As U.S. and Israeli leaders continue to hold meetings in Washington on Tuesday, experts told JNS that the discussions between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be “transformational” for the entire Middle East.

Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that what the two leaders have described of their plans could reset the region.

“An end to Iranian aggression, peace between Israel and Syria, plus an end to the Gaza war with resettlement opportunities for Gazans and regional leadership in the Strip? One of these would be a remarkable achievement,” Schanzer said. “All of them would amount to a new Middle East.”

“What the two leaders laid out last night was nothing short of transformational,” he added.

‘Things may be moving in the right direction’

At their White House dinner on Monday, Trump and Netanyahu said that they were working on a plan to relocate Gazans either within the coastal enclave in what Trump called a “freedom zone,” or to third countries.

“I think President Trump had a brilliant vision. It’s called free choice. If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave,” Netanyahu said.

He emphasized that Gaza “shouldn’t be a prison. It should be an open place.”

In February, Trump first suggested that the United States could “own” the Gaza Strip with implications for U.S. involvement that drew criticism from some Republican lawmakers and a number of Arab states.

Schanzer told JNS that the latest discussions of plans for the long-term redevelopment of Gaza no longer seem to phase regional leaders.

“I didn’t see a massive backlash to Trump’s comments last night,” Schanzer said. “That seems significant to me. I get the sense that things may be moving in the right direction.”

Assaf Orion, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Politics and a retired brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces, told JNS that any maximalist versions of those plans to relocate Gazans and reoccupy the Strip would carry “a prohibitive cost in blood and treasure.”

“We haven’t heard of a single country willing to take them in,” Orion said. “It looks like one of the magical thinking solutions that both parties to the conflict share—wishing that when we get up next morning, the other side won’t be here. I don’t see it as a realistic option.”

“If we are to occupy Gaza and manage it with military rule, this would be our national project for the next generation,” he added. “This is billions and billions of dollars, and 100,000s of soldiers and an endless amount of casualties.”

Schanzer and Orion agreed that Netanyahu is likely conducting this latest trip to Washington—his fifth since Trump resumed office—with an eye to potential elections that could improve his majority in the Knesset and reduce his reliance on right-wing parties led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, its finance minister, both of whom object to a ceasefire-for-hostages deal with Hamas.

“This visit undeniably boosts Netanyahu’s political profile at home,” Schanzer said. “But Bibi has some big choices ahead. Does he call for snap elections as a means to ride the wave of successes he’s experienced? There is risk. But there is also risk in riding out his term with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who will try to derail any efforts to reach an end to the conflict in Gaza.”

“Netanyahu may not love the idea, but Trump does,” he stated. “And that accounts for quite a lot.”

“It’s very clear in recent weeks that he's already campaigning for elections,” Orion said. “I think that Netanyahu—the No. 1 politician in Israel, bar none—knows how to identify the political and electoral potential of the victory over Iran. He also knows how to play the political potential of his relations with President Trump. He’s now showing his hand as the statesman, as the victor of Iran, as the savior of the nation from nuclear annihilation.”

“He may be seeing an election as an option, maybe even a desirable option,” Orion said. “The calculus that guided Netanyahu so far in decisions about Gaza might have changed a little with elections before his eyes.”

‘It’s not a one-shot problem’

Trump said on Monday that the United States would begin “very high-level” direct talks with the Iranians on Saturday to try to find a solution for Washington’s remaining issues with Iran’s nuclear program after the U.S. strikes in mid-June on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities.

“We’re dealing with them directly, and maybe a deal is going to be made, that’ll be great,” Trump said. “It’ll be really great for Iran, I can tell you that.”

One of the open questions about negotiations with Iran is whether the U.S. and Israeli air campaign against Iran’s nuclear sites, air defenses and military leadership has left them more open to a deal or will push them to further preserve and conceal their nuclear activities.

“The regime has very little leverage right now,” Schanzer told JNS. “I don’t know if a nuclear deal matters at this moment. Deterrence and freedom of action seem to be the key ingredients to prevent a renewed nuclear program. A deal with Iran that ends the nuclear program, the ballistic-missile program and the proxy network would be a massive lift. But if there was ever a time to try, it would be now.”

Orion said he had concerns that despite the “world-class” air campaign against Iran, the United States and the international community might falsely view the problem of Iran’s threat to Israel as settled.

“There is a high probability that they won’t agree on the diplomatic side, that they will slow roll the negotiation, and, on the side, they will try to recuperate, to salvage whatever’s possible and to hide it somewhere,” Orion said. “It’s not a one-shot problem. It’s an ongoing effort.”

