The Latest From @MacTaskForce
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani vetoed a bill that would have created “buffer” zones around schools during protests, even as he allowed a related bill protecting houses of worship to take effect.
He said the school bill was too broad and raised First Amendment concerns.
On Yom HaAtzmaut, Druze Israeli activist Lorena Khateeb expressed how Israel’s independence has been defended by brave soldiers from many communities, including the Druze, whose courage and sacrifice are woven into the story of the state.
The bravery of Druze soldiers is part of why Israel can celebrate its independence. Their service reflects a truth too often ignored: Israel’s security apparatus is diverse, unified, and made up of people from many different backgrounds standing together to protect the country and all its citizens.
That diversity is one of Israel’s great strengths.
A Toronto Metropolitan University student is suing the school, alleging it failed to protect Jewish students from what the lawsuit describes as a “poisoned” campus climate. JNS reports the suit says Jewish students faced escalating hostility, intimidation, and exclusion while the university failed to respond adequately.
If Jewish students have to continuously go to court to demand basic protection and equal treatment, it signals institutional failure. Universities cannot claim to care about inclusion while allowing Jewish students to feel abandoned in their own classrooms and community spaces.
Hamas captivity survivor Yarden Bibas has now given his first full-length interview in Hebrew since his release, speaking openly about Shiri, the love of his life, and the small everyday moments with her that he misses most. His wife Shiri and their two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were murdered in captivity in Gaza after being abducted on October 7.
The Bibas family became a symbol of everything Hamas stole from its victims. She was an innocent mother with her two children, a husband, a home, and a future. Yarden’s words are a reminder that behind stories that are just headlines in the West is a real family shattered forever. We cannot allow the world to forget what Hamas did to the Bibas family, or the truth of the kind of terror Hamas has promised to repeat.
North Carolina resident Angela Han Hicks and another co-conspirator were charged in an alleged terror plot against Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, with court documents saying the goal was to “kill as many Jews as possible” by driving through the synagogue. Bond is set at $10 million.
Another day, another planned attack on a Jewish site.
The threats facing Jewish communities are not exaggerated. They are real, and increasingly dangerous.
A young Lebanese man said on Lebanese television that he wants to see “an Israeli embassy in Beirut,” drawing disagreement from others on the program, one of whom calls the idea a “humiliation.”
This is a sign that support for Hezbollah in Lebanon is beginning to fall apart. There’s still a long way to go, and many Lebanese still harbor hate for the Jewish state, and are willing to prop up malicious regimes in order to destroy it. However, there is very promising progress in the right direction. And perhaps one day soon Lebanon and Israel will not only be neighbors, but allies.
Let us hope.
SHAME: UCLA’s student government condemned an event featuring former Hamas captivity survivor Omer Shem Tov, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7 and held in Gaza for 505 days. Jewish Insider reports the council criticized the event as “selective platforming.” This event centered around the testimony of someone who survived Hamas captivity.
That is a moral failure. A university student government should never be condemning a hostage survivor for speaking about their personal life experience. When even the firsthand testimony of a victim of terror is treated as unacceptable, it shows that the campus climate deeply broken.
Jewish students deserve to be educated on campuses where hearing a survivor’s story is seen as human, necessary, and worthy of respect, not something to be denounced.
At the President’s Residence Independence Day ceremony, Alon Ohel and Dvir Bublil delivered one of the holiday’s most moving moments.
Alon, a survivor freed from Hamas captivity, performed with Dvir, an IDF veteran and hero who was seriously wounded fighting on October 7th.
These two young men refuse to be defined only by what was done to them, but by the strength with which they returned.
