A community theater production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" in Michigan was marred Saturday night when five masked men positioned themselves outside the venue, brandishing Nazi flags and shouting antisemitic slurs. The threatening display created such tension that audience members required security escorts to reach their vehicles safely.

The cast members, who were portraying Anne Frank and her family, discovered the demonstrators' presence during intermission. In a powerful display of resilience, the actors maintained their roles as Jewish refugees hiding from the Nazis, ensuring the performance continued. "The shocked staff united and completed the performance with strength and professionalism," theater officials stated.

During a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Fowlerville, Michigan, masked protesters waving Nazi flags gathered outside the theater.

The Fowlerville Community Theater informed the audience of the incident at intermission, but the cast continued the play "with… pic.twitter.com/1tYcOEipOv

— TabZ (@TabZLIVE) November 13, 2024

"This production focuses on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust, and we tried to tell their story as realistically as possible," the theater's statement read. "On Saturday night, things became more real than we expected; the presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse into the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding."

Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish Democrat who represents the district and was recently elected to the Senate, strongly condemned the incident. "It's more important than ever to fight hatred, especially at the local level," Slotkin wrote on X. "And to the handful of cowardly antisemites hiding behind masks and waving Nazi flags: Nazis always lose."

"Hail Hitler" and "Hail Trump" - People wave Nazi flags outside theatre presenting Jewish play, "The Diary of Anne Frank," in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/bjC2Z1e4Ak

— Bryan Dawson (@BryanDawsonUSA) November 12, 2024

The performance was held at the American Legion Hall in Howell, a city of about 10,000 residents east of Lansing, which had provided its space to the Fowlerville Community Theater. Legion officials confirmed they had agreed to host the play specifically to address concerns about rising antisemitism.

Bobby Bright, a legion commander and military veteran, told local news outlets, "People were stunned and shocked." He noted that the situation had become so menacing that numerous audience members required security escorts to their vehicles following the performance.

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France is facing criticism from human rights organizations over its decision to ban its female athletes from wearing hijabs during the upcoming Paris Summer Olympics. The controversial policy, announced last September by French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, has reignited debates about religious freedom and secularism in sports.

According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Amnesty International, along with ten other rights groups, has accused France of "discriminatory hypocrisy" for refusing to allow its athletes to wear the hijab during Olympic competitions. The organizations argue that the ban prevents athletes "from exercising their human right to play sport without discrimination of any kind."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has declined to intervene in the matter, stating that "freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states." The IOC previously announced that athletes would be permitted to wear hijabs in the Olympic Village, but France's ban extends to competition venues.

Amelie Oudea-Castera, France's sports minister, defended the ban last year, citing the principle of secularism, calling it "a ban on any type of proselytizing. That means absolute neutrality in public services. The French team will not wear the headscarf."

Critics argue that the policy contradicts not only the IOC's own guidelines but also international treaty obligations that France is required to uphold. Anna Błuś, Amnesty International's Women's Rights Researcher in Europe, stated, "Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France."

The IOC should insist that France overturn its ban on French athletes wearing the hijab at #ParisOlympics or face sanctions. It's discriminatory and in part based on gross misrepresentation of the Olympic Charter.
on how France dresses its Islamophobia up as secularism pic.twitter.com/O8aA9h7dFG

— Nicholas McGeehan (@NcGeehan) April 17, 2024

 France is currently the only European country that prohibits headscarf-wearing women from participating in most domestic sports competitions. The French Council of State upheld a similar ban on female footballers wearing hijabs during games in June 2023.

Rights groups have expressed concern about the potential consequences of blocking headscarf-wearing women from participating in sports. Amnesty International claims that such bans have resulted in negative mental and physical consequences for women and caused "humiliation, trauma, and fear." The United Nations Rights Office has also indirectly weighed in on the issue. A spokeswoman in Geneva stated that "no one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear or not to wear."

As the Paris Olympics approach, scheduled to begin in just ten days, France has shown no signs of reversing its stance on the hijab ban. The Daily Mail reports that many Muslim athletes participate in sporting events while wearing specially designed hijabs. However, under the current French policy, these athletes may be forced to choose between their religious beliefs and representing their country at the Olympics.

