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Philadelphia Teacher ‘Reassigned Offsite’ while Public School District Investigates Alleged Jew-Hatred
A Philadelphia public school teacher with a history of anti-Israel statements made online threats against parents of Jewish students, according to a complaint that the Deborah Project filed, on behalf of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, with the School District of Philadelphia.
Keziah Ridgeway, who teaches at Northeast High School, is accused of naming previously-anonymous School District of Philadelphia Jewish Family Association leaders on social media and “fulminating that they had disobeyed her demand that they cease protesting against her antisemitism,” per the Deborah Project.
Omar Crowder, principal of Northeast High, sent an email to families on Friday stating that an unnamed staff member “will be reassigned offsite” while an investigation is conducted into a complaint about a “Northeast High School staff member,” who “made statements on social media that may violate school district policy,” per a copy of the email that a source shared with JNS.
JNS sought comment from the School District of Philadelphia, which has an enrollment of nearly 200,000 across 330 schools, and from Northeast High, which is part of the district.
“The school district is committed to creating a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all students, staff and families,” Crowder added in the email. “We have a plan in place to ensure that the academic needs of affected classes are met.”
“The plan for additional support, for both students and staff, is forthcoming,” he wrote. “Given the ongoing investigation and personal considerations, we cannot provide additional details at this time.”
Ridgeway is accused of “goading the Jewish parents with, ‘Ain’t no fun when the rabbit got the,’” and then inserting “an emoji for a human face with finger on lips—making clear that she was talking about a ‘gun,’” according to the Deborah Project, a public interest law firm.
The teacher reportedly also asked in a post if there were black-owned gun shops “in or near Philly? Asking for a friend.”
“It’s disgraceful that the Philadelphia School District has known about this aggressively antisemitic school teacher and has failed to rein in her profanity-laced, hateful public comments targeting Jewish families and students in the District,” stated Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project.
“Now Ridgeway has resorted to threats of gun use against Jewish parents. What will it take for the Philadelphia School District to respond?” she added.
The Deborah Project shared screenshots with JNS of posts that it said were from Ridgeway, in which she called Zionism racism and said the Jewish state commits genocide.
Michael Balaban, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, told JNS that “every student has the right to learn in a safe environment and receive a fair and balanced education without being subject to ethnic intimidation.”
“It is time for the Philadelphia School District to uphold these standards to support students of all backgrounds,” Balaban said. “This is only one example of a teacher who has been allowed to express their bias against Israel publically on social media and in school settings, creating an increasingly unsafe environment for Jewish students.”
Christina Clark, communications officer for the School District of Philadelphia, told JNS that the district is aware of the complaint.
“The district strives to create safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environments for all of our students, staff and families,” Clark said. “Threats of violence towards our school communities are not tolerated and we work closely with the appropriate authorities when handling these situations.”
Ridgeway is associated with Jewish Voice for Peace and American Muslims for Palestine, according to Canary Mission, a Jew-hatred watchdog.
(JNS)
TERROR: Jordanian Terrorist Kills Three Israelis At Allenby Crossing
Three security guards at the Allenby Bridge crossing in the Jordan Valley were killed in a terrorist shooting this morning. The gunman, who according to the IDF was a Jordanian citizen, was killed, and Israeli forces were conducting scans of the area to ensure there were no more terrorists in the area.
Magen David Adom emergency service spokesperson Zaki Heller said that “after resuscitation operations, MDA medics and paramedics in cooperation with the IDF medical force pronounced the deaths of three men about 50 years old with gunshot wounds to their bodies.”One of the victims was named as Yochanan Shchori, 61, a father of six from Ma’ale Efraim.
Yuri Birnbaum, 65, from Moshav Na’ama north of Yericho, was also killed in the attack.
The third victim was Adrian Marcelo Podsmeser, from Ariel.
The terrorist who carried out the attack was named as Maher D’yab Hussein Jazi, a 39-year-old truck driver from the city of Irbid.
The IDF said that the terrorist drove in a truck to the crossing from the Jordanian side. The terrorist then exited the vehicle and began firing at forces guarding the crossing. Security forces were working to rule out suspicions that the truck was laced with explosives.Jordan’s Interior Ministry announced the “beginning of the investigation into the shooting incident” at the border. A Jordanian security official told Arab media that the Allenby crossing was closed on the Jordanian side following the attack.
