Jewish community leaders in Savannah, Georgia, acted quickly on Friday after spotting a social media post featuring a party flyer with what appeared to be an antisemitic message, JTA reports.
The flyer, which was allegedly aimed at students from the Savannah College of Art and Design, contained a list of party instructions embedded in micrographic text that spelled out the words “No Jews.”
As the flyer began circulating, Jewish leaders affiliated with both SCAD and the broader Savannah community immediately condemned it and demanded a response.
“We are proud as the Jewish community of SCAD and will not feel safe if nothing is done,” said SCAD Hillel in an Instagram statement.
Chabad of Savannah, where many Jewish SCAD students are active, also voiced outrage in a social media post, saying, “We are deeply disturbed and saddened by the antisemitic incident that occurred at SCAD where a party invitation stated that no Jews were welcome. This type of hate has no place on campus in our community or anywhere in society.”
The Savannah Jewish Federation also reacted forcefully, announcing via Instagram that it was coordinating with school authorities and local law enforcement to address the situation.
“At this juncture, our priorities are the welfare of the Jewish community,” the federation’s post read. “Appropriate disciplinary measures, and education to ensure Jewish students understand the nature and history of antisemitism and why such an invitation is beyond the pale.”
This controversy surfaced at a time when concern over antisemitism at American colleges is already running high. The Anti-Defamation League recorded record-breaking levels of antisemitic incidents last year, much of it connected to protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, and the Trump administration has been penalizing universities it believes have failed to safeguard Jewish students.
However, it was soon revealed that the person responsible for posting the image was not a student at SCAD, meaning there was no actual campus antisemitism incident in this case.
“There was no party,” said Rabbi Zalman Refson, co-director of Chabad of Savannah. “It was clearly just, obviously, just to either show his disdain for the Jewish community, or he’s going through a mental episode, and we’re not quite sure just yet.”
SCAD released a statement confirming that the person who circulated the flyer was not enrolled at the college, and that investigators found no evidence of an event or signage targeting Jewish students.
“The investigation is ongoing to confirm that no current member of the SCAD community was involved in the creation of the social media post or related activities,” the statement said. “SCAD leadership is reaching out to students, faculty, and staff who have been affected by the social media post to offer support and resources.”
Following these developments, the Savannah Jewish Federation issued a follow-up message, commending the college administration for their prompt action and acknowledging the involvement of national Jewish organizations.
“The Savannah Jewish Federation appreciates the swift action of SCAD administration and their commitment to the continued safety and security of all students,” the post read. “We also want to express our deep appreciation for the many National Jewish organizations and elected officials who have offered their support during this process.”
Since the individual who posted the offensive image had already withdrawn from SCAD back in the fall, Rabbi Refson noted that it is unclear if any consequences could be imposed.
“There’s a lot of outside parties, like a lot of outside aggravators, who are stirring up a lot of the hate, which seems to be the case in other schools as well,” he said. “We hope that he comes to his senses in some way, and nothing illegal was done. So it’s hard to penalize, but we do know that if he was at SCAD, he would have been expelled instantly.”
{Matzav.com}
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An Arab official on Sunday pushed back against Hebrew media claims suggesting that Qatar had encouraged Hamas to turn down an Egyptian-mediated hostage-ceasefire proposal as fighting continues between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
Speaking to The Times of Israel, a source involved in the talks — though not from Qatar — said the allegations were being “manufactured” by Israeli officials trying to derail the negotiating process and shift attention away from Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, whose rigid conditions have made any deal nearly unattainable.
Netanyahu has firmly rejected any agreement that would end the war or allow Hamas to retain power over Gaza. Earlier this year, Israel also refused to initiate talks for a permanent ceasefire during a proposed three-stage hostage deal, resulting in the plan collapsing after only the first phase.
Over the past few days, several Hebrew-language news outlets published pieces — often based solely on Israeli sources or citing no sources at all — claiming that Qatar had advised Hamas to reject an Egyptian proposal by suggesting that Doha could obtain a more favorable long-term truce for the group.
Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, Qatar has served as a central intermediary between Israel and Hamas. The terror group, backed by Iran and controlling the Gaza Strip, launched a deadly attack on Israel that day, murdering approximately 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.
