After the Guardian reported on Sunday that hundreds of Northwestern University students were being blocked from classes after they refused to watch an antisemitism training video, the school offered a clarification on Monday: The real number of students penalized is less than three dozen.

But other elements of the story remain unchanged: The students are boycotting the video over what they allege is “biased” content in the video that the university began requiring this year in response to antisemitism allegations tied to pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In a letter to Northwestern administrators last month, over 200 students, faculty and others not affiliated with the university criticized the “Antisemitism Here/Now” training video for being “denialist, unscholarly, discriminatory and morally harmful.”

The 17-minute video was created by the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, Chicago’s Jewish federation, at Northwestern’s request last year. The Guardian story quoted the module’s critics as saying it is biased in favor of Israel and said it does little to protect Jews.

The video, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reviewed, offers a basic history of Judaism, Israel and antisemitism. It says that some criticism of Israel can veer into or sound like antisemitism but emphasizes multiple times that not all critiques of Israel are antisemitic.

It does say that anti-Zionism is usually antisemitic.

“Anti-Zionism is the opposition to the Jewish right of self determination. Anti-Zionism also takes many forms, most of which are antisemitic, because they work against Jewish human rights,” an unnamed rabbi narrator says. “Anti-Zionism is not the same as Israel criticism. Democracies thrive under critique. Israel criticism is fine if/as long as it’s not based on conspiracy theories about Jews, distortions of history or antisemitic tropes.”

The video opens with a disclaimer from the rabbi, who appears to be affiliated with another Chicago-based Hillel which JUF supports, noting that some Jews “may disagree” with the information offered.

“There are Jewish people who may disagree with some of the things that will be presented, and that’s okay. Jewish culture values disagreement and debate. This training is representative of the majority of Jewish people,” the narrator said.

In a statement, the university said that students were “not required to agree with the training modules” but did have to attest they would abide by the Student Code of Conduct. (The boycotting students’ letter also criticized the code of conduct for imposing limitations on student protest.)

The training video was endorsed by Michael Simon, the executive director of Northwestern Hillel, who said in an email that it was “crucial” to raise awareness about antisemitism and that the training served as a “jumping off point” for further learning at the school.

For Claire Conner, a junior at Northwestern and the student president of Hillel, her fellow students’ boycott of the antisemitism training video came as a shock.

“I was really surprised when I first heard of the boycott about the training because I had just watched the training, and I was actually surprised by the level of pluralism and nuance in the video, which made it even more confusing that people were protesting it,” said Conner.

Conner noted that students were not required to agree with the training, and said it was “disappointing” that some had refused to participate.

“Nobody is required to agree with the contents of the training. The only thing that’s required is that they listen,” Conner said. “So it’s disappointing to see that so many students have refused to even listen to an understanding of Jewish history, of our culture and of harmful prejudice that the vast majority of Jews identify with.”

The mandatory training was announced by the school in March in an email to the student body that cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.”

Last year, as pro-Palestinian protests continued to roil campuses across the country, Northwestern became one of the first schools to enter direct negotiations with protesters, prompting the school’s antisemitism committee to resign en masse over criticism of the deal.

In April, the school faced a nearly $800 million freeze in federal funding by the Trump administration over allegations that it had failed to mitigate antisemitism on its campus. Ahead of the fall semester, after over a year of criticism over his handling of pro-Palestinian protesters and antisemitism on campus, the school’s Jewish president Michael Schill resigned.

While Conner said that the campus climate had reached its tensest point following Oct. 7 and the campus protests, she felt that Northwestern had since “made big steps in the right direction” and the overall feel of the campus now was “relatively calm.”

According to JUF, the video was created in compliance with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, a widely adopted definition that has been criticized for characterizing some anti-Israel speech as examples of antisemitism.

The boycott letter homed in on that issue as it outlined a litany of objections.

“Although it claims that criticism of Israeli state policies is allowed, the video extends the definition of anti-semitism to instances where imagery and language is directed at the violence perpetrated by the State of Israel,” the letter said about the video. “Thus, while political criticism is said to be permitted in theory, this appears not at all to be the case in practice.”