The crossing was also closed on the Israeli side and security forces cordoned off nearby Yericho to rule out the presence of additional terrorists who may have crossed the border.
The Allenby Bridge, known in Jordan as the King Hussein Bridge, located around three miles east of Yericho, connects Israel’s Yehuda and Shomron region with the Hashemite kingdom. The terminal is used mostly by Palestinians and foreign tourists and is forbidden for Israeli citizens, except for Muslims making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, told Channel 13, “We have known for several months from conversations with the military that they are aware of what is happening in Jordan, and are aware that the Palestinian population in Jordan supports Hamas and encourages it.”
He continued, “The army knows this and prepared for it, but they did not think that it can come from a bridge of apparent peace. The result is very difficult.” JNS
{Matzav.com Israel}
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Maryland Man with Lengthy Criminal History Arrested at Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC
A Maryland resident with a lengthy criminal history was arrested outside of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday after causing a bomb scare.
The U.S. Secret Service told JNS that the suspect allegedly threw a backpack over the fence of the diplomatic compound in the northwest part of the District of Columbia, prompting a response from the U.S. Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Department’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team.
The MPD confirmed to JNS using a variant spelling that the suspect is Rasheed Adedokun, 35. Recent Maryland court records say that he is a resident of Bladensburg, Md.
The bomb disposal unit eventually declared the scene safe. Adedokun was arrested for unlawful entry and processed at the nearby Metropolitan Police District. It’s not clear if he remains in custody.
Adedokun has a long history of arrests though no apparent previous connection to Israel, the Middle East or the American Jewish community.
In 2016, he was sentenced to 54 months in prison for identity theft and credit-card fraud in excess of $100,000. In 2022, he was arraigned in Virginia for violating his parole. Later that year, he was arrested in Canada after forcing the emergency landing of a flight from Iceland for his “unruly actions,” according to the Royal Canadian Mounted police, who charged him with endangering the safety or security of an aircraft and its passengers.
Last month, prosecutors filed a case against him in Maryland court after the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority arrested him for trespassing and disorderly conduct.
At press time, WMATA had not responded to JNS’s request for comment about that arrest.
(JNS)
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GOP Probe of Biden’s Afghanistan Exit Expands as Election Nears
House Republicans are expanding their investigation of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to people familiar with that matter, pursuing additional witness testimony as former president Donald Trump attempts to make the war’s deadly endgame a central issue with the election now weeks away.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s GOP majority has been in contact with at least three senior military officers who were in Kabul in August 2021 and directly involved in the hastily organized evacuation of tens of thousands of people whose safety was in jeopardy when the Afghan government collapsed. The operation left U.S. forces partially reliant for their security on Taliban militants, whose regime U.S. and coalition forces had warred with for 20 years, as they made a stunning return to power.
The senior officers targeted by the committee are Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, who recently retired from active duty, and Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, according to several people familiar with the matter. Each officer supervised U.S. forces during the evacuation, and Vasely and Sullivan previously voiced frustration with the Biden administration’s management of the crisis.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, which had been forecast to complete its investigation by now, also has intensified efforts to speak with at least two key administration figures: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was subpoenaed by the committee this week, and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
A Pentagon spokesman, James Adams, acknowledged that Donahue, Vasely and Sullivan had provided lawmakers with their “personal views and perspectives” and said “we are not aware of any official congressional requests for additional testimony” from them or other military personnel. A committee aide, who like others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing and politically charged inquiry, said investigators are reviewing the officers’ responses and that it is possible they will be asked for further participation in the inquiry.
A spokesman for Blinken, Matthew Miller, has accused the committee’s GOP leadership of “acting in bad faith.” A White House spokeswoman, Sharon Yang, said in a statement: “For multiple years already, Chairman McCaul’s investigation has only produced recycled, partisan attacks instead of any new substance. No matter how long House Republicans choose to continue playing politics, the fact remains that ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result.”
House Republicans’ plan to expand and prolong their investigation emerges as Trump prepares to debate Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, on Tuesday night. Coinciding with that, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the committee chair, is expected to release a report by Monday condemning the Biden-Harris team’s handling of the withdrawal. Committee Democrats are expected to respond with a report of their own defending the current administration. The additional testimony from three commanders is not expected to be included in either report but could be publicized at another time, people familiar with matter said.
