European Union foreign ministers didn't adopt any measure against Israel on Tuesday as they discussed a "common understanding" reached between Brussels and Jerusalem last week to significantly improve and increase humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.

"The European Union will keep a close watch on how Israel implements this common understanding and the pledges and will update the compliance every two weeks," E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas declared after a Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.

"We see positive signs. We see more trucks and supplies are reaching Gaza. We see more entry points opened. We also see electricity lines being repaired. But Israel needs to take more concrete steps to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground," Kallas told reporters.

"But if the situation is not going to improve, then the member states are also willing to take next steps. The goal is to improve the situation, because it is really untenable, the humanitarian situation," she added.

The ministers discussed the E.U.-Israel agreement brokered last week after intense dialogue between Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to increase the number of trucks and distribution of food entering Gaza as well as the opening of several other crossing points.

But they also examined a list of 10 options prepared by the E.U.'s External Action Service against Israel following a review of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement's Article 2, which deals with respect of human rights. Israel has rejected the review as "absurd and unjustified.’"

The measures include the suspension of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement and a series of other trade sanctions.

"We will keep these options on the table and stand ready to act if Israel does not live up to its pledges. The aim is not to punish Israel. The aim is to really improve the situation in Gaza,’" Kallas told reporters.

E.U. foreign ministers also made clear that a ceasefire deal with Hamas still remains a priority.

Sa'ar on Tuesday night said Jerusalem had achieved "important diplomatic success when we managed to fend off all types of obsessive attempts by several countries in the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel."

"I thank our friends in the European Union and their foreign ministers, who stood by our side and prevented harm to Israel, which would also have been harm to the European Union itself," the diplomat tweeted.

"The attempts to harm Israel's image, diplomatically and legally, will continue. Our struggle is in full swing. We will continue to fight for the justice of Israel's cause and to strengthen its diplomatic ties," he added.

On Monday, Sa'ar had declared that "not any" of the 10 measures that Brussels prepared against the Jewish state would be adopted, stating that "there is no justification whatsoever" for them.

Speaking to the press as he arrived in Brussels to attend a ministerial meeting between the E.U. and nations from the Middle East and North Africa, he said: "What we see is Hamas stopping people to get the aid directly because they want to be the mediators of humanitarian aid."

"It is crucial that this aid will be given to the people and it is important to disconnect the aid from Hamas," said Sa'ar, adding: "This is part of the things that we have raised in our dialogue with the E.U., to develop methods [of aid delivery] that will reach the people and not Hamas."

This is an edited version of an article originally published by the European Jewish Press.

Lebanon’s central bank has barred banks and financial institutions from conducting transactions with Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a financial entity linked to the Hezbollah terror organization, according to a circular dated July 14, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The decision reflects Hezbollah’s relative weakness following its battering by Israel in the fall of 2024, and comes on the heels of U.S. Treasury sanctions earlier this month targeting seven Hezbollah operatives for their roles at the bank.

Al-Qard Al-Hassan, founded in the early 1980s, has been described as the financial backbone of Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state in Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Sept. 27, 2024, had been the bank’s chief decision-maker. The institution reportedly serves around 300,000 people.

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan in 2007, describing it at the time as “the financial backbone of Hezbollah, Hamas, [and] PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad].”

Saudi Arabia designated the bank as a terrorist entity in 2021. Israel followed suit in October, adding it to its list of terrorist organizations and targeting several of its branches in airstrikes that same month.

“It is a very good thing that the Lebanese Central Bank is acting against Al-Qard Al-Hassan,” Haig Melkessetian, a former intelligence operative for the U.S. Defense and State Departments who has investigated Lebanese banks and their ties to terror financing, told JNS.

 ‘The obstacle to banking reforms’

Lebanon’s move was likely prompted by a major conference of the Law Enforcement Coordination Group (LECG), held on July 9-10 and attended by representatives from about 30 countries, Melkessetian said. The LECG was established by the United States and Europol in 2014 to strengthen international coordination against Hezbollah.

The group warned that Hezbollah’s “shaky financial state” is likely to drive increased fundraising efforts in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and other regions. A U.S. State Department press release noted that participants highlighted recent government actions aimed at “countering Hezbollah’s financial mechanisms and criminal schemes.”

