Weekly roundup of world briefs

Mayim Bialik makes ‘Jeopardy!’ guest host debut

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Jewish actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik began her two-week stint as a guest host on “Jeopardy!” Monday night, paying tribute to her “creative and academic family” and the show’s late host Alex Trebek in her opening remarks.

Bialik, who has written about her Jewish identity in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and beyond, drew praise on social media after the first night of her run, which goes through June 11.

The show is matching the amount won by contestants to her charity of choice, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. She has written in Kveller about some of her family members’ struggles with mental illness.

Bialik posted a video to social media talking about her performance Monday night wearing Star of David necklace.

She follows a string of previous guest hosts who have rotated in after Trebek’s death in November, including NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and former Jewish contestant Buzzy Cohen.

Nikki Fried announces run for governor

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Nikki Fried, Florida’s Jewish agricultural commissioner who has said part of her mission is to keep Democrats pro-Israel, announced a run for governor on Tuesday.

Fried, 43, the only Democrat elected to statewide office in 2018’s election which saw razor-thin margins in all of the swing state’s major races, announced Tuesday that she would run on a platform of running against a “rigged” and “corrupt” system.

Fried has clashed repeatedly with Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, over coronavirus restrictions, arguing he has been overly lax in combating COVID-19. DeSantis outlawed all of the state’s COVID restrictions in early May.

She said in a video posted on Twitter that she would reverse DeSantis’ restrictions on voting rights, environmental protections, farmer protections and the minimum wage, adding that she would seek to expand the amount of Floridians with access to healthcare.

Fried, a former lobbyist for the medical marijuana industry, also said she would seek to legalize marijuana.

In 2019 she traveled to Israel in part to research Israeli agricultural technology advances, but also to demonstrate that Democrats remained in the pro-Israel camp.

“When I started to see recently there was a partisan divide, I felt as the leading Democrat in the state of Florida as a swing state… it was my obligation to stand up and say ‘We are here. I am supporting Israel. I am supporting the American-Israeli relationship,’” she told the Tampa Bay Times at the time.

Fried has cultivated a national profile, appearing last year as a speaker at the Democratic national convention.

Dutch university removes ‘from the river to the sea’ pro-Palestinian banner

By Cnaan Liphshiz

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A public Dutch university removed a series of banners about Israel made by resident artists, including one reading “from the river to the sea,” after protests by local Jews.

The State Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam was “not aware of some of the meanings of the phrase and have decided, with the resident artists who displayed banners on the subject, to remove them,” Emily Pethick, the Academy’s director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday. “We deeply regret it.”

The slogan is an abbreviation of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which refers to the area between Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — a region comprising the West Bank and Gaza and Israel. Advocates of the slogan say it calls for freedom for all inhabitants. Critics say it references the widespread sentiment among Palestinians that all the land is occupied and should be liberated by dismantling the Jewish state.

“This chant isn’t about supporting a Palestinian state but all about expelling the Jews from Israel. This will never happen,” wrote Ronny Naftaniel, chairman of the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands, or CJO, on Facebook.

“One Final Solution was enough,” he added, referencing the Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust.

A separate arts institution in Amsterdam, De Ateliers, which is housed in the Academy’s former address, also displayed banners about Israel last week, including one reading “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” De Ateliers did not immediately reply to JTA’s request for comment.

In Ukraine, bullet holes are found in a synagogue and a mass grave of Holocaust victims is desecrated

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — In two separate disturbing incidents in Ukraine, bullet holes were found in a synagogue and grave robbers allegedly raided a Holocaust-era mass grave, exposing and scattering human remains.

The aftermath of a shooting at the synagogue of Kremenchuk, a city located 130 miles southeast of Kyiv, was discovered early last month but reported by the local Jewish community on Monday. The delay was planned “in order to prevent panic in the Jewish community of the city,” the news site Jewish.ru reported, quoting a spokesperson for the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, a communal interest group.

No one was hurt in the incident.

Jewish sites have been vandalized multiple times in Kremenchuk in recent years. In 2016, the tomb of a local Hasidic rabbi was set on fire. The same site was vandalized in 2013, 2014 and 2015, sometimes with Nazi symbols spray-paint. In 2012, unidentified individuals tried to set fire to the synagogue and in 2009, paint was splashed over the building.