That commitment will have to be similar to the campaign against Hamas, even if the war in Gaza comes to an end, Orion told JNS.

“I think with Iran, the game is still on,” he said. “It’s not ‘Mission Accomplished.’ We can’t go and have beers because this problem is solved. On Gaza, there’s a wide understanding that this war must end, even if we will need to continue campaigning against Hamas for years and decades to come. There’s no total victory in that sense.”

Rabbi Avraham Korf, regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Florida and a trailblazing shaliach, or "emissary," whose work transformed the Jewish landscape of the southeastern United States, died on July 7. He was 92 years old.

A beloved figure in Florida’s Jewish community and one of the longest-serving shluchim in the world, he is credited with bringing nearly 400 emissary couples to the state, as well as overseeing the establishment of hundreds of Chabad centers in cities, suburbs and college campuses across Florida, serving the Jewish needs of the entire state.

Born in 1933 in Kharkov, in the former Soviet Union, Korf was raised in a family steeped in mesirat nefesh—self-sacrifice to grow Jewish life in an autocratic environment. His father, Rabbi Yehoshua Korf, was a noted Chassid who courageously upheld Jewish life under Soviet repression.

With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the family fled to Samarkand, Georgia. In 1947, they were able to leave the Soviet Union during the “Great Escape” organized by Chabad Chassidim, traveling alongside Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, the mother of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

After a brief stay in a displaced persons camp in Poking, Germany, the young Korf studied at the Lubavitch yeshivah in Brunoy, France, before arriving in the United States in 1953, where he merited his first audience with the Rebbe.

In 1960, he married Rivka Eichenbaum, and their wedding was one of the last at which the Rebbe personally officiated as mesader kiddushin. When another Chassid requested that honor and mentioned the Korfs’ upcoming wedding that the Rebbe was going to officiate, the Rebbe replied that they were planning to be his emissaries.

Later that year, at the Rebbe’s direction and following a request from the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov, the Korfs relocated to Miami. There, they began their lifelong mission of building Jewish life from the ground up.

Until the 1940s, most of the state’s Jewish residents were concentrated in the northern ocean port of Jacksonville, but migration southward—coupled with an influx of retirees from out of state, and a swell of Jewish immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean—established Miami as Florida’s new Jewish hub.

By 1960, the state had about 175,000 Jewish residents.

‘I hold him dear to my heart’

In a 2010 interview with Chabad.org days before a 50th-anniversary gala celebrating his and his wife’s launch of Chabad activities in Florida, the rabbi recalled that Miami had only three synagogues at the time, while Florida as a whole had just two ritual baths.

When the young couple arrived, milk adhering to the strict kosher standard known as chalav Yisrael was unheard of. So he found a local dairy and supervised the milking of cows himself.

For meat, the rabbi would kosher chickens, and his wife would salt and soak them.

“When we first came here, there was no glatt-kosher meat, no glatt-kosher restaurant, no kosher bakery," he said. "Everything we needed, we had to bring or ship or find.”

Within a few years, they had opened a Chabad House and worked to establish mikvahs. They launched a summer camp despite facing local opposition and antisemitism that required legal battles to secure land.

Under Korf’s leadership, a small Torah class grew into a vast educational network. He founded the Lubavitch Educational Center, now serving nearly 3,000 children.

“It started with six children,” Korf said of the school, “then 32 children the next year, then 67, and then hundreds. As people started hearing about it, it grew.”

Feige Knight, who was known back then by the name Teri Veccica, was one of the Korfs’ first students at the yeshivah. She was only 6 years old when her non-religious family sent her to school.

“My mother and my grandmother took me to the first [Jewish] school they’d heard of opening in Miami Beach,” says Knight. “Rabbi Korf is the reason that I was able to get a Jewish education. I hold him dear to my heart, and I give him the credit for not allowing my mother to walk out of that office.”

The children hardly saw their father during the week, and so Shabbat was a special time for the family. He would catch up with them and quiz them on their studies. Jacobson remembers being one of the only visibly religious students at her parents’ school, but it didn’t bother her.

“We just knew it was the reason why we were there,” she said. “There was never any judgment.”

There also wasn’t much money. “We lived on a shoestring budget,” explained Jacobson. “But we had such inner pride in what we were doing. That came from my father. He lived it and breathed it.”

An example was when she was in her second year of post-high school seminary in New York and had a job teaching fifth grade at a boys’ school. She earned $15 an hour and was about to up it to $25 when Beth Rivka offered her a job for just $100 a week. She turned it down.