Melkessetian emphasized that further action is needed, pointing to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has held the post since 1992, as the next key figure to target for sanctions. He described Berri as “the last remnant” of the entrenched corruption that Lebanon now appears intent on leaving behind.

“To really cut off the Hezbollah financing network, the U.S. Treasury needs to sanction Berri. He is the obstacle to banking reforms in Lebanon,” Melkessetian said.

Berri presents himself as a friend to the U.S. and Europe, but he is allegedly trying to obstruct Lebanon’s efforts to address financial corruption by placing his own allies in key positions at the central bank. Melkessetian stated that Berri’s aim is to undermine reform initiatives by the bank’s new governor, Karim Souaid, who was appointed in March.

“He wants to put his own guys in so they can cover for what he did wrong for years. It’s like the mafia putting a corrupt cop in charge of an FBI investigation,” Melkessetian said.

Melkessetian added that other institutions also need to be sanctioned, specifically highlighting the Middle East & Africa Bank (MEAB). As the 15th largest bank by deposits in Lebanon, MEAB has managed to slip through the cracks of enforcement.

Melkessetian said that MEAB played a crucial role in helping Al-Qard Al-Hassan evade sanctions, as the latter is not directly connected to the international banking system. MEAB, along with other institutions, provided indirect access to the system for Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

Anti-Israel protesters and port workers at the Port of Piraeus in Greece on Monday blocked the unloading of the cargo ship Ever Golden, which was reportedly carrying steel designated for military use in Israel.

The protest, held at the port's docks 2 and 3, was organized by the Container Handling Workers Union (ENEDEP), with the backing of anarchist groups and members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

Union chairman Markos Bekris declared that the workers would not take part in unloading any cargo linked to military operations. "We will not allow the port to become a logistics hub for the transfer of war equipment. Our goal is to physically prevent the unloading of this cargo," said Bekris.

Following the demonstration, the decision was made to reroute the cargo to another ship, the COSCO Shipping Pisces, which is expected to dock at Piraeus on Wednesday evening. The union has already announced its intent to prevent the unloading of that vessel as well.

According to reports, the shipment includes about 75 packages of military-grade steel originating from India. After the Ever Golden was denied permission to unload, the cargo was transferred to the Chinese-owned COSCO ship. It remains unclear whether the steel will eventually be unloaded in Greece or sent to another port.

This is not an isolated incident. Similar protests and port blockades occurred in June 2025 and in October 2024, also aimed at preventing the unloading of munitions reportedly bound for Israel.

Originally published by Israel Hayom.

Surgeons at Ziv Medical Center in the northern Israeli city of Safed delivered two sets of triplets just hours apart on Sunday, the hospital announced Tuesday.

The first set of triplets was delivered via scheduled cesarean section at 34 weeks’ gestation, while the second was born during an emergency procedure at 26 weeks after early labor began, the hospital said. Both sets included two boys and one girl.

The two mothers—one from Kibbutz Mahanaim near Rosh Pina and the other from the Arab Israeli village of Tuba-Zangariyye—were reported to be recovering together in the hospital’s postpartum unit, while their six newborns were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit for observation.

“Triplet births are always challenging and emotional,” said Dr. Inbar Ben-Shahar, director of Ziv Medical Center’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “It’s important to emphasize that, from a medical standpoint, this is considered a very high-risk pregnancy,” she added.

Prof. Eric Shinwell, director of neonatology at Ziv Medical Center, said the newborns were "in good condition," adding that while they require close monitoring, "they are in the best hands."

"The arrival of triplets in the NICU requires special preparation—three incubators, three doctors, three nurses—everything times three. But at Ziv, we are prepared for this," he said.

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel will be required to open its rabbinical tests to women, the High Court of Justice ruled on Monday.

The landmark ruling stops short of saying that women are entitled to be ordained as rabbis, though it is being seen as a major step forward in the advancement of the status of female Torah scholars in Israel.

“This is an enormous achievement for the State of Israel in that the court recognizes women Torah scholars and their achievements,” Rabbi Seth Farber, founder of ITIM, a nongovernmental, Jerusalem-based advocacy group for reforming Israel’s religious bureaucracy, told JNS on Tuesday.

