Mideast War blowback

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The protests at Columbia University last spring were dogged: Students galvanized by the war in Gaza staged demonstrations for weeks on end, erected tent cities on campus lawns and annexed a university building.

But nearly a year later, as the university again finds itself at the center of unprecedented controversy, the student revolt that captivated the world appears to be largely absent.

Students say that amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on international student protesters, the harsh punishment of some of last year’s participants and the university's new rules restricting campus demonstrations, speaking out simply isn’t worth the risk.

A freshman Columbia engineering student said he felt “proud” last year as he watched the protests from his home in Texas. But the student, who asked NBC News not to publish his name because of the sensitivity around the war in Gaza, said that while he’d like to join protests this year, he won’t.

“It’s too dangerous, frankly,” the 18-year-old student said. “Not every family of the people that will go out to protest have the financial capabilities to be able to afford a lawyer in the event that you’re pressed charges.”

Sebastian Javadpoor, a senior who leads the university’s student-led Democratic club, agreed. Students are avoiding protests by choice, he said: “You have students who are not participating in protests because they’re terrified.”

The crackdown goes far beyond Columbia. In recent days, immigration authorities have arrested students at Georgetown University, Tufts University and the University of Alabama. NBC News obtained a video of authorities detaining Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student, on Tuesday. It shows several Department of Homeland Security officers in plainclothes surrounding Ozturk, a Turkish national, grabbing her hands and taking her away as she screamed out in confusion.

Last Friday, threatened by the Trump administration with the loss of $400 million in federal research grants for “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students,” the university acquiesced to sweeping changes.

Columbia agreed to ban masks at protests in most cases, enlist 36 new campus security officers — who, unlike previous security officers, will have the ability to arrest students — and hire a senior vice provost to oversee the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African studies, according to a document the university said it shared with the federal government and posted on its website Friday.

But students and faculty members protested the arrests and the changes in policy only a handful of times in recent weeks.

Unlike the sprawling demonstrations last year, a student protest on March 14 was confined to a small, tight space outside the university gates. It was surrounded by police barricades and lasted just a few hours.

On Monday, a few dozen faculty members held a vigil for democracy, which also took place off campus. A student activist group also encouraged students to sit out of classes and wear masks in defiance of the partial ban. Yet the response was muted, students said.

Most of the dozens of students NBC News approached in recent weeks declined to speak on the record. Many said they feared speaking out would get them in trouble with the university. (Earlier this month, the university announced that it suspended or expelled some of the students who participated in the takeover of Hamilton Hall last year.)

Others said they feared that voicing their opinions would draw the ire of federal authorities. And some said they were simply fatigued by the controversies engulfing the university.

Allie Wong, a Ph.D. student who was arrested while protesting on campus in April, said the Trump administration’s actions and the university’s response have had a “tremendous chilling effect” on a campus known for challenging authority.

n 1968, Columbia students similarly took over Hamilton Hall to protest the U.S. government’s involvement in the Vietnam War, prompting more than 700 arrests. Not including last year, students blockaded or occupied the university academic building again at least four more times since then, according to the university’s website.

“There’s this pride that this is the epicenter of constructive dialogue and social change,” Wong said.

But things are different now, she said. “It’s not uncommon that people get arrested during protests,” she said. “It is uncommon that in the aftermath of protests, a year later, that the president of the United States is going through and actively targeting individuals to make a spectacle out of it.”

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department “makes no apologies for its efforts to defend President Trump’s agenda in court and protect Jewish Americans from vile antisemitism.”

Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the pressure put on Columbia by the federal government is an attempt to bring universities “to heel” and poses grave First Amendment concerns for other schools.

“The goal is not just to chill that kind of speech at Columbia, but to chill it everywhere,” Wizner said, “and to communicate to every university, public and private, that if you don’t engage in these kinds of crackdowns on your own, we’re going to impose them with the threat of crippling funding cuts.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in interviews this week that there was no timetable to restore the university’s funding but that Columbia was “on the right track.”

Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said he was “disappointed” that Columbia didn’t push back against the administration’s demands. The AAUP, which defends the rights of faculty, sued several federal agencies Monday, arguing that the actions violated the professors’ right to free speech.

If the university won’t “stand up and fight back” against government incursions, he said, “then it’s likely we won’t have the kind of higher education which has been the engine of this country’s economy and democracy for the last 100 years.”

Michael Thaddeus, a professor of mathematics at Columbia who joined Monday's protest, said the mood among the faculty is “profound alarm and dismay.”

Still, to an outsider, life on campus might appear status quo, he said.

“Classes are continuing, athletic competition is continuing, the libraries are open. I was watching a campus tour go by outside,” said Thaddeus. “It’s just a weird combination of normal and very abnormal.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, as the White House increasingly targets foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism.

Rubio warned that the administration was looking out for “these lunatics.” Around the country, scholars have been picked up, in some cases by masked immigration agents, and held in detention centers, sometimes a thousand miles from their homes with little warning and often with few details about why they were being detained.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said at a news conference in Guyana, where he was meeting with leaders.

Many of those rounded up by Trump officials attended or were part of the pro-Palestinian movement that swept college campuses last year, and while the administration hasn’t said publicly why these students are being singled out over others, at least one sought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appeared on lists made by far-right pro-Israel groups as targets for deportation.

And Trump allies, many in government again, telegraphed for months before he took office that they’d seek to deport students who openly advocated for Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist groups or after they participated in an unauthorized campus protest and were suspended, expelled or jailed.

The detentions are a signal of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to clamp down on the actions of legal permanent residents, student visa holders and others who live and work legally in the United States, one that threatens to undermine a fundamental American right to free speech and to assemble, experts and advocates said.

“There’s something uniquely disturbing about sending a message to the best and the brightest around the world, who traditionally have flocked to U.S. universities because of their openness, because of their freedom, because of their intellectual vigor, and now say, ‘We don’t want you here,’” said Ben Wizner, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has repeatedly said the administration’s deportation policy is “worst first,” meaning it is prioritizing removing people with criminal records or people suspected of being national security threats. According to the Department of Homeland Security data, there are at least 400,000 noncitizens convicted of crimes in the United States. The administration has sent more than 200 Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, alleging that the migrants have gang ties, claims that families and attorneys of some of those deported have strongly denied.

Targeting students is a shift from their stated goal of going after criminals, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Bush-Joseph said that for noncitizens, “the government has so much discretion when it comes to granting or taking away immigration benefits, and that can be done based on a number of reasons.”

The State Department has used as justification for some student deportation proceedings an immigration provision that dates to the Cold War and gives Rubio the authority to deport noncitizens if their activities pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” And U.S. officials can revoke a student visa if they deem the student a threat.

Some scholars have already been deported.

Another was Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who was in the United States with a valid student visa and pulled off the street.

Ozturk co-authored an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper last year criticizing the university for how it responded to student demands, calling for the school to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” The essay, which was authored by four students and endorsed by 32 others, does not mention Hamas.

In response to questions about Ozturk’s arrest, Rubio questioned why “any country in the world” would allow people to come into their countries and disrupt college campuses.

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to be a social activist that comes in and tears up our university campuses,” he said.

“If you invite me into your home because I say, ‘Oh, I want to go to your house for dinner,’ and I come into your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, I bet you you’re going to kick me out,” Rubio said.

Ozturk is being held at a Louisiana detention facility. It’s not clear where Doroudi has been sent, and little is known about his case.

The National Iranian American Council demanded information on Doroudi’s whereabouts and whether he’d been charged with a crime and called for those “unjustly detained” to be released.

“Doroudi’s arrest comes on the heels of the baseless arrest of students and a green card holder as apparent retaliation against their speech and activism against war,” the group said.

Meanwhile, one far-right group has compiled names and other identifying information of students and professionals — both noncitizens and U.S. citizens — who are alleged to be “promoting hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on college campuses,” saying its goal is to combat antisemitism on campuses. Another group says it handed the Trump administration a list of hundreds of names for deportation; at least one of the students listed on both sites, Momodou Taal, has been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation and asked to surrender to ICE. Taal, a Ph.D. student who is a U.S. visa holder, participated in protests at Cornell University expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza.

A doctoral student at the University of Alabama has been arrested and detained by immigration authorities, as the Trump administration continues to target noncitizens in higher education.

The university said in a Wednesday statement that the student was recently "detained off campus by federal immigration authorities." Due to federal privacy laws, the college couldn't reveal any more about the case, but it added that international students are "valued members of the campus community."

The Crimson White, the university's newspaper, reported that the man is Iranian national Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral candidate studying mechanical engineering. He was arrested at home at 5 a.m. ET Tuesday, the newspaper reported.

According to records available on ICE’s website, Doroudi is currently being held in a “detention facility.”