“Well, somehow my father got wind of this,” she recalled. “I told him it didn’t make sense to take the job and get a quarter of the pay.”

“Leah,” said Korf, “if those were my calculations, the money, I would never have gone [to Florida]. I didn’t raise my children to make those calculations.”

He also founded the Yeshiva Gedolah of Greater Miami in 1972, creating a bastion of Torah and incubating countless Chabad rabbis.

Since the young rabbi did not know English well, he would share with his wife the lessons he planned to teach to college students in Yiddish, and she would teach him the English words to use.

He was instrumental in guiding the construction and restoration of mikvahs across the state and became internationally recognized as an expert in mikvah construction, frequently traveling to provide guidance in halachah, Jewish law, and support to Jewish communities worldwide.

Perhaps Korf’s most enduring legacy is the generation of shluchim he inspired and mentored. Nearly 400 emissary couples currently serve in cities and campuses across the state of Florida, many of whom were personally recruited and guided by the rabbi himself.

Yet even as the empire he oversaw expanded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, he remained as unpretentious as ever. In the sweltering Miami heat, he would walk the streets in his long frock and black hat, an authentic figure from the shtetl transported into South Beach.

With his heavily accented English, he taught Torah one-on-one, and guided, counseled and encouraged everyone to do one more mitzvah.

Korf passed away after nightfall, when the Hebrew date crossed into the 12th of Tammuz, the birthday and anniversary of the liberation of the sixth rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneerson—under whose wing Korf grew as a young man into the legendary leader he became.

Predeceased by his wife, Rivka Korf, in 2017, the rabbi is survived by their children: Rabbi Yossi Korf, Rashi Raices, Shevi Sossonko, Rabbi Benjy Korf, Leah Jacobson, Mendy Korf, Motty Korf, Rabbi Zalman Korf, Sari Korf; in addition to many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Reprinted with permission from Chabad.org/News.

Barnard College settled a lawsuit on Monday, agreeing to several measures to address Jew-hatred on campus.

The lawsuit was initially filed against Barnard College and Columbia University in February 2024 by the Kasowitz Benson Torres law firm on behalf of the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, Students Against Antisemitism, and various Jewish and Israeli students.

It alleged that the two schools failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which unleashed a backlash of vitriol and even violence against Jews and Israel.

According to StandWithUs, the agreement will feature Barnard having a Title VI coordinator to handle the implementation of regulations pertaining to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The office of Barnard’s president will also provide an annual message to the academic community that it has zero tolerance for discrimination and harassment of any kind, including conduct on and off campus, and via social media.

Barnard will also maintain time, place and manner restrictions for protests on campus and “will not recognize, meet or negotiate with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, any of its successor or spin-off organizations, or anyone acting as authorized representative(s).”

The lawsuit against Columbia itself remains ongoing.

“Antisemitism, discrimination and harassment in any form are antithetical to the values Barnard College champions,” stated Laura Rosenbury, president of Barnard. “Today’s settlement reflects our ongoing commitment to maintaining a campus that is safe, welcoming and inclusive for all members of our community.”

Carly Gammill, executive director of the SCLJ, said the end result is “a demonstration of Barnard’s commitment to ensuring equal treatment for its Jewish students.”  

A final-hour revision to the Trump administration’s reconciliation package—known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed on July 1—preserved the Educational Choice for Children Act, a provision that will direct new funding to Jewish schools, Rabbi A.D. Motzen, Agudath Israel of America’s national director of government affairs, told JNS.

Motzen told JNS that the school choice provision in the bill, which creates a pool of federal tax credits to fund scholarships for private schools, including yeshivahs and Jewish day schools, was initially removed last week by the Senate parliamentarian, who advises the chamber on rules and procedures, but was ultimately restored after a flurry of emails, texts, phone calls and in-person meetings with senators and staffers who had been working around the clock for 48 hours to revise the bill.

When Motzen spoke to JNS last week, he was eagerly watching C-SPAN, tracking the bill’s progress as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) attempted a last-ditch filibuster.

“This absolutely would not have happened without working very closely with a group of advocates from different faiths, from different backgrounds, with different beliefs, and Senate champions who did not take no for an answer, and even at the last moment, when it seemed like all hope was lost, didn’t give up,” he said.

Achieving the necessary adjustments to the bill wasn’t the effort of just one lawmaker, according to Motzen.

He said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) “played a key role, but none of this would’ve been possible without the Senate leadership prioritizing the issue. They could’ve moved on, but instead, they stepped in to fix it and ensure it was included.”

