1+ hour, 8+ min ago (458+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 786 Northwestern University in Illinois will pay the US federal government $75 million to settle complaints about antisemitism on the campus, the university and the Justice Department announced on Friday. The agreement will restore $790 million in federal funding to the university that the Trump administration had frozen in April, and close federal investigations into the university. As part of the settlement, the university agreed to revoke a deal that the campus administration made with anti-Zionist protesters in 2024. The university made the so-called "Deering Meadow Agreement," named for a part of campus that was occupied by a protest encampment, to end a demonstration against Israel. The university agreed to protesters" demands to set up an advisory committee on university investments, to fund two Palestinian faculty per year and five Palestinian undergraduates, to create a house for Muslim students, and…...

6+ hour, 28+ min ago (504+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 786 Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent. Three Irish figures, including actress Olwen Fou'r', have rejected honorary doctorates from the University of Galway due to the university's research partnership with The Technion " Israel Institute of Technology. Fou'r', who has appeared in movies and shows including "Derry Girls" and "The Crown," refused to receive the honor at a ceremony on Thursday, alongside filmmaker Margo Harkin and academic Kerby Miller, according to the Irish Times. Fou'r' said her decision was due to the university's "extremely problematic" ties with the Haifa-based Technion. Through the EU-funded ASTERISK program, Galway has a partnership worth some "4 million (NIS 15 million) with the Israeli university to derive sustainable green hydrogen from seawater. Anti-Israel groups like Academic for Palestine have called on Galway to withdraw from the program due to what they…...

4+ day, 28+ min ago (562+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 782 Cornell University's graduate student union on Wednesday said it had officially adopted a resolution backing Palestinian resistance "by any means necessary." A spokesperson for Cornell distanced the university from the union and condemned antisemitism. "Our [union] is now taking an official stance on one of the most important issues of our lifetimes: the Palestinian liberation struggle," the union said in a message to members. The union said the resolution, titled "International Solidarity with the Palestinian Liberation Struggle," passed with 559 votes in favor, and 215 against, according to a copy of the message obtained by The Times of Israel. "Amid nationwide repression of pro-Palestine speech, our union is taking a principled stance to empower and protect all of our members in speaking out against genocide," the message said. The union, Cornell Graduate Students United " UE Local 300, issued a…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (1700+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 778 JTA " Months after a US Supreme Court deadlock blocked an attempt by a Catholic church to create the nation's first openly religious, publicly funded charter school, a Jewish group is now advancing a similar plan " one designed to sidestep the legal obstacles that doomed the first case. The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation has notified an Oklahoma state board that it intends to apply for a statewide virtual high school integrating Oklahoma academic standards with daily Jewish religious studies. Local Jewish leaders say they were blindsided by the proposal and argue that such a school isn't needed. But getting approval is not what the applicants are expecting. Instead, the group's legal team " led by Becket, a prominent nonprofit religious-liberty law firm " is preparing for the state board to reject the application, setting the stage…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago (534+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 776 Cornell University's graduate student union has added support for Palestinian armed resistance "by any means necessary" to a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel that the union will discuss on Thursday. The union, Cornell Graduate Students United " UE Local 300, in October issued a draft of the resolution to members, titled "International solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle." The resolution said Cornell was rooted in "US settler-colonialism and an imperial project of white supremacy bent on profiting from the erasure of the Palestinian people." The document framed the Gaza conflict as the focal point in a global struggle for "international worker solidarity" and blamed "Zionist interests" for pressure on unions. The resolution endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel; demanded that Cornell disclose its finances, land holdings and academic partnerships; and divest from…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago (1694+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 775 Nurit Yohanan is The Times of Israel's Palestinian and Arab world correspondent Palestinian Authority textbooks continue to glorify terror, demonize Israelis, traffic in antisemitic themes and advance exclusivist nationalist rhetoric despite promises to implement reforms, a comprehensive study of the authority's teaching materials has found. The report was released on Wednesday by the Israel- and UK-based IMPACT-SE watchdog, which monitors educational content. It alleges that textbooks from grades 1-4 and 12, meant to be updated recently to comply with international demands to scrub inciting content, in fact contain no significant changes. Altogether, across 290 textbooks and 71 teachers' guides serving those grades and others, researchers cited 210 examples of problematic content. Subjects covered included history, Islamic and Christian religious instruction, Arabic, science, mathematics, civics, social studies and geography. PA-produced texts have been flagged for years for containing content that critics say…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (889+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 774 A top US private school in northern Virginia has settled a lawsuit over its expulsion of three Jewish students after their parents complained about repeated antisemitic bullying, lawyers for the parents and the state attorney general said on Tuesday. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Dillon PLLC in July filed a complaint against the Nysmith School for the Gifted, located an hour outside of Washington, DC, saying the expulsion violated the Virginia Human Rights Act. Nysmith is considered one of the best elementary schools in the United States and charges an annual tuition of more than $46,000 per year. It is not clear how many of its approximately 500 students are Jewish. According to the complaint, bullies taunted the 11-year-old daughter of Brian Vazquez and Ashok Roy for being "Israeli," called Jews "baby killers,…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago (602+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 771 JTA " Months after being forced out as president of the University of Virginia, Jim Ryan is still pondering Passover food. More specifically, Ryan, who was pushed out of the role over the summer amid mounting Republican party pressure on the public university, cited the topic as an example of why he was confused about the "DEI ban" imposed earlier this year by the public school's board. The ban had been drafted by the office of the state's Republican governor. "It's not clear even today what it means to kill DEI," Ryan wrote in a letter Friday to the UVA faculty senate, telling his side of the story. He went on: "For example, did it mean that we could no longer try to recruit qualified first-generation students from rural parts of Virginia, or offer financial aid, or…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago (1688+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 767 JTA " A sudden change in leadership at Indiana University's Jewish studies program has erupted into a bitter internal feud, pitting a new interim director against faculty and students who say he is undermining academic freedom and reshaping the program's direction amid national tensions over Israel and campus speech. The turmoil began with the abrupt replacement of the department's longtime director, continued with a clash between the new director and an ardently pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel graduate student, and culminated last week with a statement of support for the new director from the college's dean. The conflict, first reported by the student newspaper, began in August, when the longtime director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program, Mark Roseman, unexpectedly stepped down a year before his term ended. Roseman said he was told, without explanation, that IU's newly installed…...

3+ week, 8+ hour ago (308+ words) ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 765 Seven kindergartens in Tel Aviv stayed shut on Sunday due to a shortage of workers, with city hall warning that dozens more are set to follow, the Kan public broadcaster reported. Tel Aviv municipality warned that, during the coming month, 17 kindergarten teachers will not be at work due to layoffs, sick leave, or maternity leave. In the meantime, workers who are leaving are not being replaced by fresh staff, according to the report, with discontent over the situation spreading. The head of the municipal education department sent a letter to the Education Ministry accusing it of being responsible for the situation by reducing the number of kindergarten teacher training hours, Kan said. Lacking proper training, many teachers had become despondent and quit, the letter said. In the letter, addressed to the Tel Aviv District Education Administration…...