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In a contentious face-off, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump squared off Thursday in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, offering voters a rare side-by-side comparison of the two oldest candidates ever to seek the US presidency.

The 90-minute debate, hosted by CNN in Atlanta, covered a wide range of topics including foreign policy, the economy, and American democracy. The rivals did not shake hands as they took their positions at podiums in a studio without a live audience.

Video: Biden and Trump face off in contentious debate / Credit: Reuters

While both candidates expressed support for Israel, they diverged on how to approach the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip. Biden, while emphasizing US support for Israel, stressed the need for caution in populated areas. "We are providing Israel with all the weapons they need," Biden said, adding that the Hamas terrorist organization "should be eliminated. But you have got to be careful" about using large bombs in civilian areas.

Trump, however, criticized what he perceived as Biden's pressure on Israel to end the fighting. "Israel is the one who wants to keep going," Trump asserted, arguing they should not be held back from continuing their military operations against Hamas. In a controversial remark, Trump criticized Biden's approach to Israel, saying "he's become like a Palestinian, but they don't like him because he's a bad one."

Another heated exchange occurred when discussing issues of racism and antisemitism. Biden accused Trump of calling white supremacists at the 2017 Charlottesville rally "fine people." "What American president would ever say Nazis carrying swastikas were fine people?" Biden asked, adding, "This guy has no sense of American democracy."

Trump vehemently denied this characterization, claiming the Charlottesville story was "made up" and that Biden's presidency is "the worst in American history." He also argued that current pro-Palestinian protests in the US are "a hundred times Charlottesville, a thousand times."

On domestic issues, both candidates traded barbs over the economy and immigration. Trump accused Biden of causing inflation that is "killing our country," while Biden countered by highlighting job creation during his presidency.

The candidates' age and fitness for office became a point of contention, with Trump boasting about acing cognitive tests and Biden defending his record of achievements despite criticism of his age.

Throughout the debate, Biden struggled at times with clarity and articulation, leading to reports of concern among some Democrats. However, his campaign team and Vice President Kamala Harris expressed confidence in his performance, with Harris acknowledging a "slow start" but praising a "strong finish."

As the election race intensifies, this debate, marked by sharp disagreements on foreign policy and inflammatory rhetoric, offered voters a crucial opportunity to assess the two leading candidates side-by-side. With national polls showing a tight contest, the performance and controversial statements of both Biden and Trump in this and future debates could play a significant role in shaping the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

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For Barak Herscowitz, working at TikTok was a personal and professional dream come true, but after being exposed to the blatant anti-Israel bias of the Chinese social network, he left with a resounding door slam. Against the backdrop of legislation seeking to ban the app in the US, he now reveals how the company's senior executives tried to silence his complaints, and what really happens in the employees' internal groups.

At the end of January, Herscowitz posted a short and pointed message on X, the former Twitter: "I quit TikTok. We live in a time when our very existence as Jews and Israelis is under attack and in danger. In such an unstable era, people's priorities become sharper. Am Yisrael Chai (the nation of Israel lives)."

This text caused quite a drama in the world of social media. The ripple effects quickly reached major American media outlets and even Congress. Herscowitz portrayed TikTok as a company blatantly biased against Israel, sparking a broad public campaign against it. Its current peak is an American law stipulating that the Chinese company ByteDance, linked to the Communist Party in China, must divest from controlling TikTok's operations; otherwise, the app will be banned across the United States.

Herscowitz, 38, resides in Tel Aviv. We met in Sarona, near TikTok Israel's offices, where he recently spent among the best two years of his life, according to his testimony. He was born in Haifa to a family he describes as "right-light," and after the army, he spent a few years in the United States studying at New York University (NYU). "I received a generous scholarship from a wealthy Jewish donor who wanted to connect Israelis and Palestinians," he recounts. "We lived at a level that's hard to describe – we ate at Michelin-starred restaurants, went on ski vacations, all in exchange for two meetings a week with Palestinians, once for discussions about the conflict and once just to have fun."

Upon returning to Israel, Herscowitz began political activity in Likud. "In 2010, I established a body in the party called the 'Manof Forum.' The idea was to build new, young, liberal leadership on the right." He later accompanied the campaigns of Gideon Sa'ar, Yuli Edelstein, Nir Barkat, and others, and opened a strategic and media consulting business. Ahead of the 2021 elections, he was involved in the Yamina party's campaign, and when Naftali Bennett became prime minister, Herscowitz was appointed to a senior position in COVID-19 public relations.