The letter also condemned the video for preventing Palestinian students from “advocating for Palestinian self-determination, since the video prohibits any critique of a state structure which privileges Jews over non-Jews.”

It continued, “We are also concerned that the cynical use of an anti-discrimination training to prohibit any dissent against the actions of a right-wing government will degrade the credibility and integrity of the very anti-discrimination protections the training claims to be promoting.”

The Guardian story also cites a student organizer, Micol Bez, as saying that JUF opposed a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

That claim may have referred to a January 2024 ceasefire resolution passed by the Chicago City Council that JUF opposed for being “one-sided,” according to Dan Goldwin, the federation’s chief public affairs officer.

“What we believe is we’d love to see a cessation of violence as quickly as possible, with the return of our hostages and moving on to something better,” said Goldwin. “But no, we’re not opposed to a cease fire, we’re opposed to a very specific cease fire resolution pending in front of the Chicago City Council.”

The letter also criticized the training video for incorporating a visual map of Israel that includes the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and for using the term “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the West Bank favored by Israel’s government and its right-wing supporters.

Goldwin said the group had purposefully used a “hand-drawn, cartoonish-style” map of Israel to avoid “trying to prejudge what actual borders would or should look like.” The word Judea, he said, was meant to underscore a point in the video, not endorse the Israeli government’s language.

“The context where it is in the video is to basically give people a general orientation as to where Israel is, where our ancient homeland is, where the Jews came from, the word Judea and what it means. That’s where the word Jew comes from,” Goldwin said. “It was not meant to be an exact political delineation.”

In response to the training, the Northwestern chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist student group, devised an alternative antisemitism training scheduled for Tuesday in a university building. The student group did not respond to requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“As antisemitism both rises internationally and at the same time is weaponized to repress Palestinian activism, it is more important than ever to understand what antisemitism actually is and how we actually fight it,” an Instagram post about the training read. “Join us on Tuesday for an actual antisemitism training by a Chicago community member.”

While Goldwin said the video had not been deployed at other universities, he said its content was the same as antisemitism training JUF had offered at other high schools and universities for “decades.”

Goldwin said that despite criticism of the training, he hoped that it would serve as an “important summary and explanation of the lived experience of thousands and thousands of Jews.”

“The important thing to keep in mind is that this video is an educational tool, and we’re not always going to agree with every piece of education we’re given,” he said. “This video doesn’t require you at the end to certify you agree with everything in it, but we hope it sensitizes you to understand where some of your fellow Jewish students are and what is impacting their ability to have a fruitful and beneficial college experience.”

Conner said she hoped that students would “reevaluate” their decision to boycott the video given the increase in antisemitic incidents nationwide.

“I think the fact that so many students are unwilling to even listen to a training on Jewish history and culture and on the history and causes of antisemitism is highly concerning in this time of rising antisemitism across the country,” she said. “I would hope that more people reevaluate their decision and recognize that it’s important to at least listen to this perspective and to engage with it respectfully.”

Prior to his death, slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning the leader that Israel was losing support within the “conservative MAGA community” and exhorting him to do a better of job of making Israel’s case to the world.

Netanyahu teased the existence of a supportive letter from Kirk soon after the Turning Point USA co-founder’s assassination in Utah earlier this month. Now, the New York Post has obtained and published the letter, dated May 2.

In it, Kirk espouses his own staunch support for Israel but told Netanyahu he felt he was “defending Israel in public more than your own government.”

“I’m accused of being a paid apologist for Israel when I defend her; however, if I don’t defend Israel strongly enough, I’m accused of being anti-semitic,” Kirk wrote. “I know you’ve got a 7 front war and my kvetching pales in comparison. But I’m trying to convey to you that Israel is losing support even in conservative circles. This should be a 5 alarm fire.”

Indeed, support for Israel among Republicans has significantly waned over the course of Israel’s war in Gaza. A June poll by Quinnipiac University found that sympathy for Israelis had dropped by 14 points among Republicans over the last year. The drop has been sharper among younger conservatives like those targeted by Turning Point USA.

Netanyahu appeared to cite the letter in a preemptive denial of Israel’s involvement in Kirk’s death earlier this month. Conspiracy theorists on the far right speculated that Israel had played a role in the assassination because Kirk’s support for Israel was softening.