Qatar provides a home base for Hamas’s political leaders and finances the pro-Hamas Al Jazeera network. With Israel’s approval, Qatar had also sent billions of dollars into Gaza in the years leading up to October 7.
Speaking Sunday, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that Thursday’s discussions showed “some progress.”
An Israeli source told The Times of Israel that Mossad chief David Barnea, who has had a reduced role in the negotiations since Netanyahu appointed Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer to lead the Israeli team two months ago, flew to Doha last Thursday to meet with the Qatari prime minister in pursuit of an agreement.
“We have seen on Thursday a bit of progress compared to other meetings, yet we need to find an answer for the ultimate question: how to end this war. That’s the key point of the entire negotiations,” said Al-Thani at a press event alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
“When you don’t have a common objective, a common goal between the parties, I believe the opportunities [to end the war] become very thin,” added the Qatari prime minister.
Fidan echoed this sentiment, noting that discussions in recent days indicated Hamas would consider a broader agreement that goes beyond a temporary ceasefire and looks toward a comprehensive resolution with Israel.
On April 19, Fidan and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with Hamas representatives in Ankara to review the ceasefire negotiations and assess the overall situation in Gaza.
According to Fidan, those discussions revealed that Hamas might agree to a deal that addresses broader Palestinian concerns and that the current crisis might be a stepping stone toward advancing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In addition to the ceasefire talks, Al-Thani on Sunday criticized Israeli media coverage surrounding the so-called “Qatargate” scandal, which involves allegations against two of Netanyahu’s aides for allegedly working on behalf of a Qatar-linked lobbying group.
“What is being called ‘Qatargate’ is journalistic propaganda for political purposes that has no basis in truth. Fringe politicians in Israel are leveling accusations against Doha while forgetting its role in the release of the hostages,” said Al-Thani.
“There is a public relations campaign being waged against the State of Qatar in Israel,” he said, explaining that “Qatar’s contracts with an American communications firm were intended to counter a public relations campaign against us in Israel.”
Court documents in the Qatargate investigation reveal that two Netanyahu advisers — Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein — are suspected of accepting payments to plant favorable pro-Qatar coverage in the media, all while working in the prime minister’s office.
Reports indicate that American lobbyist Jay Footlik played a significant role in arranging the alleged payments to Netanyahu’s aides. Last week, it was reported that Israeli investigators are planning to travel to the United States in the near future to question Footlik as part of the ongoing probe.
{Matzav.com Israel}
The Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism released its first full-year report on the global surge in antisemitism on Sunday, the first official review covering events through all of 2024 since the October 7 massacre. The findings were scheduled to be presented to government ministers during a cabinet meeting.
The report reveals that throughout 2024, antisemitism around the world became more structured, with financial backing from international organizations and, in some cases, national governments. It includes detailed statistics comparing antisemitism rates during the entire year of 2024 with those recorded in the first ten months of 2023, prior to the October massacre.
According to the data, Canada experienced a staggering 970% spike in antisemitic incidents, Australia saw a 320% increase along with a 260% jump in antisemitic violence, the United States recorded a 200% rise, and antisemitic incidents in France grew by 300%.
The findings also indicate that 64% of French citizens believe Jews are justified in fearing for their safety in France, 84% of Jews living in Germany feel unsafe, and 90% of Jewish residents in Britain avoid downtown areas during anti-Israel protests.
The Diaspora Ministry’s report identifies Spain and Ireland as Europe’s most antisemitic countries. France, Britain, Canada, and Australia are criticized for their “moral ambiguity” in addressing antisemitism while voicing what the report calls disproportionate criticism of Israel, thus heightening the danger to Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron is singled out in the document for statements he made about Israel’s actions during the war in Gaza, which, according to the report, “legitimized antisemitic rhetoric by the French far-left.” The report contends that Macron’s comments emboldened Luc Mélenchon, head of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party, who downplayed antisemitism even after a French Interior Ministry report showed a 300% surge in antisemitic incidents in early 2024. Among far-left supporters in France, only 44% consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
In Britain, the report highlights criticism leveled by the Chief Rabbi against the Labour Party for imposing an arms embargo on Israel. Meanwhile, in Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) condemned the government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after it voted to censure Israel at the United Nations in December 2023, warning it would fuel additional hatred toward Canadian Jews.