During that period, Herscowitz already knew he wanted to work at TikTok. "I marked this company as my next workplace, even though I had no connections and had never worked in high-tech. It was far-fetched and unlikely, but I wanted to work for the fastest-growing social network in the world. Also, I myself was addicted to the app."

Ultimately, he approached TikTok Israel's management and sold them an idea: "I told them that on Facebook and YouTube, there are people working with the government, but TikTok didn't have that. I explained that it had a double value. First of all, it's good for business because you can bring in government campaigns, but more than that – TikTok was then considered a stupid platform for kids dancing and cat videos. It wasn't on the radar of major advertisers. I told them that if we brought in the government, then banks and insurance companies with deep pockets would follow."

This is how Herscowitz began working as the government affairs manager at TikTok. Part of his job there was to get government ministries and public bodies to open their own channels on the app. "I had two amazing years there, and the experience after October 7 shouldn't and can't overshadow that. We brought in public bodies, did social projects, and raised the prestige and credibility of the platform. Suddenly, TikTok became something much more serious. True, we also rode a wave because TikTok was growing around the world at that time, but not every country saw the same growth as here."

Q: Surely you knew in advance that this is a Chinese-owned company and that its algorithm is highly intrusive and problematic in terms of discourse engineering.

"I was aware of the talk surrounding TikTok, mainly on privacy issues. It was always in the air, but no more than that. Day-to-day, it wasn't interesting enough, and let's remember that there's a lot of criticism and congressional hearings about the other social networks, too. As for the Chinese ownership, I thought there was a hint of racism at the time, and that there was no room for such concern."

Blocking Israeli Creators

During Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, accusations began surfacing that TikTok was contributing to inflaming tensions among Arab Israelis. A new term entered the discourse – "The TikTok Intifada." According to Herscowitz, "Following what happened during those days, TikTok and I worked with the state and made a great deal of effort to remove the security threats that were on the app. The steps taken alleviated my concerns as an employee and the state's concerns."

Q: And then we get to October 7th.

"Everyone talks about waking up to the sound of sirens, I woke up to the sound of my dog barking, hearing the sirens. We quickly understood what was happening. As TikTok employees, we started receiving reports, including from the government, that there was a lot of violent content on the platform, like Hamas live videos showing the horrors from the Gaza periphery area. Despite the Sabbath and the holiday, the relevant employees quickly gathered the information, rang all the bells in Europe and the US, and handled the situation swiftly and aggressively. The problematic videos were removed, and I was very proud of the company I worked for."

This pride dissipated fairly quickly. "Already in the first days of the war, all of the Israeli government's campaigns on TikTok were blocked They claimed that the slogan 'Together we will win' accompanying them was a political statement, as were the Israeli flags appearing in them. These were the explanations I received from TikTok management in Europe. They explained to us that the company was not willing to get involved in conflicts, even in advertisements, regardless of which region in the world or which side. I conveyed this to the government, and overall, the explanation sounded logical to me."

"Afterwards, campaigns by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum were disqualified. These were very soft campaigns, without horrific images, just a call to return them. Again, we were told that nothing political could be published. My unwritten agreement with the company was that I would convey its policy, and it would act fairly and apply that policy to everyone. But suddenly I saw counter-campaigns on TikTok by Palestinians, funded with a lot of money, that definitely related to the conflict. They went up on the network with no problem. This already seemed strange to me. How could it be that what is permitted for Palestinians is forbidden for Israelis?"

"I raised the question to management in Europe, and the responses we received were evasive. For example, they said the Palestinian campaigns were humanitarian. Meanwhile, a campaign by Taglit calling people to volunteer in agriculture in Israel was also disqualified. The reason for the disqualification: On one of the t-shirts, it said 'Am Yisrael Chai' (the nation of Israel lives), and on the site the advertisement was linked to, it said 'We stand with the people of Israel at this time.' From management's perspective, this was a political statement that justified removing the entire campaign. Palestinian campaigns, as mentioned, kept running all the time. I submitted inquiries again and again and did not receive an answer."