It is not clear why he was detained, what charges he may face, or if he has retained a lawyer. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democratic senators said in a Thursday hearing that the Trump administration is undermining its own goal of addressing antisemitism on college campuses by firing the federal staffers who investigate civil rights issues in schools.

t the same time, however, the Department of Education terminated half the staff in its Office for Civil Rights, the congressionally mandated arm of the agency that investigates failures by schools to address discrimination. As of mid-January, the office had 12,000 open investigations but recently stopped updating its list of pending cases.

During a hearing about campus antisemitism held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said slashing staff at the Office for Civil Rights while trying to crack down on discrimination is like axing the fire department while trying to fight fires.

“You can’t just cut an agency in half and pretend everything’s fine,” Murray said.

Rabbi David Saperstein, one of the hearing witnesses and a former United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, agreed that downsizing the civil rights office harms Jewish students, particularly because it will increase caseloads for investigators.

“They’re grinding it to a halt,” Saperstein said, “and it is the students of America of all kinds who are facing discriminations that are going to suffer.”

Catherine Lhamon, the head of the Office for Civil Rights under the Biden administration, told NBC News earlier this month that investigators were averaging around 50 cases per person when she left the government in January. With the office now slashed in half, it’s expected that caseloads would significantly increase.

Harvard University announced that it would pause a research partnership with Birzeit University, a Palestinian school, following public pressure, the Harvard Crimson reported last week.

The decision to suspend ties with the West Bank university comes as pro-Palestinian activists at campuses across the United States and the world have long called on their schools to sever ties with Israel.

In 2022, the Crimson’s editorial board endorsed an Israel boycott. Its graduate student union followed suit in November 2023, shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, triggering the ongoing war.

In the wake of the October 7 attack, a parallel campaign at Harvard has called on the school to end a public health-oriented partnership with Birzeit.

The campaign was endorsed by former Harvard president Larry Summers as well as Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alum who has vocally condemned pro-Palestinian protests and campus antisemitism.

The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance called Birzeit “terrorist-supporting,” citing examples of praise for Hamas on campus as well as an instance when an Israeli Jewish reporter for Haaretz was asked to leave the school.

In July, the Shin Bet foiled a terror plot led by representatives on the university’s student council, where Hamas activists won a landslide victory in 2022.

Last summer, the Harvard School of Public Health launched an internal review into the partnership between the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB) and Birzeit, and decided to pause the program. The review committee will release a final report in the coming weeks.

Harvard’s decision comes as colleges and universities across the country, as well as their students, face increased scrutiny from the Trump administration over policing antisemitism on their campuses.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Education sent letters to 60 universities, including Harvard, alerting them of investigations into alleged antisemitism on their campuses.

As it pauses the program at Birzeit, Harvard is due to increase its ties with Israel.

In January, as part of two settlements with Jewish groups claiming the school had fostered an antisemitic environment, Harvard pledged to partner with an Israeli university.

The American-Israeli director of a new film version of a controversial “antisemitic” play has strongly defended the production and appealed for people to approach it with an “open mind” and “put aside their preconceptions.”

Omri Dayan told The Times of Israel that British playwright Caryl Churchill’s 2009 play “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” is a “humanistic political piece of art.”

“I really hope that this film can reintroduce this piece to people in a way that they maybe haven’t seen before,” he said. “I hope that it can help people, like it’s helped me… understand what it means to be Jewish, learn about our history, learn about our humanity and try to improve ourselves, because that’s what art’s about.”

The film premiered in London on March 31 and will be screened elsewhere in the UK and in New York in April.

But campaigners against antisemitism have attacked the decision to produce a film version of the short drama, in which an anonymous Jewish family discusses what to tell their daughter about key moments in Jewish and Israeli history. The play’s seven brief scenes stretch from early 20th century pogroms through the Holocaust, the birth of the State of Israel, the 1967 Six Day War and Second Intifada, and conclude with the 2009 Gaza war.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Dave Rich, director of policy at the Community Security Trust, said of the decision to release the film at a time when antisemitic incidents in the UK are at record levels.

“In an atmosphere in which antisemitism has become thoroughly normalized in progressive politics, we should not be surprised that an antisemitic play, and in particular this antisemitic play, is revived,” said Rich, author of “Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into Our World.”

The author of more than 30 plays, 86-year-old Churchill is a long-time patron of the far-left Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Churchill’s original play was first staged at London’s Royal Court Theater in February 2009, just weeks after the end of Operation Cast Lead.

The play immediately attracted fierce criticism from leading British Jews and communal groups, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews. It termed Churchill’s work “horrifically anti-Israel” and claimed it went “beyond the boundaries [of] reasonable political discourse.”

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, a number of prominent British Jews, including actors Maureen Lipman and Tracy Ann Oberman, businessman and philanthropist Mick Davis, and academic Geoffrey Alderman said the play “demonizes Israelis by reinforcing false stereotypes” and was “historically inaccurate,” noting its failure to reference Israel’s post-1967 offers of “land for peace,” the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza which precipitated both the 2008-2009 war and several later conflicts.

The play also attracted mixed reviews from theater critics.

“’Seven Jewish Children’ isn’t art, it’s straitjacketed political orthodoxy. No surprises, no challenges, no risks. Only the enclosed, fetid, smug, self-congratulating and entirely irrelevant little world of contemporary political theater,” wrote The Sunday Times’s Christopher Hart, accusing Churchill of a “ludicrous and utterly predictable lack of even-handedness.”

Churchill was given the prestigious European Drama Award in 2022. The decision was later reversed when the Germany-based jury responsible for the decision was made aware of her support for the BDS movement, which the German parliament has designated as antisemitic. A statement at the time explaining the U-turn also cited “Seven Jewish Children,” noting it “can also be regarded as being antisemitic.”

All in the family
Dayan first discovered the play during a visit to Israel in 2022 when members of his family were discussing the controversy surrounding Churchill’s withdrawn drama award. “I felt myself drawn to the piece,” he said. “It has such a concise and poetic and yet deeply understanding and thought-out language, which not only encompasses the historical, but also the collective
Filming on the project was conducted in August 2023, and Dayan recruited both his father, writer and director Ami Dayan, and grandmother, actor Rivka Michaeli, to appear in it. He describes their participation as “a joy… a wonderful experience and collaboration.”

“This dialogue between generations and between family members is a huge part of what shaped my life, and it’s also what usually draws me into a story,” he said. “So it felt very natural and almost a given that they should be part of telling the story. It helped me tremendously in creating that atmosphere of a family, of the warmth that we feel, [and] the unconditional love.”

At the time of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught on southern Israel, the film was in the late stage of editing.

After a break of a few weeks, the young director returned to the editing room.

He says little was changed in the final cut.

“The sad thing is that the last shot of the film is alluding to the fact that there will be more chapters to this story,” Dayan said. “That was a very intentional thing I was doing when we were filming it, but we had no idea that we’d be living through that chapter as we’re releasing [it].”

At the same time, he said, while the film was shot before October 7, “it looks like it was filmed as a reaction to [it], because we’ve been knowing the path that we’re going down for so long, and yet we’re not doing anything to change it.”

Not an attack on Jews, merely critical of Israel
The original play — which Churchill allows to be staged without the payment of royalties if a collection for the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians takes place — went from writing to performance in under a month.

“I wrote it last week,” the playwright told The Guardian days after the January 2009 ceasefire. “It’s only a small play, 10 minutes long, but it’s a way of looking at what’s happened and to raise money for the people who’ve suffered there.”

Churchill has staunchly defended the play, arguing in 2022 it was about “families wanting to protect children and wondering what to tell them about terrible things, a pogrom, the Holocaust, finally the bombing of Gaza.”

Churchill claimed: “It is critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians; it is not an attack on all Jews, many of whom are also critical of Israeli policy. It is wrong to conflate Israel with all Jews. A political play has made political enemies, who attack it with slurs of antisemitism.”

Dayan dismissed the notion that rising levels of antisemitism in the UK and internationally make it a poor time to release the film.

“I think that it’s more important now than ever to show the world that we as the Jewish people… [are] not the same as Israel,” he said. “Judaism and Israel… are not the same thing.”

The London-based filmmaker argued that art critical of Israel is too often labeled as antisemitic

This creates a smokescreen that hides voices of opposition to Israel, both in Israel and outside,” Dayan said, “when there’s real antisemitism happening [now] and we need to put the focus where it deserves and not on a piece of art that’s calling for our humanity.”

‘It’s pure gaslighting’
Critics, however, remain unconvinced by defenses of Churchill’s work.

