the shooting, Krawczyk said, and there were no reports of any injuries. He also said police had not heard any reports of gunshots being heard in the area.

Police are not releasing any details about suspects at this time, Krawczyk said.

Krawczyk said the hate crime unit is involved in the investigation, adding that it is particularly concerning that the incident happened on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, one of the most sacred days in the Jewish calendar.