Even in the organic content sphere of TikTok users, Herscowitz encountered a similar phenomenon. "We received hundreds and thousands of messages from Israeli content creators who were blocked, or whose videos were restricted to be viewed only in Israel. The Israeli stance was silenced. By the way, to this day, most Israeli content creators are blocked from going live on TikTok. The American user on the app hardly sees any Israeli content, but they definitely see anti-Israeli content."

"The Wall Street Journal conducted an experiment: It opened fictitious accounts of 13-year-old children, and within a few hours, they began to be inundated with anti-Israeli content. A New York Times investigation revealed that certain topics are silenced on TikTok, including pro-Israeli messages. At the same time, reports began arriving from colleagues about a hostile atmosphere toward Jews at TikTok offices around the world and about antisemitic remarks that were not being addressed. I did my best; I warned the company and challenged decisions, but saw that I was not succeeding."

Q: Did you consult with Anna Pelkin, CEO of TikTok Israel?

"The employees at TikTok Israel are trying to do everything they can. They are fighting and paying the price. Sometimes, they are seen as a nuisance and people make faces at them, and yet they do their best – not necessarily from the pro-Israel position, but to clean the platform of antisemitic content. Sometimes, they succeed. There are employees who have made this a personal mission that they work on after regular work hours."

"I don't want to judge other employees, everyone has their own considerations, but something was burning inside me which is why I did what I did," he says about his resignation. "By the way, this also unfolded differently than I had planned. I was much more fearful, I didn't think about how things would eventually play out."

Q: Who else saw this?

In the early stages, Herscowitz believed it was still possible to resolve the issue through dialogue with TikTok's management. "Someone told me that there are groups on the company's internal network whose purpose is to support the Palestinians. Unlike other workplaces, it's not common at TikTok to set up non-professional groups. There are some, but not many. For example, there is a Jewish group, where they mostly share kneidelach recipes. Since October 7, some members have talked about how difficult it is for them at the workplace."

"I entered one of the Palestinian groups and discovered that they were using it to promote BDS messages and very extreme views against Israel. During the prisoner exchange deal, I saw this group celebrating the release of the Palestinian female terrorists. I decided to raise the issue with the company's management, mainly because almost all the employees in this group belonged to departments that are supposed to enforce TikTok's policy, meaning decide what goes up and what doesn't on the app. These are the teams that need to be the most non-political, fair, and objective. I collected everything I found, prepared a long professional document, and sent it to TikTok's highest global management in America and Singapore. This happened in early December. About twenty very senior people were addressed in this email, and all the managers above me."

Q: And what happened?

"You would expect the company to handle this, but that's not what happened. The first responses I received were along the lines of 'Who else saw this,' 'Who else did you send it to.' There was a great concern about who the report would reach and much less interest in the content. From that moment on, I felt a sense of pressure and hostility towards me. It started with nuances, but the climax was when a very senior TikTok executive, a Jew from the United States, approached me and said he wanted to discuss what I had sent. He explained that he understands the situation, sees the antisemitic wave in the world, feels it, and wants to think together about how we solve the issue within the company. I was very happy, as this is what I wanted to happen."

"The Zoom conversation was nice, but as it went on, I felt like I was under investigation. He started asking me who I had consulted with and who I had shown the document to before sending it. I also felt he was trying to implicate other people in the company who may have leaked the document. I was very disappointed, but I still believed in the system. Every few days I would send an email to the company asking what was happening. I didn't receive serious answers, and at one point, an executive at the company told me: 'It's possible we won't be able to tell you what steps we're taking to address what you wrote.' What kind of response is that? I didn't ask to know who was fired, but to ensure that steps were being taken to solve the problem."

Q: When did your breaking point arrive?

"When parts of the document were published on Fox News. At this stage, I still planned to work at TikTok in the coming years, but then I saw the company's response: 'These are lies.' I understood that an organization that wants to take responsibility and fix things does not respond like that. You can't say 'It's all lies' and then fix it, those don't go together. That's when the decision to leave solidified for me, and I resigned in mid-January. Let's just say there was no attempt to persuade me to stay."

Q: You gave up on a professional dream that had been realized.

"The feeling after the resignation was intense. For the first time in my life, I contemplated what it means to be a free person and to take action related to that. It was very meaningful to me. The world is drowning in a swamp of lies, and I felt pride in knowing that the lie may be winning now, but not through me."