Kirk had long considered himself a defender against antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States and emphasized that in his letter to Netanyahu.

“Everything written here is from a place of deep love for Israel and the Jewish people,” he wrote. “I think it’s important to be brutally honest with those you love. In my opinion, Israel is losing the information war and needs a ‘communications intervention.’”

To remedy Israel’s drastically falling support in the United States, Kirk proposed seven potential solutions: a rapid response media team to push back on criticism, a team of “pro-Israel experts” who can “fact-check misinformation,” an “Israel Truth Network” website to debunk “negative Israel questions,” a speaking tour in the United States of released Israel hostages, a PR campaign featuring interviews with Israelis, more efforts to explain the “Iranian threat” and marketing Israel as a “political candidate.”

Some of the strategies he suggested reflect elements of the media practices adopted by the American right wing.

“The question is whether Israel has the willpower to step up its game in this information war,” wrote Kirk. ‘From my vantage point, the status quo is not working. Israel is getting CRUSHED on social media and you are losing younger generations of Americans, even among MAGA conservatives.”

Kirk appeared to have taken his own advice. Last month, he hosted a discussion with Gen Z students from Turning Point USA in which they discussed lessening support for Israel and increasing antisemitism.

“The Holy Land is so important to my life, and it pains me to see support for Israel slip away,” Kirk concluded before encouraging Netanyahu to call him at his private number. It was unclear if Netanyahu took him up on the offer.

“This country broke my penis, but it couldn’t break my spirit.”

So says Jewish writer Gary Shteyngart in “The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong,” a new documentary from The New Yorker about the botched circumcision Shteyngart received as a 7-year-old Russian immigrant to the United States.

Told with humor, sensitivity and pain, the 20-minute film — shot almost entirely in black and white — is directed by Dana Ben-Ari, a documentarian whose previous film was “Breastmilk,” which The Cut describes as a “gloriously graphic breast-feeding documentary.”

“The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong” explores Shteyngart’s early years in the United States, as well as his relationship to his body, which, as a child, is “just something I really hated,” he says in the film. The documentary is inspired by Shteyngart’s 2021 New Yorker essay about the same unfortunate event. The widely discussed essay was embraced in “intactivist” circles opposed to circumcision, and denounced by some Jews who felt Shteyngart had denigrated a Jewish ritual normally performed on infants, not 7-year-olds.

In the film, over a montage of photos depicting his New York City childhood — including one of him at a typewriter — Shteyngart narrates how his botched circumcision came to be. He describes arriving at a primarily Russian neighborhood in Queens, where his father was convinced by a local Chabadnik to circumcise his son in a physical manifestation of Jewish belonging.

“It was not just being accepted by the religion, but it was also being accepted by the new country, which we desperately were trying to do,” Shteyngart says. “If this is what you do in America, it’s what you’re doing in America. I’m not gonna fight it.”

But the surgical removal of his foreskin — a practice which had been banned in the Soviet Union as part of the government’s anti-religion policies — didn’t heal properly. “There were bits of redundant skin all over the place, just pieces of skin hanging off, basically,” Shteyngart describes, adding that the injury fostered a negative relationship with his body, exacerbating the feeling of “otherness” that he already felt as new immigrant to the United States.

Ben-Ari said she was inspired to make the film after reading Shteyngart’s essay. While working on “Breastmilk,” the issue of circumcision came up quite a bit. “I spoke to so many Jewish parents and grandparents who were so conflicted and tortured by this,” she said.

The filmmaker and its subject have “overlapping backgrounds,” Ben-Ari said — she was born in Israel to Russian parents; like Shteyngart she immigrated to New York as a child.

“I’m also interested in processing trauma, and Jews have a long history of using humor to process trauma,” she added. “And I think this film does that pretty well.”

Shteyngart, 53, is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books. His latest novel, “Vera, or Faith,” released in August, centers on a 10-year-old Russian Jewish-Korean girl who is navigating family dynamics in a dystopian near-future United States. In his 2006 novel “Absurdistan,” the main character, a secular Jew, is the son of a Russian oligarch and the victim of a botched circumcision.