“I think it is such an important example of the double standard and innate suspicion that the weathermakers of progressive thought bring to their treatment of Jews,” said Rich. “There is no way on earth that Caryl Churchill’s response to Islamist violence would have been to fantasize about what she imagines Muslim parents teach their children, or that the Royal Court would have put on such a play, or that the Guardian would have produced its own version.”

“But where Jews are concerned, we are treated as some kind of alien group to be poked and prodded like some kind of anthropological-psychiatric study,” he said. “And of course, we are then expected to believe that when they say ‘Jewish’ they are just criticizing Israel. It’s pure gaslighting.”

Dave Rich, head of policy at Britain’s Community Security Trust. (Courtesy CST)
The closing scene, set against the backdrop of war in Gaza, Rich said, features a monologue containing “a combination of antisemitic tropes”:

“Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them,” says a family member. “Tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now… Tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out… tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.”

Dr. David Hirsh, chief executive of the London Center for Antisemitism, is similarly critical of the play, saying it “portrays Jews as indoctrinating their children to be indifferent to non-Jewish suffering and it gives the impression that this neurotic practice is the cause of the persistence of conflict between Israel and its neighbors.”

“Jews have long been accused of murdering non-Jewish children,” Hirsch said. “Today, it is considered legitimate to accuse Israel of executing a deliberate plan to murder non-Jewish children by the thousand. The blood libel is back.”

At the time of the play’s first performance in 2009, British novelist Howard Jacobson condemned it as “a hate-fueled little chamber-piece.”

“Once you venture onto ‘chosen people’ territory — feeding all the ancient prejudice against that miscomprehended phrase — once you repeat in another form the medieval blood-libel of Jews rejoicing in the murder of little children, you have crossed over,” he wrote in The Independent newspaper. “This is the old stuff. Jew-hating pure and simple.”

Dayan believes the notion that the play contains antisemitic tropes is “completely outrageous.”

“I really encourage people to move past that initial discomfort we all have,” said Dayan. “Unfortunately, anything that touches Israel and Palestine is inherently political nowadays… but it’s also something that we need to challenge. We’re talking about a piece that is all about nurturing and protecting the next generation.”

“It’s talking about the pain that we as Jewish people have gone through and it’s tackling that and I hope that we can learn to use these traumas not to lessen our humanity, but to widen it,” he said.

Yale Law School (YLS) terminated the employment of a scholar over her refusal to cooperate with an investigation into her alleged ties to a terrorist entity, according to a university statement released on Friday.

Associate research scholar Helyeh Doutaghi had been suspended in early March after the AI news website, Jewish Onliner, exposed her connections to the Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which was sanctioned by the US treasury in October as a “sham charity” fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The school said that it does not take administrative action based on press reports, nor does it infringe upon protected speech, but Yale’s own review of the material, including a Samidoun text identifying Doutaghi as a member, drove it to the conclusion that further investigation was warranted.

As part of university protocol, Doutaghi was placed on administrative leave. Yale claimed that for three weeks, it had requested to meet with Doutaghi and her attorney to obtain clarity on the matter, but she allegedly refused to answer “critical questions.”

Doutaghi’s employment with Yale was set to expire in April but was terminated immediately instead.

In a March 12 statement posted to X/Twitter, Doutaghi dismissed the claims against her as fabricated, AI-generated allegations. She accused Yale of accepting the allegations at face value without first investigating the source.

Doutaghi's allegation
Doutaghi alleged that she was not afforded due process or reasonable time to consult with her attorney before being placed on leave, having her electronic access revoked, and being restricted from accessing the campus.The Iranian woman lambasted the interview process. She said that the lawyer who was retained to investigate her offers services related to Israel and aerospace and defense companies.

Doutaghi charged that this, alongside this specific lawyer, David Ring, having been previously appointed as a US State Department special compliance officer, indicated that “his career was deeply embedded in the very industries that sustain genocide and war crimes in Palestine.”

Since the October 7 massacre, 64% of British Jewish employees experienced antisemitism in their workplaces, according to a survey published Tuesday by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and Work Avenue.

The online survey conducted at the end of 2024 found that 11.5% of respondents frequently experienced antisemitism from colleagues or clients since October 2023, while 52% said rarely or occasionally. Thirty-six percent of participants said they had never experienced antisemitism

The 427 survey participants related 128 incidents that occurred in conversations that they were part of, and another 83 that they overheard. Some 102 incidents occurred over email and internal communications, and 109 over text messages. Another 32 incidents occurred over social media, which the report said indicated the overlap between personal and professional life.

Blood libel and other antisemitic conspiracies revive
One respondent related that three days after the Hamas-led pogrom in Israel, a receptionist had told them, “I don’t feel sorry for you Jews, you kill Muslim babies at Passover.”

Around a third of the participants who were part of a trade union said that they had experienced antisemitism in their union.

I am a member of the National Education Union,” shared one participant. “There is an expectation that you must agree with a particular stance on Israel or risk being ostracized.”
Fifteen respondents said they had left their unions due to feeling uncomfortable about the environment, while another 34 felt unable to leave because of a lack of viable alternatives. Some found their unions unsupportive, and one had a positive experience on the matter.
Work Avenue CEO Debbie Lebrett said the results were shocking but not surprising.

“The workplace should be a safe space,” said Lebrett. “To see not only a high incidence of antisemitism, but also a failure to address it, is deeply concerning.”

About half of respondents described receiving some degree of support from their workplaces, union or non-union. Fifty-two percent noted that their workplaces held diversity training but didn’t discuss antisemitism, and 15% said that the training discussed antisemitism.

The survey also asked if employers released a statement about the October 7 attacks and the ensuing war. Half of the respondents said yes, but another 48% gave an extremely low rating to how supportive these statements were. Only 11% said the statements were neutral.

The report noted that the survey relied on self-reporting and voluntary participation, which could introduce response bias.

European Parliament Member Grzegorz Braun was suspended for 30 days from the European Parliament plenary activities for his disruption of a January 29 moment of silence for victims of the Holocaust, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced at the opening of the Monday plenary session.

The monarchist Confederation of the Polish Crown chairman and MEP, who had called out “Let’s pray for the victims of the Jewish genocide in Gaza” during the moment of silence, was suspended from participation in the next Holocaust commemoration session.

According to a Tuesday parliament press release, Braun’s 30-day plenary suspension and his forfeiture of his daily subsistence allowance began on March 10

Braun is no stranger to controversy, having used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament in 2023, defending his actions as restoring “normality.”

He had said at the time, “Those who take part in acts of satanic worship should be ashamed.”

The University of Technology Sydney is investigating an anti-Israel campus rally last Wednesday in which a speaker said it was their “duty” to make Jews “uncomfortable,” a UTS spokesperson confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

At the rally, which was part of the Australia-wide 2025 National Day of Action for Palestine, academic Peter Slezak stated that “Jews in particular should feel uncomfortable and it’s our duty to make them uncomfortable.”

Slezak had been paraphrasing Macquarie University professor Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah, adding that he agreed with the sentiment. The Jewish academic intoned that it was important to stand against the State of Israel’s alleged crimes being carried out in the name of other Jews.

Making Jews uncomfortable on campus
“The UTS spokesperson assured that the university has no tolerance for racism or discrimination,” said the spokesperson. “Vice-chancellor Prof. Andrew Parfitt has been clear and continues to make very clear to all staff and students, that while UTS supports the right for students and staff to discuss and debate contentious issues, this should not be at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of others.”

At the protest, activists had urged calling for UTS to cut ties with the Technion and Israel. They also called for UTS to reject academic representative body Universities Australia’s February 27 adoption of an antisemitism definition for its 39 members, asserting that the definition’s acknowledgment of antisemitism disguised as criticism of Israel and emphasis on Jewish self-determination was an attempt to censor Palestinians.

At the protest, activists had urged calling for UTS to cut ties with the Technion and Israel. They also called for UTS to reject academic representative body Universities Australia’s February 27 adoption of an antisemitism definition for its 39 members, asserting that the definition’s acknowledgment of antisemitism disguised as criticism of Israel and emphasis on Jewish self-determination was an attempt to censor Palestinians.

We don’t want two-state, we want all of ’48. Reject UA’s antisemitism definition,” read a banner posted on Instagram by revolutionary socialist group UTS Solidarity Australia.

As part of the nationwide day of action, protests were also held at Australian National University, Sydney University, Western Sydney University, and Melbourne University, the latter of which saw students chant for intifada.

UTS activists also decried the situation of Abdel-Fattah as an example of censorship against pro-Palestinian activists. Slezak had paraphrased Abdel-Fattah, who said, in a Mondoweiss interview last January, that she did believe the feelings of Jewish Zionists took primacy over activism that she believed was against a genocide.

“I believe in fact that it is my duty to make them uncomfortable,” Abdel-Fattah told Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd.

