A lot has already been said and written about Dana Nessel’s flub, asking Jewish Democratic Michiganders to sacrifice their safety, well-being, and perhaps even their survival as a people for the “greater good of humanity” at the August 31st Summer Simcha hosted by the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus.

I’m going to say a little bit more.

Let me first say that I have admired and often quoted Dana Nessel and sourced her work as the people’s attorney during her eight-year tenure as Michigan Attorney General that must end this January due to term limits.

As a journalist, I have sourced her work taking a stand for stringent regulations on nuclear energy, her tenacity in her long though sometimes unsuccessful fight against the Enbridge Line Five construction that if completed could cause irreversible harm to our cherished Great Lakes, one of them which will always be called Lake Ontario, but I digress.

I have written about her joining the fight with other state attorneys general against the Trump Administration’s gutting the Environmental Protection Agency.

I have documented her fight for the cleaning up the state’s plague of forever chemicals, prosecuting adults for abusing children in a homeschooling scandal, going after the Trump Administration for threatening to cut K-12 funding for holding onto DEI initiatives, and her case for dropping charges against University of Michigan students who set up an illegal anti-Israel encampment on campus grounds in the spring of 2024.

In general, I have been proud to call Nessel, a Jewish, gay, progressive woman, who helped codify same sex marriage and women’s reproductive rights in Michigan, who kept us as safe as possible during the thick of the COVID pandemic, the woman who with Jocelyn Benson and Gretchen Whitmer made sure our elections were free, fair, and transparent, my attorney general.

I was proud of her when she took a stand by not attending the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention on August 30^th where she herself, sitting on a panel earlier in the summer with the ADL, said she feared for her safety and security if she would attend the convention in Lansing.

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That alone should have sent a stark warning to her party to right its course.

I was proud of her and widely shared her interview with on The Atlantic’s David Frum Show where she acknowledged the terror attack on Temple Israel, the ongoing logistics struggle and the steep financial cost Michigan’s Jews are having to shell out just to be Jewish, and her declaration that she was a Jew before she was a Democrat and an attorney general and she will continue to do so after she is an attorney general and whether or not she will stay with the Democratic Party. She also said she would have to amputate her left arm before she would vote for Republican Senatorial Candidate Mike Rogers, and I respected her for that.

To be fair, she did in that August 26^th podcast say that she was a Zionist but there are things impacting humanity on a global scale that are far more heavily weighing on humanity than Israel’s existence.

But somewhere between the airing of that podcast to the time she took the podium as the honorary speaker at the Summer Simcha, she said something that made people wonder if she was again threatened with her life and comfort and security.

Nessel began her speech in true lawyerly fashion, setting up her case on all the things she has fought for, as I mentioned above. She also made sure that she acknowledged that yes, American Jews have been a part of so many of those same movements and causes.

Then she went in for the kill.

And at the 14 minute mark of this video, you can hear some in the audience give a collective gasp when she said:

So, for the sake of keeping a Democratic majority in the Senate, for the sake of, climate change, we, Jews, must sacrifice ourselves of our 5,000-year struggle to survive and thrive in our own homeland?

Did I get that right?

And Ms. Nessel, here is why everyone gasped at that comment. And here is why what ever you said before and after that comment – including that you are a proud avowed Zionist – is moot.

(not moops).

They gasped because maybe their Jewish education was a little stronger than yours.

I know that we are days away from the Jewish High Holidays, but yeladim, let’s skip a few months ahead and learn about Purim, shall we?

Nessel inverted the legacy of Queen Esther.

When Queen Esther asked the Jewish people of Shushan to fast for her as she approached the King’s chamber uninvited, she was asking them because she was willing to sacrifice herself, her life, for the sake of the survival of her Jewish People, the Jewish Nation, not for the sake of the survival of the Persian Empire or the rise of power to Haman (Boooooooooo!) for the “greater good.”

Queen Esther hid her Jewish identity in plain sight. Given the stern warning from her Uncle Mordechai, who warned her that even she would not be spared if Haman (BOOOOOOO!) fulfilled his evil decree of genocide of the Jews, she revealed her Jewish identity to save her people. Sacrificing ourselves, martyred suicide, and suicidal empathy are not Jewish values.

Ever since the Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel, Jews have lived by one mission: Never again. That means we do not vote, march, or martyr ourselves into policies that demand our own sacrifice for someone else’s “greater good.”

Jews have always rushed to the world’s disasters. For example, the Israeli non-government organization IsraAID, populated mostly by former IDF soldiers, after serving deploy their military and crisis and rescue skills to places ravaged by natural disaster.

IsraAid has provided crisis relief and mental health resources to places like Haiti, Indonesia, even Metro Detroit and now Nepal—sacrificing time and money to help strangers. But there is a difference between helping others and being asked to sacrifice our own survival. The first is a Jewish value; the second is not.

Perhaps Nessel needs to better recognize the sacrifices Jews in Israel and America have made.

Israelis have made sacrifices that hardly any Jews, particularly American Jews sitting comfortably and peacefully in suburban Detroit or the Upper West Side have had to make to exist and survive.

They sit on the precipice between the civilized Western World and the world of Islamic despots and state-sponsored terrorism.

Since October 7^th, they have sacrificed and traded consistent schooling for their children and growing their business and nights of sleep for running into their mamads (bomb shelters), hoping that the Iron Dome will successfully intercept barrages of incoming missiles from the IRGC and IRGC proxies such as Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah.

They do that to survive, not sacrifice themselves for the greater good of humanity; they do that so they will not disappear from existence.

They sacrifice what should be their prime years in their young lives to serve in the IDF, delaying starts to their college education, starting a family or entering a profession. And now, in Israel’s longest war for survival, reservists have gone on multiple tours of duty, interrupting their higher education, missing children’s births and birthday parties, taking economic hits because they cannot simultaneously fight a war and work on a startup business, and this is not even mentioning the post-war trauma most Israelis cope with daily.

They do that to survive, not sacrifice themselves for the greater good of humanity; they do that so they will not disappear from existence.

Back in America, as Nessel mentioned in her speech before it completely went off the rails, Jews have sacrificed and given their voices and sometimes their lives to woman’s suffrage, reproductive rights, labor and especially the Civil Rights movement.

From what I have been reading, I am not the only one alarmed at Nessel’s call for Jewish self-sacrifice.

Jewish Frontline, a grassroots Metro Detroit Jewish organization, wrote: “For generations, Jews have been told that acceptance would come if we made ourselves smaller—if we placed the priorities of others before our own security, remained quiet when threatened, or surrendered the parts of our identity that made the surrounding society uncomfortable.

History is filled with Jews who believed that assimilation, accommodation and demonstrating their loyalty to greater universal ideals would ultimately protect them.

Many of those Jews are no longer here.

Judaism does not command the Jewish people to sacrifice ourselves for the approval or interests of the nations around us. We are a people with obligations to one another—to protect Jewish life, preserve Jewish continuity, sustain our communities and carry our covenant from one generation to the next.

That does not mean we are indifferent to the suffering of others. Jewish tradition recognizes obligations beyond our own community. But there is a profound difference between extending justice and compassion to others and declaring that Jews have a moral obligation to place “the needs of the world” above our own survival.”

By saying to Michigan’s Jews that we have to sacrifice our safety and security HERE, in America, is she acknowledging that senatorial candidate may be great for everyone and us too, just as long as we check our Judaism and Zionism at the door? Could you imagine if she gave a speech to a group of LGBT voters saying, “well, this candidate does not believe in same sex marriage and will want to bring back conversion therapy in the state, but for the greater good of humanity, for global warming’s sake, you have to vote for him?

How would that be received?

Would any other religious or racial minority ever be asked to vote for the greater good and sacrifice themselves?

Let’s see what Abdul El-Sayed says to his Muslim constituents as he addresses the Islamic Society of North America’s annual Convention set for this Labor Day Weekend at Detroit’s Huntington Place.

Will he ask Muslims to sacrifice their criticism of Jews and Israel, to stop demonizing us and to acknowledge that they live now in America, and that America is a longstanding ally of Israel, for “the greater good?”

Will he ask his Muslim constituents to stop demonizing Zionists “for the greater good?”

Will he ask them to distance themselves or cut all ties with the IRGC and the Muslim Brotherhood, because they are American and live in America now, for the “greater good.”

I highly doubt it. Because only Jews are asked to self-censure, be self-critical, to admonish their heritage, history and ties to Israel for the greater good.

I do hope that Dana Nessel realizes her missing the mark in her words to the Jewish Democratic Caucus, no matter how much they are trying to spin it into a positive.

I hope that during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, she does some serious teshuvah on her missing the mark.

Then, after her term is up, she may want to enroll in one of the many Jewish adult learning courses offered through our Jewish Federation.

For the greater good.

I am so glad to see my last post about attending an event for Abdul El-Sayed was shared so widely and garnered much attention, enough to get under some people’s skin.

I was called a “content creator” who only posts anti-El-Sayed “stuff” all the time. Well, of there are “content creators who spend their whole existence tearing down the legitimacy of the existence of Israel and in turn the contributions and positive footprint of the Jewish people all over the world, well, two can play at that game.

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The article was so widely read, and all the way to the end, that many of you caught the mistake in the last paragraph.

And I corrected it.

I will NOT be voting for Abdul, because he poses to me and many others as an extremist who, if he gets into office as a U.S. senator, will spend all his time not pursuing “Medicare for all” but bashing Israel and pursuing every energy to sever the alliance between the United States and Israel, beginning with his desire to even cut Iron Dome funding that Israelis need to defend their citizens of ALL faiths from IRGC rockets.

In the face of staring down the possibility of electing someone so virulently anti-Israel to the Senate, many others and I have signed onto this letter expressing that we will vote against him in the November election.

You can see the letter and, if you agree, sign on to that letter here.

But as Shabbat approaches, I want to turn away from all the negativity.

And there is LOTS of negativity and negative developments of Jew hatred, and incidents of Jew hatred that are ALREADY taking place in educational settings in this new school year before kids have barely gone through their first box of pencils (do they still USE pencils?) But that can wait for another post.

Amid the ugliness, there is still a lot of beauty.

Today, I went on an outing with my dog to a favorite spot of ours: the local town dog park and community garden. Someone at the beginning of the season had the wisdom to fill their community garden plot with a singular crop.

Sunflowers.

They now are tall and their heads bounce in the wind. They attract bees and goldfinches and if you focus on them and squint, you can briefly imagine yourself somewhere in Tuscany.

Back at home, there is a nest of hummingbirds. They flit all over my property and feast on nectar from the zinnias and other flowers I planted for them; their only competition is bees and monarchs.

And out in the community, there are several non-Jewish businesses that are supporting and marketing to their Jewish neighbors. In a time when those making alliences with Jews are targeted, and in some cases, where Jewish businesses from Toronto to New York City have been vandalized and even bullied out of existence, we must patronize these businesses.

The first for me is Babylon Ethnic Foods. This business, owned by Iraqi Christians, or Chaldeans, feels like you have just stepped out of suburban Detroit and into the shuq. And right up front, this small market features an array of kosher and Israeli products. I’ll be sure to stop in there to stock up, from date syrup to bourekas, before the Jewish New Year.

Next is the brand-spanking-new Tamar Kitchen and Bar.

Tamar in Hebrew and Arabic (mind you, these are two of the three official languages of Israel), means date, or date palm.

Look how similar they look in both languages:

Tamr (تمر)

tamar (תָּמָר)

About five or six months ago, a popular pan Asian Restaurant (until it was not) went out, and in its place is now Tamar.

As soon as the sign went up, I kept peeking in to see when it would open.

The word to me has unmistakeable Jewish, Hebrew and Israeli connotations.

Tamar, or date, is one of the seven holy species of Israeli crops.

Could an Israeli, kosher restaurant be opening up, really, in the heart of Bloomfield Hills?

No. It is not

The business is also owned and established by our Chaldean Christian neighbors, who may as well be our cousins because we are so similar with our big families, strong community connections, and strong work ethic.

Tamar is also a popular Hebrew name. Taken from the Torah, according to the Jewish Theological Seminary, Tamar is the daughter-in-law of Judah and has, a little wee bit of a scandulous path to motherhood, which you can read more about in the link provided for time’s sake.

Getting back to the restauraunt, the owner is supportive of Israel and the Jewish community. The atmosphere inside is as lively and elegant as the food is delicious. For those of us who are not strictly kosher outside the home, there are plenty of vegetarian and fish menu choices.

Last night, Tamar hosted a Jewish heritage night.

Many of us in the Jewish community, who have been anguishing and venting over the last almost three years about the hatred targeted at us decided that if there was a new restaurant that was openly advertising that it was sponsoring a night to recognize Jewish heritage, of course we would be there.

Yes there was Kosher tequila tasting by local crafter Tekiah and yes, I saw lots of familiar faces in the packed and vibrant dining room as we ate and listened to a keyboardist playing Jewish music in the background, but I guess it was not as Jewish as I expected. After all, there was no text study and no one making some kind of speech tying the evening to this week’s Torah portion, but that was a-okay by me.

We were just Jews going out for a great meal to support a great new restaurant. The way things should be.

Though this is not a restaurant review persay, the menu offered a lot of what you would expect from a Mediterranean restaurant: mezze and slatim of all kinds, grilled meats and vegetables (I had a wonderful arugula salad with burrata and salmon. My husband had a roasted salmon on a bed of lentils and began the meal with a white bean and tomato stew.)

Plus we had some very nice cocktails. Check out my blueberry mojito!

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to one more local business: Dubin Cleaners.

As the Jewish high holidays approach, I thought it would be a great time to freshen up some of the cloth and silk Jewish ritual objects we use year-round. I asked around and the place to clean challah covers and ritual clothing like kittels (not gonna Jewsplain here, look it up) and tallit was Dubin Cleaners.

At the beginning of the week, without asking how much it would cost, I dropped off about five items for cleaning.

Today, I went to pick up my items and took out my credit card, without knowing what it would cost. Just another bill to pay before the holidays, but whatever, I thought.

“You are all set,” said the saleswoman with a smile.

“But I didn’t pay,” I answered.

“That’s okay. As a courtesy, we do not charge for Jewish things that need to be cleaned.”

And I almost began to well up with tears.

So I thanked her.

And with the money I was going to spend for the drycleaning, I made a donation to Jewish Family Services in honor of a friend’s upcoming birthday.

So, what’s the message here?

Yes, the news right now is pretty grim.