Motzen told JNS he has spent the past decade advancing federal legislation in support of the school choice movement, which he said has expanded to include universal programs in 17 states.

“What started ten years ago is really a renewed shift to try to get something on the federal level on top of what’s happening at the state level, and advocating for a federal scholarship tax credit made the most sense,” he said. “Let’s be clear, if Donald Trump was not in office right now and the Congress not controlled by Republicans, then we wouldn’t be having a reconciliation with the school choice provision in it.”

“Without the outcome of the election, it would not even be a conversation,” he added.

The Educational Choice for Children Act will benefit a wide range of Americans, according to Motzen.

“This groundbreaking, historic federal tax credit will help every parent for a large range of uses like tuition, transportation, books, tutoring and special needs services,” he said. “You don’t have to go to a private school to benefit from these scholarships, and I think that as Americans learn more about it, you will see that it will have a large impact across the country since the scholarship is unlimited and there is no cap on the American taxpayer.”

Motzen told JNS that now that the bill has passed, Agudath Israel of America will focus on educating the community about “what this legislation does, the difference it can make and how it can benefit all parents.”

“Scholarship organizations already exist in many states, and more will be created,” he said. “There will be creative solutions to ensure everyone can contribute because if each person gives $1,700, together, we can unlock hundreds of millions of dollars to help children access a better education.”

“The program doesn’t begin until 2027, so we have time to raise awareness and inspire people to put their tax dollars to good use,” he continued. “Either it goes to Uncle Sam, or it helps kids get a better education.”

President Donald Trump,

As a rabbi who has long admired your bold defense of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, I write to you now with urgent moral concern. I implore you to take the extraordinary but necessary step of publicly calling for a ban on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from entering the United States of America. This would serve as a powerful signal that the United States, under your leadership and the leadership of moral nations, will grant no quarter to heads of state who tolerate, excuse or enable the modern-day bloodletting of the Jewish people.

Australia, once a staunch ally of Israel and a democratic light in the Southern Hemisphere, has tragically devolved into a sewer of Jew-hatred. What was once the home of a proud Jewish community, and where my wife, Debbie, was born and raised, has become a nation in which Jews fear wearing kippot in public, synagogues are defaced and burned, and Jewish students are harassed on university campuses simply for being Jewish and Israel.

But the rot goes deeper than societal antisemitism. It is now firmly embedded in the Australian government itself.

Under Albanese, Australia has witnessed not only a surge in antisemitic incidents but a staggering moral collapse in the face of atrocities committed against Jews by Hamas. Since Oct. 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 people in Israel were butchered by terrorists—burned alive, raped and mutilated in the most grotesque pogrom since the Holocaust—Australia’s response has ranged from tepid to disgraceful.

Rather than standing with Israel in its darkest hour, Albanese’s government has embraced a shameful moral equivalence. His administration has condemned Israel’s self-defense in Gaza while remaining disgracefully muted about the barbarity of Hamas. Even worse, Australia has joined the chorus of nations at the United Nations that sought to isolate and demonize Israel for defending its people.

Let's be clear: This is not diplomacy, it is complicity.

When a national leader fails to denounce the slaughter of Jews with clarity and conviction, and instead panders to those who justify terrorism, he becomes morally culpable. When the prime minister of Australia refuses to treat Hamas as the genocidal death cult it is, he dishonors the memory of the victims and emboldens the next massacre.

Mr. President, you have never been afraid to speak truth to power. You were the first U.S. president to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, to move the embassy there, and to push back against the institutional antisemitism that has infected bodies like the U.N. Human Rights Council. Your voice on behalf of the Jewish people has been unwavering, even when it was politically inconvenient.

That is why I urge you now: Use that voice once more.

Call for the United States to place Albanese on a list of foreign officials barred from entry. Such a move would not be without precedent. America has previously denied entry to foreign leaders and officials responsible for human rights abuses or inciting violence. Albanese’s betrayal of democratic values and Jewish safety places him squarely in this category.

This is not merely about punishing a weak and morally compromised leader. It is about sending a message to the world: America stands with the Jewish people—not just in word, but in deed. America does not do business as usual with those who look away as Jewish blood is spilled.

Albanese has repeatedly failed the test of moral leadership. Since the rise in antisemitic violence across Australia—swastikas on Jewish homes, violent protests outside synagogues, anti-Israel mobs terrorizing Jewish neighborhoods—his government has responded with platitudes, not policy. He has not fortified protections for Jewish Australians. He has not cracked down on hate preachers who incite violence. And he has done precious little to stem the tide of anti-Zionist hatred on university campuses, where Jewish students are routinely targeted.