At last Wednesday’s rally, and since February, Australian pro-Palestinian activists have expressed concern over the suspension of an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant for Abdel-Fattah.
Shadow Minister for Education Sen. Sarah Henderson said in a February 27 statement that at a January Queensland University of Technology anti-racism symposium, Abdel-Fattah had bragged about how she had bent the rules of her ARC grant. In 2024, Henderson had raised concern about the over AUD 800,000 grant, due to allegations that she was involved in a doxing campaign against Jewish Australians and led children in chants of “Intifada.”

ARC told the Post in February that a notice of suspension had been issued on February 12 for the grant on Abdel-Fattah’s “Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since the 1970s: a hidden history” study project.

“The ARC’s decision to suspend the grant was not taken lightly or hastily,” said ARC, explaining that the move was done in cooperation with Macquarie University while it investigated the issue.
Macquarie said on February 27 that it was auditing to ensure that the grant funds had been used in line with the purposes for which they were provided, as well as holding a review of the conduct of the research.

Abdel-Fattah said in an Instagram post the same day that she would be “fighting this racist process.”

A February 10 Overland open letter by Australian scholars condemned Clare’s “interference into the independence of the ARC” and to instead guaranteeing the academic freedom of those who support “Palestinian liberation.”

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network said in a February 28 statement that Abdel-Fattah’s research was unfairly suspended due to political pressure from politicians and pro-Israel groups.

Anti-Israel protest group Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s Instagram account was disabled, the group announced on Monday, amid increased scrutiny of belligerent activism at the university and new policies implemented in cooperation with the US federal government.

CUAD shared on Telegram a screenshot of a message posted on Instagram explaining that the group no longer had access to the account because it didn’t follow community guidelines and that the information would be deleted. The notification cautioned that there would be no review of the decision. As of writing, the Instagram account is still inaccessible.

“Meta has censored and disabled our Instagram for the second time because we dared to speak up for Palestine,” CUAD said on Telegram. “This is part of a long and concerted imperial effort to censor and erase the Palestinian people.”

CUAD said Monday on X, formerly Twitter, that Meta’s decision was part of collusion between corporations and governments to censor pro-Palestinian activity, including that of Within Our Lifetime and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine. According to JTA, WOL’s Instagram account was disabled last February. The Jerusalem Post previously reported that Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine was banned from Instagram in August, at the beginning of the school year.

The case of Mahmoud Khalil
The CUAD Instagram account went into a temporary lull of activity following the arrest and green card revocation of one of its leaders, Mahmoud Khalil, on March 8.

Khalil’s arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is still being litigated. Reuters reported on Tuesday that US District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that the activist’s case could be heard in New Jersey rather than in the more conservative Louisiana, where he is currently being held in a detainment facility.

The disabling of the CUAD social media account comes not long after Columbia’s March 21 adoption of conditions for resumption of federal grants and contracts as set out in a March 13 Education Department letter to the administration. This included development and commitment to enforcing disciplinary actions against anti-Israel encampment protesters.

Columbia reiterated some of the campus changes in a Tuesday statement, explaining that it would be reducing reliance on the New York Police Department by fielding its own special patrol officers with the authority to issue citations and make arrests. The public safety team has “enhanced training and legal authority that will enable us to respond more effectively and promptly to campus disruptions.”

The university also clarified that its new identification rules require anyone on campus to present an ID if requested to do so by officers. Wearing a mask to conceal one’s identity while violating laws or university policies was no longer permitted.

Tufts University petitioned a federal judge to release student Rümeysa Öztürk late Wednesday, some of the strongest public pushback by a school against the Trump administration's arrests of foreign students.

The university's declaration of support came a day before a hearing in Öztürk's case that will take place on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.

Öztürk, a doctoral student from Turkey, was apprehended by immigration authorities on March 25 in Sommerville, Massachusetts, the home of Tufts. She is currently being held at a detention center in Louisiana.

Video shows several Department of Homeland Security officers in plainclothes surrounding Öztürk, grabbing her by the wrists and taking her away into an SUV as she screamed out in confusion.

In its written declaration, Tufts said that it saw no reason for her detention, calling her "a valued member of the community."

"The University seeks relief so that Ms. Öztürk is released without delay so that she can return to complete her studies and finish her degree at Tufts University," the university said.

A lawyer for the Department of Justice who is representing the federal government in Öztürk's case declined to comment.

The Trump administration has cited a rarely used provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify Öztürk's and other students' arrests in recent weeks. The rarely executed clause allows the secretary of state to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines their presence in the country would result in “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."

Esha Bhandari, one of Öztürk's attorneys, told NBC News that under the Trump administration's reasoning, they "can use this provision ... to suppress all kinds of speech that is opposed to this government's foreign policy."

"You can see how opposition to the administration on climate change might be seen as a foreign policy interest, opposition to the government’s policies on Ukraine might trigger foreign policy interests," she said in a phone call. "Any criticism of the government's foreign policy itself could be deemed a foreign policy consequence meriting removal."

Tufts noted in its declaration that Öztürk co-authored an opinion piece in the university's student newspaper last year, criticizing the university's response to the war in Gaza and demanding it divest from ties to Israel. The university said that the piece did not violate its policies or "constitute a violation of the University’s understanding of the Immigration and Naturalization Act."

It also raised concerns that her detention implicated the "free movement" of its international students.

The University has heard from students, faculty and staff who are forgoing opportunities to speak at international conferences and avoiding or postponing international travel," the university wrote. "In the worst cases, many report being fearful of leaving their homes, even to attend and teach classes on campus."

The Thursday hearing for Öztürk's case will take place at 2 p.m. ET. As outlined in a reply brief in support of the amended petition Öztürk’s attorneys filed in court on Wednesday, her attorneys will argue that her detention was retaliatory for the op-ed she published last year and that she should be released immediately.

“Rumeysa’s arrest and detention are designed to punish her speech and chill the speech of others," the petition reads. "Indeed, her arrest and detention are part of a concerted and systemic effort by Trump administration officials to punish students and others identified with pro-Palestine activism."

Öztürk’s lawyers also argued that she be returned to Massachusetts from the detention center authorities moved her to in Louisiana. Several other students arrested in recent weeks have similarly been moved thousands of miles away from their homes and sites of their arrests to detention centers in Louisiana. NBC News has previously reported on human rights abuses taking place at detention centers in the state

The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a bid to block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel over the human rights crisis facing Palestinians in Gaza following Israel's bombardment of the enclave and suspension of humanitarian aid deliveries.

The Senate voted 82-15 and 83-15 to reject two resolutions of disapproval over sales of massive bombs and other offensive military equipment. The resolutions were offered by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

In each case, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin voted "present."

A decades-long tradition of strong bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress means resolutions to stop weapons sales are unlikely to pass, but backers hope raising the issue will encourage Israel's government and US administrations to do more to protect civilians.

In remarks urging support for the resolutions, Sanders described the toll on civilians - with thousands of children facing malnutrition and starvation, especially from a recent blockade of humanitarian assistance.

"What is happening right now is unthinkable. Today it is 31 days and counting with absolutely no humanitarian aid getting into Gaza, nothing. No food, no water, no medicine, no fuel, for over a month," Sanders said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch urged defeat of the Sanders resolutions, saying, "They would abandon Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, during a pivotal moment for global security."

Anti-Israel activists blocked access to classes at McGill University on Wednesday as part of a student union-backed strike to pressure the Montreal institution to cut ties with companies with ties to Israel.

Masked and keffiyeh-clad activists raised banners in front of classrooms, in what Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights called on Instagram picket lines. The group claims that "over 16 auditorium classrooms were confronted with student-led pickets, effectively enforcing the strike mandate."

According to SPHR, activists demanded that other students not attend class, and encouraged them to join their own lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Bnai Brith Canada claimed on X that protesters disrupted classes during the call for a student strike.

Classes during student strike
On Tuesday a petition was circulated online asking students to report professors who held classes during the strike, according to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). SSMU condemned the petition and any other actions contrary to a peaceful strike, and emphasized that students and staff had no obligation to participate in the action.

"While we support and encourage participation, we strongly denounce any acts or communications that are meant to intimidate others, including those who choose not to participate," SSMU said in a Wednesday statement. "Any actor who attempts to threaten or pressure students or faculty into participating, either through physical intimidation, online harassment campaigns, or otherwise, does not speak for the SSMU, and we firmly condemn such actions."

The strike is set to last from Wednesday until Friday, according to a motion passed in a Special Strike General Assembly last Thursday.

The purpose of the "strike in support of Palestinian liberation" to demand that McGill divest from "corporations supporting military activity in Gaza, an end to institutional relationships with complicit entities, and a cessation of suppression of student activism on campus."