And I know, next week, I will be back at writing about it.

But as Shabbat approaches, one of the last of this Jewish year, kindness and beauty and community can always be found if you seek it out.

Shabbat Shalom.

August 27, Farmington Hills, Mich. - If I didn’t know any better, that he only won the Michigan August 4th Democratic Party primary by one percentage point over Haley Stevens, it’s safe to say Abdul El-Sayed has this November election in the bag and that Mike Rogers has a big fight ahead of him if he wants to be the next senator to represent Michigan.

Around 3:30, about 800 people, mostly white, mostly middle-aged and senior citizens, some using walkers and canes who were shuttled to the front of the line by volunteers, began to form a line that snaked around the perimeter of the Manor on Orchard Lake Road. It’s a large catering hall with a huge chandelier ballroom, the kind of space that hosts weddings and where many in this suburb of Detroit went to celebrate their senior prom.

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I am pretty sure he has mentioned it, and mischaracterized it as a foreign lobby, more than any other lobbying group that parlays for the attention of our Congressional members.

More than the gun lobby.

Or the fossil fuel lobby.

Or the telecommunications lobby or the pharmaceutical lobby I am sure.

All of these groups have far larger coffers and far more sway and influence on Congress than Jewish Americans and other Americans who donate to AIPAC to educate elected officials at the federal level on the importance of the American-Israeli allyship

.

In any case El-Sayed and his other DSA comrades, as much as he denies he is a part of the DSA, are doing the father of the Nazi propaganda machine, Joseph Goebbels, so proud from beyond the grave. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.

In this installation of my Substack, I am backtracking to the final days Michigan’s August 4th primary.

During the lead up, a young campaign worker canvassed my neighborhood for Sean Carlson for the Michigan State Senate. Truthfully, I know nothing about Carlson.

He was about to hand my husband a pamphlet when my husband questioned him if he knew what Carlson’s stance was on Israel.

And there were many ways this young campaign worker could have gone with that question.

Outside of the ongoing conflict and Israel’s right-wing government, Israel and Michigan in the past have fostered relations in business, cultural ties, security and research through the Michigan Israel Business Accelarator.

But instead, this worker took the lazy way out by using that fabulous new catch phrase embraced by nearly every Democrat: “He doesn’t take money from AIPAC.”

That was not my husband’s question. But that is what the average young Democrat has flattened Israel into, a five-letter acronym in which most no next to nothing about.

And here’s the kicker: AIPAC only relates to elected officials at the federal, Congressional and White House level, for starters.

Clearly this person needed some more training, and my husband politely declined Carlson’s brochure.

On one of the last days of Congresswoman Haley Stevens’ campaign for the Senate, her committee secured and made a reservation to hold an event at the Pux Taphouse in Grand Rapids which claims to be a progressive LGBT friendly establishment. Just a few weeks back, they hosted a LGBT and I know I left off many other letters-friendly and inclusive event to watch the World Cup.

The event was to feature Stevens alongside Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List. Some protesters stood outside the event, using bullhorns to accuse Stevens of supporting genocide in Gaza.

At the last minute, they canceled Steven’s event.

Upon the cancelation of the event, the Taphouse posted the following on their Facebook page:

This story received no mainstream media attention and the blatant act of discrimination was only covered by the Jewish Insider. Instead of apologizing for a decision that could have been construed as discriminatory towards Israel supporters, here meaning “Zionists” here meaning “Jews,” the Taphouse simply doubled down and apologized for possibly offending queers and the “Free Palestine” movement.

So it made me wonder, then, if you are calling up any establishment when making reservations while being Jewish and/or Zionist, do you need to be transparent about your political affiliation, your religious background and your support for the Jewish State beforehand?

So, I gave the Pux Taphouse a call.

You can also call them with your Zionist AIPAC questions too at 616-288-6904.

I am not doxxing them. This is a business and there number is right there on their website.

I gave them my first name said I was going to have guests from Israel, we would be touring the Grand Rapids area, and we would love to make reservations at the taphouse and would they be welcomed.

This was not totally a lie. That week, I was having Israeli guests, although they were underage and we had no intentions of taking a road trip across the state. But even so, Israelis who are of age may be traveling around Michigan, and they should know where they are and are not welcome.

The young woman who answered gave an audible smirk and said, “Of course, we welcome in people of all backgrounds and nationalities.”

I answered: “That’s wonderful, but my friends are Israeli and we are all Zionists. They would most likely be speaking in Hebrew, would they be allowed to come into the taphouse considering of what you posted on social media regarding Haley Stevens?”

And instead of looking for a manager, instead of apologizing for the post, that it was in bad judgement, that the Taphouse regrets the post which was discriminatory and bigoted, she simply said: “This is a prank call, and I am hanging up now.”

And still Jews in Michigan are going to vote for El-Sayed because they hate Donald Trump more than they value their Jewish identity and care not how much our Jewish collective power and agency is being stripped out of American society.

I want you to stay with me here.

I want you to pretend with me here.

Let’s play the game of just suppose.

Let’s put the shoe of repeated demonization and marginalization on another foot.

Would any other minority group’s collective lobbying power be allowed to be so demonized and marginalized, and then would that minority group just be expected to just “fall in line” and unite a party that has so made it feel like the “other?” that its own Jewish, progressive and gay attorney general is skipping its convention because she fears her safety?

Suppose there was a country in Africa that African Americans shared a deep, ancestral, archeological and spiritual tie.

And though they lived in the Diaspora for generations, all of their cultural and religious touchpoints and religious occasions year round were connected to that country.

For pop culture’s sake, let’s call that country Wakanda.

Wakanda shares many of the same pluralistic and democratic values as the United States.

It is rich not in natural resources but in the resilience and optimism and brainpower of its people. It is advanced. Its population features a mix of ethnicities and religions. It also unfortunately has to spend much of its resources to defend itself against despotic bordering neighbors who have sought its destruction since its founding days.

To help elected officials understand the value of the US-Wakanda relationship, many African Americans but not exclusively African Americans empower their voice, like all Americans do, in a collective lobby.

Let’s call that lobby the NAACP.

Now imagine Wakanda one day is viciously attacked. Its civilian citizens suddenly under rocket barrage from all neighboring countries, used as a front to massacre, rape, burn alive, pillage and kidnap thousands of Wakandans.

And for defending themselves, elected officials and those running for office instead of aligning themselves with our ally demonize it, along with the NAACP, and coincidentally the African American community. African American students are being ostracized and alienated in school, at their place of employment, at restaurants, at hair and nail salons and massage spas because of their support for Wakanda and the NAACP.

In reality, in May of 2014, Boko Haram, another Muslim terrorist group, kidnapped hundreds of Christian schoolgirls in Nigeria. Michele Obama, who was First Lady at the time, on her own, without any criticism or accusations of dual loyalty, launched the global viral social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls.

At the same time, if you can recall, three teenage Israeli boys, Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel, who was Israeli-American, were kidnapped by Hamas and eventually slaughtered.

On these boys, Michelle Obama said nothing.

Mrs. Obama, the mother of two young women, again said absolutely nothing following the October 7^th 2023 massacre and hostage crisis.

Even when the Israeli mothers of young Israeli women who were being tortured and sexually assaulted pled with Mrs. Obama to say something on their behalf, she said nothing.

Eight Hundred and forty-three days.

And Michelle Obama said nothing.

And while #BringBackOurGirls went viral and no one ever gave a second thought to diminishing or dismissing or even vilifying the amplification of the hostage plot of the Nigerian girls, I am wondering if the same people who supported this movement were the same kind of people a decade later who tore down the posters of girls, women and babies held hostage, because they were being held hostage while they were Israeli.

Yes, I know the Wakanda-NAACP comparison to Israel and AIPAC is preposterous, and you are right.

It is.

That is because there exists no other people on earth who have such a visceral, indigenous, ancestral and spiritual tie to a land (NOT the current government) than the Jewish people have with the Land of Israel, no matter how many try to deny it or disassociate themselves from it.

And now, according to the FBI, 63 percent of all religious based hate crimes reported in 2025 were motivated by Jew hatred. We make up two percent of the U.S. population.

The morning he won his primary, Abdul El-Sayed spoke from both sides of his mouth, calling Israel a “bloodthirsty” nation while at the same time said he “revered” his “Jewish friends,” and promised to protect them as if we were his own daughters.

You know what, Abdul, we don’t want your protection.

If we know our history, we know that in the Arab world, for centuries, Jews lived as a “protective” dhimmis, a legally "protected class" that granted the right to practice their religion in exchange for special taxes and lower legal status.

We read the code language, Abdul. And we are already paying extra at our synagouges and Jewish schools for security to fend ourselves off from future attacks, because, you know, hurt people hurt people.

And now, post-primary, we are just expected to forget all your rhetoric and lip service about AIPAC, Israel, and the Temple Israel terrorist attack and heal the party.

Come together.

Vote blue no matter who.

But the price of admission for many of us Jews, to separate ourself from our Zionism, is much too high.

More than the candidate Abdul himself, it’s the kind of legitimacy of Jew hatred and antizionist bias that El-Sayed and others has allowed to usher in and fester that concerns me the most.

And no other minority group would be expected to just take it.

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For the first time in almost 30 years, Murphy Lee Ealy will not be one of the first faces we as congregants will all see to greet us as we enter our synagogue, to usher in the Jewish New Year.

To describe Ealy as a custodian for our shul just does not do the man justice.

I mean, the man attended synagogue and was more dedicated to that building, who knew every facet and detail of how the building ran and how to keep it running more than anyone alive, who was connected to that synagogue longer than most of its members.

I was so saddened to hear of Murphy’s passing. About 10 years ago, I had a chance to sit down with Murphy, along with several other custodians who take care of Detroit’s synagogues, to learn of their work, some interesting stories, and what it is like to watch generations of our kids grow up.

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for the Detroit Jewish News back in March of 2026. It was recognized with an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Detroit Society for Professional Journalism.

Who would believe that 10 years later, in March, right up the road, another Temple, where other non-Jews spend their professional lives working to maintain and secure and beautify our houses of worship, would suffer what could have been the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001.

In his passing, I think of not only Murphy’s devotion to a house of worship that was outside his faith, but to the countless other non-Jewish custodians, staff and security personnel who stand by us every day and continue to do so even though we continue to be targeted and threatened at an increasingly alarming rate.

I knew Murphy’s health was failing. We did not expect to lose him so soon.

I could not find a formal obituary for Murphy, so I am honored to share this memory of him here on my Substack.

May his memory be for a blessing.

May his memory be bound up in the lives of the righteous.

Rest in Peace, dear Murphy. I will miss you.

Their years connected to a congregation often outlast many Jewish members and even the clergy, making the synagogue or temple custodian not only the caretaker of our holy Jewish spaces, but a congregation’s unofficial historian.

Many of Detroit’s synagogues and temples owe much gratitude to the dedication of their custodians, who take much joy in watching Jewish preschoolers grow into young men and women and return to synagogue with their own children. When they fall ill, they receive visits from congregation members and congregational clergy. For that, they say, working as a synagogue custodian is like being part of a big extended family.

Murphy Ealy, 67, of Oak Park, worked in a scrap metal recycling facility when, in 1999, he got a call from an employment agency about a custodial position at Congregation Beth Ahm in West Bloomfield. His work at the recycling yard was “grimy.” Ealy loves to clean, so he said he was “strongly encouraged” to take on the new opportunity.

Seventeen years later, he still loves his job of preparing the building for services, meals and other programs throughout the Jewish calendar cycle.

“The favorite part of my job is welcoming in the congregants when they come for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,” Ealy said. “I watch the kids grow older every year, and a lot I’ve known since they were preschoolers are now coming back married with their own kids. I have both celebrated and at times mourned together with the families here.”

Ealy arrives at Beth Ahm most days at 5:30 a.m. to open up the building for minyan. He then spends the rest of the morning cleaning and setting up for the week’s programs or services until his shift ends at noon. Many times, he will return to the building for evening functions and is especially instrumental during special occasions such as building the sukkah and helping the congregation’s sisterhood during its annual rummage sale.

As Ealy polished the brass railings of the bimah in the sanctuary on a recent morning, he considered the holiness of his work.

“For six days, I spend most of my time in a Jewish house of worship,” he said. “There is certainly something special about doing my work inside a synagogue. When I’m in here and it is peaceful and quiet, I feel safe.”

As keeper of the synagogue’s keys, a custodian is also on call for various emergency circumstances, like responding to an emergency alarm or a power outage. But it is not often that a custodian is called upon to determine the results of a local election.

Beth Ahm serves as a polling location for Precincts 9 and 10 in Oakland County. One election night, Ealy returned home after work only to receive an urgent phone call from a local government official. The polling workers left the voting sheets in the locked synagogue, and they could not call the election until Ealy opened the building to count the votes.

“He is a one-man show who knows us all and knows the inner workings and routine of our congregation and can anticipate what needs to be done without even asking,” said Beth Ahm Executive Director David Goodman. “He is here for us all and is an integral part of our success.”

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As observed by Bob Goldberg, who writes The New Zionist Times, on Substack, it took no time at all for Democrats, without hesitation or blinking an eye, to circle their wagons around Abdul El-Sayed.

Their new rising star.

Their new charismatic, handsome, buff leader who may even throw his hat into the candidacy ring for the presidency in 2028. Don’t believe me? Just look at the trajectory of Barack Obama who was junior senator for just two years before he ran for president.

Goldberg wrote: “El-Sayed had not even won his primary, but there he was on camera early on Wednesday morning, declaring himself the winner, and described Israel as bloodthirsty. Asked whether his quarrel was with Netanyahu or with Israel itself, he said the two were inseparable and repeated his claim that Israel is an illegal apartheid regime. It was calculated. It was not an error of speech. And it was said on a program watched by every Democrat who matters.”

The speech also fell on the ears of the Jew, I mean, excuse me, Zionist haters.

As I expressed at the victory of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, it is his followers who scare and concern me more than the man himself.

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Not even two hours after the race was called for El-Sayed, I began getting the texts.

Maybe it was all the progressive petitions I have signed over the years, the ones for LGBT rights, for sensible gun control reform, for the environment.

Or maybe the Michigan Democratic Party pools all phone numbers during primary season and rolls them over to the winner, but I began to receive several texts.

The first one read: “we won.”

Not really, because I voted for Haley Stevens.