The organization filed the petition seven years ago with six women, including Farber’s wife—Michelle Cohen Farber, a prominent Talmud scholar—in addition to the Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status and the Kolech Religious Women Forum.

He noted that the High Court case intentionally differentiated between the right to take the rabbinical exam, which measures efficiency in Jewish law or halachah and gives economic and social standing, and ordination of women, which is anathema in the eyes of the ultra-orthodox.

Still, the decision was expected to raise the ire of the Chief Rabbinate, with an expected showdown in three months when the next rabbinical tests are offered.

A spokesperson for the Chief Rabbinate said that the ruling was being studied.

Last year, an internal power struggle involving politics, nepotism and the role of women delayed the selection of Israel’s chief rabbis.

While the war in the Gaza Strip continues, Israel has successfully dismantled Hamas as an organized terrorist army but is now facing a persistent, scattered guerrilla force that remains capable of carrying out hit-and-run attacks and rocket launches.

A senior Israeli military official told JNS that the IDF has eliminated most of Hamas’s senior command, destroyed its weapons production and smuggling capabilities, and established control over two-thirds of the Gaza Strip, but thousands of fighters remain in pockets of resistance, primarily in areas not yet cleared by ground forces.

The official, speaking on July 15, provided a detailed assessment of Hamas’s current state, emphasizing the fundamental change in its operational capacity.

“The main difference, our main achievement, is primarily in the dismantling of Hamas as a military organization. Hamas does not function as a military organization; it currently functions as a guerrilla organization,” the official stated. “Its capabilities are guerrilla capabilities. It cannot fight in an organized manner.”

Hamas is limited to hit-and-run attacks, the source stated, adding that Hamas does not have the command and control of a military organization like it had on Oct. 7, 2023. “It is an organization that never wanted to fight army versus army, because it is a terror organization that operates with the methods of a terror organization, but today it also cannot do so, even if it wants to. It does not have the ability for coordinated control; rather, it has pockets in different areas.”

This degradation is a direct result of Israel’s systematic targeting of the organization’s capabilities, leadership, infrastructure and personnel. 

“The absolute majority of Hamas's senior command that existed on Oct. 7 has been eliminated,” the official said. “Today, those considered its senior command are people who were promoted during the war because so many people were eliminated.”

The current leader of Hamas is Izz al-Din al-Haddad, a member of the organization’s military council and formerly head of the military wing’s Gaza Brigade. 

In addition to the leadership, Israel has focused on crippling Hamas’s ability to rearm.

“Another important element that we have damaged is their production and smuggling capability. They have neither smuggling nor production,” he explained. “What they fire, they cannot replace, except for foolish things. They can always take an explosive and a street sign and try to produce something basic, but except for this, everything they fire, they cannot replace. They have no way. This is a most significant achievement."

This degradation in military capability has forced Hamas to change its recruitment tactics, further eroding the quality of its fighting force. 

Hamas is estimated to have lost tens of thousands of terrorists, with thousands currently in its ranks. This has created a vacuum that Hamas is struggling to fill, leading it to recruit teenagers for its guerrilla operations. This new generation of operatives lacks the training and experience of those eliminated by the IDF.

The battle is also being waged over the sources of Hamas’s power within the Gaza civilian population, which Hamas uses as its sources for power and money. 

Controlling the distribution of humanitarian aid is therefore key to breaking the terror group’s grip on Gaza. By commandeering aid trucks, as Israeli soldiers on the ground reported seeing in late June, Hamas not only secures resources but also demonstrates its authority over the population. This was the driving force behind the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has distributed tens of millions of meals and is free from Hamas looting since distribution centers are secured by Israel. 

On the diplomatic front, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad attempt to project an image of unwavering strength, despite their massive losses. Following a high-level meeting in Doha on July 13, the terror groups issued a joint statement affirming that any negotiation must lead to a complete end to the war and a full withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. This public stance is aimed at securing their primary objective: the survival of their regime in Gaza through gaining back territories lost to the IDF. 

Recent IDF and Shin Bet announcements, meanwhile, regarding strikes over the past two weeks that eliminated commanders from Hamas's weapons production headquarters and its Military Intelligence unit, indicate a growing Israeli intelligence infiltration of Hamas. 