McGill has repeatedly taken a stance of neutrality on the ongoing conflict, as noted by the McGill Board of Governors when discussing a Committee on Sustainability and Social Responsibility report on divestment from defense firms in February. After a February 5 incident in which five campus buildings' windows were smashed by anti-Israel activists, McGill University President and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini emphasized that the university was clear in its position against Boycott, Divest, and Sanction policies.

Two Jewish DePaul students filed a lawsuit against the university seeking over $50,000 in damages on Wednesday, accusing them of failing to protect them from assault.

The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, seeks damages for an event outside the DePaul Student Center on November 6, 2024, when masked attackers punched the Jewish students while they displayed their support for Israel.

The lawsuit alleged that "DePaul was, and still is, an extremely dangerous college campus due to the profound safety and security failures of its Public Safety Office, especially for Jewish and/or Israeli students," ABC reported.

The lawsuit claims a "DePaul public safety officer stationed just 10 feet away at the time did not intervene," CBS reported.

"At that point, a different Public Safety Officer stopped one of the assailants, but then inexplicably let him go," the lawsuit claims, according to CBS.

Chicago police said the attackers shouted antisemitic statements before attacking the two Jewish students, CBS added.

One of the students, Max Long, who was serving in the IDF during the Hamas's October 7 massacre, was attempting to speak with classmates "about Israel's efforts to defend itself," when he was attacked, CBS reported.

Michael Kaminsky then stepped in to support Max, and was also attacked. This resulted in an injury to Kaminsky's wrist which required surgery, his attorney Jaclyn Clark was cited by CBS as saying.

Long lost consciousness and suffered a brain injury, Fox News noted.

Kaminsky claimed that Long no longer attends class in person, but rather joins via an online connection, according to the Jewish Journal.
"DePaul University has done nothing to put a stop to this harassment, nor have they made any genuine effort since the attack to ensure the safety of their Jewish students moving forward," Clark said, according to CBS.

Long and Kaminsky claim the university was "aware of growing complaints of antisemitism on campus" but "didn't do enough to protect them," CBS reported.

According to the lawsuit, Long complained to the university about harassment and threats at prior campus discussions about the Israel-Hamas War, CBS notes.

The lawsuit also highlighted that a pro-Palestinian encampment had been set up for over two weeks in May 2024, leading to over 1,000 complaints, including credible threats of violence and at least one death threat.

Chicago Police removed the encampment after knives and pellet guns were found.

The lawsuit also alleged that DePaul ended a contract with a private security firm days before the November incident, only to rehire the firm after the event, CBS reported.

"Video footage captured part of the altercation, but no arrests have been reported," Fox News reported, but the attack is being treated by Chicago Police as a hate crime, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

A Jewish Princeton senior and US Army veteran accused of assaulting the school’s head of campus security during a pro-Palestinian protest last year has been found not guilty.

A New Jersey judge delivered the verdict Tuesday, the same day that Princeton’s president announced the school’s federal funding had been frozen by the Trump administration amid investigations into campus antisemitism.

Last April, David Piegaro, who self-describes as a “pro-Israel ‘citizen journalist,’” was attempting to film a sit-in on the campus when he had an altercation with Kenneth Strother Jr., the assistant vice president for public safety. Piegaro said he was not a part of the protests or counter-protests on Princeton’s campus, according to The New York Times

Piegaro was attempting to follow Strother and two other people into a building adjacent to the sit-in when Strother blocked him from entry.

He proceeded to record the group and asked for Strother’s identity. In the recording of the incident, Piegaro says “don’t touch me” before the video cuts out, according to NYT

Details over the ensuing altercation remain unclear. Strother asserted that Piegaro resisted arrest and Piegaro said he was the victim of assault, but the incident resulted in Piegaro falling down the steps of the building, where he was then arrested, according to NYTl

“The defendant, in my opinion, showed poor judgment in a tense moment, but it does not rise to the level of criminal recklessness,” said Judge John F. McCarthy III while issuing the verdict.

Barred from campus
Following his arrest, Piegaro was barred from the campus for two weeks, a period during which he stayed with the director of Princeton’s Chabad House for a few days.

“In that environment, speaking specifically to the events of that day, when you have a whole host of public safety officers, administrators — I think doing their best — it’s not surprising that mistakes would get made,” Rabbi Eitan Webb told NYT.

Piegaro was arrested alongside 13 student protestors the day of the sit-in, making him one of 3,100 people arrested last spring surrounding pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the country, according to NYT. The trials for the other students on trespassing charges are set for June.

The administration of President Donald Trump plans to freeze $510 million in grants to Brown University over what it calls antisemitism on campus, a US official told Reuters on Thursday, but the university said it had not yet been formally notified.

The administration's action makes Brown the latest academic institution targeted by Trump over this issue. The US Education Department sent a letter last month to 60 universities, including Brown, warning it could bring enforcement actions against them.

The US official spoke on condition of anonymity.

In an email to campus leaders on Thursday shared by a Brown University spokesperson, its provost, Frank Doyle, said the university was aware of "troubling rumors emerging about federal action on Brown research grants" but added it had "no information to substantiate any of these rumors."

"We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now," he added.

A Harvard anti-Israel student activist group was placed on probation, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity said on Wednesday, following a protest against the firing of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies leadership and scrutiny by the federal government of campus antisemitism and radicalism.

Harvard PSC said on Instagram that the university administration had been banned from holding public events until June 30, allegedly over a Tuesday protest that was co-sponsored with unrecognized organizations. PSC noted that the ban came the weekend before it was slated to install its annual Israeli Apartheid Wall exhibit.

"We call on all student organizations to stand with the movement for Palestine -- silence will not save us," said PSC.

The group urged supporters to contact Harvard president Alan Garber about the matter.

Harvard anti-Israel protests
Hundreds of students had protested on Tuesday at a Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) rally outside a faculty meeting, according to a HOOP social media video. PSC said the students were acting against "Harvard’s capitulation to the fascist [US President Donald] Trump administration" and its "purge in the Palestine Studies."

PSC highlighted the end of the roles of Center for Middle Eastern Studies Director Professor Cemal Kafadar and associate director Associate Professor Rosie Bsheer last Friday. Harvard American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued a Monday statement rejecting the change in leadership of the center as voluntary, accusing the administration of dismissing them without proper process. The administration allegedly wished for more politically neutral programming on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

"These terminations violate the principle of academic freedom at the heart of our institutional mission and set a bleak precedent for free inquiry and expertise at the university," said AAUP. "At a minimum, the administration of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences should release any reports or evaluations of CMES’s alleged failure to meet its new standard."

PSC on Wednesday also noted Harvard's suspension of ties with Birzeit University, a Palestinian school, which has seen regular Hamas activism on its campus. The Harvard Crimson had reported the suspension of the research partnership last Thursday. JTA reported that since the October 7 Massacre there have been calls to end the partnership with the West Bank institution, backed by former Harvard President Larry Summers as well as alumna congresswoman Rep. Elise Stefanik.

On Monday the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that it was reviewing $255.6 million in contracts and more than $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments with Harvard to ensure its compliance with civil rights responsibilities. Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon said that Harvard had failed to protect students from antisemitic discrimination and promoted "divisive ideologies." Federal Acquisition Service commissioner Josh Gruenbaum said that the university had recently taken "long overdue" action to curb institutionalized antisemitism, but more needed to be done to "retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayer's hard earned dollars."

Garber responded in a Monday statement by reminding of the institution's efforts thus far to discipline students and institute new programs against harassment, but acknowledged that the university had shortcomings and promised to address the critical problems of antisemitism.
"I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university," said Garber. "We will engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism."

Stanford University is the latest California school to report that several students and alumni have had their visas revoked as part of a sweeping crackdown by the Trump administration.

Stanford confirmed in a statement Sunday that six members of its community had their visas revoked, including four students and two recent graduates.

“The University learned of the revocations during a routine check of the [Student and Exchange Visitor Information System] database,” it said. “Stanford notified the students of the revocations and made external legal assistance available to them.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, seemingly targeting foreign-born students who participate in political activism. This comes after several high-profile cases of pro-Palestinian scholars being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More than three dozen students and alumni of California universities have had their visas nullified in the last week, though schools did not provide detailed information on the students citing privacy concerns.

The University of California, which is the state's largest public university system, said it was aware of changes to the statuses of international students across multiple campuses.

"This is a fluid situation, and we continue to monitor and assess its implications for the UC community and the people affected," the University of California administration said. "We are committed to doing what we can to support all members of our community as they exercise their rights under the law."

The University of California administration referred NBC News to individual schools to ascertain how many students were impacted at each campus.