But anyway, “Dr.” El-Sayed, who never held a stethoscope to anyone’s chest, addressed me personally and declared that: “Michigan proved that moral clarity isn’t a political liability – it’s the future of the Democratic party.”

…. Meaning here that voters like me, who of course want affordable healthcare and housing to be made more accessible but also support a strong Jewish American community AND a defensible Israel, and do not want a candidate who repeatedly lies that the reason that affordable healthcare and housing cannot be attained is because of U.S. support for Israel means that I have no moral clarity?

And then, he asked me for money.

After midnight on Thursday morning, I got another text.

Again, I never gave El-Sayed’s campaign my number. This one read:

“I’m Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the UAW. For months, corporate PACs and outside groups like AIPAC poured more than $70 million into this race to make sure our campaign couldn’t win. That money flooded the airwaves with attacks and forced us to spend nearly everything we had raised to fight back.”

And then he asked me for more money to donate to his campaign.

Clearly, they got the wrong number.

So, feeling betrayed and yes angered that my party by just less than one point, chose Abdul El-Sayed over Haley Stevens to represent them as their Senator, I sent back the following reply with a STOP at the end so I would no longer receive his texts, saying that I would be donating to AIPAC in his honor and he could kiss my Zionist ass.

Admittedly, this response was not refined or demure. But after nearly three years of vile hatred poured on Israel and thus the world’s Jews, after brushing the horrors of October 7^th under the rug and the normalization of excluding the “Zionists” from nearly every sphere of society including our own political party, it’s past time for politeness and time to deploy the salty language.

I published the text, with my reply on Threads.

It has received nearly 10K views on Threads.

Along with a threat. Here is the photo of some of the threats:

An anonymous Threads account called @Michiganprotector noticed my post and shared it on Threads’ Michigan community. This person didn’t use their real name, but they decided to identify me as a “Zionist,” publish my home address, and label me an “Israeli sleeper cell.” If you are on Threads, report his account.

What exactly is an “Israeli sleeper cell?”

Is that supposed to be seen as a threat to national security, or a threat in your very neighborhood?

To the quarter of young Americans who favor Hamas over Israel, I suppose so.

Next, we will be hearing that your local Michigan HOA will ask if you are a Zionist before they sell you a house.

So, when this anonymous account accused me of hosting some kind of covert operation, I had to ask myself: what would an Israeli sleeper cell look like?

Amassing hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers for a covert operation of preparing vats of Israeli salad?

Talking late into the night on couches and around kitchen tables about going out for shawarma or falafel?

Secretly gathering in the dark of night on someone’s front lawn to teach an Israeli Folk Dance session?

Or perhaps storming a Lake Michigan beach en masse to stage a flash-mob matklot tournament?

Joking aside, publishing my address for the world to see and labeling me as a Zionist has had me rattled, but not silenced.

I reached out to the ADL, local law enforcement and my county Sheriff’s Office.

I also reached out to the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, progressive, a woman, and openly gay, but she stated publicly at an ADL roundtable that she will skip the Michigan Democratic nominating convention due to personal safety concerns.

If it can happen to the State Attorney General, why should I be spared?

If you are a vocal Zionist and have been the target of online hatred, contact your local police force and the ADL. And maybe a lawyer.

The irony is that, in a very literal and entirely innocent way, @Michiganprotector was not completely wrong.

They are safely back in Israel, but over this weekend, several families in Metro Detroit spent the weekend hosting over two dozen Israeli teenagers who had spent the summer at overnight camp in Michigan for a final weekend of home hospitality before heading home.

Indeed, there were dozens of Israeli sleeper cells all over Metro Detroit this weekend. We just didn’t get much sleep.

We made runs to Target. An essential visit for every visiting Israeli.

We drove them up and down Woodward Avenue so they could experience the Motor City’s car culture. We walked along Detroit’s Riverfront. They strolled the mall and bought far too many Legos.

Above all, they got to sample the pinnacle of American cuisine. There at the mall, they had their first taste of Chick-Fil-A

They moved through Metro Detroit’s diverse neighborhoods, including Muslim communities, with curiosity and respect. Ironically, they were instructed not to speak Hebrew to each other too loudly when out in public.

Not once did I hear hateful words about Muslims here or Muslims back home in Israel. What I saw instead was warmth, hugs, and the easy bonding that happens when teenagers meet their American Jewish counterparts and realize how much they have in common.

Many of us have long seen ourselves as part of the progressive movement. We care deeply about:

Minority rights

LGBTQ+ equality

Religious freedom

Reproductive rights

Those values still matter to me. They are not negotiable.

But as I drove those Israeli teens around town, I couldn’t escape a hard question: What happens if the progressive movement I’ve aligned with decides that supporting Israel’s basic security is no longer acceptable?

I’m thinking specifically about calls to cut all funding to Israel, including support for the Iron Dome—a defensive system designed to intercept missiles aimed at Israeli civilians. I am thinking about the protective gear and the weapons these teens will need in a few years time as they enter the IDF when they are 18, and for those who have siblings in the army right now fighting terrorism for their nation’s survival.

How do you host an Israeli kid in your house and then turn around and vote for someone who wishes to cut all ties with Israel, including the defensive military aid needed to shoot down missles from Iran and its proxies?

Is that the price of admission for American Jews to remain in “good standing” within certain progressive circles? Can we really say we stand for human rights, for the protection of minorities, while arguing against defensive measures that keep Israeli civilians—Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians—alive?

If the answer is yes, how exactly are we supposed to live with that?

These are not theoretical questions for me. When you have relationships and friendships with real, flesh-and-blood Israelis, the country is not an abstraction flattened into the proclamation of “criticizing the Israeli government.”

They are questions about whether the Democratic Party will abandon its greatest ally, the very real people who have slept under my rooof, eaten at my table, and hugged us goodbye in the early morning hours before their flight.

And so I return to that accusation: “Israeli sleeper cell.”

On their final night in America, dozens of Israeli teens and their Jewish American counterparts gathered in a suburban backyard for one more barbecue, one more pool party and one more campfire.

And in one big circle, with their arms around each other, they chanted one word over and over.

“Mishpacha. Mishpacha. Mishpacha!”

Family.

Because all of Israel is responsible for one another.

And our love is stronger than any hate.

If hosting teenagers who love America, who delight in Target runs and marvel at the leadup to Detroit’s Dream Cruise on Woodward Avenue and left America feeling like “they were in a movie” qualifies as a sleeper cell, we need to ask what kind of political culture we are building.

Because whatever that is, it doesn’t feel like justice. And it doesn’t feel inclusive or progressive.

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It’s time I spoke out and gave a little virtual ink to Boy George.

After all, my Substack is called LaKoom.

That is Hebrew for

Stand Up.

And in the last week, I don’t think there is anyone on the planet who has stood up so fiercely, so bluntly for the Jewish people while knowing how much he had to lose, but he did it anyway.

Contrary to the lyric of the iconic song, Boy George is a man WITH convictions.

Recently, Boy George visited the traveling Nova Exhibition in London.

I saw the exhibit in its entirety in Miami in December 2024. It has artifacts of what Nova festival goers left behind, their tents, toiletries, shoes, clothes. The exhibit also contains footage of the barbarism that Hamas and their Palestinian collaborators committed on October 7^th – and filmed. There are the port-a-Johns riddled with bullet holes where some hid for hours, in the heat, in a stinking port-a-John to save their lives. There is the iconic expanse of the butterfly canopy tent that sheltered Nova attendees who danced all night until they were terrorized, raped, abducted, killed and kidnapped at dawn.

Boy George left the exhibit and wrote a visceral song. And I could care less that he used AI to help him process his thoughts.

The song, Od Nirkod, or in English, We Will Dance Again, dropped on July 31 directly on X. It already has millions of views.

He released the song against the advice of his longtime label manager, Tony Pontius, who refused to support the track.

Boy George on social media wrote: “I wanted to release ‘We Will Dance Again’ but he was unequivocal and said, ‘I want nothing to do with this song,’ and I responded, ‘OK, we are done,’”

The 1980’s pop star icon added that he has no regrets:

“When someone is gutless it really does not hurt to say goodbye. My faith in humanity will not diminish and the truth will always win. I will release it!”

He released this son while living in a country that is falling apart and suffering economic collapse as 10 Downing Street practices a revolving-door style of leadership of easy come easy go Prime Ministers ever since the departure of Boris Johnson.

All people can seem to do in the UK is blame Jews and Israel for their problems.

The UK recorded the largest increase in antisemitic incidents in 2025 of any country with a major Jewish population outside of Israel.

Mobs Boy George’s fellow countrymen take over the streets, accusing Jews of genocide and apartheid, force Jewish communal life to be conducted behind heavily barricaded enclaves, and stab and kill Orthodox men in Manchester and Golder’s Green.

The Labour Party has also embraced the Palestinian cause to help them get elected to positions in government, including in the Houses of Parliament, all for championing Gaza and the futile cause to “Free Palestine.”

And amid this backdrop, Boy George dropped a song that bluntly goes where no media will go, where no political pundit will dare to tread due to fear of backlash from constituents in the West that are increasingly anti-West and, in this line of thinking, are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.

You can buy the song here and it will only set you back two U.S. dollars.

The lyrics are blunt and brutal and do not look away or whitewash October 7^th:

You say genocide, I say war
When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for
Does it get ugly? You bet it does
When I know you wanna kill
Every last one of us
Every last one of us
Every last one of us
You never mention October 7
Young girls raped against trees
Murdered brutally
For the crime of dancing
You condemn the Jews, with selective memory
Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep
Propaganda fuelled by the Internet feels so weak

But trust me, we will dancе again
We will dance again
We will dancе again
And there will be no war
But if you’re ever confused
I stand with the Jews
I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human
But trust me, we will dance again
We will dance again
We will dance again
And there will be no war
But if you’re ever confused
I stand with the Jews
I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human

The song wields the truth like a sharp, bright, gleaming Excalibur that slices through all the lies, libels and placing Jew hatred into “context.”

It’s not the kind of song I would want to hear playing at a Jewish youth group event.

It doesn’t inspire or teach in that context like, say, Matisyahu’s “Jerusalem (If I Forget You)” or “One Day.”

It’s not meant to soothe or uplift Jewish souls—we already know the horror in excruciating detail.

Ultimately, the song is not meant for Jews. It’s meant for all the millions who either went silent after October 7^th, as so many of his celebrity cohorts did, or to the countless celebrities who aided and supported cultural boycotts of Israel and were praised and supported for their blind biases, or who only cheered on the “good” Jews post-October 7^th when they proudly renounced their Judaism at awards shows like the Grammys, Oscars or Golden Globes.

“We Will Dance Again” hit me in a deeply personal way. I felt shielded by a good old friend, a non-Jewish ally who, in this song, and I don’t care how it was created, strongly says, “I am going to tell the truth about how Israel’s war with Gaza began no matter how it costs me, I’ve got you, and I am not going to abandon you now.”

Because after nearly three years, abandoned is how many of us Jews feel from the pop icons of our teenage years.

Let me tell you the minefield of pain that the music industry has planted for Zionists and Israel lovers since October 2023. There are dozens of artists I grew up listening to, and some newer ones, that I have sloughed off my playlist since that horrific day and all the days that followed.

I wonder how many of the signatories of the anti-Israel “artists against apartheid” bothered to visit the Nova Music Festival traveling exhibit in London as Boy George did. Have they forgotten that it was MUSIC LOVERS, lovers of peace and freedom, who just wanted to dance all night and into the morning in the desert, who were the ones who were hunted down and slaughtered? DJs and sound engineers and other musicians who could have been their contemporaries?

Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics leveled the biggest betrayal, and we should have seen it coming a decade ago when her sympathies began to slide into Palestinian favor with each passing war Hamas waged on Israel since around 2006.

Now that she has decided to donate all the proceeds and loyalties to the song Sweet Dreams to some kind of “Gaza relief” that will most likely line the coffers of Hamas, as it has been proven over and back again, how could I possibly listen anymore?

The same goes with Billie Eilish, Pink Floyd, Green Day, the Dave Matthews Band, Cold Play, Imagine Dragons, and the list goes on. Who am I missing? If a musical artist has betrayed you since October 7^th, list them in the comments section.

But Boy George stood by me like a true friend.

He may not know it, but he and I and the other members of Culture Club go back a long long way.

Where shall I start with my cringey love affair with Boy George and Culture Club?

I was 14.

It was after school and I was of the latchkey generation so it was only me and my brother at home.

We had three or five channels on our tiny colored analog TV in the kitchen, and one of them was Channel 9, and at 4 p.m. weekdays it broadcast this after-school dance show out of Philadelphia—something straight out of Hairspray but without all the racist segregation. Teenagers with feathered hair, neon sweatshirts, awkward dancing, terrible outfits, all of it beamed into my kitchen as I watched and half-did my homework.

And then this band came on from Britain.

And the lead, I could not figure out, was that a boy or a girl? Did it matter?

A man or a woman? My ninth-grade brain could not compute.

Decades ahead of his time, at just 21, Boy George introduced my generation to gender fluidity.

He was dressed in a big oversized white sweatshirt, decorated with Hebrew writing and a huge Star of David.

Was this … person… Jewish? I wondered? As today’s generation says: I felt so seen.

And then, he began to sing with that silky tenor of a voice.

From the very first notes of:

“Give me time… to realize my crime….”

I was gone. Hooked. Obsessed. The music of Culture Club was a mix of rock, reggae, calypso, and blues. It was my gateway music drug of choice. From Culture Club, I tumbled into Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Church, The Cult, and a whole tangle of New Wave and alt bands that became the soundtrack of my adolescence.

As Culture Club’s popularity grew, I became fascinated with Boy George’s sense of style: Beef Eater hats paired with long, shapeless shirts and big-shouldered jackets, which I later learned were inspired by Japanese styles like kabuki clothing. His braids, makeup, hats, and that whole androgynous look were light-years ahead of their time, especially for a suburban American teen who’d never seen anything like it.

Somewhere in my basement today, there’s still a picture disc LP of Culture Club’s Color by Numbers. I used to hang it from my bedroom ceiling in high school like some kind of sacred pop culture spinning altar. And somewhere in an old photo album, there’s a picture of me in 10th grade, throwing a Halloween party at my house… dressed as Boy George.

If I find it, I will make it exclusive viewing for paid subscribers.

That silky, smooth crooner tenor voice just wrapped around me. It wasn’t just another pop singer. There was something both gentle and powerful in his voice that made you feel like he was singing to you, alone in your bedroom, in the dark, when you were sure no one in the world understood you.