The report brands Canada the “champion of antisemitism” in 2024, noting that antisemitic incidents there multiplied by 7.5 times over the previous year. It also found that 85% of Jewish Canadians believe the Trudeau administration failed to adequately confront the rise in antisemitism.
The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority are also heavily criticized in the report. It accuses the social media giant TikTok of being a major driver of antisemitic sentiment, noting that an Israeli executive resigned after labeling the platform “an existential threat to Israel” and exposing that key policy decision-makers were Hamas and Houthi supporters.
In the realm of higher education, the report names Columbia University as the most antisemitic campus in America, with 127 reported incidents during 2024 alone. It further notes that nearly 90% of antisemitic episodes on college campuses in September were driven by far-left ideologies.
The BBC is also faulted for its continued refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organization. A former BBC employee disclosed that the network’s leadership routinely suppressed internal complaints regarding antisemitism. Jewish leaders in Britain argued that the BBC’s actions contributed to global antisemitism and efforts to deny or downplay Hamas atrocities.
Concluding its findings, the report urges governments worldwide to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and to enforce laws combating antisemitic hatred. It calls for action against unbalanced criticism of Israel and warns that failure to do so endangers Jewish communities everywhere.
{Matzav.com}
An Israeli restaurant, Feinberg, caused a wave of backlash this weekend after unveiling a poster that featured images of watermelons along with a lion draped in an Israeli flag. The restaurant, owned by Yorai Feinberg, had taken part in an “Israel Day” event on Friday, where it operated a booth offering items including a watermelon and vodka beverage.
Their drink, described as “chopped, crushed and cut into pieces over ice with a shot of vodka,” was marketed as an “Israeli-style watermelon” and accompanied by artwork of a lion clutching the drink alongside an Israeli flag, surrounded by images of whole and sliced watermelons.
Even before the event began, outrage erupted among pro-Palestinian activists over the marketing imagery.
Since October 7, the watermelon has been embraced as a powerful symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance, prominently featured at pro-Palestinian protests. Activists accused Feinberg of using violent imagery that mirrored Israeli military actions against Gaza.
“Chopped, crushed and cut. This is Feinberg’s violent, anti-Palestinian fantasy,” one activist posted on the X platform. “Exactly what Israel has been doing to Palestinian children for the past year and a half. Anyone promoting or buying from such a booth has lost their humanity.”
Responding to the controversy on Sunday, Feinberg said, “It was just a joke. Since the watermelon has become a Palestinian symbol, we thought to turn it into a humorous take, a sort of bridge through drinking alcohol. A sarcastic joke that we’re making juice out of anti-Israel sentiment and the new forms of antisemitism. Of course, we never intended to reference the fate of Gaza’s residents or to harm anyone. Most people who came by smiled, ordered drinks, and took photos.”
Images of the booth, along with the poster and the slogan, quickly went viral across Berlin’s social media networks, leading to a flood of insults and threats directed at Feinberg.
“Since Saturday, we’ve been receiving dozens of threatening phone calls and thousands of hateful messages,” said Feinberg, who has previously been targeted with antisemitic harassment for running a Jewish-owned Israeli restaurant in Berlin. “Today, people even came to the restaurant and threatened the staff.”
The intense backlash has underscored the deep political sensitivities surrounding anything related to Israel in Berlin. Although many other restaurants in the city serve watermelon-based food and drinks without controversy, Feinberg’s Israeli-themed poster ignited a particularly vicious response — part of a broader pattern in which businesses showing support for Israel have come under fire.
“It’s a bit scary,” Feinberg admitted. “A few months ago, we posted a photo of one of our desserts online with a small Israeli flag toothpick, and within hours we received thousands of toxic comments describing us as Jewish monsters eating Palestinians. It’s terrifying how much hatred there is, and how far people are willing to go — all over nothing. A toothpick with a flag.”
Feinberg said he has now requested renewed security measures. “So yes, there’s fear. For a long time we didn’t have police protection, but now I’ve informed the authorities that I believe they should resume guarding the place,” he said.
Reflecting on the experience, Feinberg added, “This is just not normal. People are not normal. I’m the son of a Holocaust survivor — and now people are calling me a Nazi. It’s pure poison.”
{Matzav.com}