Worse still, his government has supported international resolutions that cast Israel as a pariah state while turning a blind eye to Hamas’s war crimes. To what moral depths must a leader fall before we say enough?

I have warned in my writings that Australia—a country I love and where I was a founder of the Rabbinical College of Sydney in 1986—has become a cesspit of antisemitism. This is not hyperbole. It is a tragic reality. Jewish Australians now live in fear. Many are considering emigration. Synagogues require small armies of security guards. Children are being taught to conceal their identities. This is not the Australia I once knew. It is a nation in moral crisis.

President Trump, you have always understood that such hatred does not arise in a vacuum. It thrives when people say nothing and metastasizes when leaders excuse it. And it reaches lethal proportions when nations normalize those who enable it.

History is watching. The Jewish people are watching. And your millions of supporters, who care deeply about the safety of Jews worldwide, are watching.

Silence is complicity. Action is justice.

The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation delivered some 1.5 million meals on Monday, bringing its total to more than 66 million meals, the organization announced.

It also distributed three truckloads of potatoes to its distribution site in Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Strip, as part of an “ongoing pilot program.”

“As the number of meals delivered continues to grow, the heart of our mission remains the same—getting food into the hands of those who need it most,” said GHF interim president John Acree.

“GHF is here to feed the people in Gaza, and we will not be pulled off course by disinformation, intimidation or distraction,” he said.

On Monday, Reuters corrected an article initially claiming that GHF submitted a proposal to put Palestinians in camps, also known as Humanitarian Transit Areas, while the Hamas terror group in Gaza was dismantled.

“We made it unequivocally clear, on the record, that the document was not ours, does not reflect our work, and has absolutely no connection to GHF or to our mission,” the organization stated.

“This is only the latest example of inaccurate, agenda-driven coverage of GHF being used to distort and distract from our one mission to meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of the population in Gaza,” it continued.

“Bottom line: GHF is not planning for or implementing HTAs, period,” GHF stated. “Our sole focus remains on scaling up food aid operations to meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of the population in Gaza.”

According to Steve Rubin, director of Tourism in the Jerusalem Development Authority, Jerusalem is not only the capital and most populous city in Israel, as well as being holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As the current war passed the 21-month mark, Jerusalem is also starting to bounce back as "a world leader in tourism and most certainly as the epicenter of culture in Israel," he said.

In a July 7 interview in the JNS Studio in Jerusalem, Rubin said "since Oct. 7, Jerusalem has become probably the safest city to be in Israel," adding with a smile that "this is the best time to come to Jerusalem."

The affable, articulate Rubin is responsible for promoting Jerusalem's development as an international tourism hub. Born in Philadelphia, he made aliyah and served as a lone soldier in the 2006 Second Lebanon War and has served five stints as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces in the current war.

He holds a master's in diplomacy from Tel Aviv University, as well as a bachelor's degree in journalism and Spanish from the University of Oregon.

Exuding faith in the future of Jerusalem and the Jewish state, he called this moment in history, "a time of optimism as we move into the summer and what we believe is really going to be a time for new beginnings." 

The Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA), he explained, "is a joint body of the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality responsible basically for all economic development in the city of Jerusalem," adding that this covers everything from starting new businesses, hi-tech and biomed companies to urban renewal projects and tourism."My job ... is to worry about bringing up the economic side of tourism within the city."

Promoting the city's "great summer campaign" to attract visitors from Israel and abroad, he called a vacation in Jerusalem "very economical and cost-effective for people," especially at a time when prices in cities such as Tel Aviv and Eilat were skyrocketing.

He quipped, "We're actually handing out money for people to come into the city of Jerusalem. And obviously, when you hear that from Israelis, people get very skeptical sometimes. We're passing out cash for you to come, with your significant other, your extended family, into the city and enjoy the hundreds of museums and attractions that we have here."

Rubin elaborated on the city's tourism incentive plan.

"Basically, it's very simple. You come for two nights in the middle of the week, so Sunday through Wednesday, book two nights at a range of hotels that we've been working with. And based on that, every person on your reservation will get 100 shekels on our behalf, given to you as part of a digital wallet," he said. "So if you're a family of five people, and you stay for two nights during the summer in the middle of the week in Jerusalem, you would get 500 shekels to be used at any dozens of different attractions and museums, cultural institutions within the city."

Among the highlights of this campaign, he touted the Jerusalem Food Festival and Light Show on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade (also known as the Haas Promenade or the Tayelet), which features a series of local restaurants' food trucks and a laser show. It runs until July 24.