I was officially in a cringy, full-blown 40-year love affair with Boy George.

The Soundtrack to My Teenage Angst

Culture Club wasn’t just a band; they were my gateway drug.

Don’t overthink it and don’t listen too closely to the lyrics. They tend to fall apart—like getting too close to a Monet or a Seurat. They’re not meant to be studied. Just feel it, have fun with it, croon along and dance around like a Banshee because no one is watching.

I listened to Color By Numbers on cassette on repeat. Memorized the harmonies of tracks featuring Helen Terry, the powerhouse backup female vocalist of her time like “Only Trying to Help You,” and “Victims.” In the dark, undistracted —that’s what sat next to me during my teenage nights, alone in my room, lights off, my pillow wet sometimes with tears of angst.

I never saw Culture Club in their prime when they came to New York City to play Madison Square Garden. I only saw Boy George, playing solo, at an 80’s music festival in 2018. His youthful high tenor voice, like most voices do with age and maybe a little too much smoking drinking and drugs had deepened, and his vibrato was very loose and wide. But there he was, and what I loved about him was he never took himself too seriously, even joking about having this silly song about a chameleon before we all went wild before he sang it.

And now?

Since he released We Will Dance Again, since he did the “controversial” thing of speaking his mind and telling it like it is about October 7^th and what came after, he has endured a vicious cancellation campaign.

The musical promotion social media site UK Bandcamp has removed Boy George’s latest track, “We Will Dance Again,” after he endured a vicious campaign of abuse for standing with Israel and with the Jewish people.

Stop the Hate UK, a social media site that combats antisemitism said: “Bandcamp now has one choice: explain itself or restore the song. If the track breached a genuine technical rule because it used AI), publish the rule, the evidence and the record of consistent enforcement.

Show that other comparable releases have been treated in exactly the same way. If Bandcamp cannot do that, then this looks like what it is: ideological censorship dressed up as moderation. Boy George has been targeted because he refused to bend the knee. He honoured the victims of Nova. He stood with Jews when much of the cultural establishment chose cowardice, silence or open hostility. Now a platform that boasts of defending independent artists has apparently decided that solidarity with Jews is one form of independence it cannot tolerate. That is disgraceful. Bandcamp cannot host endless anti-Israel propaganda, indulge the language of “resistance” and then suddenly discover its principles when an artist mourns murdered Jews. Selective enforcement is not neutrality. It is discrimination.”

“Boy George has shown more courage than the platform attempting to silence him. Bandcamp should restore the track, answer the public and stop hiding behind corporate evasions. Until it does, its claim to support independent music is worthless.”

Tonight, on August 3^rd, Boy George was to begin a run in a West End production of Jesus Christ Superstar as King Herod.

I mean, is there anyone more suited to play the cameo role of the show stopping, flamboyant comic relief provider King Herod than Boy George?

But no, the world will never see that.

Because for daring to write a song partially written with AI that was “anti-Palestinian,” his manager pulled him out of a once-controversial show that was also nearly cancelled that dealt with the subject matter of the crucifixion of Jesus Christs set in --- wait for it – Roman-occupied Judea.

The artist’s manager, Paul Kemsley, on Instagram wrote:

“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” reads Kemsley’s statement. “Equally, I believe it is my responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interests of my artist while also showing respect to others. In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”

During the same week that Boy George released his new song, two kosher bakeries in Toronto were vandalized, a kosher restaurant in Montreal was burned to the ground and an Orthodox Jewish boy was beat up in broad daylight outside a restaurant in the streets of Rome.

In the United States, a Jewish woman author from Tennessee who dared to be Jewish and blonde at the same time had her book tour canceled because she was “too supportive of Israel.”

And in Israel, a Nova Festival survivor stood at his girlfriend’s grave and took his own life after almost three years of suffering PTSD.

I was hesitant about writing this piece about Boy George.

I’m no longer a teen ager and as an adult, I know he has had his share of scandals.

In the early 2000s, high on cocaine, he held a male escort hostage and chained him to a radiator. That’s not tabloid gossip—that’s something he was convicted for, and he served prison time. There is no version of that that is excusable and I hope that in his life, he has done teshuvah, repentance, to redeem himself of that act, to acknowledge what he did was wrong, I hope he compensated his victim handsomely and made a vow to never place himself in a circumstance to ever repeat that behavior again.

But here’s the thing.

The entertainment field seemed to forgive and forget that trespass of Boy George’s character. Because according to Playbill Magazine Boy George starred on Broadway as the club owner Harold Zidler in Moulin Rouge! The Musical at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. He played the role during a 2024 stint and returned for a second limited 10-week run from March 18 to May 25, 2025.

And only now, after he released We Will Dance Again, did his Moulin co-star Patrick Clanton excoriate his performance. On his Instagram he said:

“Y’know, I used to defend his performance in our show, but f--- it,” Clanton wrote. “He was a terrible performer and I was [embarrassed] to be in the show with him. Boy, Bye!”

Broadway knew what he did years ago but cast him anyway in Moulin Rouge.

And for expressing himself by daring to write a song, he lost his West End contract with Jesus Christ Superstar.

By standing with Israel and the Jewish people, Boy George has risked his reputation, his standing in the entertainment world, and probably a lot of financial opportunity to speak clearly in defense of Jewish existence and dignity. In a cultural climate where Jews are being demonized, that kind of courage is not nothing. It is everything.

So here I am, decades after hanging that picture disc from my ceiling, still talking about Boy George.

Not as an unblemished hero.

Not as someone whose past can or should be excused.

But as a complicated human being who has, in this moment, chosen to stand up for my people when so many others chose silence or even hatred.

Cringy teenage me would be thrilled that I’m still talking about him.

Adult me is, frankly, a little stunned that after everything, my 40-year love affair with Boy George has found a new, deeper layer.

And almost like a prophecy, over 40 years later, Boy George, as he did in Culture Club’s first video Do You Want to Hurt Me, stands in a courtroom, on trial by the world, asking what his crime was, asking the world “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” just for standing up for Israel.

Boy George, welcome to the Club, the Jewish Club. I want to thank you for your allyship when so many are turning their backs on us, or are banging the drums harder to cause even more harm to us.

At the very least, I hope someone from Golder’s Green in London invites you for Shabbat dinner.

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Wednesday was truly a lovely July day in Southeast Michigan.

High temperatures stayed in the 70s. There was barely any humidity and most importantly, the wildfire smoke, for now, was staying away, and the air was nearly drinkable and clear.

I took a short excursion to the Novi Civic Center, where there was an artist-in-residence exhibit, including print block paintings with some Jewish themes from a visiting artist based in Chicago who I had the pleasure of running into a few times during her stay.

Then I took my dog to his favorite place on earth, the local dog park where he is free to be off leash and run around with some of his pals.

The road between our house and the dog park is Walnut Lake Road. It’s been nicknamed “the Road to Heaven” because of the number of houses of worship that line the four-lane road.

One of them is Temple Israel.

I’m driving home, eastbound on Walnut Lake Road and am stopped at a red light on the corner of Drake and Walnut. Just passed the light ahead is the vast campus of Temple Israel, still closed after the March 12 Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack.

And just as my light turns green, I notice that across the street from Temple, a police car facing Westbound has turned its flashing lights on. As my light turns green, right in front of me, the police car pulls into traffic and, still with the flashing lights, turns perpendicular to traffic going in both directions.

Confused, he motioned towards me and directed me where to stop and wait.

Five months ago, about fifty police, fire and emergency vehicles rushed to this same spot, flashed their lights as police, fire and other emergency first responders rushed to Temple Israel after a man drove his truck into the building’s early childhood wing that contained staff, teachers and about 140 children under the age of five.

I felt my throat closing up. I felt a sting of tears welling in my eyes.

Could it be happening again?

I rolled down my window and asked “Officer, is everything okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer replied. “We just needed to stop traffic to allow for some extra large trucks to back off the property. Everything is okay.”

Wiping away my tears, I saw them. These huge industrial trucks hauling – large fans? Large pipes? It was hard to describe the equipment or what specific purpose these trucks served.

But this is what has been going on at Temple Israel ever since March 12.

The two entrances are barricaded by huge orange barriers.

At any given time, there is either a police, sheriff, or private security vehicle parked right at the top of the long driveway of the campus. And every time one drives by, at least for Jewish people, we are reminded that this is the place, in our quiet suburban town, where we were attacked with an intent to kill us by Hezbollah.

Temple is spending upwards of one million dollars on security, money not covered by insurance, money that could be going towards Jewish programming, Jewish education, or scholarships to send kids to Jewish summer camp, according to clergy interviewed by the media.

The vast lawn, often busy in the summer with children’s camps, a garden and a large permanent tent where Temple holds its popular outdoor Friday night (Kabbalat Shabbat) services, is all silent.

You see, not everything is all right, and it has not been since March 12. Damage from the terrorist attack – the smoke, flames, toxic fumes, and the sprinklers that went off throughout the whole building was so vast, the interior had to be gutted to the beams.

While the world and the news cycle have moved on, North America’s largest Jewish congregation of over 5,000 families comprised of about 12,000 people has been displaced. Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, weddings, weekly services and other vital programming of the Temple have luckily found other places in the community to happen, but not without Herculean logistical efforts by staff, clergy and the staff and clergy of other neighboring synagogues, churches and the nearby Jewish Community Center.

And just like October 7^th, an event that should have brought sympathy, understanding and support and allyship with the Jewish community, March 12^th only seemed to accelerate hatred towards Jews.

Last week, the local ABC affiliate did an exclusive story on the update, which you can read here. The reporter, Jolie Sherman, went to high school and Camp Ramah in Canada with my kids.

And with horrid predictability, a few Facebook comments beneath the article read: “Let’s hear how much money they collected from insurance,” or “this was a white flag,” “wrong Jews, those were the good guys,” “What a surprise. Always looking for attention. Imagine how all the schools, churches and mosques look like in Middle East.”

And everything’s not okay when nearly half of American Muslims hold a favorable view of Hamas, the terrorist group that has controlled Gaza, according to a new Pew Research poll published in July 2026 according to the Algemeiner.

44 percent of American Muslims indicated a “favorable” opinion of Hamas — far outstripping every other religious group surveyed — according a Pew Research poll, which surveyed 12,574 US adults from May 4-17, 2026, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points. Pew oversampled Jewish and Muslim adults to allow for reliable comparisons between the two groups

No, officer, thank you, but not everything’s okay.

A new poll of over 7,000 Americans found that 29 percent of people under 45 believe Jews are a threat to the unity of American society. Among adults over 60, that number is 13 percent.

Blue Square study showed that beliefs in 10 antisemitic tropes increased from 2025 numbers between 12 and 38 percent.

An increasing percentage of people between the ages of 18 to 29 believe:

Jews can handle antisemitism on their own.

Jewish people cause problems in the world.

Holocaust denial is not antisemitic.

Jews have too much influence in the media.

Locally in Michigan, the ADL held a roundtable with key leaders and clergy in the Jewish community. One of the panelists was Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

According to Michigan Advance, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will not attend the Michigan Democratic Party’s nominating convention in August because she does not feel safe to be there.

Maybe it was because of the Nurenberg-like vibe that many of us witnessed first-hand at the April Michigan Democratic Policy Convention. Maybe Nessel felt like this because of the harassment and threats she and her staff endured when she attempted to convict anti-Israel activists illegally occupying an encampment at the University of Michigan in the spring of 2024. Maybe Nessel felt like this watching how Senatorial Candidate Haley Stevens was shouted and jeered at and booed off the stage at the MDPC.

Later, it was discovered that some of the eight individuals indicted on Federal charges associated with terrorizing and vandalizing businesses, homes and businesses of University of Michigan officials were delegates at the MDPC and cast their votes there.

“I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome,” Nessel said at the roundtable. “I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” she said at the Thursday event. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”

Facebook comments underneath this article were largely in agreement with the Attorney General, saying that trying to turn around the hard-leftward shift of the Democratic Party is like trying to keep folding chairs from tipping over on the deck of the Titanic. “Unless the Democratic Party does something fast we are doomed !!! We are losing members left and right. All the talk afterwards, all the meetings to discuss solutions, are equivalent to arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Do something fast or we sink,” one commenter said.

And from the right, once again, Metro Detroiters in neighborhoods from Berkeley to Birmingham to Southfield, some of them Jewish and others not, woke to the sight of heinous Jew hating flyers littered in their driveways, according to reports from the local ABC affiliate.

The seven weeks following Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, are known as the seven weeks of comfort and consolation. In the Torah and Haftarah readings we chant, we are reminded of Gd’s compassion, Gd’s promise to us to comfort and protect us, that he is bringing us to the Land of Israel he had set aside for us, that in these seven weeks, we are wrapped in Gd’s loving hands.

But these days, I cannot find the comfort or consolation. I only find demonization centered on Jews who dare to not want to disappear, who want to be represented and empowered, just like any other minority.

I never thought an election season like the one we are enduring now would make me feel so separated and alienated and demonized by and from the American political system, from my party.

No, I feel no comfort. And it does not take much, such as the sight of a police car flashing its red lights alongside a Jewish building, to bring the sting of a tear.

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Just as Berlin’s annual Internationalist Queer Pride got underway, a group thought it would be a great idea to intersect the liberation struggles for Palestinians and the LGBT community.

Filmed here, marchers chanted ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and ‘From Berlin to Gaza, yalla yalla intifada,’ invoking attacks that killed and wounded thousands of Israelis and Jews.

A few hours later, they got what they were chanting for, but it didn’t exactly go their way. Because what begins with the Jews does not end with the Jews, and you’ve got to be careful what you ask for.

Abdul Ballout was 21 years old. Born in 2005 in Berlin to parents of Lebanese descent, instead of embracing and loving all the opportunities that the pluralistic and enlightened West could offer him, beginning at age 16, he began to radicalize himself. He was placed under surveillance for his ties to Islamic terrorist circles in Berlin. Several times in 2025, he tried to leave Europe and join the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria. Later that summer, he was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison. He was assigned to a deradicalization program, in which reports say he went to all of two meetings.

When that deradicalization didn’t work out for him, armed with a machete and a white van, he careened into the Pride parade at Tiergarten park, killing one woman and injuring over two dozen other revelers.

Ballout was shot dead by police on Sunday evening in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. Another individual, a suspected accomplice, was arrested during the night.

