JKO

Clinical Social Worker | Writer | Advocate

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

Here's a list of synagogues that have been set on fire, bombed, or targeted with arson attempts since October 7, 2023:

2023

Oct 17: El Hamma, Tunisia
Oct 18: Berlin, Germany
Nov 7: Montreal, Canada
Nov 15: Yerevan, Armenia

2024

Jan: Brno, Czech Republic
Feb 25: Sfax, Tunisia
March 16: Fort Lauderdale, USA
April 5: Oldenburg, Germany
May 1: Warsaw, Poland
May 17: Rouen, France
May 30: Vancouver, Canada
June 23: Derbent, Russia
July 10: Obninsk, Russia
Aug 24: La Grande-Motte, France
Dec 6: Melbourne, Australia
Dec 18: Montreal, Canada
Dec 30: Mykolaiv, Ukraine

2025

Jan 11: Sydney, Australia
July 4: Melbourne, Australia
Aug 13: Obninsk, Russia
Sept 19: Punta Gorda, USA
Nov 27: Chernivtsi, Ukraine

2026

Jan 10: Jackson, Mississippi, USA
Jan 14: Giessen, Germany
March 9: Liège, Belgium
March 12: West Bloomfield, Michigan
March 13: Rotterdam, Netherlands
April 12: Skopje, North Macedonia
April 15: Finchley, London, UK
April 19: Harrow, London, UK
May 5: East London, London, UK
June 5: Montreal, Canada
Sept 17: Wuppertal, Germany

Every time another synagogue is attacked, I have to update this list. It never gets easier.

[David Christopher Kaufman @KaufmanDavidNYC]

Jews Defending Jews is a Revolutionary Act — and this Rosh HaShana it has never been more necessary to be revolutionary. One small way — learn Hebrew, the language of OUR revolution and a modest but potent way to prove we exist as Jews, we have always existed as Jews and will always continue to exist as Jews! #roshhashana #zionism #israel

[Eve Barlow @Eve_Barlow]

If you’re the person who has been asking why there were no foreign journalists allowed into Gaza, or sharing reports that the IDF was targeting journalists in Gaza, or refusing to listen to arguments that the western media were reproducing ad nauseam non- verified reports from the mouths of Hamas during the war, you may want to listen to Gaza’s own journalist, Motaz, in his latest rather revealing interview.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

PEN America has a new president, Phil Klay, after the previous president tried to defend BDS.

PEN America is an organization that champions the right of all people to write freely. That is why they released an article explaining why the boycott of Jewish and Israeli writers would not be acceptable to them.

The previous president, Dinaw Mengestu, resigned due to the article, claiming he feared that the piece portrayed the BDS movement as "discriminatory."

Because a movement that seeks to boycott an entire group of people and their culture somehow "isn't" discriminatory?

[Dumisani Washington @DumisaniTemsgen]

“The Zionists have money and power, but we…”

🤡

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

Can someone explain to me why Democrats were so upset about losing Roe, but are willing to blow up the party to create an Islamist state that will subjugate women and make child marriage (rape) common?

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

It's never been clearer than in this moment that the Free Palestine movement is not operating in reality.

The activists are posting, right this second, about how brave and difficult it is to show support for Palestine right now while simultaneously leading the most vicious cancellation campaign I've ever seen on Ed Sheeran, a man whose crimes amount to not cancelling the concert his fans bought tickets to and saying the Israelis who have been murdered also deserve sympathy.

Macklemore hasn't seen this much love and attention in years and somehow he accepted a great cost when he did the thing that made him famous again.

It's allegedly impossible to show even the slightest sympathy to Palestinians and yet Gillian Anderson gets overrun with hate comments because she didn't say Free Palestine in a video about Sudan.

They are delusional.

[David Wolpe @RabbiWolpe]

1 of every 3 people on the planet is Christian. 1 of 4 people in the planet is Muslim. 1 of 5.8 is Chinese. 1 of every 500 is Jewish. 1 of every 26 articles worldwide, covering every subject under the sun, is about Israel. That seems fair & untainted by ancient hatreds.

[Brianna Wu @BriannaWu]

I don’t want to start a public fight with the author, but The New Republic has published a piece by a non-Jewish trans woman comparing our political situation to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. She invokes Jews fleeing before World War II, Untermenschen, and even a possible “final solution.”

This is incredibly belittling to people who experienced an actual Holocaust, forced relocation, and mass murder.