"This has been a big hit over the years," he said, explaining that just a few days ago, "it attracted almost 10,000 people in a place that has a capacity of only 7,000 on the promenade over at Armon Hanatziv. I would look at it as a festival of different food trucks. You have live music out there and a massive bar. You're getting top chefs in Jerusalem who are coming and cooking at really affordable prices. We're talking anywhere between 25 to 45 shekels for a meal."

The Jerusalem chefs are hosting other chefs from all over Israel, he pointed out. "Not only are we helping chefs here in the city during these difficult times, but we're also getting other chefs to come in and to promote themselves as well," he said. "So it's not just Jerusalem, but we're spreading the light out into the rest of Israel as well."

This, he said, was the basis of his "cautious optimism" about the revival in tourism to Jerusalem. "Just to see this kind of large gatherings one day after the other in the city of Jerusalem is really, really wonderful for us." Among the other summer events coming up in Jerusalem in July, Rubin listed the following main attractions:

• A celebration of iconic Israeli singer/actor Yehoram Gaon at the Tower of David, honoring the 85-year-old Jerusalemite for his contribution to the Jewish state and the city of Jerusalem. In a storied career, Gaon starred in a range of high-profile roles, including Yonatan Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's older brother, in the 1977 film, "Mivtza Yonatan" ("Operation Thunderbolt"), which tells the dramatic story of the 1976 Entebbe rescue operation which he led and which claimed his life.

• The 60th-anniversary celebrations of the Israel Museum, the largest cultural institution in Israel, featuring what Rubin termed "special exhibitions dedicated to the 60 years of this incredible institution."

• The Jerusalem Film Festival, which Rubin said the city almost canceled during the Israel-Iran War, is now back on track. It starts on July 17 and features more than 200 films from 50 countries. "You don't even have to necessarily go to a specific spot, because there's going to be big trucks with big screens going through the city to the different neighborhoods where you can catch it at your convenience. And if you happen to be in the city, we have regular screenings with pizza and drinks on the lawn at the Cinematheque."

Rubin remarked that the balmy weather at this time of the year in Jerusalem "is perfect for outdoor events." And, he noted, "That's why I'd say we're being a bit optimistic, just because we have these events going on. They didn't need to be canceled. They're going on as scheduled and we're hoping that that's what will give us the boost as we move toward the High Holy Days and eventually into the winter season."

Another huge tourist attraction in Jerusalem, he said, was the new National Library of Israel, "which seems to be everyone's first stop." Among the many events at the NLI are cultural performances and tours of its unique architecture and world-class facilities.

"The architecture is remarkable, one of a kind, the way it plays between darkness and light, modernity and antiquity coming together in Jerusalem. And they have some really wonderful tours. You have more than four million books, right? And you can see how they reach those books. There are these really cool robots that go through these endless rows where the books are and can bring you the book that you need."

In addition, Rubin said, the library showcases exhibitions of original manuscripts from the original writings of Maimonides and the first Zionist newspapers to the original lines of "Jerusalem of Gold" written by the legendary Jerusalem singer, Naomi Shemer.

Asked if he envisioned Jerusalem returning to the days of record tourism before COVID-19 and the Swords of Iron War (In 2019, Jerusalem was named the world's fastest-growing tourist destination with almost five million visitors), Rubin said, "Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to be a situation like Corona, where the whole world was shut down and people were craving just to get out and go anywhere. We're going to have to do a lot to get people to come back here to build that trust again. But naturally, I do believe that Jerusalem is a prime destination in the world."

Expressing optimism that Israel's capital is on the road to a full recovery, he said, "I think things will recover quicker than we expect. But I wouldn't say that tomorrow, immediately when flights open up on all the foreign carriers, people are going to be here. We're hoping that by wintertime, maybe Passover of 2026 and of course, summer a year from now, that we'll start to feel and see the Jerusalem that we're all used to."

Rubin concluded with an eloquent appeal for Israelis and foreigners, Diaspora Jews and Christian pilgrims, to visit the city. "There's no place like Jerusalem in the world, and it's not a cliché. And no matter how many times you come back to the city, there's always some other stone to uncover. Even for us who work in the business, and we've been doing it for years, there's always something new to see in Jerusalem, always something that your eyes haven't looked at, whether you look up or down, whether you go on the walls of the ancient city and the rooftops or you go underground. There's always something new to discover in Jerusalem."

He added, "My message is that Jerusalem is always the place where you're going to come back. We are waiting for everyone to come back, and we know that you'll be here soon." 