"I wrote a short tweet, and it exploded in Israel and around the world. Afterward, there was a hearing in the US Senate for all social networks, which wasn't even related to Israel, but the part dealing with TikTok extensively covered my resignation and the antisemitic content on the network. Some of it came from the report I sent and some from other publications. The law against TikTok was already brewing in Congress, and senior Congressman Lindsey Graham grilled TikTok's CEO in that hearing, who tried to evade and did not really answer the questions."

Exposing the Data

Herscowitz does not think it matters whether the anti-Israel bias on TikTok comes from above or from the "zeitgeist" among the employees responsible for censorship. "I did not see interference from the Chinese government in the app, and I'm also not familiar with the algorithm because it wasn't part of my job," he says. "There are studies that have shown that topics that are inconvenient for the Chinese government receive different treatment on the platform compared to other topics. The most amazing thing to me in this story is that the moment after the exposure, TikTok blocked access to the data that enabled these studies. Suppose it wasn't an intentional policy, but rather many antisemites happened to reach positions that enabled it. Even then, once the problem surfaced and the whole world is talking about it and TikTok still isn't addressing it – it already becomes a policy. These decisions are not made at a junior level but in consultation with TikTok's CEO and the highest senior management."

Q: How is TikTok different, for example, from Twitter? That network also has a lot of antisemitic content that receives wide exposure.

"First of all, these things really need to be fought on other networks as well. This is not a battle of Jews or Israel; the primary victims are the American and European audiences, the users. They are sure that these networks provide them with an accurate picture of opinions in the world, but if you receive a stream engineered to be false and misleading, you are the victim. And yet, Twitter is different because it declares that there will be as little regulation as possible there and everyone can do almost anything they want, and this policy applies equally to everyone. On TikTok, there is content censorship. In principle, this could be fine, but when the censorship is so biased and one-sided, that's the problem."

Q: So what do we do?

"I'm about to embark on a series of lectures to Jewish and Christian communities in America to wake them up. The Western, democratic world is engaged in a war it doesn't know it's a part of, a war over consciousness. I hope we win in Gaza with the help of planes and tanks, but Hamas is also waging another war against us, aimed at eroding us, eroding support for us, weakening us legally, publicly, and consciously, and turning us into a leper state. These things are happening primarily on social networks because that's where young people in the West consume information and news today."

"The free and democratic West must understand that it is dealing with something very big. We need to rethink the question of who can post on these networks. Perhaps it is not right for every anonymous person to be able to post any content they want, perhaps an authentication model is needed. It won't solve all the problems, but it would be a start."

"I think the West needs to force social networks to open their data for review and criticism. Not the algorithm, but for example how many videos there are with certain keywords from certain countries. If we see unnatural, engineered things, we need to know about them. And we also need to wage war ourselves and think about how we can leverage these networks for our values and messages. Write a new story for the world. These are the three legs that need to progress in parallel – regulation, data, and warfare."

TikTok responded: "Since October 7, we have mobilized resources and personnel to strengthen our platform safety and content moderation teams and increase the number of Hebrew and Arabic speakers on them. The claims of the former employee, who did not work on our platform safety or content moderation teams, misrepresent the efforts and resources we rapidly deployed to maintain the safety of our community and the integrity of our platform."

"In the first six months since the outbreak of the war, we removed more than 3.1 million videos and suspended more than 140,000 live streams in the area of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank for violating our Community Guidelines, including content promoting Hamas, hate speech, violent extremism, and misinformation."

"Regarding the claims about the disqualified families' campaign: We respond as needed to any unforeseen case by exercising judgment and carefully reviewing our policy, with the aim of ensuring the platform remains safe. We worked closely with the Hostage and Missing Families Forum to ensure their 'Bring Them Home' campaign could appear on our platform and reach the desired audience."

"The allegations of bias and connection to China deliberately create a false narrative regarding the actions we take to remove violative content within minutes of receiving a report. We strongly oppose antisemitism in all forms and apply our policy equally across all content and advertisements on TikTok."

"Regarding claims about employee communications: All employees have a responsibility to abide by our internal code of conduct, which promotes mutual respect and creates a workplace free of discrimination and harassment. We provide employees with tools to report their concerns anonymously, and investigate all received reports."