The reaction from the LGBT community in Berlin would be funny if it were not so pitiful.

They know not who their enemies are.

Instead, the cycle of fully indoctrinating the LGBT community into believing in concepts like the oppressed/oppressor binary and intersectionality are so complete, they cannot distinguish between which groups or ethnicities or ideologies truly want to see them dead, and which minority faiths, and that minority faith’s tiny nation, have allied and championed the gay cause and provided them an oasis to live how they want to live and love how they want to love.

I may ruffle some rainbow feathers in being blunt.

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Even though the Democratic Party tries to splinter us and use our connection to Israel as a litmus test for belonging and the cost of admission.

And even though our Jewish AMERICAN collective lobbying voice for demonstrating to Congress the importance of the Israeli/US alliance and partnership becomes ever more demonized, and even if they call us monsters and that AIPAC is the disease, tonight, we care not.

No matter how our enemies try to sever our Judaism from Zion, they can not.

Because we know the truth.

And we know who we are.

And we know where we came from.

These stones do not lie.

This is the home of our ancestors.

Where they walked up to the Temple Mount, to the Beit Hamigdash, and made the pilgrimage three times a year.

Where we immersed ourselves in the mikveh, the ritual baths.

It is what we set our Jewish calendar rhythm to, year after year, generation after generation, millennium after millennium.

Even when we were exiled.

And our Temples were destroyed.

We mourned and prayed that we would return to Zion, and restore its walls speedily in our lifetime.

No elected official, no champagne socialist sitting in Gracie Mansion, no midterm candidate can ever sever that bond.

Their words are nothing. They are crushed beneath the weight of these stones.

We are home.

And we are never leaving again.

Am Yisrael Chai, and to all of Israel, a meaningful fast.

I will state here, that my opinions are my own and do not represent the opinions of any organization or publication.

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The first time I met Congresswoman Haley Stevens, I was walking along the Detroit Riverfront with thousands of others on a freezing March afternoon in 2018.

At the time, I was a reporter on assignment with the Detroit Jewish News. Like the rest of the country, the Jewish community of Metro Detroit was still shaken to the core by the news of the Feb. 14, 2018, fatal mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

In cities across the United States, we walked concurrently with the Great March For Our Lives taking place in Washington D.C., imploring the federal government to pass sensible gun control legislation.

Members of the Jewish community met up in one location before the march set off, and I interviewed rabbis, students, pediatricians, and social workers. It was a Saturday morning, Shabbat, so before we walked, some members of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue held a quick service honoring the Sabbath before we, in the spirit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, began to pray with our feet. For some reason, Stevens found herself walking with us, at least for a while.

At the time, she was working in the private sector for the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) in Chicago, which focuses on the future of work and digital job-training. Before that, she served as the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Auto Task Force in the Obama administration, helping to lead the effort to bail out and restructure the American auto industry during the 2009 financial crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of automotive jobs in Michigan.

But on that blustery March day along the Detroit River, she had no staff, no cameras, carried no signs. It was just her, walking like all of us, anguished, angry, demanding that the government enforce background checks and create more stringent gun control laws so that no student would ever again have to face the fear of being shot and killed in the place where they should feel the safest.

I introduced myself as a reporter, and she introduced herself as Haley Stevens, she was from Oakland County, and she had recently announced her ambitions to run for Congress.

I had to ask: “Are you Jewish?”

She chuckled, “No, and a lot of people think I am. I just grew up with a lot of Jewish friends, as I have now, and I feel very connected to the Jewish community.”

I should have got a quote from her then and there, and to this day, I still do not know why I did not.

But in the years to come, I interviewed Congresswoman Stevens, who represents me in Congress, several times for my work at Downtown Publications.

Even amid her campaign for the Senate, one which she has run on top of her job in Congress with a bare-bones staff, she always made time to speak to me for my longform stories. She didn’t have a staff person talk to me or email me a statement. But a 30 minute or longer phone interview. I’m not on a major network or CNN. But I do write for her local, hometown paper, and she values that. She gave me the time.

For my story examining Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his quest to hollow out the nation’s longstanding vaccine recommendations, a precedent that had been practiced by healthcare professionals for decades and was responsible for the well-being of millions of children, she spoke to me about her initiative to impeach RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Haley Stevens went after JFK Jr. so aggressively, with the backing of the nation’s top medical organizations and immunology experts, because she recognized the inherent danger his backwards policies posed to the nation’s public health.

“The threat RFK Jr.’s policies pose to Michiganders’ health and human safety is only growing,” Stevens told me. “We’ve seen an uptick in measles cases after we achieved eradication in the United States and cuts to scientific research. I kept hearing from (bipartisan) parents, educators, scientists and community members about how frustrated, worried and helpless they felt. After an incredibly serious process of calling on him to reinstate funding, to listen to scientists, to reconsider, even to resign, I was given no choice but to act. Filing these articles of impeachment was my last resort — but it is still the right thing to do.”

Stevens views RFK Jr’s placement as the leader of the DHHS as a direct attack on science and a threat to Michiganders’ health and safety.

“What worries me most is that we are turning science upside down,” Stevens said. “We’re now seeing even polio potentially called back into question. Pregnant women are being blamed for taking something as basic as Tylenol. This is a rejection of science, and that rejection is putting the health and safety of people in Michigan at real risk.”

And although she was not successful in getting RFK Jr. impeached, a federal judge on March 16, 2026, blocked RFK Jr’s vaccine agenda, freezing the ACIP shakeup and safeguarding child vaccine access as the legal fight over vaccines intensifies.

A federal court ruling handed down on March 16, 2026, drew a legal boundary around decades of science-based immunization policy in the US, halting the most sweeping restructuring of the nation’s vaccine advisory system in its history, according to reports from the American Journal of Managed Care.

Months later, when I was investigating a story on the increased presence of ICE in Oakland County, Michigan, she took the time to speak with me about her efforts to impeach Kristi Noem, who at the time was Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Days before the interview, she had traveled with other government officials on her staff to visit one of the largest ICE detention centers in Michigan where a number of women were being held for days with no information about their immigration or deportation status.

In the interview, she lambasted the Trump Administration and Congress for pouring billions more dollars into ICE without budging on her demands for reforms and absolute transparency into the agency.

That morning, the morning of Trump’s State of the Union address, I listened to her account of the visit, of holding in her arms the select few migrants who were permitted to talk to she and her colleagues and the fear she had for their health and treatment at the center.

When Stevens visited Baldwin, she most urgently wanted answers as to why and how 56-year-old detainee Nenko Gantchev, an undocumented immigrant from Bulgaria with diabetes, died in custody in December 2025. According to news reports, his family said he begged multiple times for medical assistance.

Speaking with Downtown on the morning of the February 24 State of the Union address, Stevens came away with more questions than answers.

“What is unfolding before so many of our eyes on the streets, and then what is happening behind closed doors?” Stevens pondered. “Why are people being taken, and why are they not getting answers about why they are there?”

One hundred people signed up to speak with Stevens and Congresswoman Hillary Scholten (D-3) at the detention center. They were only permitted to speak with four.

Among the few the congresswomen met, Stevens said some were afraid to speak openly for fear of retribution. All wanted to know about their pending cases. She comforted a pregnant woman detainee, separated from her 18-month-old toddler, who has not been told why she was being detained.

“It is the demonstration of complete lack of transparency on how these detention centers are being run is one of the reasons why I called for the impeachment of Noem, and why I believe that President Trump owes the American people an apology and a show of accountability,” Stevens said. “It begins with masked, unidentifiable agents in our streets taking people out of nowhere and using our taxpayer dollars to do so. And it ends up in these detention centers.”

A few weeks later, Trump removed Noem from office.

Now, her political opponent for the U.S. Senate is distorting her views on ICE, running ads saying Stevens supports ICE as it is and thanks them for it and wants to increase their budget, all because of one resolution she signed onto back in June of 2025.

According to Bridge Magazine, El-Sayed, who has called for abolishing the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, argued that Stevens “voted to thank ICE and increase their budget.”

That criticism stems from Stevens’ June 9, 2025 vote on a resolution condemning an antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado.

Stevens was one of 75 Democrats to vote for the Republican-sponsored resolution, which included a line indicating the chamber “expresses gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

Let’s put it in perspective. Let’s give it context where her opponent has not.

On June 1, 2025, Mohammed Sabry Soliman, age 45, an illegal immigrant from Egypt who was living in Colorado Springs, drove nearly two hours to Boulder. He had packed in his vehicle at least 14 homemade Molotov cocktails, lighter fluid, and other explosive materials.

Once in Boulder, he detonated the cocktails, hurling them at a group of Jews who wore red Run For Their Lives t-Shirts and marched, as they did each week, in peaceful solidarity, raising awareness and calling for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages still brutally held in Gaza.

He torched eight people, and one woman in her eighties eventually died from her burns.

When he threw the Molotov cocktails, Soliman yelled “Free Palestine!” The Molotov cocktails ignited in the crowd of people, causing burn injuries to eight individuals.

A car registered to Soliman, parked a block away, contained a red gas container, red material consistent with rags used in the Molotov cocktails, and paperwork with the words, “Israel,” “Palestine,” and “USAID.”

According to the Associated Press: On May 7, 2026, a judge sentenced Soliman to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Besides life in prison, Soliman’s sentence includes hundreds of years for dozens of charges including attempted murder, assault and attempted assault.

Stevens explained the vote and argued El-Sayed was adopting GOP talking points to attack her.

“Instead of bringing us together, Republicans put in a cynical point about thanking ICE,” she said of the resolution. “I am always going to stand up to violence, and I just wish my opponent wouldn’t pursue the cynical approaches of Republicans.”

The last time I met Stevens in person, I with about 60 members of the Jewish community as we gathered by the gazebo at the center of town in Franklin, Michigan. Just like those in Boulder, we wore our red t-shirts and we walked week after week, month after month, raising awareness for our Jewish brethren who were still held savagely hostage in Gaza.

It was October 5^th, 2025, the last week before they were set free, and Haley Stevens walked with us and spoke to us.

Haley Stevens’ district does not include Franklin. Franklin is represented in Congress by Rashida Tlaib. She never walked with us.

Before we began our customary 18-minute walk, the number that represents life, and now accompanied by several police cars to prevent us from being attacked, Stevens spoke of the work she had done to free the hostages, not just Israeli hostages, but wherever Americans were being held around the world as the co-chair of the American Hostage Task Force she helped form in 2022. She spoke of the bipartisan resolutions signed to free Michigander Ron Wheeler from the gulags of Russia, and she worked with House Members to write a similar resolution days after October 7^th to free the Israeli hostages.

“I told my colleagues in Congress, ‘Let’s take that same resolution that we have used to condemn Iran and condemn Russia for holding hostages and use it to condemn Hamas,’” she told us. “That was a resolution that got on the House floor the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in 2023, and every single voting member of Congress that day voted for it. I think that is the only thing in all of my years in Congress that has related to Israel that garnered unanimous support.”

Before she walked with us, she added: “Even when some people make it hard, I know history is going to remember who stood alongside the Jewish people and the people of Israel.”

Just like the wildfire smoke that has lingered in the air over the skies of Michigan, the battle for who will be the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate ahead of Michigan’s August 4^th primary is toxic.

It has become so toxic that Abdul El-Sayed on his Facebook account on July 17 said:

“It’s become impossible to ignore the way that people online make fun of my opponent for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics. It’s unkind and unhelpful. If you support me, please stop.”

“Focus on the issues: Congresswoman Stevens has welcomed corporations and special interests to support her. She votes to send our money abroad while Michiganders struggle. She’s bought by DTE, Blue Cross, Big Tech, and Big Pharma who pick our pockets. AIPAC, Trump-aligned billionaires, and corporate PACs are spending $50,000,000+ to support her.

THOSE are the issues. We don’t need to be unkind to be honest.”

Well, to be honest, El-Sayed, you could have stopped the toxic rhetoric, the lying, the jeering, and the downright verbal abuse of your constituents way back in April during the Michigan Democratic Policy Convention.

When it was time for Stevens to take the stage as a sitting, democratically elected member of Congress, your supporters booed and jeered her so loudly she could barely be heard.

Shouting down an elected official is undemocratic.

If you wanted to demonstrate leadership and civility and “kindness,” you could have taken down the temperature then and there.

Right then and there, you could have taken the stage and called the behavior “unhelpful.”

But instead, you let it go on. You did nothing, and for many of us at the convention, including myself, it was a perfect demonstration of the hard radical leftward shift you have taken the party, a shift that feels less like home to many Democrats who have called the party our ideological home for generations.

Abdul, you want to be honest?

Stop calling Israel a rogue state.

Israel is an ally of the United States, a democracy that is fighting for its very existence among a sea of failed states propped up by the IRGC.

You want to be honest?

Stop saying Israel is committing genocide and is an apartheid state at every chance you get, and then when questioned on it, when called out on the mat and, heaven forbid, asked to be accountable for your statement and wild allegations, as you were by Jake Tapper on CNN, you deflected and said you wanted to talk about Michigan.

You want to know who has been working for the people of Michigan and who has the record to show it?

That would be your opponent.

Stevens is a staunch opponent of President Donald Trump and a staunch critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But let’s not talk about the Middle East right now, or how legions of uninformed people who do not understand the strategic, ideological, military, technological, medical and commercial ties between the American and the Israeli peoples and have been reduced to labeling Stevens as the “AIPAC Lady” with the lie that she works for Israel and not the United States.

Let’s straight up look at her track record in Congress.

According to the nonpartisan website GovTrack, here is a list of House Resolutions that Stevens has sponsored since she has been in office. None of them have anything to do with Israel. All of them have to do with the lives of ordinary Americans and especially Michiganders. Most have to do with strengthening the backbone of manufacturing and the supply chain, which is the bread and butter of the livelihood of most Michiganders.

• H.R. 4082 (118th): FAA Severe Turbulence Research and Development Act of 2023

• H.R. 7903 (117th): To designate the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic located in Canton, Michigan, as the “Major General Oliver W. Dillard VA Clinic”.