For more details on attractions in Jerusalem, Rubin recommended the city's website: www.itraveljerusalem.com. 

Maria Su, the superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, announced on June 30 that the district, which serves about 50,000 students in 122 schools, plans to introduce a new ethnic studies curriculum for the next academic year. Experts and parents told JNS that they have concerns about the curriculum, which they said hasn’t been properly vetted.

“We must take deliberate steps to ensure our ethnic studies curriculum reflects both educational excellence and our values,” Su said. “I remain deeply committed to the importance of ethnic studies in developing critical thinking, cultural understanding and civic engagement among our students.”

She added that two semesters of ethnic studies will be required for graduation.

Earlier this year, the Santa Ana Unified School District in southern California settled a lawsuit and agreed to pause several ethnic studies courses and remove antisemitic content from the classes.

Marci Lerner Miller, director of legal investigations at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told JNS that the curriculum, which is “unvetted” and “rushed,” appears to be based on a “liberated” ethnic studies program.

“By calling it a ‘pilot course,’ they believe they’re getting out of a requirement to give notice to the public twice” under the 2021 state law AB 101, which mandates that ethnic studies be a high school graduation requirement starting with the class of 2030, Miller said.

“The community is very upset about this, and they want to see some transparency and the opportunity to review everything,” she told JNS. (JNS sought comment from the district.)

Parents told JNS they are concerned about the curriculum. “No one has seen the slides yet, but it looks as if it’s being framed as the oppressor-non-oppressor narrative, which is the harmful rhetoric curriculum that was being taught before,” Natasha Saravanja, who has a Jewish son in the district, told JNS.

“A lot of black and brown children see themselves in this ethnic studies course, and I don’t want them to lose that,” she said. “I want Jewish students to see themselves in this ethnic studies course positively, and the same for those other communities also.”

“I’m not in favor of doing away with ethnic studies altogether,” she added. “I think there needs to be a pause, and we can find a curriculum that is more comprehensive and comes from a place of love and celebration.”

“As a Jewish mom and community advocate, I’m deeply troubled that SFUSD is forcing thousands of students into an unvetted, ideologically driven course without transparency, without public input and without following its own curriculum review process,” Viviane Safrin, another parent with a child in the district, told JNS.

“I’m not against ethnic studies. I want my child to learn real history, but no parent should have to accept a course that sidelines Jewish identity and shuts out community voices,” Safrin said.

Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High School, which is part of the district, told JNS that the district “is still refusing to adhere to its own mandated public processes for curriculum adoption, which leaves Jewish families wondering how they can trust that this board’s free-style decision on this curriculum will be any safer than the last?”

“By bypassing its own rules, the district has left Jewish and Israeli-American students vulnerable and at risk,” she told JNS. “Our community is demanding answers.”

‘Adopt accurate educational materials’

Oleg Ivanov, executive director of the Northern California region for StandWithUs, told JNS that “we fully support educating students about the rich diversity of their community and country.”

“However, ethnic studies courses at SFUSD and in many other California school districts have promoted bias and bigotry against Jews and Israelis,” Ivanov told JNS. “We urge SFUSD to remove its ethnic studies graduation mandate until the course has been fully vetted by the board of education, in a transparent process that includes public input.”

Ivanov called on the district “to adopt accurate educational materials about the Jewish community and antisemitism, along with professional development for all teachers, who will be using the curriculum to better acquaint them with these issues.”

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of the AMCHA Initiative, told JNS that her group is “alarmed” by the district’s decision “to pilot a new prepackaged ethnic studies curriculum while ‘auditing’ its current program—an unmistakable admission that what’s being taught is failing students.”

Rossman-Benjamin said that the state law AB 101 “handed control of ethnic studies to activists, opening the door to extremist content, including antisemitic narratives, without any enforceable standards, oversight or even funding.”

Antisemitic and other disturbing content has come up in ethnic studies courses in other districts in the state, according to Rossman-Benjamin.

The district’s “scramble to clean up its program isn’t an isolated failure,” she said. “It’s a warning. AB 101 must be repealed before more school districts inevitably subject their students to toxic and deeply harmful instruction and face pricey lawsuits to correct.”

Marc Levine, Central Pacific regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, told JNS that “while it is encouraging to see initial responsiveness from SFUSD to remove antisemitic materials from the curriculum, there remains serious concern among parents about how content will be taught in the classroom.”

“ADL will continue to hold the district accountable for keeping students safe and protected from antisemitism,” he said.