Six individuals who attended the nearby University of California, Berkeley, campus also had their student visas revoked. The UC school said in a statement Saturday that two undergraduate students, two graduate students, and two alumni were affected.

The two UC Berkeley alumni were in the U.S. under the STEM Optional Practical Training Extension program, which allowed for a 24-month extension for foreign students to work in a related field.

"Campus officials (and the University of California) are committed to doing what they can to support all members of our community as they exercise their rights under the law," UC Berkeley said. "In doing so, the university will continue to follow all applicable state and federal laws."

Five additional students had their visas revoked at the University of California, San Diego. At the University of California, Davis, seven students and five recent graduates had their visas voided.

"The federal government has not explained the reasons behind these terminations," UC Davis said in a statement. "We recognize that these actions are distressing for many in our campus community. We expect this situation to remain fluid, and we continue to closely monitor and assess its implications."

The University of California, Irvine, released a statement on the issue but did not specify the number of students or alumni affected by the Trump administration's student visa changes. The university said it was "providing guidance and resources to support our community through these developments."

UC Irvine did not immediately respond to a request for information on how many members of its community had their visas revoked.

The Daily Bruin, a student newspaper for the University of California, Los Angeles, reported over the weekend that "multiple" students on its campus were affected.

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk confirmed in a statement Sunday that six currently enrolled students had their visas revoked and another six recent graduates had their OPT visas terminated.

"We recognize that these actions can bring feelings of tremendous uncertainty and anxiety to our community," Frenk wrote. "We want our immigrant and international UCLA students, staff and faculty to know we support your ability to work, learn, teach and thrive here.

A majority of Americans — 53 percent — now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, according to a new Pew survey released Tuesday, which also showed just under a third of Americans have confidence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The question on Israel’s favorability was last included in a Pew survey in March 2022, when 42% expressed a negative view toward the Jewish state.

On a partisan basis, 69% of Democrats view Israel unfavorably compared to 37% of Republicans, with those figures at 53% and 27% respectively in the last survey.

“Younger and older Democrats alike have turned more negative toward Israel over this three-year period, but negative views among younger Democrats have grown by 9 points, compared with a 23-point increase among older Democrats,” the poll states. “Among Republicans, much of the shift in attitudes has come among younger adults. Republicans under 50 are now about as likely to have a negative view of Israel as a positive one (50% vs. 48%). In 2022, they were much more likely to see Israel positively than negatively (63% vs. 35%).”

Asked about their opinion of Netanyahu, 52% of respondents express little or no confidence in him to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” compared to 32% who do have such confidence in him. Pew notes this figure is similar to last year but reports that “the share of Americans with little or no confidence in Netanyahu rose significantly between 2023 and 2024.”

The poll also shows a drop in interest in the Israel-Hamas war as further time passes since the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, with 54% saying the conflict is very or somewhat important to them personally, down from 65% last January.

Twelve protesters were charged on Thursday with felony vandalism for their actions during a June 2024 pro-Palestinian protest at Stanford University in which demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the office of the school president.

Those charged, ranging in age from 19 to 32, entered the building and demonstrated a "conspiracy to occupy" it, prosecutors said, adding that at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. All suspects wore masks, they said.

Dozens of other protesters surrounded the building and chanted: "Palestine will be free."

At the time, the university said 13 people were arrested during the protest, one police officer was injured and the building suffered "extensive" damage.

Protesters renamed the building "Dr. Adnan's Office" in honor of Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.

A Montreal man allegedly involved in the firebombing of a Dollard-des-Ormeaux synagogue and vandalization of a Jewish community building in December was arrested by the Montreal Police Service (SPVM) on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old Anjou resident was set to appear before the Montreal courthouse the same day to face charges for setting a fire to the Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue with an "incendiary object" and smashing two windows of a nearby community center.

Despite the arrest, the criminal investigation is continuing, the SPVM noted in a Wednesday statement.

The pre-dawn arson attack, which was extinguished by a responding police officer, only caused minor damage, but it was the second attack against the site. The building, which houses the synagogue, Hebrew Foundation School, and Federation Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA), had been subject to a similar attack in November 2023. The Jewish community center was also vandalized in the previous incident.

The December arson was featured in B’nai Brith Canada's Monday Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents as among "the most appalling cases featured in the report." B'nai Brith said in a Wednesday statement that in 2024 Quebec had seen a 215.7 percent increase of antisemitic incidents since 2023.

“Since October 7, 2023, Beth Tikvah has been attacked in repeated, shocking displays of antisemitism,” B’nai Brith Canada Research and Advocacy director Richard Robertson said. “Since then, there has been a crisis of antisemitism in Canada. We are pleased that the Montreal police have done their due diligence on this arrest, but more must be done to restore Jewish Canadians’ sense of security and wellbeing.”

McGill University is set to end its contractual relationship with the student union, both institutions announced on Monday, in response to an anti-Israel student strike that led to the blockading and interrupting of classes, vandalism, and violent altercations.

In line with the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement between McGill and the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), due to the termination, a mediated process would be held until June to attempt to resolve their differences.

SSMU said on Monday that all SSMU operations would continue as normal during the mediation process.

The administration had terminated the contract, Interim Deputy Provost Angela Campbell explained in a letter to McGill students, that SSMU had failed to disassociate or reject unrecognized student groups that engaged in vandalism and intimidation during the student union's three-day "strike in support of Palestinian liberation."

During the April 2-4 strike, adopted in a motion during a March 27 SSMU Special Strike General Assembly, keffiyeh-clad activists blockedaded or interrupted dozens of classes.

Students feel unsafe
"Students and instructors were unable to teach or learn," wrote Campbell. "Many felt threatened, intimidated, and unsafe."

In one incident related by Campbell, activists smashed a glass office door using a paint-filled fire hydrant, and sprayed paint inside the office, hitting one staff member.

While SSMU had denounced such actions in a Friday statement, Campbell said that the university was concerned about the consequences of the strike initiated by the union, and peaceful protest had to be "demonstrated not just in words but in practice."

SSMU had issued two warnings about intimidation and violence by strike participants, reminding Friday that the protests were supposed to be "peaceful and voluntary." The union reiterated its April 2 message that it did not endorse actions such as classroom disruptions, vandalism, and violent altercations.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill, which participated in the strike and praised the establishment of "picket lines" at the entrance of classes to enforce the "strike mandate," said in a Tuesday statement that the administration's threat to revoke funding and campus access was a frequently employed strategy to impose restrictions on students. It cited the revocation of its club status in 2024.

SPHR called on SSMU to reject any concessions to the McGill administration.

"This newest threat is a reaction to pressure from Zionist donors and our warmongering political class, who are desperate to regain control of a student body that stands with Palestine in its struggle for liberation," SPHR said in its Instagram statement.

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and Honest Reporting Canada praised McGill's decision to cancel its contract with SSMU in Monday X posts, saying that this sent a message that actions have consequences.

Despite the Monday decision by McGill, Bnai Brith Canada announced Tuesday that it was supporting a class-action lawsuit against the institution due to campus antisemitism.

Pro-Palestinian protesters were kicked out of a Colorado university classroom after entering and disrupting the class last week on Wednesday.

The professor, who teaches Designing for Defense, a class that trains students in building combat tools by working with the US military and intelligence agencies, was teaching his class when the protesters entered. According to a video posted by the Boulder Students for a Democratic Society (BSDS) Instagram page, one of the protesters was forcefully removed from the classroom.

The University of Colorado-Boulder sent out a statement saying that the Boulder police are investigating the situation and that it was not an employee or a student who forcefully removed the protester.

Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be deported as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled Friday.

The Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil, who was among the leaders of an anti-Israel activist coalition at Columbia that praised the Hamas terror group and its October 7 attack, sparked accusations from civil liberties groups and pro-Palestinian movements of restricting free speech.

Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena, Louisiana that the government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation.

Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable.”

Lawyers for Khalil are expected to appeal. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil’s removal from the country.

At Friday’s hearing, Khalil’s attorney Marc Van Der Hout told the judge that the government’s submissions to the court prove the attempt to deport his client “has nothing to do with foreign policy.”

Earlier this week, Comans challenged the government to share proof that Khalil should be expelled from the country for his role in campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza. She said if evidence does not support his removal, she would “terminate the case on Friday.”

On Friday, Justice Department attorneys said in papers filed in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that Comans would not have the authority to immediately free Khalil.

They said an immigration judge could determine if Khalil is subject to deportation and then conduct a bail hearing afterward if it is found that he is not.

Harvard University will "not accept" demands made by President Donald Trump's administration amid threats of funding cuts, according to a statement issued Monday.

"The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," read a post on the university's X account published Monday. "Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government."