• H.R. 8251 (117th): CHIPPING IN Act of 2022 of 2022 (Creating Helpful Initiatives to Produce Personnel in Needed Growth Industries Act) was a bipartisan legislative proposal (H.R. 8251) introduced in the U.S. House. Its goal was to address the nation’s critical semiconductor workforce shortage by funding education, traineeships, and academic research

Here is what this Act has meant for Michiganders and the American People:

· Advanced Technologies: Authorized robust funding and research programs for engineering biology, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and biometrology. [1, 2]

· Cybersecurity & Identity: Expanded NIST’s authority to drive research in digital identity management, federal biometric performance standards, open-source software security, and advanced communications. [1, 2]

· Manufacturing & Supply Chain: Supported research into sustainable chemistry (safe, clean, and economic chemical processes) and greenhouse gas measurement technologies. [1, 2]

· Educational Outreach: Directed NIST to expand educational outreach, particularly focusing on STEM support for underrepresented communities. [1]

· Global Standards: Facilitated the participation of small businesses and academia in international technical standards organizations to ensure American competitiveness

Other House Resolutions sponsored by Stevens include:

• H.R. 4609 (117th): National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Future Act of 2021

• H.R. 4610 (117th): To establish an expansion awards pilot program as a part of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and for other purposes.

• H.R. 1665 (116th): Building Blocks of STEM Act

• H.R. 2888 (116th): Stop Student Debt Relief Scams Act of 2019

• H.R. 9768: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat certain amounts of …

• H.R. 9370: Protect Local Funding Act

• H.R. 9162: Protecting America from Chinese Cars Act of 2026

• H.R. 9161: Secure Aluminum Supply Chains Act

• H.R. 9003: Keep Illegal Handguns Out of the Mail Act of 2026

• H.R. 8866: Build to Scale Reauthorization Act of 2026

• H.R. 8709: Homeownership Savings Act

Also notable is her Congressional roll call attendance record.

From Jan 2019 to Jun 2026, Stevens missed 8 of 3,788 roll call votes, which is 0.2%. This is better than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving.

So, I hope that come August 4^th, Michigan voters will vote not based on rhetoric and division but cold facts and common sense.

And they will vote based on the voting record Stevens has demonstrated: that she is the champion of the people of Michigan, and Michigan, not Israel, is her North Star.

Vote for Haley Stevens.

She has the receipts.

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I hope wherever you are reading this, you are breathing deeply and breathing healthy, fresh air under a bluebird summer sky.

This is not the case in Michigan, most of the Great Lakes region, and the Northeast.

As someone who writes about the environment and environmental policy, this troubles me to no end. I’m (relatively) safe inside with my air purifiers and filters, but I think about the health of our wildlife, our birds, pollinators, and other creatures that roam suburbia. What will this do to the health of the deer, foxes and squirrels who frequent my backyard? How will this impact the health of Detroiters, some who already live with legacy pollution and reside in some of the most polluted zip codes in the country?

The smoke and destruction and feeling despair seem appropriate as we head into the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar. We are thick into the smoke of the Nine Days, leading up to the Ninth of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, when conquerers of ancient Judea attempted to sever the ties and bonds between the Jewish people and the Land, ties that remained unbroken as we prayed for 2000 years for Jerusalem’s redemption and our return to Zion.

There are those who use the excuse that Zionism is not Judaism, like a certain candidate for the U.S. Senate.

In multiple interviews, including one where he conditioned the Hezbollah attack on Temple Israel saying “hurt people hurt people,” Abdul El-Sayed said he “reveres Judaism” and had many Jewish friends growing up in Metro Detroit.

Yet is asking us to go on our knees and explain to him the relevance and justification of the existence of a Jewish state.

I bet Abdul El-Sayed never once bothered to look through the pages of a Siddur during any of those Bar or Bat Mitzvahs he claimed to attend growing up among his Jewish friends. If he did, he would know that a large portion of our prayers are about restoring Zion and returning to Zion. And a large part of our Torah, which his Jewish friends chanted their parasha from at their bar/bat mitzvah, is the story of the ancient Hebrews being promised the Land, yearning for freedom for the Land, and receiving a code of laws as how to ethically live, rule and settle in the Land once we got there.

If El-Sayed does make it to Congress, he would vote, as over 100 Democrats did this week, to end all aid to Israel, and that includes defense artillery such as the Iron Dome.

How fitting that this vote was carried out just as the Hebrew calendar turned to the month of Av. When I attend synagogue this Shabbat, I will thank Gd that it did not pass.

If you do live in Michigan, please vote in the August 4th primary. Vote your conscience. Vote for the most qualified, seasoned, hard-working, and results-oriented candidate on the ticket. No matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican. Vote however you want in the general election, but on August 4th, vote for moral clarity and not for the anti-Israel propaganda that has permeated the growing far-left wing of the Democratic Party.

These are stressful days leading up to August 4th.

I’d tell you to take a deep, cleansing breath, but do check the Air Quality Index first.

Shabbat Shalom.

Over the July 4^th holiday, as we have done for the last four years, my husband and I headed West to Portland, Oregon, to visit our son and daughter-in-law.

With its mountains, rivers, blue skies, and redwood trees, some growing big and tall on the front lawns in certain neighborhoods, Oregon is a beautiful place to visit. With its vibrant, progressive culture, I can understand Portland’s allure to our kids, who are both musicians and artists.

But what I experienced during last year’s visit, which I chronicled here, caused me to go this year with a bit of a chip on my shoulder.

Last year, my post about Portland’s Palestine Problem received thousands of views and was one of my most widely read essays.

So, I thought it deserved a sequel, however anticlimactic this one may be.

This year was different.

Maybe it was because last year, Portland was the host city for the annual National Education Association Conference, which centralized so much of its policy platform on demonizing Israel and Zionism and alienated and antagonized so many of its Jewish delegates that the Brandeis Center filed a civil rights complaint against it.

Maybe it was because last year, there were still hostages being held in Gaza’s subterranean terror infrastructure. However, Portland’s far left still thought it was righteous and justified to demand that Israel stop fighting for those hostages and for its self-defense and expressed this by covering many available surfaces, including beer garden picnic tables and the insides of women’s bathroom stalls with scrawled slogans like “Free Palestine” or “Israhell” or “From the River to the Sea.”

Last year, I was unprepared.

This year, I was ready.

This year, after giving it a lot of thought and further validated by Sia, the author of the Sunlight/Moonlight Substack, I made stickers to cover up the antizionist hate I anticipated that I would encounter.

Before my trip to Portland and shortly after the NYC primaries, Sia penned the essay “It Has to Be Us.”

The author warns that the rapid rise of the DSA threatens to destroy not only the Jewish collective of Israel but the fabric and institutions of the American way of life, with their plans to abolish the electoral college, the U.S. Senate, and the prison system.

“It has to be us,” she wrote.

“We have to be the ones to make and share the signs, the placards, and the information sheets describing how the DSA is using the mechanism of antizionism and Jew-hatred to destroy our cities and country. We have to have the conversations with our friends and neighbors that lay out the facts in clear and accessible terms. The very soul of our nation depends on informed citizens who care.”

In her essay, she offers some small ways we can all fight back every day.

One of the tools we can use in our arsenal: stickers.

· If you can, keep a black permanent marker and/or a few stickers with you when you go out. If you find antizionist or anti-American messaging in public spaces, cover them up!

This year, with some stickers and Sharpies packed into my carry-on luggage, I was prepared and armed in case I found messaging demonizing me, my people, and my ancestral indigenous homeland in the City of Roses.

I printed them out on some nifty Avery labels using template 5655.

In fact, if you become a paid subscriber, I will be happy to print you out a set of 18 and mail them out to you!

And did I need these stickers?

This time, not really. And I would prefer not to see every surface in an urban scape covered with stickers, no matter their message. They are ugly and make any neighborhood look skanky and seedy.

I mean, there was one white woman I saw inside the Portland Art Museum who stashed her keffiyeh underneath her armpit as she explored the exhibit of renowned and openly gay artist David Hockney, who recently passed away. I chuckled at the irony of that, and that the exhibit was made possible due to the generous support from the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation, a Jewish family, but I couldn’t put one of my stickers on her, could I?

Nor could I put stickers on another white woman wearing a “Palestine” soccer jersey who I spotted at the Montavilla Farmer’s Market.

The one thing I stickered, though, was a flyer advertising a “Fuck the 4^th” “alternative” demonstration and picnic to condemn the founding and the birth of these United States of America. The poster also demanded the reader to “Fuck ICE” and “Free Palestine” among a host of other declarations, the author not even giving a thought that in another country where they are not bestowed the freedoms endowed unto us, they would be spied on, followed, apprehended at their residence, and sent away, maybe for life, to a gulag or a work colony for hanging posters that were deemed to be against the government.

So, for the most part, the stickers remained in my purse.

I am not saying that there is no animosity towards Jews or Israel in Portland, but you must look a bit harder, and it is now far more subtle. But in its subtlety, I observed that the hatred of Israel and any Jewish collective presence and self-agency is, for the most part, normalized and now complete.

For example, next door to the Hoxton, the amazing hotel we stayed in, was an art gallery that never seemed to be open.

In the window was an artful banner bearing the words: “Black Lives Matter” in English and Arabic. But I am sure inside the gallery there would be no mention of how Black Africans are still bought and sold as slaves throughout the Arab world.

Another example: At the entrance to the Portland Zoo, banners are hanging from flagpoles that welcome all visitors in every language but Hebrew.

But what was most glaring to me was the omission of Israel in the World Music section of a giant used record and CD store we dropped in.

Indeed, there was music from many countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Ireland, and Italy.

And I have to admit, there was one marker for the music of Ofra Haza, the Israeli artist who won Eurovision 1983.

But there was no mention of Israel.

Instead, any CD with Hebrew writing by any artist who sang in Hebrew was stashed at a floor-level shelf, the category was called “Jewish.”

Now, playing devil’s advocate, maybe there are not many people in Portland who had a vast enough collection of Israeli music to sell it to a used record shop, and maybe there just is not a big enough market in Portland for Israeli music. And, had there never been a designated marker for “Israel,” at this record shop, or did the “Israel” sub-section in the World Music section lose its individual standing only after October 7^th?

I will never know. I didn’t bother to ask the kid behind the counter and I decided that this omission was not sticker-worthy.

So, instead of looking for the hate, I looked and found the love in Portland.

I found the love by being in nature, by going to hear some live music, eating some great sushi and even vegan Pho, and by spending quality time, and quality one-on-one time, with my son and daughter-in-law.

And of course, I found the love within Portland’s Jewish community,

On Shabbat morning of July 4^th, we attended services at Neveh Shalom, a large conservative synagogue in Portland with about 800 families that is known for its Chihuly Ner Tamid in its chapel. How very Pacific Northwest.

Outside, we were greeted by two guards with “Shabbat Shalom” and passed through an iron-gated entrance.

Inside, Rabbi April Villarreal delivered a sermon that carried the necessary significance of the 250^th birthday of our nation and the contributions Jewish Americans have made to this country from its very beginnings, and the great strides we still need to make for inclusion and to rail against bigotry.

Villarreal mentioned the letter Moses Seixas and other religious Jewish leaders from Newport, Rhode Island, penned to George Washington in 1790 that included the following passage:

“Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens,” Seixas wrote, “we now…behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People—a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.”

I know my kids do not go to synagogue much, but I was so glad we all went together. It was exactly the sermon we all needed to hear.

We spent the rest of the day preparing a Fourth of July barbecue feast, throwing any vegetable scraps into a compost bin kept under the sink, because Portland has a citywide composting program.

We grilled up kosher hot dogs on the deck of my kid’s house that overlooked the city, the mountains in the distance, and waited for the sky to darken, to be lit from horizon to horizon with fireworks.

You see, although my Substack focuses on antisemitism and antizionism (and yes, they are the same thing), I never wanted to be like this: always on the defense, always on high alert.

I wanted to be a proud American Jew, a proud Zionist and lover of Israel.

In my private time, I wanted to listen and dance to Israeli music, be knowledgeable about Israeli and Jewish history.

I wished to compartmentalize all of that in one private pocket of my identity and then get on with the rest of life and whatever else I was passionate about and cared about as a human being and as a writer.

There are so many things I intended to focus upon, and have done so, in my professional writing.

I set out in life deeply caring about nature, the environment, and sustainable living, things that matter so much to those who live in Portlandia. That’s the stuff I should be looking out for and wanting to write about instead of looking for signs of antizionism around every turn.

One early evening, my son, husband, and I ambled down a trail in the city along the Columbia River that defines sustainable living.

On one side are newly built high-density apartments, where everyone seems to have a balcony overflowing with potted plants. The trail is right outside their doorstep, which leads them to grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and a dog park.

On the other side of the trail is the Columbia River, and the trail on both sides is lined with plantings of native species to help sustain populations of birds, butterflies, pollinators, and other wildlife species.

On the other side of the river, we spotted a bald eagle. As we walked along the trail, saying hello to passing dogs and their humans, my son and I strayed a little into the brush to pick and eat the ripest blackberries that were in safe reach but none that would cause us to go tumbling downhill into the river.

And that’s what a visit in Portland should be.

And as for my stickers? I will always keep some in my purse, wherever I go. Just in case.

If you have recently visited Portland, or have never been but are looking for places to stay, explore, dine or want to know some great places to hear music in Portland, drop a comment or question in the comments.

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On collecting my thoughts here about my experience at a protest I attended over the weekend at the height of Pride Month, my thoughts went to that well-known philosophical question about a tree falling in the woods when there is no one around.

If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

And therefore, if antizionists and supporters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) hold a concert rally in the heart of one of the most gay-friendly neighborhoods of Detroit to spew their lies that Israel has committed mass genocide in Gaza and no one shows up to counterprotest, do the antizionists really make a sound?

Do they win?

If we had not shown up, would they have had anyone to shout “FREE PALESTINE” or “End Zionism” at?

On our way to and from Ferndale, my husband and I pondered what difference we made by showing up.

Was it worth interrupting the peace of this Shabbat afternoon, the longest of the year?

Let’s break down the situation:

The funky, trendy, progressive City of Ferndale issued a city permit on June 27^th for Armit Kholi to reserve space in a tiny patch of public space known as Shiffer Park.

Kholi is a software engineer by day, second-rate folk singer in his spare time who at one point made an unsuccessful bid to unseat Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard on a “defund the police” platform.

It’s the kind of permit one applies for to reserve a shelter or some picnic benches for a kid’s birthday party or a small brunch, as many of us do, on such a lovely summer evening.

Ferndale is Detroit’s most inner-outer-ring neighborhood. It is known for its trendy bars, clubs, restaurants, artsy stores, and as being one of the most gay-friendly neighborhoods in all of Michigan.