On the ground, the IDF is intensifying its operations. On July 14, combat engineering forces conducted large-scale demolitions of structures in Jabalia, a dense urban area in northern Gaza, and in Khan Younis, a major city in the south. The IDF’s elite Multidimensional Unit recently completed a mission in Jabaliya where it eliminated over 100 Hamas terrorists. 

The IDF now controls over 65% of the Gaza Strip, with the Morag Axis in the southern Strip serving as a critical logistical and operational corridor that separates areas under IDF control from those that are not. The establishment of this axis is a key pressure lever against Hamas, as it demonstrates Israeli control over territory, which the terror group fears most.

Despite these achievements, the military official acknowledged that a significant threat remains. “They still have thousands of terrorists,” he said, though he clarified their nature. “But these are terrorists, usually with simple weapons, who do not operate as an organized body but as scattered groups in different areas that can carry out terror attacks.”

These remaining pockets of Hamas control are concentrated in areas where the IDF has not yet conducted extensive ground operations, such as the central Gaza camps and Gaza City. “In the areas that the IDF does not hold, we know there are still terrorists hiding behind civilians,” the official stated. “We are advancing step by step, entering an area, evacuating the population, fighting terror..”

The official emphasized that while Hamas can still harm soldiers, its primary goal of attacking Israeli civilians in the Gaza envelope communities is being thwarted. “Hamas would like to carry out terror against Israeli civilians in the Gaza envelope [the western Negev], and it is not succeeding because we are there,” he said. “Unfortunately, it succeeds against soldiers, but the soldiers are standing between Hamas and the citizens of Israel.”

The Jewish world—and hopefully, decent people everywhere—mourn the devastating loss of Avraham Azulay, who was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Avraham, a 25-year-old reservist from Yitzhar in Samaria, was operating a construction vehicle in Khan Yunis when Hamas militants stormed the area. In a moment that speaks volumes about his courage, they tried to take him hostage, to add him to their horrific “collection” of captives, but he fought back. He refused to be another number, another pawn in their terror campaign. And for that, they murdered him.

This story is tragic. But when you hear the whole story, the heartbreak becomes almost too much to bear.

Avraham had just married his wife, Ruth, three months ago. They were newlyweds, starting their lives, dreaming of a future together. Now a widow, Ruth has already faced unimaginable pain: Her brother was also killed in combat in Gaza.

These are the kinds of losses we’ve read about in Holocaust books and memorials—entire families decimated, young lives cut down, a generation’s hope extinguished before it could fully bloom. This isn’t just a personal tragedy. This is a biblical loss Yitzhar—a moment of communal mourning that echoes across our history and our souls.

Raised in the town of Elazar in Samaria, Avraham later moved to Yitzhar as a teenager. He was a builder in every sense of the word, founding a construction business dedicated to developing the area’s infrastructure and roads. As Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan noted, Avraham “was a hero, a true pioneer, devoted with all his soul to the settlement of the hills and to the IDF.” He built Israel not just with his hands but with his heart.

Our hearts are broken. And we must allow them to stay broken.

We must not become numb. We cannot get used to Jewish blood being spilled. We cannot become desensitized to the funerals, the shivas, the grieving mothers, the destroyed dreams. Every Jewish life is a world. Every murder is a cosmic tear in the fabric of our people.

Meanwhile, across the world, we hear voices shamelessly calling for a “global intifada.” This is not an abstract slogan. Every single Jew in the world knows what intifada means. It meant bombs on public buses and explosions in pizza shops. It meant death and terror for Israelis and tourists alike simply going about their lives.

Even in the heart of the Jewish Diaspora, in New York City, the largest Jewish population center outside of Israel, a mayoral candidate, Zohar Mamdani, refuses to condemn that vile slogan, a call for the death and destruction of Jews worldwide. This is not theoretical. This is not rhetoric. This is what it looks like: a young Jewish man, married just three months ago, is murdered. His wife is left shattered, grieving both a husband and a brother.

Mamdani, who led the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter when he was a student at Bowdoin College in Maine, now seeks to bring this ideology to City Hall. By refusing to denounce calls to “Globalize the intifada,” he has shown his true colors. He is not just a candidate with differing political views; he is effectively a cheerleader, an instigator for violence against Jews, unwilling to back down from a slogan that has only one meaning to those who lived through the horror of those years in Israel from 2000 to 2005.