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Students at the Ulpanat Horev religious girls' school in Jerusalem have been accused of racism this week after footage showed them wearing blackface and mocking Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent. 

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The video was recorded and uploaded to YouTube last month, as a skit ahead of the Purim holiday, to show what their school, whose students are mostly Jews of European descent, would look like if it was Mizrahi. It was taken down within hours after it began generating backlash. 

Video: Ulpanat Horev

In the skit, students present several scenarios comparing the behavior of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi "students", with the latter portrayed as more boorish and rude. In some parts of the video women who appear to be the teacher and the administrator of the school can also be seen. 

Aryeh Deri, head of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party, blasted the video, saying it was "wretched and outrageous racism, prejudice, contempt and mockery."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu too rejected it, saying the skit did not "represent the national religious public. Discrimination and racism have no place in the State of Israel."

Similarly, Education Minister Yoav Kisch called the video "appalling" and called for an investigation of the video and those involved. 

The school and the students later apologized, saying the skit was meant to be humorous.

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Azeem Rafiq, the former cricketer whose revelations about the racism he suffered at Yorkshire has sparked a crisis in the English game, apologized Thursday after admitting to sending antisemitic messages 10 years ago.

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British newspaper The Times of London reported it has seen an exchange of messages that appear to have been sent between Rafiq and another former cricketer, Ateeq Javid, and which contain disparaging comments about an unnamed Jewish person.

Rafiq confirmed in a post on Twitter that he did send the messages and has "absolutely no excuses."

"I am ashamed of this exchange and have now deleted it so as not to cause further offense," Rafiq wrote. "I was 19 at the time and I hope and believe I am a different person today. I am incredibly angry at myself and I apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who is rightly offended by this."

At no point will I ever try and defend the indefensible

For those I have hurt I am sincerely sorry

I will continue to front up & own any more mistakes I have made

— Azeem Rafiq (@AzeemRafiq30) November 18, 2021

Rafiq, a former England under-19 captain, testified through tears at a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday about his experiences of racism and bullying while playing for Yorkshire.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has suspended Yorkshire from hosting international matches over its "wholly unacceptable" response to the racism faced by Rafiq, while some of the club's sponsors are ending deals.

On Thursday, British sports minister Nigel Huddleston called for cricket to "get its house in order" and raised the possibility of independent regulation if it did not.

Claudia Mendoza, co-chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said Rafiq had "undoubtedly" learned a lot since 2011.

"There's no doubt that this is massively awkward for Azeem Rafiq," Mendoza wrote on Twitter.

There's no doubt that this is massively awkward for Azeem Rafiq but he's taken full ownership, apologised, and undoubtedly - through his own experiences - learnt a lot about racism since then. https://t.co/YfCvJB07iT

— Claudia Mendoza (@Claud_Mendoza) November 18, 2021

"But he's taken full ownership, apologized, and undoubtedly – through his own experiences – learnt a lot about racism since then."

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A two-day cultural event in New York this week brought together members of the Jewish and black communities in an effort to take a stand against antisemitism and racism in the United States, organizers said on Monday.

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The "Fighting Antisemitism and Racism Together" conference, held on Oct. 24-25, was a joint endeavor initiative of the Jazz Leadership Project, the Combat Antisemitism Movement and the American Sephardi Federation.

At the event, organizers highlighted the long tradition of cooperation between the two communities, pointing to the Jews' overwhelming support for Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for equality and cooperation. Participants agreed that this long-standing alliance must never waver, particularly in the current climate in which tensions are being fueled by "emerging ideologies."

They also warned of the dangers of the spike in anti-Israel rhetoric, which is classified as antisemitic language by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's "working definition" of antisemitism.

"We are many, let us also be one, unified in our embrace of humanism and cultural excellence and democracy," said musician and composer Wynton Marsalis, who runs the Lincoln Center Jazz Program.

"Let us not be tribal," added Marsalis, who during the event was presented the Albert Murray Award for being a "trailblazer" in the "collective effort to build a more harmonious future free of racism and antisemitism."

The event was attended by saxophonist Donald Harrison, winner of the 2022 NEA Jazz Master Jazz Music Award, along with many other figures from the global jazz community, as well as musicians, philosophers and social activists from the Jewish and black communities.