The grave desecration happened in the village of Pikov, located 110 miles southwest of Kyiv, according to Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, another communal interests group. He wrote about the incident on Facebook on Saturday, and posted pictures of bones protruding from a hole in the ground.

“Nazis and local collaborators shot more than a thousand Jews, including women and children in May 1942 there,” Dolinsky said. “Now some people who have lost their humanity are looking for gold in their grave.”

Cory Booker starts new coalition of Black and Jewish senators to tackle antisemitism and racism

(JTA) — Sen. Cory Booker is leading a group of U.S. Jewish and Black senators in establishing a coalition to fight antisemitism and racism.

The so-called Black-Jewish coalition will also include Booker’s fellow Democrats Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, as well as Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican from across the aisle. 

“There’s been a long history of Black people and Jewish sisters and brothers working together on a whole range of concerns,” Warnock was quoted as saying by NJ.com. 

The idea of convening the lawmakers was spurred by reports of rising antisemitism amid a national reckoning around racial injustice. 

“We will be fighting both racism and anti-Semitism,” Blumenthal said. “I think we’re in the midst of a racial justice moment and a reckoning now that could draw us together.”

Scott Richman, director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York/New Jersey, praised the initiative. 

“This would be an important step towards bringing together two communities with a shared commitment to justice and an end to bias and bigotry,” he told NJ.com.

A similar body, called the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations, already exists in the House of Representatives.

Booker, who keeps a Hebrew bible on his Senate desk, has a long history of connections with the Jewish community. He often cites Torah passages and recites Hebrew quotes in public appearances.

American Jews give Biden 70 percent approval rating

WASHINGTON (JTA) — American Jewish voters give President Joe Biden a 70 percent approval rating, an American Jewish Committee poll found, while 26 percent of Jewish voters disapprove of his job performance.

The survey published Wednesday, the first of its kind so far in Biden’s presidency, is commensurate with past Jewish support for Democratic presidents. It is released as Biden seeks to quell the coronavirus pandemic that consumed the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency, calm racial tensions roiled by a year of protests against police violence, revive the economy and manage the crisis engendered by the conflict last month between Israel and Hamas.

The survey showed that 79 percent of respondents approved of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and 19 percent disapproved; 68 percent approved of his handling of race relations and 28 percent disapproved; and 71 percent approved of his handling of the economy while 27 percent disapproved. On antisemitism, which has spiked in recent months, 64 percent approve of how Biden handles the threat while 23 percent disapprove.

Biden did not fare as well on the immigration issue during a crisis as migrants increase at the Mexico-U.S. border: 54 percent of respondents approved and 42 percent disapproved of how he has handled immigration.

Other issues with narrower gaps were his handling of the Middle East: 58 percent percent approve of his handling of U.S.-Israel relations while 27 percent disapprove. The survey of 1,000 respondents reached by phone took place from March 25-May 9, the day before the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

Biden also wants to reenter the Iran nuclear deal. The survey found that 55 percent percent of respondents approve of Biden’s handling of the Iranian nuclear issue while 32 percent do not.

Biden had the approval of only 19 percent of Orthodox Jews. In recent years, Orthodox Jewish polling has shown that the community politically is the polar opposite of the broader Jewish community, with overwhelming majorities of Orthodox voters supporting Republicans.

The survey was carried out by the SSRS research firm and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, although the margin would be larger for subsets, for instance, in measuring the Orthodox community’s approval.

Elements of the survey covering “U.S. political issues, U.S-Israel relations, and the peace process,” will be released later this month, an AJC release said.

Sen. Graham: Israel to request $1 billion in aid following Gaza conflict

(JNS) — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last Tuesday that Israel would be requesting a billion dollars in U.S. aid this week, in the aftermath of last month’s fighting with terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with Fox & Friends during a visit to southern Israel, Graham said, “There’s going to be a request made, tomorrow, I think, or Thursday by the Israelis to the Pentagon for a billion dollars in aid to replenish the Iron Dome batteries that were used to protect Israel.”

The senator, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, said the aid money would be “a good investment for the American people.”

“As Hamas tries to destroy Israel, As Iran threatens the existence of the Jewish state, I’m going to keep coming back here and saying more for Israel. Every time somebody tries to destroy Israel, our response is going to be more aid, and it starts with replenishing the Iron Dome,” he said.