In an email sent to the Harvard community, President Alan M. Garber said the university received "an updated and expanded list of demands" from the Trump administration, warning them to comply if they'd like to "maintain financial relationship with the federal government."

The 10 demands, which the administration says are aimed at addressing antisemitism on campus, include restricting acceptance of any international students who are "hostile to the American values and institutions." The administration also wants a third party to audit programs offered at the school that it says "fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture."

The administration also demanded the immediate shuttering of all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives, including for hiring and admissions, asking the school to exchange them for "merit-based" policies.

Garber called the demands "unprecedented," denouncing them as an attempt by the federal government "to control the Harvard community" by policing the viewpoints of the students, faculty and staff. The university informed Trump's administration through legal counsel that it will not accept the terms.

"It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner," Garber said. "Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the 'intellectual conditions' at Harvard."

In a letter issued to the administration, lawyers for the university say it is "committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of bigotry in its community," but that the Trump administration's demands "invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court.

"The government's terms also circumvent Harvard's statutory rights by requiring unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law," the letter reads.

The Tufts University student detained by federal immigration agents in March detailed the “inhumane” and “unsafe” conditions at the Louisiana ICE facility she is being held in, writing in a declaration that she had limited access to food, had to wait hours for toilet paper, and is not receiving proper treatment for her asthma.

Rumeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student from Turkey, also accused a nurse in the facility’s medical center of removing her hijab without asking permission.

“The conditions in the facility are very unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane,” Öztürk said in the declaration obtained by NBC News on Sunday night.

“There is a mouse in our cell. The boxes they provide for our clothing are very dirty and they don’t give us adequate hygiene supplies," the declaration, filed in the U.S. District Court of Vermont, states.

Öztürk was arrested by immigration authorities on March 25 in Somerville, Massachusetts. She co-authored an opinion essay in March 2024 in the student newspaper criticizing the school’s response to demands that “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”

According to her LinkedIn, she is in Tuft’s doctoral program for child study and human development.

She said in the declaration that she was on the phone with her mother when the agents approached her on the sidewalk.

Video of her arrest showed a plainclothes male agent wave at the doctoral student from Turkey and say, “Hey, ma’am.”

Öztürk, appearing confused, tried to walk around the agent, but he stepped in front of her. There appeared to be a brief conversation between the pair before the agent grabbed her hands so he could handcuff her, the video showed.

According to the declaration, Öztürk said her first thought was that the agents were “private individuals who wanted to harm me.”

“I felt very scared and concerned as the men surrounded me and grabbed my phone from me,” she said in the declaration.

The video showed her scream out in confusion as additional agents surrounded her and took her into custody. Mahsa Khanbabai, an attorney for Öztürk, said the video of the arrest “should shake everyone to their core.”

Öztürk alleged that the agents shackled her feet and stomach.

At one point, she said she feared she would be killed after the agents changed cars, according to the declaration.

Öztürk alleged that one of the agents said “we are not monsters” and that they “do what the government tells us.” The agent also told her that whatever she said could be used against her.

Öztürk said she was held overnight in Vermont before being transported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana. She alleged that while being held in Vermont, the officers asked her “about wanting to apply for asylum and if I was a member of a terrorist organization.”

The ordeal caused Öztürk to have an asthma attack during her transport to Louisiana, the declaration says. “I asked for the medication I am prescribed to treat asthma but I was told that there was no place to buy it and that I would get it at my final destination,” it says. “My asthma finally passed after I used my emergency inhaler twice but it took some time and I was in pain.”

She said during the first week in the Louisiana detention center she was not allowed to go outside, and that during the first two weeks “access to food and supplies was very limited because of their systems to request these items,” the declaration says.

She said she has had multiple asthma attacks at the Louisiana facility. During one attack, Öztürk said she was taken to the medical center for treatment and the nurse allegedly took her temperature, told her “you need to take that thing off your head” and then took off Öztürk’s hijab without asking her permission.

“I told her you can’t take off my hijab and she said this is for your health,” the declaration states. Öztürk said she put her hijab back on and alleged that the nurse only treated her with ibuprofen.

Öztürk said in the declaration that she fears her asthma is not being properly treated “and it will not be adequately treated while I remain in ICE custody.”

“The air is full of fumes from cleaning supplies and is damp which triggers my asthma,” the declaration says.

The declaration also alleges that she is among more than 20 people crammed into a cell that is only supposed to sleep 14. If they need supplies like toilet paper, they “may not get it until 18 hours later, depending on the officer,” the declaration says.

The filing came ahead of her attorneys arguing in court on Monday for her release or for the Vermont district court to have jurisdiction over the case.

Öztürk’s attorney says the case should be in Vermont because that's where she was detained when the petition was filed. However, the government wants it to be transferred to the Western District of Louisiana, where she is currently detained.

U.S. Judge William K. Sessions III said to the government: “The only remedy she’s seeking is release, and you are suggesting that the court has no power to release her because she has a removal proceeding in which she has been ordered detained by immigration authorities.”

“If the court found that there was a constitutional violation, I would turn to you and say, ‘Well, of course, she is to be released.’ And if the government then says, ‘Oh no, she can’t be released because we have a detention order in immigration, which is inviolate, and she’s not going to be released, then we’re in a constitutional crisis.’”

Michael Drescher, an attorney for the Justice Department, said Öztürk shouldn’t be released and argued that habeas relief is not available to a detainee already in removal proceedings at the discretion of the executive branch.

“She is in custody because she is in removal proceedings. She was taken into custody because of her absence of status. It is conceptually impossible to separate her request to be released from custody from the fact that she is in custody because the Attorney General has initiated removal proceedings,” Drescher argued. “She has detained her in her discretion and has detained her as part of those removal proceedings.”

Öztürk's attorneys argued that her detention violated the First and the Fifth Amendments, and the remedy they are seeking is that she be released.

“If the court grants release here, her removal proceedings will proceed as they are, and there would be no impact on that,” an attorney of Öztürk said during the hearing. “The proceeding continues because the release order would have no bearing on whether her removal proceedings are lawful.”

The attorney said that as far as they know, the entirety of the government’s case is that Öztürk’s visa was revoked and she was detained because she co-authored an op-ed in the school newspaper.

"As far as we know, the government has not presented any additional evidence,” the attorney told the court.

The attorney added that “every minute that she’s detained, her speech is being chilled."

“And that’s why review from this court ... is so important,” an attorney for Öztürk said.

Judge Sessions declined to rule from the bench and said he would take the matter under advisement.

He ordered the parties to submit additional filings to the court about whether it would be viable to hold a habeas hearing in May — if the district of Vermont were to accept jurisdiction of the case — given the complexity of the case and evidenc

The former Columbia University student arrested on campus and scheduled for deportation has filed evidence that shows claims underlying the government's case are dubious.

NBC News reviewed more than 100 pages of documents submitted by the federal government in its effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil, as well as evidence filed by Khalil’s legal team, including his permanent residency application, several articles about his activism, and contracts and letters detailing internship and work experience.

In some instances, the government appears to be relying on unverified tabloid articles about Khalil. In others, the government’s claims about him are clearly erroneous because timelines don’t match.

Ultimately, government officials said Khalil supported Hamas, a terrorist group; made Jewish students feel unsafe with his activism; and that his continued presence “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Khalil decried antisemitism
Immigration Judge Jamee Comans ruled last week that Khalil can be deported at the discretion of Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which states any noncitizen can be removed if the secretary of state deems their presence threatens U.S. foreign policy.

Rubio characterized Khalil's activities as antisemitic and, thus, contrary to U.S. foreign policy. Comans shot down a defense attempt to obtain underlying evidence and question Rubio.

Khalil’s attorney submitted evidence rebuking allegations of antisemitism in the Rubio memo, including an April 2024 CNN article in which Khalil was asked what he would say to Jewish students who felt unsafe on campus.

"I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined," he responded. "They go hand in hand. Anti-Semitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement."

In the article, Khalil also noted that some members of Columbia’s protest encampment last year were Jewish and held Passover seders. "They are an integral part of this movement," Khalil said.

Rubio’s memo — which is the government’s main piece of evidence in its deportation case against Khalil — said that while Khalil’s beliefs, statements or associations were “otherwise lawful,” allowing him to remain in the country would undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”

Mischaracterization of Khalil's work history
The government case includes Khalil’s permanent residency application from March 2024.

In the application, Khalil wrote that he was a graduate student at Columbia University and was a program manager at the British Embassy in Beirut from June 2018 to December 2022.

The Trump administration alleged Khalil also omitted “continued employment" at the British Embassy in Beirut "beyond 2022." As evidence, the government cited an image of a profile of Khalil published for the Society for International Development’s upcoming conference in June 2025. The profile stated he works at the embassy.