Shteyngart’s mangled member mostly healed after a few years. But in the summer of 2020, the injury got aggravated, leading to a long journey to alleviate his pain. In the film, Shteyngart describes how he wore a bandage that resembled an “Elizabethan” dog collar, tried a variety of creams and searched endlessly for pants comfortable enough to make it through each day. The pain made walking unbearable, depriving him of a crucial thinking space for his writing.

“One of the things I was most scared of was that I could walk, at most, 10 minutes,” he recalls. “So for a while I was thinking, ‘I don’t walk, how am I gonna get these ideas?’ There was no one to tell me if this would ever end, and the idea of not being able to do anything — it was very painful to sit down.”

Fortunately, the pain is mostly gone today. As Shteyngart described in his 2021 essay, he described how a “compound cream containing amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant” ultimately lessened his chronic pain.

Shteyngart doesn’t come off as pro- or anti-circumcision in the film, nor does he blame thousands of years of Jewish tradition for his discomfort.

“I don’t see this as a purely Jewish issue — I see this as an American issue,” Shteyngart says in the film. “And I don’t privilege Jewish dicks over non-Jewish dicks. I feel better that nobody is in pain.”

Ben-Ari sees “The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong” as an opportunity to pose questions and have conversations. “I think that that’s traditionally a Jewish thing to do,” she said. “Obviously not only a Jewish thing, but obviously Jews question. And it’s a responsibility.”

For the first time, more American voters say they sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University.

The poll adds yet another data point to a growing pile showing a sharp drop in sympathy for Israelis since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. In the immediate aftermath, the same poll found 47% of Americans siding with Israel. In the new poll released Monday, 35% of registered American voters said they sympathized more with Palestinians compared to 34% with Israel.

While younger voters are least sympathetic to the Israelis, the biggest change over the last two years, the survey found, was among older Democrats who are white and college-educated.

In addition to the slim preference for the Palestinians, the poll demonstrated a significant waning in support for Israel among Americans during the nearly two-year war in Gaza.

Additionally, 58% of respondents said Israel should halt its military campaign in Gaza to prevent civilian casualties, even if the 20 living Israeli hostages have not yet been freed. A similar share said the offensive should end even if Hamas has not been completely defeated.

The poll also found that 40% of voters believe that Israel is intentionally killing Palestinian civilians, and 62% believe Israel is not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

The survey of 1,313 registered voters nationwide was taken Sept. 22 to 27, following reports of starvation in Gaza and as Israeli military’s widened its offensive in the besieged enclave — and before Israel accepted President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the Gaza war.

It found that a slight majority, 51%, of registered voters disapprove of the United States providing additional economic and military support to Israel.

The findings also underscore a growing partisan divide over the conflict, with 54% of Democrats saying they sympathize more with Palestinians, and 64% of Republicans with Israelis. But while a majority of Republicans support the Israelis, that sentiment has also dropped by 14% over the course of the war, according to a June Quinnipiac poll.

This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 35 days to the election.

👂 Unpacking Mamdani’s quote from hostage families

• We looked into Mamdani’s citation of hostage families in comments criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said on Friday, “My politics is built on a universality, and I can think of no better illustration of that than from the words of the hostage families themselves: ‘everyone for everyone.’”

• Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec said he was citing Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod has been held hostage since Oct. 7, 2023. Cohen is the most vocally anti-Netanyahu of the remaining hostage families.

• Phylisa Wisdom of New York Jewish Agenda said Cohen, who has spent significant time in New York while lobbying for his son and the other Israeli hostages, is a Mamdani supporter. She said Mamdani had heard from hostage families in an event organized by her progressive organization.

• “NYJA hosted a briefing for elected officials in August 2024 with hostage family members, where they did indeed call for a ceasefire deal and exchange of hostages/prisoners. Zohran was one of about 30 elected officials who attended and heard this call directly from them,” she said. “It is also common to hear ‘all for all’ or “everyone for everyone’ at Israeli-led protests, including by Israelis for Peace here in the city.”

• But Mamdani’s citation of hostage families didn’t sit well with all of them. We asked Alana Zeitchik, a New Yorker who had six family members taken hostage on Oct. 7 and has two — David and Ariel Cunio — who remain in Gaza, what she thought about Mamdani’s comments. “Disingenuous and like we are being used as a political talking point not unlike the way his adversaries might use us,” she answered. Zeitchik is close to Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally, and supported him in the primary.