New York City deserves better. The largest Jewish community in America deserves leaders who don't equivocate when it comes to terrorism and violence. We cannot allow someone who embraces such dangerous rhetoric to lead our city. This will be a fight for the soul of New York, a fight we cannot afford to lose.

We cannot, and will not, allow this to crush the Jewish spirit.

We will cry. We will mourn. We will hold each other close. But we will also rise. We will fight evil, whether it’s in Gaza or in the form of politicians who seek to bring that evil to the halls of City Hall. We will never be silent in the face of those who celebrate Jewish death and disguise it as political ideology.

For 2,000 years, we have endured. We have survived inquisitions, pogroms, genocides and wars. We are stronger than ever. We will stand tall not because we forget, but because we remember. We remember who we are. We recognize the cost of our survival. And we remember our heroes.

Avraham Azoulay was one of those heroes, the 31st soldier from the Samaria Council to fall in this war, sacrificing his life for the nation and the land while doing what he loved: building Israel.

May his memory be a blessing.

May his wife, Ruth, and her entire family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

May we soon see the day when swords are turned into plowshares, when the hostages come home, and when peace reigns in Jerusalem and throughout the world.

Mike Waltz, the former U.S. national security advisor and congressman, vowed to fight antisemitism at the United Nations if confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the global body. 

At his nomination hearing on Tuesday, Waltz described the problem of Jew-hatred at the world’s largest multilateral organization as “pervasive.”

“I could probably spend the rest of this hearing, sadly, highlighting the antisemitic activities,” Waltz said. “From 2015 to 2023, the General Assembly passed 154 resolutions against Israel versus 71 against all other nations combined.” 

“UNRWA in Gaza, with its staff involved in the Oct. 7 massacre, its schools teaching antisemitic hate, must be dismantled,” he added, referring to the U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency.

Democrats on the committee grilled Waltz about his involvement in adding Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to an encrypted group chat with senior U.S. officials in March to discuss forthcoming airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

“I've seen you not only fail to stand up, but lie,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). “You said this journalist intentionally infiltrated that Signal chain. You said that he was ‘sucked in.’ You denied, deflected and then you did something that, to me, really lacks integrity.”

“You sought out to demean and degrade that very journalist in crass and frankly cruel ways that made him a target,” Booker said. “That’s not leadership when you blame people who tell the truth.”

Waltz was removed as national security advisor in May when U.S. President Donald Trump named him as his pick to be U.N. ambassador. Trump withdrew his nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for that post to help preserve a very thin Republican majority in the House.

Waltz denied during Tuesday’s hearing that Trump had fired him and said that no classified information was shared.

At least two Department of Defense investigations remain underway to determine whether the group chat included classified information. The most relevant information was sent by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, not Waltz.

Waltz also faced questions from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) over his vote for an amendment to prevent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2020 during the first Trump administration.

“When it comes to ending a war, you voted with Liz Cheney and the others to say that the president couldn’t end the war,” Paul said. “I just don't understand how you could have voted for this.”

“It just worries me that you come more from the Liz Cheney wing of the party than the Donald Trump wing of the party,” Paul said.

“Senator, I am squarely with the president,” Waltz replied.

Waltz also faced criticism from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), one of Israel’s sharpest critics in the Senate, about American support for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“It’s been called a death trap,” Van Hollen said of the foundation’s aid points. “Hundreds of Palestinian civilians crowding to get food have been killed either by the security contractors, mercenaries or by the IDF.” (Israel and the foundation have sharply denied such claims.)

Waltz said his sympathies are with two American aid workers, who were wounded in a Hamas grenade attack at a foundation distribution site earlier in July.

“I don’t think this should be a zero sum,” Waltz said. “I do agree that it is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I hope you would agree that Hamas could stop it tomorrow by laying down their arms.”

Primary and secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, failed to investigate 49% of antisemitic incidents reported to school officials, and more than 40% of Jew-hatred instances involved Holocaust denial or glorifying Nazis, according to a government-commissioned survey on Jew-hatred in K-12 schools in the province.

The report, dated July 14, lists 781 instances of antisemitism. “Several times a day on multiple days in September 2024, a 13-year-old Jewish girl in Waterloo was surrounded by five boys repeatedly shouting ‘Sieg Heil!’ and raising their hands in the Nazi salute. On each occasion, she begged them to stop, but they persisted,” it states. “In October 2024, a 6-year-old in Ottawa was informed by her teacher that she is only half human because one of her parents is Jewish.”