But a spokesperson for Britain's Commonwealth and Development Office said in a comment to NBC News that Khalil “does not work for the FCDO and has not done so for over two years.”

Khalil’s “extension of fixed term contract” with the British Embassy in Beirut includes an extension until Dec. 20, 2022. The contract is dated Nov. 1, 2022, and the British Embassy in Beirut seal is stamped on the document. Signatures from both the head of corporate service and Khalil appear on the document.

The Society for International Development, organizers of the conference, said in a statement that Khalil was not scheduled to participate in the upcoming event in June, though he did participate in 2020.

The government alleged Khalil also failed to disclose he was a “political affairs officer” at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, in New York in 2023, and was involved with the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

The Trump administration cited articles, including from the New York Post, stating Khalil was a political affairs officer at UNRWA based on his LinkedIn profile.

A spokesperson for UNRWA said Khalil completed a six-month unpaid internship in New York in 2023. The spokesperson added that he was not a staff member nor was he ever on the agency’s payroll.

“UNRWA does not have in its Human Resources the job title of ‘Political Affairs Officer,'" the spokesperson said.

Khalil’s legal team also submitted into evidence a letter from UNRWA to Columbia University informing the school that Khalil was “selected for an internship at the Representative Office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for internship at the Representative Office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in New York.” It was dated May 17, 2023.

In another letter entered into evidence, Columbia University said Khalil completed an internship at UNRWA for three credits in 2023. The letter is dated April 10, 2025, and signed by an associate director of Khalil’s graduate program.

Government relied on tabloid stories
Similarly, the government cited several articles as evidence, including from the New York Post, The Times of India, and the Washington Free Beacon, mentioning Khalil’s involvement with the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which the government said he omitted from his residency application.

The articles were published in late April 2024 and after — a month after Khalil submitted his permanent residency application.

A New York Post article published March 9, and cited as evidence by the government, said Khalil had fronted a “radical group, Columbia United Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which sympathizes with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and calls for the ‘end of Western civilization.’”

Khalil was a negotiator and spokesperson for the Columbia University student protesters, which included CUAD among a coalition of groups at Columbia participating in the on-campus actions, Van Der Hout has said.

“CUAD is a collection of organizations and there is no individual membership, so the allegation would be completely meritless even if all of the government’s evidence were not from a month after Mahmoud submitted his application," Van Der Hout said.

Khalil has until April 23 to file for relief and can remain in the United States until then.

Three dozen members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews have issued a public letter harshly criticizing Israel’s continued offensive in Gaza, revealing a divide within the largest British Jewish group.

The letter, which was published in the Financial Times, includes the signatures of roughly 10% of the board’s deputies, who are appointed from local communities and smaller organizations. It directly criticizes the resumption of the war in Gaza and warns that the “extremism” in the Israeli government threatens its democracy.

“We write as representatives of the British Jewish community, out of love for Israel and deep concern for its future,” the letter says. “The inclination to avert our eyes is strong, as what is happening is unbearable, but our Jewish values compel us to stand up and to speak out.”
The letter highlights the successful return of hostages during the second ceasefire deal, and accuses the Israeli government of breaking the ceasefire to appease Itamar Ben-Gvir and pass the Israeli government’s budget ahead of a potential election.

The letter condemns the deaths resulting from the interruption in aid that took place after the ceasefire’s end and specifically calls out the killing of 15 aid workers last month in Gaza in an incident whose specifics continue to be contested.

Concerns about the West Bank
The letter also raises concerns about the West Bank, where violence, including by Jewish settlers against Palestinians, has recently flared.

“This most extremist of Israeli governments is openly encouraging violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, strangling the Palestinian economy and building more new settlements than ever,” the letter read.

The letter underscores a fissure within the group on its stance on the war in Gaza. After the ceasefire deal ended, the signatories appealed to the board to put out a statement condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision, but they refused, according to the Financial Times.

One signatory, Baron Frankal, told the Financial Times that others within the group shared the letter’s sentiment, but “would not be willing to say so publicly.”

In response to the letter, the board told the Financial Times that its members held diverse opinions and “others would no doubt put more emphasis on the fundamental responsibility of Hamas for this ghastly situation.”

Disney’s live-action “Snow White” has been banned from playing in movie theaters in Lebanon due to the presence in the film of Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays the role of the the Evil Queen.

The ban was ordered by Lebanon’s Interior Minister Ahmad Al-Hajjar who, according to local media, was prompted to take action by the country’s film and media watchdog amid Israel’s ongoing attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which have caused civilian deaths.

However, a representative for Beirut-based Middle East distributor Italia Films, which handles Disney titles in the region, told Variety that Gadot has long been on Lebanon’s “Israel boycott list” and that no movie in which she stars has ever been released in the country.

The London Metropolitan Police (the Met) issued a statement on Tuesday denying that it had called on local Jews to stay home to avoid anti-Israel protests near synagogues, chiding those who shared the misinformation as causing unnecessary panic.

The rumor was circulated on Saturday by an X/Twitter account called GB Politics, without citing a source. “Police request British Jews to stay at home as pro-Palestine marches near synagogues,” read the now-deleted social media post.

The information was shared and commented on by large accounts with tens of thousands of followers, as well as politicians such as London Assembly Member Susan Hall.
British political commentator Darren Grimes, who has almost half a million followers on X, shared the news, calling it a national disgrace that “law-abiding citizens are told to hide while extremists roam free.”

Proliferation of fake news
The proliferation of the fake news led the Met to issue a social media statement slamming the post as “totally false.”“It’s misinformation that will only increase fear and concern in Jewish communities,” it wrote on Tuesday.

The Met speculated that the account, which posts news headlines, was made to look like it was part of a “well-known news channel,” likely a reference to Great Britain News, which is widely known as GB News.

“Please check the authenticity of accounts before sharing unverified or unsourced claims,” cautioned the Met.

Community Security Trust open-source intelligence and technology manager Danny Morris noted on social media on Monday that the fake news spread by the verified account was representative of a wider issue on X in which users could “simply purchase blue ticks and masquerade as legitimate, reputable news sources.”

Morris said that the account was founded by a Mansfield teenager, but it was unclear if he was still running it.“I know it’s tempting to repost, tempting to perhaps add your [own] thoughts on how ‘Britain has fallen’, but don’t fall into the trap!” said Morris

The mural entitled "The Star of David" Edith Bruck, created by contemporary artist aleXsandro Palombo, has found a permanent home at the Museum of the Shoah in Rome. Originally appearing in Milan, this mural is a tribute to Holocaust survivor and writer Edith Bruck. Following antisemitic vandalism defacing the mural, the piece has been reinstalled as a powerful symbol of resilience, memory, and the fight against hate.

Edith Bruck, one of the last living witnesses of the Holocaust, attended the unveiling of the artwork, joined by Israeli Ambassador Jonathan Peled, Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, and other distinguished figures. Speaking at the event, Bruck emphasized the significance of the mural continuing to exist, even after it was vandalized.

“The mural must live precisely because it was vandalized, and so it will live, and everything related to memory and what I have personally experienced must live,” Bruck said. “After they defaced it, it will finally live. It will live because it has returned to Rome, where I live.”

The mural, which depicts Bruck in a deportee’s striped uniform with the Israeli flag draped over her shoulders, originally marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The powerful piece was unveiled in Milan in January 2025, but just days later, it was marred by an anti-Semitic act. The Star of David, traditionally a symbol of unity for the Jewish people, was erased, and Bruck’s face was defaced.

No revenge needed
Despite the vandalism, Bruck maintained a message of peace and forgiveness, stating she holds no resentment or hatred toward those responsible for the act.

“I do not know vengeance nor what it is, nor do I ever want to know it in my life,” Bruck added. “I am free from all vengeance, I said that the Holy Door is my heart and that I hate no one.”

The mural’s new home at the Museum of the Shoah Foundation reinforces a message of resistance and remembrance, affirming that memory cannot be erased, regardless of how violent the attempt. The piece joins other works by Palombo in the museum’s collection, including "Antisemitism, History Repeating," which was acquired in January 2025.

“After the despicable defacement in Milan, welcoming aleXsandro Palombo’s mural at the Museum of the Shoah Foundation is an act of resistance and responsibility,” said Mario Venezia, President of the Museum of the Shoah Foundation. “Edith Bruck has dedicated her life to dialogue and testimony, speaking to thousands of young people. We are here today to reiterate that memory cannot be erased.”

In addition to Bruck, the unveiling event was attended by prominent figures, including Israeli Ambassador Jonathan Peled, Noemi Di Segni, and the Honorable Maria Elena Boschi, as well as members of the Jewish Community of Rome.