⏳ Pressure mounts on Curtis Sliwa

• The anti-Mamdani forces of New York City are training their efforts on Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, the last obstacle to a two-way race between Cuomo and Mamdani.

• “You should follow Eric’s lead for the good of NYC,” Jewish billionaire Bill Ackman said to Sliwa on X.

• The Editorial Board of the New York Daily News implored Sliwa to drop out, calling him “the last holdout” of “guaranteed losers.”

• Even John Catsimatidis, a billionaire Republican donor and Sliwa’s longtime employer and friend, gently encouraged him to quit on Sunday. “I would say to Curtis, if he wants to run, to keep running another week, two weeks, three weeks,” Catsimatidis said on WABC radio. “But if he reaches a point that he feels that he’s not turning it around, then at some point he should do the right thing.”

• But Sliwa isn’t budging. “I can clearly say to John or anyone else, ‘I’m not dropping out under no circumstance, unless a Mack Truck would hit me and turn me into a speed bump,’” he told Politico.

🔎 Mamdani’s office hired woman who previously tore down hostage posters

• Frances Hamed, a Hunger College graduate and former Mamdani intern, was captured tearing down posters of Israeli hostages in Oct. 2023, according to Fox News. She was reportedly a constituent services intern for Mamdani from February to May 2025.

• Fox cited the Canary Mission, a controversial website that targets pro-Palestinian activists and has been used by the Trump administration to deport foreign students and academics.

🎤 Sliwa said what?

• A woman on the street told Sliwa that “the Jews are robbing people of their homes” in Brooklyn, according to Politico reporter Jeff Coltin. Coltin said Sliwa replied, “Deed theft.”

• When asked why he did not correct the woman’s remark, Sliwa said, “If I shut people down based on what they say you’d never hear the rest of the story.”

President Donald Trump’s announcement of a peace plan in the Israel-Hamas war on Monday was missing one crucial element, he said: “Now we just have to get Hamas.”

Now, observers of the region – including families of the 48 hostages who remain in Gaza and would be freed swiftly under the plan — are holding their breath to see whether Hamas will sign on.

The group that governs Gaza and orchestrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel faces strong pressure to do so. A number of Arab and Muslim states — including Hamas backers Qatar and Turkey — have endorsed the 21-point plan.

So far, Hamas has said only that it is reviewing the plan, which it said was formally presented to its negotiators only after Trump’s joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that a response could take several days. The group is reviewing the proposal “responsibly,” the Arab news organization al-Jazeera reported on Tuesday.

If Hamas accepts the plan, the group will be agreeing to disarm and cede control of Gaza — but its leaders will be allowed to leave the enclave and hundreds of its most sought-after members will be freed from Israeli prisons.

If it rejects the deal, Israel would have Trump’s backing to continue its offensive in Gaza City and elsewhere in the enclave. Israel would also have politically isolated Hamas and have wound up on the same side of an issue as a vast array of world leaders who have recently sought to pressure the country to abandon the war.

Netanyahu’s White House visit included a phone call among him, Trump and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani in which he apologized for striking Doha earlier this month in an unsuccessful bid to kill Hamas’ leaders and pledged not to strike in Qatar again.

Netanyahu reportedly achieved multiple changes to the plan in days of talks with White House negotiators, including scaling back the requirements around Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza; strengthening the terms around Hamas’ disarmament; and  removing the Palestinian Authority as a possible administrator of postwar governance in the enclave. He also said he had vowed to block the creation of a Palestinian state, though the Trump plan calls for working toward a “credible pathway” to an independent state.

In a video that he posted online after leaving the White House, Netanyahu said the new plan represented Israel’s vision — and a turnaround from when the White House was pressuring it to accept Hamas’ terms to end the war. “Who would have believed it?” he said.

A slew of Jewish groups have endorsed Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor in the days after Mayor Eric Adams suspended his reelection campaign.

Crown Heights United PAC, a political group “anchored in the Crown Heights Jewish community” which is the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, endorsed Cuomo Monday morning.