Schiffer Park, named for the city’s only Jewish mayor, is a tiny scrap of public space that backs up into several apartment buildings and sits across the street from a popular watering hole, dartboard, and ax-throwing joint.

Saturday night, June 27^th, was the height of Pride month. Throughout the city, gay couples strolled all over, freely, kissing, holding hands, dressing however they wanted, and not seeming to give the slightest rat’s ass that in the middle of town, people were waving the flag of a country that hangs people like them from a crane, or that homosexuality is a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment, torture or death in a “Free Free Palestine.”

About 30 of us – mostly middle-aged and older who support Israel and Western values in general showed up to demonstrate that irony, and to demonstrate that we would not allow a propaganda-filled anti-Israel pro-Hamas concert to go on our watch without being present, noticed, vocal and visible to the community.

We were there to show Ferndale that pro-Israel Jews who know their history are not shrinking violets.

I showed up for the some 7,000 Jews who live in the Ferndale, Oak Park, Royal Oak and Berkeley corridor, according to a 2018 Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit study.

We showed up for a woman named June.

June has lived in Ferndale for 40 years. Her front yard is filled with wildflowers that attract butterflies and other pollinators, and other objects of peaceful whimsy, all guarded by her cat that watches from an enclosed front porch.

June said she loves living in Ferndale for its progressive values and has felt at home here as an active member of the community. And she wants it to stay that way.

A few weeks ago, she and a group of other Jews spoke out at a Ferndale City Council meeting (MI), objecting to the Amrit Kholi concert held at tiny Schiffer Park. The park, in the heart of the city’s downtown, is named after the city’s only Jewish mayor.

June and others objected to the city giving him a permit and said so during the public comment section. Four Jewish speakers said they did not object to free speech. But they pointed out that Kholi applied for a regular permit, not a special events permit. After the city granted him the permit, he began to advertise all over the Detroit metro area that he would be staging a concert in conjunction with the Michigan Coalition Against Genocide.

The statements, which included how these Jews were growing more uncomfortable living in Ferndale, were met with silence from others attending the meeting. Another Jewish person, one who expressed antizionist leanings and who did not identify with “a genocidal ethnostate,” said he felt perfectly comfortable in Ferndale, was met with resounding cheers and applause.

June and the three others who spoke out about allowing for the concert were verbally harassed by another attendee at the public meeting who ranted about “the Jews.”

He followed them out after the meeting demanding that they answer for ‘the Jews’. The meeting was disrupted and the council asked him to quiet down, but the presiding officer never came outside the city hall to check to see if the situation against the speakers was escalating.

Now they are feeling alienated in their own neighborhood by the illiberal, regressive pro-Palestine movement that is growing stronger in Ferndale by the day.

Our Side

There were about 30 of us who gathered on one side of the park, waving Israeli and American flags as well as the original flag of the People of Iran depicting a lion as well as the rainbow flag for Pride Month.

And what did people on our side do?

Some of us, not me, tried to argue and reason with the pro-Hamas supporters.

I learned long ago this is an exercise in futility.

While they waved flags of “Palestine,” Lebanon and the IRGC, we waved American and Israeli flags, the rainbow flag for Pride Month and the pre-Revolution flag of Iran depicting a lion.

And guess which side is accused of having some kind of a “dual loyalty?”

Shlomi Bennett, the founder of grassroots Jewish civil rights group Frontline Michigan, wrote the next morning, we showed up to show the wider community that we Jews are not receding in fear. We are not disappearing.

Rabbi Dorit Edut, who has spent decades of her life in interfaith work, led us in Hebrew songs of peace, songs taken directly from our prayers.

Police stood between us and the other concert goers.

On the other side:

The anti-Israel crowd held a large canvas banner adorned with huge painted poppies, the words saying: “Jews against Genocide.”

Spanning the stage was another larger banner. On this banner were images of starving children from the Warsaw Ghetto juxtaposed of images of children in Gaza that have been repeatedly proven to be staged by Al Jazeera journalists.

Looking among the crowd of pro-Hamas supporters, I recognized some familiar faces.

I noticed a man wearing a red triangle necklace, the symbol Hamas uses to mark those it wants to terrorize.

Standing with this man was Lori Ajlounya, a woman in a trendy jumpsuit that bore the pattern of the keffiyeh. She flashed me a peace sign, or maybe it was a red triangle sign.

Aljounya is finishing up her tenure as a Trustee on the Birmingham Board of Education and was a teacher in the BPS school district for 30 years. And she was standing at a concert that used Holocaust imagery and compared the starving orphaned child survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz to those suffering in the “open air prison” of Gaza.

This comparison should come as a shock and a surprise, but in this day and age in our public education system, it has become normalized.

Another was a young woman named Heather who has been seen at Ferndale City Council meetings, especially before the council passed a ceasefire resolution against Israel while Hamas still held over 100 hostages.

Heather is a preschool teacher.

Heather is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Here is Heather before she extended a middle finger at us.

In a JVP webinar offered in January 2024 during International Holocaust Rememberance Day,

which is still be available to watch on the JVP Detroit Youtube page, Heather explained her background. Heather said that after her grandfather survived the Holocaust, their family was so ashamed of their Judaism that they did not practice at home, nor did the family give any succeeding generations a Jewish education. Heather said she experienced trauma and sexual violence in her past, and the only connection she has with Judaism is through Jewish Voice for Peace.

And here I make my case, again, that the Palestinianism movement exploits the most vulnerable people and tokenizes Jews, especially the unaffiliated and broken ones.

Let’s get to the musical component to this protest.

Many artists have called for a cultural boycott of Israel for daring to defend itself after its citizens were raped and slaughtered at a music festival on October 7^th, which I have had to take off my Spotify rotation. I will not mention them here, but I will miss them.

This guy? This white, non-Arab, non-Palestinian guy who looks around 70?

Of his music, neither my ears nor my soul will miss.

Considering how the hard left hates cultural appropriation, this white guy had not one Palestinian song to sing.

He is largely talentless.

He strummed about two chords.

He could sing only three nasally notes through his nostrils.

And the sheep of his audience loved it all.

He also lacked any kind of musicianship whatsoever.

Being the mom of a professional guitarist, I know that when you’re performing, you thank the audience for coming. You introduce your other musicians.

This man did neither.

Within the music part of the event, I had expected there to be some demonstration of Palestinian culture that is separate from the present-day war.

Maybe something in Arabic.

Learning of the Palestinian National Anthem.

There was none.

There is none.

All they knew how to do was to lead chants of Free Palestine and End Zionism Now and Zionism is Not Judaism.

Between music sets, Huwaida Arraf took the stage with her daughter.

Just as Hamas exploits and brainwashes the children of Gaza, I found Arraf using her daughter as a prop the most disturbing part of the event.

Arraf spent about 40 minutes spewing propaganda, which I will not bother to quote her verbatim. She spewed lies that Israel continued to starve Gazan children and blocks all Gazans from entering Israel for medical care.

She didn’t mention that the Israelis for decades, personally drove Gazans to Israeli hospitals, only to be personally slaughtered by Gazans on October 7^th.

She didn’t mention October 7^th.

She lied to the sheep at the concert and said that Israel continues to block food, medical supplies, and medical care in Israel.

One quick check of Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT’s) Twitter account proved that since the October 2025 ceasefire, 600 – 800 aid trucks enter Gaza daily with food, providing each Gazan with 6,000 worth of food, shelter supplies, and medical equipment. One quick check with COGAT’s Twitter account showed that last week, Israel allowed the exit of more than 100 civilians from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Border Crossing to receive medical treatment in a third country. Israel has allowed the exit of approximately 50,000 Gazan civilians to third countries, most of them medical patients and their escorts.

This is what I found on one quick Google search, but I doubt if any of the sheep at the Ferndale concert bothered to fact-check any of the propaganda that Arraf flooded their ears.

Arraf didn’t bother to mention to the sheeplike audience who only know how to bleat Free Free Palestine, that those pictures on the banner were largely staged, that it was Hamas who hoarded food in warehouses from its civilians, Hamas who had yet to surrender according to a ceasefire deal, and Hamas who as recently as last weekend was brutally cracking down on Gazans calling for their ouster.

But why would they call out Hamas and demonize them?

These people are on the side of Hamas.

On the pro-Western, pro-American and pro-Israel side, we had signs and banners of our own, and we used them to separate ourselves from the pro-Hamas side.

I thought about making my own sign.

If I did, it would have said:

“This liberal Zionist believes in the rights of LGBT people, sensible gun control reform, civil rights, and environmental justice,” and so on and so on, but I didn’t.

I no longer feel that I need to turn out my pockets to the world and cry out: “I am a good person even though I am a Zionist. Please like me!”

We should no longer be doing that.

I just showed up.

And because we are the People of the Book, I showed up with one.

That was my protest.

That was the way I felt best to counter the lies, the libels (okay I may have done some of my share of shouting) was with a book that laid out the cold, hard carbon dated facts of Jewish indigeneity in Israel.

My book of choice: When the Stones Speak by Doron Spielman. It chronicles the archeological excavation of the City of David which predates the age of Jerusalem by several hundred years.

The other side had propaganda.

We had facts.

At some point, I gave up standing and shouting and opened up to the chapter of the discovered and unearthed Pool of Siloam.

Reading was my form of resistance.

And before long, passersby asked me about the book, took a picture of it, and said they would have to pick up their own copy.

Doron, I think I sold about five copies of your book that day.

In the end, I hope that the average person who was in Ferndale that night saw the difference between the sides.

One side spewed lies and waved the flag of the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

One side waved the American and Israeli flag.

I think most people in general have no idea what’s going on in the Middle East, are ambivalent about it at best, and not paying attention at worst.

Those are the people that we need to reach, and I think I reached a few people just having this book on hand. In this climate where it is very fashionable and righteous to shout at Israel supporting Jews that we are baby killers, these passersby could have done just that. Instead, a few took the time to ask me questions about the book and what it was about.

At one point, a car with an African American family inside slowed down as they passed us and rolled down their windows.

A young black man in the back seat made eye contact with me.

He made a heart with his two hands, blew us kisses and then he and his brother gave us all the thumbs up.

And in those silent gestures, that’s all the support we needed to see.

They could have given that support to the pro-Palestinian side, but they did that to our side. Maybe that’s because of the good work of the Detroit Black and Jewish Coalition, I don’t know, but I know we have allies out there.

Maybe it’s you.

Maybe you are too scared to come out in person and stand with us.

After about almost two hours, our side looked at each other and wondered, how long do we subject ourselves to this?

At what point is this just a detriment to our mental health?

We waited until some of their group started thinning out, but we didn’t gloat about it.

We just walked away, thankful that there were no physical altercations started by either side.

After a while, we decided, on this beautiful Saturday night in June in Metro Detroit, there is a lot of other things we can be doing.

Namely, getting some dinner.

Thank you to One Eyed Bettys for some great beer and food and welcoming us in, even in our T-shirts with references to Israel.

Because it is also getting trendy these days for restaurants, bars and other places of business to refuse to give service to “Zionists” like us.

Reflecting on it, my husband and I thought, did our presence at this concert just draw more attention to their cause?

Maybe.

But if I convinced one or two people to read a book about a 3000-year connection between Jews and the land of Israel, if I got one person or one family not Jewish to roll down their window and show me signs of support, maybe it was worth it.

We showed up, we stood up.

So, before I head off on a much-needed vacation, I leave you with this: If there is a similar pro-Hamas event going on in your neck of the woods, don’t sit it out.

Don’t worry about being outnumbered, unorganized, and unmassaged as pro-Israel Jews.

That’s who we are. We are messy and unmessaged. We are three Jews with five opinions.

And that’s the beauty of being Jewish and pro-Israel.

We are not sheep. We think.

Show up. Stand up, stand up for your Jewish rights.

LaKoom.

Starting in junior high school and well into my teenage years, the parents of my generation gave us warnings about cults.

They warned us about who is vulnerable to getting involved with cults such as the Moonies or the Hare Krishnas, the ones who sold roses at the airport and at highway underpasses.

At my Jewish camp, we had a special speaker talk to us about the danger of cults and how to avoid them and how difficult it is to deprogram someone who had fallen into a cult.

When I was in the seventh grade, I had a “Three Musketeers” friendship with two other girls in my class. We would sleep over Carole’s house a lot. There, in her big sister’s attic bedroom, we discovered a copy of the true crime bestseller, Helter Skelter, and pored through it.

We read about The Family, the 1960’s cult who, under the persuasion of their leader Charles Manson, invaded a Beverly Hills home and brutally murdered five individuals, including the pregnant actress, Sharon Tate.

He and some of his followers stood on trial and were convicted and imprisoned for life. As a teen, I remember watching footage of other followers of The Family cult holding vigil in and out of the courthouse during the trial proceedings. They interrupted the trial with shouts and singing, declared their comrades innocent and that they should be immediately released.

In addition to the murders, Manson was infamously known for tattooing a huge swastika on his forehead.

The other day, there was an Instagram post from the hard-left progressive group known as the Sunrise Movement.

On the day before the NYC Primary, there is a photo of a girl, presumably Jewish by the looks of her Hebrew name necklace, with bad skin and bad teeth getting FUCK AIPAC tattooed to her forehead.

The organization said the photograph was not real, and no, she didn’t actually get a permanent tattoo of the offending language; it was just part of a well-oiled campaign machine to get out the vote for the hard-left DSA.

And the point was well taken.

All of Zohran Mamdani’s hand-picked Hamas supporting, AIPAC hating candidates will now serve in the state and federal government.

Back in Michigan, over $100,000 has been raised to defend a group of individuals who are being brought up on almost one dozen federal charges. They are alleged to have made death threats, to torture and slowly kill family members of business members and University of Michigan leaders, all for the cause to “Free Palestine.”

There have been protests and demonstrations outside the Eastern District of Michigan’s Federal Building to exonerate and free the defendants of all the charges brought against them. Instagram posts of their “activism” receive thousands of likes and comments of support.

So, to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if you are looking for the next individuals to potentially investigate who are giving support for a U.S. recognized terrorist organization, maybe you should start with a thorough combing through of the TAHRIR Coalition and their likes and posts of approval and radical love.

On the outset, perhaps what these individuals need is compassion.

After all, this is the generation that spent their formative years either being overscheduled from one activity to the next, only to be in severe lockdown due to the COVID pandemic.

They grew up relatively isolated.