It was not immediately clear whether either document will shed much new light on the episode, which is among the lowest moments of Joe Biden’s presidency and already has been thoroughly scrutinized by Congress and other institutions. The Afghanistan War Commission, a congressionally mandated bipartisan examination of the entire 20-year conflict commenced in July, is expected to make its findings public by August 2026.
In recent weeks, Trump’s campaign along with his allies in Congress have seized on the Afghanistan withdrawal to levy attacks on Harris, pointing to a suicide bombing during the operation’s waning days that killed 13 U.S. service members along with an estimated 170 Afghans. A number of the victims’ families have embraced the former president, fiercely defending him amid accusations from Democrats and other critics who say he is exploiting their tragedy for political gain. In the past, Trump has drawn the ire of military survivors and former aides disgusted by his alleged denunciation of fallen troops, whom he is said to have called “suckers” and “losers.”
Democrats on the Foreign Affairs Committee have consistently dismissed the investigation as partisan, noting that it fails to explore how Trump’s negotiations and withdrawal deal with the Taliban, signed in February 2020 during his presidency, helped set the conditions for Afghanistan’s collapse under Biden.
One Democrat on the committee, asked about the Republicans seeking testimony from the generals, suggested the GOP wants to “continue the theatrics” after compiling a “partisan report.”
“If it looks, walks and quacks like desperate politics …” the Democrat said, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Another Democratic staff member said that while those members are partisan players, too, they have emphasized the importance of representing witness testimony in context.
“That’s because we want witnesses to keep coming and talking voluntarily to the committee,” the staff member said. “It is important to us that our committee’s oversight function be taken seriously and not become some laughingstock.”
Leslie Shedd, a spokeswoman for the committee’s Republican majority, rejected those assertions. McCaul, the chairman, began investigating the Afghanistan evacuation immediately after it happened, at a time the GOP was in the House minority, and repeatedly urged Democrats to join him, she said. “They chose to ignore his pleas and ignore this deadly catastrophe,” Shedd said.
An independent assessment by the congressionally appointed Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found in 2022 that “the most important factor” in the collapse of the Afghan military was Trump’s withdrawal deal, “followed by President Biden’s withdrawal announcement,” which he made a few months after taking office in 2021.
McCaul claimed in a statement that his investigation will expose how the Biden administration “misled, and in some instances outright lied,” to the American people, prioritizing “optics over the safety and security of U.S. personnel.” And while an earlier report by McCaul’s committee barely mentioned Harris, he stressed now that she “was there every step of the way.”
“It is up to the American people to determine if they believe these things should disqualify Vice President Harris from continuing the Biden-Harris administration another four years,” McCaul said.
Democrats have countered that while the 13 Americans’ deaths were tragic, they must be put into the proper context of ending a 20-year war responsible for deaths of more than 2,400 other U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. In signing the withdrawal deal with the Taliban that called for all U.S. personnel to leave Afghanistan by spring 2021, Trump left Biden with few good options, they argue.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), an Afghanistan War veteran and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that McCaul and his team have not taken an “appropriate approach” to the review.
“Ultimately,” he said in an interview, Republicans “decided to take a partisan approach to this, and weaponize the investigation, and make it just about a one-month period of an over-20-year war.”
The topic has grown increasingly politicized as Trump and other Republicans zero in on Harris’s comment in April 2021 that she was the “last person in the room” with Biden before he made up his mind about whether to withdraw. Afghan security forces disintegrated over the next few months as the Taliban swept across the country and into the capital.
While U.S. officials familiar with Biden’s deliberations have said there’s no indication Harris had sway with him on an issue in which he was deeply entrenched, Trump has claimed that Biden and Harris together were to blame for the deaths of the 13 service members “just like they pulled the trigger.”
One former senior U.S. official who has been involved in the investigation assessed that McCaul is now “in a tough spot,” attempting to navigate his desire to hold the Biden administration accountable without losing control of the situation.
“He has got to look around and weigh the odds of Trump winning this election – and of course the Republicans think this is something that will help Trump win,” the official said.
The committee’s latest moves follow the resignation in August of Jerry Dunleavy, a conservative journalist retained by the GOP to work on the investigation who had grown frustrated by what he called a failure by the majority to aggressively scrutinize the U.S. government’s final year in Afghanistan. The families of many of the service members killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate also have pressed for greater accountability – reserving particular fury for Jake Sullivan, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whom they view as the architects of a disorganized departure that assumed far too much risk.