“We proudly endorse Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City,” Crown Heights United PAC wrote in a statement, which was signed by 13 rabbis and community leaders. “With extremism and antisemitism on the rise, and the city facing an unprecedented crisis, it is more important than ever to make our voices heard and vote.”

The Sephardic Community Federation has gotten fully behind Cuomo. After regularly posting generic messages urging people to vote in the November election, the SCF is now calling for donations to his campaign.

“It’s easy, DONATE NOW! MUST BE DONE TODAY,” the group wrote in an Instagram post Monday, referencing the impending matching funds deadline. “Ask friends and family to contribute $100 to help protect our city and our community. If we lose, the current wave of anti-Jewish sentiment could spread further; a win here can stop that momentum in its tracks.”

A joint endorsement letter published Tuesday included signatures from across the city’s five boroughs, including Senator Sam Sutton, a longtime activist in Brooklyn’s Sephardic community; representatives of the Far Rockaway Jewish Alliance, Queens Jewish Alliance, Staten Island Jewish Coalition, Crown Heights United and Association of Crown Heights Shuls; and Jewish community activists from Manhattan and the Bronx.

Citing Mamdani’s inexperience and “past support for those calling to ‘globalize the intifada,’” the letter reads that they “encourage our communities across New York City to unite with us in endorsing Andrew Cuomo for Mayor.”

The endorsements point to how the race is changing now that Adams has dropped out. Groups and individuals who may have stayed out of the race out of deference to the incumbent mayor are now jumping in to try to tilt the race away from frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani’s criticism of Israel, which has drawn accusations of fueling antisemitism, prompted a number of Jewish groups to seek out his most viable opponent. More broadly, opponents of Mamdani’s democratic socialist politics — including Jim Walden, who recently suspended his own mayoral campaign in an effort to unite against Mamdani’s “antisemitic obsessions” — have been calling for the frontrunner’s opponents to coalesce around one challenger.

Despite Cuomo polling comfortably in second place, there has been hesitance about picking which opponent that would be. Several Jewish groups and individuals had endorsed Cuomo in the primary, but at least three — including the Crown Heights PAC — clarified in July that they had not yet decided who to support in the general election.

Adams’ support among Orthodox Jews had helped him win the 2021 mayoral election, and he’d been making a significant play to Jewish voters this year, petitioning to run on an “EndAntisemitism” ballot line. He racked up four endorsements from rabbis, but his candidacy was clearly flagging. Two of those rabbis, Michael Landau and Yossi Garelik, have endorsed Cuomo since Adams dropped out.

While many Adams voters are expected to swing to Cuomo, some are also likely to opt for Republican Curtis Sliwa. Former assemblymember Dov Hikind, who is Sliwa’s most prominent Jewish ally, wrote Sunday that Sliwa is “the only alternative to a disastrous Mamdani administration,” adding, “CUOMO CAN NOT WIN!!!”

Cuomo is hovering around 30% in the latest polls without Adams, versus Sliwa at 17-18% and Mamdani at 44-46%.

Cuomo has positioned himself squarely against Mamdani on Israel, saying that he believes Mamdani is “pro-Hamas.” In November 2024, before he entered the Democratic primary, Cuomo joined the legal team defending Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the International Criminal Court issued his arrest warrant. Cuomo has laughed off Mamdani’s plan to arrest Netanyahu if he steps foot in New York. But he distanced himself from Netanyahu earlier this month, saying, “I never stood with Bibi.”

Fighting antisemitism has been a central part of Cuomo’s campaign. He called antisemitism “the most important and serious issue” of his campaign leading up to the primary, and declared in his campaign launch that New York should “be at the forefront” in “leading the fight against the global rise of antisemitism.”

Cuomo stuck to that messaging in his statement Monday, in which he said he was “deeply honored” by the Crown Heights United PAC’s endorsement, and “humbled by the trust placed in me by its leaders and by the broader Jewish community.”

“I pledge to redouble my efforts to lead the fight against antisemitism in every corner of New York City,” he wrote. “We must build a city where everyone, regardless of faith or background, feels safe, respected, and welcome.”