Graham toured Ashkelon on Monday and Tuesday together with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) to view some of the damage caused by Hamas during last month’s conflict. They visited the remains of a home struck by a rocket on May 11 which seriously injured an elderly woman, 81, and killed her caretaker, 32.  

During the 11-day conflict, terror groups in Gaza launched more than 4,300 rockets at Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Of those, 680 misfired and exploded inside Gaza, while the Iron Dome system intercepted approximately 90 percent of the projectiles targeting populated Israeli areas, the IDF said.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was set to head to the United States on Wednesday, for talks with senior U.S. defense officials focusing on the Iranian nuclear talks, his office announced on Tuesday.

BBC deletes ‘unbalanced and partisan’ videos about Israel, Palestinians from its website

(JNS) — The BBC has removed a series of controversial videos about Israel and the Palestinians from its website following a complaint from the group UK Lawyers for Israel, the pro-Israel group said on Monday.

UKLFI described the BBC Education series of “Bitesize” videos, which were aimed at schoolchildren and designed to be used in schools, as “unbalanced and partisan.”

It argued that by providing these videos to schools, the BBC was “encouraging illegal conduct” that is in contradiction of the 1996 Education Act, which forbids “political indoctrination at maintained schools” and requires schools to take measures to ensure that students “are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views.”

In response to UKLFI’s complaint, Helen Foulkes, head of BBC Education, said the videos were “part of Bitesize’s legacy content, which was migrated to the current site several years ago.”

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She added that “they are part of a range of content which we have begun to review to ensure that it remains compliant with the most recent BBCeditorial guidelines. The series will be suspended from the site whilst this editorial review is carried out. Once the review has been completed, we will decide which content to retire permanently and which to reinstate and/or edit.”

In response, UKFI CEO Jonathan Turner said: “We asked the BBC to investigate this matter and remedy it in an appropriate way to promote a balanced presentation of this controversial subject, and we hope that the BBC is now doing so.”

Israeli gymnast Linoy Ashram wins gold, two silvers at world championship in Italy

(JNS) — Israeli gymnast Linoy Ashram won three medals at the Pesaro Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup in Italy on Sunday.

The 21-year-old took home a gold medal for her individual ball routine, which earned her a score of 28.550, and put her ahead of high-ranking gymnasts and Russian twin sisters Dina and Arina Averina.

She performed her routine to a rendition of the song “Big in Japan” by Ane Brun, a clear nod to the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which was rescheduled from last year to this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ashram will represent Israel at the Olympics.

The Israel Defense Forces’ veteran also won a silver medal in the finals of the hoop category with a score of 26.850, only 0.050 points away from Dina Averina, and another silver in the clubs category, again behind Averina.

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Gymnast Nicole Zelikman is the only other Israeli who made it to the finals, coming in fifth in the balls category and seventh in hoops.

The Italian competition is one of four Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup events that serve as a qualifier for the Olympics. In March, Ashram won two gold medals and one bronze in the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup in Sofia, Bulgaria.

London Jewish schoolteachers quit union over pro-Palestinian stance

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — At least 25 teachers from a Jewish school in London have quit their trade union to protest its call for participation in pro-Palestinian rallies.

Separately to last week’s walkout by JFS teachers from the National Education Union, a Jewish teacher quit a non-Jewish school following alleged harassment by students, the Jewish News of London reported Tuesday.

“They were trying to stick Free Palestine stickers in my hair, I broke into tears, I couldn’t take my class that morning,” said the teacher, who wasn’t named.

The teacher said the school, which the Jewish News report also did not name, was indifferent to the circumstances that led to the resignation.

Last week’s walkout by JFS teachers was connected to calls by the union’s staff for educators to join pro-Palestinian rallies. About 230 Palestinians died last month in Israeli airstrikes launched in response to thousands of rockets fired by Hamas in Gaza that led to the death of 12 people in Israel.

Kevin Courtney, the union’s joint general secretary, spoke at several protest rallies organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

“I felt I had no choice to leave the union, which isolated me as a Jewish, pro-Israel teacher,” John Lopez, a JFS teacher, told the Jewish News.

Lopez added that part of the reason he quit was the union’s failure to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which lists some forms of anti-Israel vitriol as antisemitic. The United Kingdom’s government has adopted the definition.