Jim McCollum, the father of one of the Marines killed in the attack, said in an interview that he is appreciative of the committee’s work and hopes to see it pursue additional witnesses.
“It looks to me like NSC has a central role in what happened,” he said, referring to the White House’s National Security Council.
Dunleavy, in a pointed letter posted online, wrote that he quit in protest of how McCaul and his staff had handled the investigation. Senior staff members, he alleged, had stymied some of his efforts.
Dunleavy, who has never been to Afghanistan but grew interested in the war when his brother deployed, co-authored a book about the evacuation and came to the GOP’s investigation with strong convictions about Biden’s failings. After his resignation, which he described as coming after McCaul disregarded a series of his suggestions and analyses, Dunleavy also cast the committee’s work as a failure.
Asked in an interview whether the committee also has a responsibility to scrutinize Trump’s Afghanistan decisions, Dunleavy acknowledged that the former president’s deal with the Taliban was a “very flawed agreement.” But the “proximate cause” of the Taliban seizing control of the country, he argued, was Biden ordering the full withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The committee declined to answer questions about Dunleavy’s accusations.
(c) Washington Post
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Barrage of Over 50 Rockets Fired Towards Northern Israel, IDF Strikes Hezbollah Targets
Late last night, sirens blared in Kiryat Shmona and several northern Israeli towns, as the IDF reported that more than 50 rockets were launched from Lebanon towards these regions.
In a statement, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit detailed, “Following the sirens that sounded at 00:57 and between 2:34 to 2:39 in the area of Kiryat Shmona, approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon. The IDF Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted most of the projectiles. Fallen projectiles were identified in the area. No injuries were reported.”
The statement continued, “Following the sirens that sounded at 5:35 in the upper Galilee, approximately 30 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon. The IDF Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted several projectiles and the rest fell in open areas. No injuries were reported.”
During the night, the IDF conducted airstrikes on Hezbollah military sites located in Aitaroun, Maroun El Ras, and Yaroun in southern Lebanon, according to the IDF.
Additionally, the IDF announced that on Shabbos they targeted and neutralized terrorists from the Amal terrorist group operating within a Hezbollah facility in Froun, southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah took credit for the rocket attacks on northern Israel, stating that the barrage directed at the Kiryat Shmona area was in retaliation for an attack on a vehicle in southern Lebanon on Saturday, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of several rescue workers.
Following the rocket assaults, which also affected unevacuated communities, the Home Front Command conducted a situation review and decided that Sunday classes in the Golan would proceed as planned.
Residents were advised to avoid areas in the northern Hula Valley, including Gonen, Shamir, Lehavot HaBashan, Amir, Kfar Szold, Kfar Blum, Sde Nechemia, and Neot Mordechai.
{Matzav.com Israel}
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R’ Yitzchok (Itchie) Selengut z”l
It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the passing of R’ Yitzchok (Itchie) Selengut z”l. He was in his 90s.
R’ Itchie, a longtime resident of Boro Park, Brooklyn, was a distinguished talmid of two of the greatest Torah giants of the previous generation. R’ Itchie learned at Bais Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, NJ, under Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l, and at Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalayim on the Lower East Side under Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l. His years of immersion in Torah produced an individual of profound Torah knowledge and sterling middos.
R’ Itchie was not only an outstanding talmid chochom but also a person of warmth and kindness. He always had a kind word or a thoughtful vort to share, and his presence was a source of inspiration to all who knew him. His deep commitment to limud haTorah was mirrored by his humility and genuine concern for others.
He is survived by his devoted wife, Mrs. Bryna Selengut, and their children: Rebbetzin Tova Greenblatt, Mrs. Estie Deutsch, R’ Dovid Selengut, R’ Aharon Selengut, R’ Eliyahu Selengut, Mrs. Naomi Berliner, and R’ Naftoli Selengut; and many grandchildren.
The levayah will take place today at 11 a.m. at the Congregation Sons of Israel Holocaust Memorial Chapel, located at 613 Ramsey Avenue in Lakewood, NJ, followed by kevurah at the adjacent Mt. Sinai Cemetery.
Yehi zichro boruch.
{Matzav.com}
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