Event initiators Greg Thomas and Aryeh Tepper, both jazz musicians, educators and activists, each explained the power that music and culture have to overcome prejudices.

"In our polarized US and world, we need leadership and wisdom to point the way through the complexity, darkness and hatred," said Thomas.

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Tepper noted, "This special event dedicated to combating racism and antisemitism, and shaping an omni-American future, will take us on a journey through the thought and spirit of the man who taught us the meaning of stomping the blues, Albert Murray."

The event included a performance by the Itamar Borochov Quartet. Borochov, an Israel-born and Brooklyn-based jazz musician, recently received the prestigious "LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award" for his unique style, which musically brings together the sounds of Manhattan, Jaffa and Central Asia, along with the sacred sounds of the Sephardic liturgy.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Jewish groups in Massachusetts are raising concerns about a bill being proposed by state lawmakers that would facilitate the teaching of ethnic studies in schools.

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The legislation, known as S.365 "An Act relative to anti-racism, equity and justice in education" has been proposed by State Sen. Jason Lewis (5th Middlesex District). The bill, citing the Jan. 6 "insurrection" and the "imminent danger" posed by "disinformation and white supremacy," says that it would be in the best interest of Massachusetts students "that education in dismantling racism be taught to all students."

It calls for the establishment of a fund and a "Commission for Anti-Racism and Equity in Education," which would "develop curriculum materials with a social-justice perspective of dismantling racism" and "ensure that ethnic studies, racial justice, decolonizing history and unlearning racism are taught at all grade levels."

The bill was introduced earlier this year and has been referred to the committee on education. In September, a virtual hearing was held where Jewish groups submitted testimony raising concerns over the language.

Robert Leikind, director of the American Jewish Committee's New England regional office, wrote that while they support efforts to educate students on racial justice, the "terms used are undefined and vague, leaving the proposed commission broad discretion to interpret their meaning and shape policy accordingly."

Similarly, in a letter to Lewis and other lawmakers, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston expressed concern over the legislation.

In particular, it noted issues related to the oversight of the "commission (in the bills' current form, the commission has no members from the legislature or the administration, for example), transparency, definitions of vague terms in the commission's enumerated goals and the fiscal power of the commission to disburse funds without requiring legislative or administrative oversight."

The JCRC said that it looks forward to future opportunities to work with lawmakers to have more in-depth conversations on the bill and its current language.

'Part of a political movement'

Andrea Levin, executive director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), which is based in Boston, told Jewish News Syndicate that the ethnic-studies curriculum as it stands now is infested with antisemitism.

"There is now overwhelming evidence that critical ethnic studies and the 'anti-racist' pedagogy are not genuinely concerned with combating the evil of bigotry and prejudice, but are instead part of a political movement that's shot through with antisemitism and rank anti-Zionist propaganda. To mandate this pernicious ideology in public schools is a violation of public trust, brainwashes children of all backgrounds and will ultimately put a target on the backs of every Jewish child," she said.

The concern over the bill comes as California is close to enacting mandatory ethnic-studies curriculum as a high school graduation requirement.

The debate over ethnic studies in California has been ongoing for several years. The first draft of the state-approved Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) was criticized by pro-Israel groups and others for promoting the BDS movement against Israel and not including lessons about antisemitism.

While a revised version did address some issues, groups fear that the law mandating ethnic studies, known as AB 101, could lead to some school districts using portions of the first draft.

As such, a number of pro-Israel groups and individuals had been pressuring California Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the bill. However, Newsom signed the bill into law on Oct. 8.

Charles Jacobs, president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, told JNS that ethnic studies and racial-justice curricula as now constructed are "poisonous to American society, as they promote tribalism and racism."

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"They also follow the woke-ist formula that casts Jews as privileged white-adjacents whose very accomplishments and success become the very proof points that we are 'exploiters and oppressors' here and illegitimate rulers over 'people of color' in Israel," he said.

He also cast doubt on whether the established Jewish community can have an impact on improving the curriculum, such as in the case of California, where major concerns still linger. "Jewish efforts to 'improve' these curricula will likely backfire because any 'improved versions' will make the entire effort seem kosher, when it is not. And in any case, it will be hard or impossible to monitor radical-minded teachers who will use the cover of an approved 'racial-justice' curriculum to treat Israel and Jews here as they wish," he said.