Michael Teper, president of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, told JNS that “in the public school system, Jewish students are frequently ostracized, isolated and assaulted verbally and physically.”

“Little is being done to resolve the crisis,” he told JNS.

The office of the Canadian special envoy for preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism oversaw the report led by Robert Brym, a University of Toronto sociologist.

From late January to early April of this year, 599 Jewish parents were surveyed. They reported 781 antisemitic incidents, estimated to affect at least 10% of the province’s 30,000 Jewish students. The report covers incidents that took place between October 2023 and January 2025, with more than 80% of the incidents taking place in the Toronto and Ottawa metropolitan areas.

Of the 51% of cases that schools investigated, in nearly 9%, they said that the incident in question wasn’t antisemitic or recommended that the reported victim be removed from school permanently or attend classes virtually. Some16% of parents moved their children to other schools, per the report.

‘Sounding the alarm’

Josh Landau, director of government relations for Ontario at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, told JNS that the report makes clear that “antisemitism is a serious problem.”

“We’ve been sounding the alarm for a long time now, and it is completely intolerable,” Landau told JNS. “It must change, and we need to see the government act decisively to combat this rising antisemitism in schools.”

“We are disappointed by the delay in implementing the new and expanded mandatory learning about the Holocaust in the compulsory grade 10 history course, and we argue that the government should accelerate the implementation of that mandatory curriculum to address the troubling lack of understanding and ongoing dehumanization of Jews,” he said.

Every new story of a victim of antisemitism is “shocking but not surprising,” he told JNS.

“We’ve been seeing this huge increase in antisemitism within the K-12 space for years now, and we need the government to take action,” he said, adding that every school board in the province must adopt and apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred, “so that hate is recognized, recorded and addressed consistently.”

The report notes that the Toronto District School Board adopted the IHRA definition in 2018, “but in practice, it often fails to recognize and classify those incidents as antisemitic,” Landau told JNS.

‘We expect more from them’

Brym, the University of Toronto sociologist, told JNS that the IHRA definition “should be enforced,” but “it hasn’t been enforced largely because it would cause a backlash.”

Aaron Kucharczuk, co-founder of the Jewish Educators and Families Association of Canada, who is acknowledged in the study, reviewed a pre-publication draft.

He told JNS that some children asked that their parents not report antisemitic incidents, fearing they would become targets of more harassment or bullying. Some stopped wearing jewelry with Jewish symbols and Hebrew lettering, he added.

“These problems were not being dealt with effectively,” he told JNS. “Then the silence leaves more opportunities for even more antisemitic incidents to occur because they never responded to the earlier incident.”

“Students can make mistakes, and they can have learning opportunities about what’s right or wrong to say,” he said. “But teachers need to model good behavior, and we expect more from them, and clearly, the schools have been failing in their duty to make sure they’re held accountable.”

Teper, of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, is a lawyer. He told JNS he has had difficulty holding educators to account in the school system.

Since 2021, he has filed more than 25 professional misconduct complaints related to Jew-hatred against Ontario teachers. The regulatory body for the teaching profession in the province, the Ontario College of Teachers, has a “poor” investigation process, he told JNS. (JNS sought comment from the Ontario College of Teachers.)

“Investigations are routinely delayed unduly, sometimes for years,” told JNS, noting that it’s no wonder that Brym “cites a high degree of under-reporting.”

“When complaints are finally processed, they are either dismissed based on the investigation committee having a superficial understanding of the nature of antisemitism, including the IHRA definition, or the investigation committee bends over backwards attempting to formulate excuses for the member’s behavior to justify the issuance of inordinately lenient consequences,” Teper told JNS.

In one instance, it took a year and a half after he filed a complaint on April 24, 2023, before the discipline committee revoked a teacher’s license for, among other things, referring to Jews as “baby killers” on social media, he told JNS.

“If it were black people, LGBT2SQ+ people or indigenous people targeted by certain college members, would the college be this casual and lackadaisical in its approach?” he told JNS. “Why is it that at the Ontario College of Teachers, Jews don’t count?”