Still, Cuomo has a checkered history with the city’s Orthodox communities. While he cultivated haredi Orthodox votes during his three runs for governor, Cuomo’s relationship with those voters soured in 2020 when he sought to enforce COVID-era public health restrictions in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Midwood — singling out haredi Orthodox communities, critics said. That October, the haredi umbrella body Agudath Israel of America sued him for discrimination.

The next year, the New York Times reported that Cuomo had expressed disdain for Jewish practices: While at an event celebrating the fall festival of Sukkot, he allegedly remarked, “These people and their f—ing tree houses.” His spokesperson denied the allegation and said, “He has the highest respect for Jewish traditions.”

Tuesday’s joint endorsement letter acknowledged that “we may have had differences with him during his tenure as Governor,” but contended that “he is the most experienced and capable choice for our city at this pivotal moment.”

Elon Musk has intensified his long-running feud with the Anti-Defamation League, calling the Jewish civil rights group a “hate group” in a post on X, the platform he owns and renamed from Twitter.

“The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is is [sic] a hate group,” Musk wrote Sunday, responding to a pseudonymous account that had claimed the ADL views Christianity as extremist.

The exchange drew quick amplification from right-wing figures. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, accused the ADL of “intentionally creating a targeted hate campaign against Christians.” Provocateur Laura Loomer went further, urging that the ADL be “designated as a domestic terror org.”

At issue is the ADL’s page on “Christian Identity,” a specific white supremacist theology that portrays Jews as descendants of Satan and has been linked to violent extremism. The ADL, in a statement, explained that the ideology is “antisemitic, racist, and unambiguously poisonous” and bears no resemblance to mainstream Christianity. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that the suggestion his group is anti-Christian is “offensive and wrong,” noting that “many of our staff members are Christian. Many of our supporters are Christian.”

Musk’s outburst is notable because, as recently as January, the ADL had defended him after he appeared to make a Nazi-style salute during Donald Trump’s inauguration. At the time, the group called the gesture “awkward,” a comment that drew backlash within the Jewish community and from the group’s left-wing critics.

The latest clash adds to a series of Musk’s attacks on the ADL. In 2023, he endorsed a post alleging that Jews were pushing “hatred against whites” and accused the ADL of “unjustly” targeting Western societies. He has also threatened to sue the organization for scaring advertisers away from X and recently demanded that it remove Turning Point USA, the group founded by Charlie Kirk who was assassinated earlier this month, from its database of extremist groups.

Kirk’s assassination took place the same day as a school shooting in Colorado allegedly by a gunman whose online activity had been flagged by a member of the ADL’s extremism monitoring division.

Since acquiring Twitter in late 2022, Musk has reshaped the platform’s approach to content moderation, reinstating banned white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes, who has praised Adolf Hitler and trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric. Civil rights groups, including the ADL, have warned that such moves have fueled a surge in online hate.

A viral video showing a group of high school seniors in Argentina chanting antisemitic slogans during their graduation trip has prompted a wave of condemnation, including from President Javier Milei.

The video, recorded in the city of Bariloche, shows students from Escuela Humanos, a private school in Greater Buenos Aires, chanting “Today we burn Jews.” A coordinator from the travel company Baxtter appears to join in the chants.

It is common during graduation trips to the southern mountain city for tour companies to combine buses from different schools for certain excursions. Students from Escuela Humanos were traveling with students from a Jewish school, Escuela ORT.

Escuela Humanos describes itself as training “ambassadors of peace.” The school issued a lengthy statement on Monday saying that the activities captured on the video “do not represent our values,” and that school officials had been in touch with Argentina’s leading Jewish organization, DAIA. But the statement distanced the school from the incident caught on tape, saying that the tone on the bus was the responsibility of the tour company.

Baxxter told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the coordinator would be fired and that the company would work with DAIA “to work jointly to ensure that incidents of this kind do not happen again.”

ABERRANTE ANTISEMITISMO EN ARGENTINA

Alumnos de la escuela "Humanos" durante su viaje de egresados cantando "Hoy quemamos judíos". El coordinador de la empresa Baxter se suma a los mismos. El hecho fue el 10/9

Dato de color, la escuela dice ser "Embajadora Mundial de la paz" pic.twitter.com/lcuLp0rU00

— Dani Lerer (@danilerer) September 28, 2025

The video was reportedly taken earlier this month but went viral on Sunday after it was shared by the pro-Israel Argentine influencer Dani Lerer. It soon vaulted to national news, and Milei tweeted a two-word condemnation.