The entire reason I became interested in Israel public policy is that I think there is a lot we can learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters. I don’t think our political situations are entirely dissimilar. We are both fighting massive disinformation movements and a media incentivized to turn our existence into a controversy.

But invoking the Holocaust? This isn’t just inaccurate. It’s offensive. And I feel a moral obligation to say so publicly.

It’s particularly uncomfortable given the antisemitism that is taken hold of the Trans community.

[The Free Press @TheFP]

"Antisemitism is a lie that people use to gain or maintain power. And the lie is always the same: Jews are destroying what you value most."

@DaraHorn joined @coldxman at the 92nd Street Y to discuss her new book, ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,’ and why she thinks Jew-hatred has less to do with hate than with power.

[Gerald Posner @geraldposner]

I have written eleven opinion pieces for The New York Times across 35 years. I still read it. I write what follows with no joy: while I have watched it become increasingly partisan in its news coverage over the decades, no topic has made its loss of balance clearer to me than its handling of Israel since October 7.

This week the Times published a sentence suggesting that Israeli victimhood over the 2023 Hamas terror attack was not a fact, but a "matter of perception." It only added an Editors' Note after furious backlash, much of it here on X. I have written corrections myself. A sentence like that doesn't slip past a reporter, an editor, and a copy desk by accident. The underlying problem is that it did not set off an alarm until readers outside the building made noise.

And that was simply the latest example. In May, the paper's Opinion section ran a column alleging Israeli forces used dogs to rape Palestinian detainees, built on sourcing no other serious outlet had corroborated. The Times's own executive editor later said the newsroom "wouldn't have done that exact piece."

Now there's data behind the pattern. A peer-reviewed Yale study of 1,559 Times articles on the war found the word "Israel" appeared more than three times as often as "Hamas," and that 1,423 of those articles mentioned neither Israeli casualties after Oct. 7 nor Hamas combatants killed in the war.

"Paper of record" was never a hereditary title. It was a claim about earned trust. I am not sure anyone still believes it.

My full article at Just the Facts: https://t.co/pG7mfcYpCj

[Elisha Wiesel @ElishaWiesel]

On Yom Kippur, it’s important to examine the words we now wish we hadn’t used. But it’s also important to remember that our choices define us. And for the choice to fight the lies and ignorance against the Jewish people — let us remain unrepentant.

https://t.co/yxxEdpzbjb

[Judea Pearl @yudapearl]

The collective assault against Israel has been so broad and deep it’s been hard finding anyone in the mainstream media who will dare go after the Hamas murderers whose biggest victims are the Palestinians. @afalkhatib @DavidSuissaJJ
https://t.co/xi0NAa6fZI

[Philip Klein @philipaklein]

I have been a journalist for 25 years — a writer, an editor, a straight news reporter, and commentator. There is nothing “inadvertent” about this line.

[Shai Davidai @ShaiDavidai]

HOW TO TELL IF YOU'RE BEING ANTISEMITIC:

Do most Jews tell you you're being antisemitic?

Congratulations. You are antisemitic.

Do you believe they're saying it because they're secretly conspiring to silence you?

Congratulations. You're still antisemitic.

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

Israel is hitting back against the UN's information warfare.

It just launched a website laying bare the extent of UN officials' abuse of their position to support terrorists:

https://t.co/u4yHlGe7jn

[Ritchie Torres @RitchieTorres]

It is one thing to merely see oneself as a victim. It is another to objectively be a victim.

Israelis were objectively victims of October 7th—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Any suggestion to the contrary is anti-Israel activism camouflaged as journalism.

[Hillel Neuer @HillelNeuer]

“Why did an UNRWA teacher hold my 84-year-old mother hostage in his Gaza attic?”

Good question from courageous peace activist @netaheiman.

And we’d like to know: Why are 🇪🇺🇫🇷🇩🇪🇬🇧🇸🇪🇧🇪🇨🇦🇦🇺🇩🇰🇮🇹🇯🇵🇮🇪🇳🇱🇳🇴🇪🇸🇨🇭still funding UNRWA hate and terrorism?

[Noa Tishby @noatishby]

I didn’t think it had to be said, but Israelis are the victims of October 7th.

[JKO @JenKoganLICSW]

Our paper, Decolonial Psychology’s Blind Spot, examines how ideological rigidity can enter clinical spaces and harm Jewish clients whose identities or connection to Israel don’t fit an “oppressor vs. oppressed” framework.

https://t.co/eRcmgiaMtZ