Mitch Siegler, founder of the THINC Foundation, which advocates for inclusive ethnic studies education, told JNS that his organization believes that the district’s process, “focusing on academic rigor, establishing an independent committee composed of community members and layering in other transparency measures,” makes “a solid foundation for a thoughtful and systematic approach to curriculum development.”

“Those commitments, combined with procedures which align the curriculum with State of California Department of Education guidelines, should lead to outcomes which better represent best practices than the ideological and divisive approaches that emanate from ‘liberated’ ethnic studies advocates,” he said.

The success of the Israeli operations in Iran during the 12-day war is evidenced by the massive damage the Israeli and American air forces inflicted on Iran’s nuclear installations.

Furthermore, the Israeli Air Force and its commandos eliminated Iran’s top nuclear scientists and military personnel, and destroyed more than 50% of Iran’s ballistic missiles and a similar percentage of its launchers. Military facilities used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also destroyed, as well as Iran’s air defenses. Israel’s operation exposed Iran’s weakness to the quiet cheers from moderate Arab Gulf states.

The Iranian regime’s pride and confidence were shaken by last month’s events, and its sense of “honor” was injured. As a result, the Islamic Regime has sought to avenge its humiliation by turning against its minorities, especially the Kurds, whom they accuse of collaborating with the Israelis.

Under the pretext of “national security,” the Islamic Regime’s authorities began a sweeping campaign of arresting Kurdish civilians accused of belonging to the underground, which cooperated with Israeli Mossad agents and assisted them in penetrating deep into Iranian territory during the war.

According to the European Peace Foundation, Tehran executed at least six Kurdish people and imprisoned another 700 throughout the Kurdish areas. KC Hum Sappan, the president of the foundation, issued a harsh condemnation on June 27 over the regime’s arrests and executions.

Jews were also apprehended by the Iranian regime’s intelligence services. The 10,000 to 15,000 Jews in Iran, however, are less threatening to the regime than the approximately 10 million to 15 million Kurds in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In an appeal to the international community, the East Kurdistan National Center said, “Following the 12-day war between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel and the announcement of a ceasefire, the Iranian regime, having suffered major strategic and security failures, has turned to retaliate against the Kurdish people instead of addressing the real causes of its defeat.”

It went on to say that immediately after the ceasefire, “more than 150 individuals in the city of Kermanshah were arrested and imprisoned by Iranian security forces.” Three of those individuals—Idris Ali, Azad Shojaei and Rasoul Ahmad Mohammad—were executed “on charges of assisting in the transfer of equipment and weapons allegedly used in the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top figure in Iran’s nuclear program.”

These allegations are baseless and contradict earlier official statements. In December 2020, Mahmoud Alavi, then-Iran’s minister of intelligence, publicly admitted that Iran’s security services had failed to track down the perpetrators of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.

The executions appear to be politically motivated acts of scapegoating, intended to divert attention from the regime’s military and intelligence failures. Iranian Kurds are gravely concerned that the Islamic Republic, emboldened by its survival after Israeli attacks, may repeat the horrors of 1988, when, following Ayatollah Ali Khomeini’s acceptance of the ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war, thousands of political prisoners were executed in mass killings. This time, accusations of espionage and collaboration with Israel may serve as the pretext for another wave of mass executions and widespread repression, particularly targeting the Kurdish population.

Some members of Iranian-Kurdish armed groups have found refuge with the Kurdistan Regional Government in northeastern Iraq and in some Arab Gulf states. Among them, an old acquaintance, Hussein Yazdanpanah, the former leader of the Iranian Kurdish Freedom Party, which includes an armed wing. Encouraged by the chaos in Iran following the war, Yazdanpanah posted a call on X for Kurdish youth to rise up against the ayatollah’s regime.

Sherkoh Abbas, president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, spoke against the Iranian regime’s persecution of its Kurdish population and said in a telephone conversation that “Iran’s intensifying execution of Kurdish individuals, often under sweeping accusations of foreign allegiance, reveals a brutal strategy to stifle dissent and vilify an entire community.”

“These actions are typically cloaked in secrecy and marred by allegations of coerced confessions and denied legal rights. What emerges is a disturbing pattern of scapegoating, where the Kurdish identity itself becomes a political liability.” Abbas added, “As Iran’s internal legitimacy declines and external conflicts escalate, the regime turns inward. Labeling Kurds as foreign agents not only dismisses their long-standing pursuit of pluralism, but also undermines any vision of an inclusive regional future.”

The time is now ripe for the minority communities in Iran, whose numbers amount to almost half of the population, to band together and bring down the hated, fanatically theocratic regime.