Jacobs concluded by saying that "the Jewish community's mainstream leadership, already paralyzed by its embrace of the very minority groups which are openly hostile to our interests, will likely be able to 'make improvements' and brag about it, but they will have only put lipstick on the pig."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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An organizer of a neo-Nazi campaign to threaten journalists and Jewish activists in three states was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison after apologizing for what he did and saying he is a changed man.

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Cameron Shea was one of four members of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division charged last year with having cyberstalked and sent Swastika-laden posters to journalists and an employee of the Anti-Defamation League, telling them, "You have been visited by your local Nazis," "Your Actions have Consequences," and "We are Watching."

"The defendant wanted the victims to feel unsafe in their own homes," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Shea, 25, pleaded guilty in April in US District Court in Seattle to two of the counts in the five-count indictment: a conspiracy charge that carries up to five years in prison and interference with a federally protected activity, which carries up to 10. Prosecutors sought a term of more than four years.

In a letter to Judge John C. Coughenour, Shea apologized, saying, "I cannot put into words the guilt that I feel about this fear and pain that I caused."

Shea wrote that he was homeless, struggling with addiction and dealing with a friend's death when he began researching neo-Nazism. He said he had befriended detainees of other races while in custody and he now understands that journalists play a crucial role in holding institutions and individuals to account.

"The only reason I disliked the media was because I was partaking in things I didn't want to be known to the public, because on some level I knew the things I was involved in were wrong," he wrote.

Motivated by negative news coverage of the Atomwaffen Division, Shea made clear in a November 2019 group chat that the point of the plot was to intimidate journalists and others.

On Jan. 25, 2020, he mailed the threatening fliers to two people associated with the Anti-Defamation League, which opposes antisemitism, and to a news reporter who had covered Atomwaffen. Conspirators in Arizona and Florida delivered or attempted to deliver the fliers to targets there, as well.

The other defendant accused of leading the plot, Kaleb Cole, has pleaded not guilty and is due to face trial in September. Seattle police seized Cole's guns in 2019 under an "extreme risk protection order" that suggested he was planning a race war.

More than a dozen people linked to Atomwaffen or an offshoot called Feuerkrieg Division have been charged with crimes in federal court since the group's formation in 2016.

Atomwaffen has been linked to several killings, including the May 2017 shooting deaths of two men at an apartment in Tampa, Florida, and the January 2018 killing of a University of Pennsylvania student in California.

Two other members of the flier conspiracy have been sentenced after pleading guilty: Johnny Roman Garza, 21, of Queen Creek, Arizona, who affixed one of the posters on the bedroom window of a Jewish journalist; and Taylor Parker-Dipeppe, 21, of Spring Hill, Florida, who attempted to deliver a flier but left it at the wrong address.

Garza was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Parker-Dipeppe, who was severely abused by his father and stepfather and hid his transgender identity from his co-conspirators, received no prison time – a judge found that he had suffered enough.

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Two former police officers have been charged with vandalism for allegedly spray-painting an impounded vehicle with a swastika, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon announced Thursday.

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Cody Weldin, 28, and Christopher Tomsic, 29, face felony charges of vandalism and conspiracy to commit vandalism. The two men, who left the Torrance Police Department last year, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The District Attorney's office has identified hundreds of other cases that the two officers were involved in, and that will be reviewed for misconduct, according to a statement.

"We have seen an increase in hate crimes, not only in our own home town but around the country. And it's unacceptable," Gascon said. "But it becomes doubly unacceptable when we have the people that are sworn to protect all of us who engage in this behavior."

Torrance Police Chief Jeremiah Hart said at a joint news conference that 13 other officers had been placed on administrative leave after the investigation into Weldin and Tomsic revealed that these other officers reportedly exchanged racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages.

Hart asserted that the Torrance Police Department has a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior.

"Let me be clear, I will aggressively pursue any form of racism, bigotry, hate or misconduct at the Torrance Police Department," he said.

The Anti-Defamation League also weighed in on the alleged incident involving Weldin and Tomsic.

"No matter the source of hate, we must stand up and denounce it," it said in a statement. "We are heartened that these officers are facing consequences for their reported hateful actions."

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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