Jewish Insider | Daily Kickoff
October 30th, 2023
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Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report from the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference in Las Vegas, and look at Sen. John Fetterman’s position on the Israel-Hamas war. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: David Remnick, Lisa Silverstein and Michael Bloomberg.

“Globalize the Intifada.” For years a rallying cry on the fringes of college campuses and among the furthest-left anti-Israel activists, those three words took on new meaning this weekend, from large-scale marches through London, to an attempt to lynch Israeli and Jewish passengers landing at a Russian airport and at top American educational institutions such as Cornell University, where the Jewish dining hall was put on lockdown following threats and Jewish students hid after multiple death threats, Jewish Insider’s Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.

The growing calls for violence against Israel — and Jews — in the weeks since the Oct. 7 attack and the escalation of the Israel-Hamas war have put Jewish communities across the globe on high alert — and on edge.

Hours after reports began to circulate of hundreds of rioters swarming the Makhachkala Uytash Airport in the Russian province of Dagestan, U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt condemned “the violent protests that have been reported in Russia threatening Israelis and Jews. We call on Russian authorities to ensure their safety. The U.S. stands with Israel and the entire Jewish community as we see a surge in antisemitism throughout the world. There is no excuse for targeting Jews or engaging in antisemitic incitement anywhere.”

That “anywhere” includes American college campuses. Last night in Ithaca, N.Y., Jewish students sheltered in their dorms as anonymous threats against the school’s Jewish community and Jewish life center were posted on a Cornell student discussion forum.

“If I see another pig baby jew I will behead you in front of your parents,” read one post on the online forum. “If I see another synagogue another rally for the zionist global genocidal apartheid dictatorial entity known as ‘Israel’, I will bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.”

Hours after the posts began circulating on social media, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that New York State Police were investigating the “disgusting & hateful posts.” She added that she had had conversations with private school administrations as well as leaders of New York’s extensive public university system, during which, she said, she “reiterated our strong belief in free speech and the right to peaceful assembly, but made clear that we will have zero tolerance for acts of violence or those who intimidate and harass others through words or actions.”

Former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner weighed in on the current situation on college campuses, telling Fox News from Riyadh that “as an American Jew, you're safer in Saudi Arabia right now than you are on a college campus like Columbia University.”

In New York on Saturday, the Brooklyn Bridge was shut down by an estimated 7,000 anti-Israel protestors participating in a demonstration — titled the “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” march, a reference to “Al Aqsa Flood,” the name that Hamas gave to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel — that began in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) posted on X that the “explosion of worldwide antisemitism in this moment requires all decent people from all parts of the political spectrum, and holding whatever view they may on this war, to stop and condemn this scourge of plain hatred.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who like Nadler is Jewish, noted that “[b]eing dismissive of antisemitism doesn’t make you politically edgy. It makes you terrible.”

In London, tens of thousands of protestors — some estimates from British police put the number at 100,000 — took to the streets to demonstrate against Israel. Signage at the protest ranged from calling for a ceasefire to the oft-used “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a slogan generally understood to mean a call for the elimination of Israel.

In New Orleans near Tulane University, which has a student body that is more than 40% Jewish, a pro-Palestinian rally spiraled out of control on Thursday afternoon and led to violence, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider. According to video footage posted on X, and confirmed by two Jewish Tulane students who did not want their full names used, two men, one of them masked, drove through the protest in a pickup truck waving a Palestinian flag. One of the men attempted to set an Israeli flag on fire.