“Reprehensible. Full stop,” said Milei, himself an avowed philosemite.

The Ministry of Justice, Argentina’s Jewish political organization, and private citizens have all filed legal complaints related to the incident caught on tape.

“In the Holocaust, Jews were burned, and that was truly genocide,” DAIA president Mauro Berenstein said on a morning radio news program on Monday. “We must eradicate this type of expression, working through education, setting limits, and raising awareness.”

Ariel Gelblung, the Latin America director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement that the chants appeared to reflect an unfortunate trend.

“There is an underlying layer of antisemitism in young people that comes out when they are away from home and encounter Jewish school students for the first time,” Gelblung said. “We need to work more on the disease than on the symptom. The responsibility does not lie only with the school or the company, but also with the values taught at home.”

Bariloche is a major tourist draw within the region of Patagonia, which is both popular with Israeli backpackers and a former refuge for Nazis after World War II. The Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke served as the director of the German School of Bariloche for many years. The city is also home to a Chabad center, until recently the only synagogue in Patagonia.

Fortnite, the popular multiplayer online video game, has disabled a character dance feature — called an “emote” — following speculation that its gestures resembled a swastika.

The “Peaceful Hips Emote,” which depicts actor and professional wrestler John Cena moving his arms up and down at a right angle, was part of a collaboration between Fortnite and the DC’s new television series “Peacemaker.”

But with the show’s latest season underway, it was revealed to fans that the alternate reality that Cena’s Peacemaker character had discovered is a version of the United States where the Nazis won World War II.

The latest revelation, which culminates in Cena discovering an American flag with its stars replaced by a swastika, caused some fans to take a closer look at the emote and determine that it appeared to loosely resemble the Nazi symbol.

Peacemaker’s dance emote from Fortnite has been disabled.

“As we inquire into our partner's creative intentions in this collab emote. Assuming it's not coming back, we'll issue refunds in the next few days.” pic.twitter.com/hwHqOiid1o

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 28, 2025

Following the show’s new twist, Fortnite issued a statement announcing the emote had been disabled.

“We’re disabling the Peaceful Hips Emote in Fortnite as we inquire into our partner’s creative intentions in this collab emote. Assuming it’s not coming back, we’ll issue refunds in the next few days. Sorry folks,” Fortnite said in a statement.

The show was created by filmmaker James Gunn, who also stirred controversy with his recent adaptation of “Superman,” which some fans said was an allegory for the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Gunn did not immediately comment on the Fortnite situation. But some fans on X have speculated that the dance move was inspired by a Oscar-nominated anti-Nazi wartime short featuring Donald Duck in Nazi attire, in which Donald Duck’s arms are unmistakably echo the shape of a swastika.

It’s kinda even more crazy the more deep you go down the rabbit hole. It was obviously inspired by a famous Donald The Duck’s short animation that was used as anti-Nazi propaganda in the 40s, it’s the only Donald The Duck animation to ever win an Oscar. pic.twitter.com/Yj86NOoHmg

— ⓧ (@CyclpsWsRght) September 28, 2025

The emote, which was a paid feature on the children’s video game platform with over 200 million users, drew outcry from some players that felt duped by the move’s alleged symbolism.

“I get that you are subversive, and I respect that. I am also 100% certain that your intentions with the story are good. But, not everyone knows you — we paid for a Nazi dance we didn’t know about, which is a little gross, and it isn’t great,” wrote one user on X to Gunn.

Antisemitism in video games is a major concern, as millions of people connect out of public view. The Anti-Defamation League has called attention to the risks of hate speech on prominent platforms, and the platform Roblox, in which users create their own spaces, had to remove a user-generated Nazi gas chamber in 2022.

But some also see gaming platforms as an opportunity to educate about antisemitism. In 2023, a virtual Holocaust museum called Voices of the Forgotten opened inside Fortnite, allowing users to see the lives of a French-Jewish family in the years before and during the Holocaust.