They lack, for the most part, they were given no family spiritual or religious practice or affiliation in their upbringing.

Instead, they were sheltered, shielded from any kind of pain or adversity, given participation trophies, spared from any negative emotion or unhappiness from parents who only wanted to keep their children safe, happy and either constantly glued to a screen or shuttled to their next travel sporting event.

They were never given any warnings about mind control, cults or taught the difference between hard-sought-after facts and history derived from books and propaganda regurgitated as doctrine chanted in rhyming slogans set to a catchy beat.

And when they arrived in college looking for purpose, meaning, belonging and community, October 7^th and everything that came after served up the perfect on-campus cocktail.

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I acknowledge I have fallen behind in covering the case of eight individuals connected with the University of Michigan who have been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on June 10.

As many do at the end of June, leading up to the July 4^th holiday, I have been traveling.

I visited family back in New York City. I mostly spent time moving our son from Manhattan to Brooklyn and driving through the city between Staten Island and Connecticut and back again. It was the first time visiting New York City since Zohran Mamdani took office as mayor.

Though I didn’t spend a lot of time walking the streets of the Big Apple, the vibe I got is that most who live in the city are gearing up for our nation’s 250^th birthday as well as tomorrow’s New York primaries.

The symbols of patriotism I grew up with, recalling the celebration of our nation’s bicentennial in 1976, were observed especially in my childhood neighborhood.

The townhouses and old-style bungalows that crowd the forgotten island’s south shore are already decked out in red, white and blue, with the commemorative 250^th flags, buntings and banners.

But on television, during this week leading up to the June 23 primary, the television and radio airwaves were saturated with ads, namely for many Mamdani-endorsed candidates, including Brad Lander to unseat incumbent Dan Goldman in Congress and Darializa Avila Chevalier incumbent Congressman Adriano Espaillat.

In our driving, I noticed one boat sailing along the East River and several apartments in Brooklyn and Queens along the BQE flying the Palestinian flag.

In my 57-year love affair with my hometown, in this melting pot of a city, I never noticed flags flying in New York City that represent a people who take such an anti-Western and anti-American stance as what is represented by flying the Palestinian flag.

On social media, I am reading accounts that incumbent Congressman Goldman was refused service by Poetica Coffee in Brooklyn after he was recognized and was discriminated against because he is a “supporter of genocide,” meaning he is a supporter of Israel. So now, it is perfectly acceptable and justified and moral to refuse service to Jews by your local barista in New York City.

But this is Mamdani’s New York City now, so here we are.

Back in my current home, Michigan, since the June indictment of eight conspirators who threatened University of Michigan officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation, we have learned that one of the indictees worked on the campaign not for two weeks as first reported, but three months for Senator Abdul El-Sayed.

Five of the indictees were registered with the Democratic Party, and three of them voted at the April 19 Michigan Democratic Policy Convention, where Jordan Acker was pushed out of contention to be re-elected as a University of Michigan Regent by Dearborn-based defense attorney Amir Makled.

As news cycles tend to do, the news cycle has moved past this indictment.

But it is my goal to keep alive the story of those named in this Federal case against a ring of alleged terrorists who made threats against businesses, elected officials, and top administrators at the University of Michigan at the top of my followers’ news and social media feeds.

According to reports in the News Tribune, five of the eight indicted are members of the Democratic party and three of them attended and voted at the April 17 Michigan Democratic Policy Convention.

A former Michigan Democratic Party chairman said that the alleged actions of the five violated the party’s code of conduct and is asking the current chairman to review the allegations against the five members and to determine whether further action, including suspension or expulsion, from the party is warranted.

The party’s code of conduct prohibits “any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment.” The punishments can include censure, suspension or removal from the organization, the code says.

I have written about five of the accused.

Here is a brief profile on the final three:

Miriam Odeh

Odeh is being indicted on one count of Conspiracy to Transmit Threats in Interstate and Foreign Commerce and if convicted faces five years in prison and/or a $xx fine.

According to the indictment, Odeh and others known to the Grand Jury “Did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with each other to commit the offense of transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 875(c), by knowingly sending a message in interstate and foreign commerce containing a true threat to injure the person of another.

Odeh and her fellow unindicted conspirators devised a plan to transmit true threats to executives and employees of Rolls Royce Solutions America, Inc., in interstate and foreign commerce by trespassing and vandalizing their business property. They took pictures of the damage, and using the internet to transmit true threats directed at executives and employees of Rolls Royce Solutions America, Inc., and others complicit in supporting Israel.

In March 17, 2025 The Michigan Daily interviewed Odeh after she participated in a protest in support of Columbia University student and Hamas supporter Mahmoud Khalil.

Odeh, U-M alum and SAFE member, said the goal of the protest was to raise awareness about Khalil’s arrest, spread the movement to colleges across the country and connect other issues on campus to pro-Palestine activism.

“I believe in Palestinian liberation,” Odeh said. “I think that all of our liberation is intertwined. The systems in this country, like ICE for example, along with the Department of Homeland Security, worked together to imprison Mahmoud and target him for his Palestinian activism.”

Odeh was a paid staff member of US Senate hopeful Abdul el-Sayed until April 2026. At the time of this discovery, El-Sayed said he had “no idea” of Odeh’s radical leanings. At first, he put out a statement saying she had only worked on his campaign for two or three weeks. Then, the campaign later said she worked for El-Sayed for two or three months.

When asked to give a statement about Odeh and the rest of the indictees, instead of giving a straight-up condemnation of their alleged acts, threats and conspiring to commit acts of terror, he contextualized it.

According to Jewish Insider, he said that the Trump administration had indicted a group of anti-Israel demonstrators at the University of Michigan for their beliefs, rather than their actions.

Jonathan Hongru Zou

Zou is an engineering student here on a student visa from China. He was on the Dean’s Honors List in 2024 and 2025.

He is facing three counts of Conspiracy to Transmit Threats in Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and if convicted, faces fifteen years in prison and/or a $750,000 fine. The indictment went into great detail on how he and his conspirators threatened and vandalized the home and properties of University leaders including former President Santa Ono and vandalized the building of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit in the early hours of October 7, 2024.

Zou is accused of going out after dark to throw jars of blue sludge and rotting food compost through a bedroom window of the University of Michigan Provost’s home, then spray-painting Hamas death triangles all over it.

Zou is also accused of harassing, threatening and vandalizing the home of former University of Michigan President Santa Ono on or about the early morning of October 7^th, 2024. ‘

He and his conspirators vandalized V-3’s home, they drove to Ono’s home and sprayed the following:

COWARD

INTIFADA

COMPLICIT

He also taped a demand note above the messages that stated:

“You violate the terms of your contract by living off of UM property, hiding in fear from the students who will stop at nothing to achieve divestment.”

The indictment also reports: On or about October 7 , 2024, at approximately 1 :01 p.ffi., @unityoffields posted a story titled, “ANTI-ZIONIST ACTIONISTS TARGET HOMES OF UNIVERSITY of MICHIGAN LEADERS.” The post included a nighttime photograph showing the defaced front of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit with “FREE PALESTINIE” spray painted across the door.

On one of the counts,

JONATHAN HONGRU ZOU sent a Signal message to another individual seeking supplies stored on the University of Michigan campus for the actions in and around the first anniversary of the October 7^th 2023 terrorist attacks.

He researched the biographies, LinkedIn pages, and home addresses of his victims.

In a threat letter he drafted for his victims, which he left on their private property, he wrote: Do not forget, [V-3]: “You sleep only because we let you … Since October 7th of last year, 200,000 Palestinians have been murdered, with the full contribution from the University and its endowment . . . How dare you live in peace with your children when the very bombs you invest in have destroyed so many families? . . . Blood is seeping from every seam, every crack of your house. Divest now.”

Zou kept supplies to commit the acts of terrorism and vandalism at his apartment,

On or about Oct. 7, 2024, Zou and others spray-painted red inverted triangles on Victim Three’s home, scattered nails in the driveway, and spray-painted messages on the house and sidewalk: FREE PALESTINE

DIVEST NOW

DIVEST

Collin Hunter Weger

Weger faces two counts of Conspiracy to Transmit Threats in Interstate and Foreign Commerce. According to the Legal Information Institute, his alleged crimes carry a maximum federal statutory penalty of up to 10 years in prison (5 years per count), up to $500,000 in fines ($250,000 per count).

Of all the accused, perhaps the least is known about Collin Hunter Weger.

Weger was a student at Washtenaw County Community College and mainly participated in the vandalism of the Rolls-Royce Corporation property. The company, otherwise known as MTU, has locations in Michigan as well as Israel and Germany. Its ties to Israel are the most likely reason it was targeted.

Since the indictment was unsealed on June 10^th, four of the eight individuals were released from jail on bond. Four individuals: Zainab Hakim, Paige Feyock, Jonathan Zou and Colin Weger - are out on bond bail to the tune of $10,000 each.

That is misleading and confusing. They were released with no money paid down, but with a promise to live up to the conditions of their release:

According to Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti, they had to surrender their passports and must wear a GPS tracker. They are not allowed to contact each other during the entire length of the case proceedings. If they violate any of these terms, only then will they be obligated to pay the $10,000 bond.

The media reported their release with the same tired and obvious bias and downplaying of their alleged crimes.

The headline from the June 12 Detroit Free Press article reporting on the incident described the accused as “Pro-Palestine activists.” Someone needs to tell the editors that Palestine has never been and still is not an actual country.

Journalist and Substack columnist Kevin Deutch describes this kind of coverage as a symptom of the completion of the Palestinian indoctrination of the American newsroom. Proof of this bleeds right through in this article.

Yes, sure, they were “activists” if you consider making death threats to elected officials, campus leaders, and their families, and marking their properties with terrorist symbols like Hamas inverted triangles, and destroying the properties of several Michigan businesses, activism.

“Activism” like this is now heralded as valid by the highest echelons of academia.

Just a month ago, at the Spring 2026 Commencement Ceremony of the University of Michigan, outgoing Faculty Senate head Derek Peterson stirred up thousands in a cheer of support to take every opportunity to “sing for the Pro-Palestinian activists” the same way we should praise and acknowledge the past activism of those who paved the way for women’s and civil rights.

Families spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to send their young adults to the University of Michigan to receive a stellar education in hopes that they will work towards a bright and successful future.

Instead, they are indoctrinated by hundreds of professors with the same mindset as Peterson to believe that it is Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, is the bane and bearer of all the world’s shortcomings.

The faculty at the University of Michigan indoctrinates its students in believing that Israel is evil, a colonizer, and is committing genocide.

They make them believe this so strongly that any actions that result in this indoctrination are something to be supported, applauded, and commended instead of condemned and something unlawful and punishable under the law.

What does it take for professors to stand up and say ‘yes’ to freedom of expression, the exchange of ideas and rigorous scholarly debate, but

‘no’ to violence, destruction, and terrorizing people with whom you disagree?

What does it take for academia to say NO, the reason the accused are being indicted is not about free speech or the First Amendment but about conspiring to participate in terrorism and threats to carry out acts of terrorism?

What will it take for academia to set a moral compass for its students, to let them know that if you break the law, you should and will be punished and held accountable for your actions?

Instead, we see the opposite happening. There is a silent majority of academics who are too afraid of being canceled for speaking out and standing up for what is right lest they be accused also of being “genocide supporters.” We instead see academics signing on and even giving monetary support for the indictees, as I will write about in my next post.

I hope that the Department of Justice, along with the Department of Education, expands its investigation to not just these eight individuals or other students, but to those in academia who implanted this radical ideology into the brains of these students and who led them to believe that they would be on the “right side of history” by carrying it out in the crimes they are being accused.

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This is part two of my breakdown of the Department of Justice’s indictments of eight individuals being brought before a Federal Grand Jury connected to the University of Michigan and threats to its administrators and top leadership.

After writing my first piece, Jewish students, including one recent graduate, reached out to me to offer more insights on defendant Alexander Matthew Sepulveda of Chicago, Ill.

First, let us establish a timeline of the events of the Spring semester of 2024.

We need to establish the timeline of the encampments to understand that the environment was allowed to fester and led to the off-campus events of threats, destruction and vandalism of private properties, businesses and organizations.

In March of 2024, pro-Hamas activists disrupted and shut down the 101^st Honors Convocation ceremony. Sepulveda, who was a leader of the school’s suspended Jewish Voice for Peace, is seen here on video taking part in the disruptions, yelling that Santa Ono is a coward:

According to the University of Michigan Department of Public Affairs, on April 22, 2024, protesters established an illegal encampment of 20 tents on the center of the Diag.

Sepulveda served as an encampment spokesperson, according to the website Israel War Room:

The encampment violated policies regarding reserving the Diag and placing tents, canopies, and other prohibited items in this area.

The university did not immediately seek to remove it.

The encampment grew to over 60 tents and 10 canopies and attracted individuals who were not affiliated with the University.

Occupants overloaded nearby power sources and reinforced the borders of the encampment with ropes, fabric and chicken wire. This led the university fire marshal to conduct an inspection and to conclude that, were a fire to occur, a catastrophic loss of life was likely.

The encampment was allowed to remain through the Jewish holiday of Passover, April 22-30, as well as through the main graduation ceremony, which was May 4.

On May 21, the Division of Public Safety & Security dismantled the encampment after issuing several warnings to 60 individuals who refused to leave voluntarily.

This is when Attorney General Dana Nessel, after university security and Ann Arbor police and fire authorities gave orders to clear the encampment, but activists resisted orders by assaulting police officers, filed charges in the Washtenaw County Court. The charges were eventually dropped.

During this time, Meridith* was a sophomore.

Meredith, who graduated this spring shared some more details with me that go beyond the DOJ indictment.

Read more

But when I think of these eight individuals - engineers, artists, researchers and two studying to enter the medical profession, the lyrics of a certain Violent Femmes song comes to mind:

“"I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record!" - Kiss Off.

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When I was a kid, growing up in blue-collar Staten Island, kids after high school, if they didn’t enter into a trade, lived at home and went to the College of Staten Island, Brooklyn College or another school in the CUNY system. If you could go away, you attended a SUNY school in Albany, Oneonta, and if you were exceptionally bright, Binghamton.

Only a handful of peers I grew up with had the grades, the test scores, the perfectly aligned extracurriculars, and finances to pay the out-of-state tuition to attend the University of Michigan.

According to Redit, The University of Michigan—Ann Arbor has an overall acceptance rate of approximately 14.5% to 16%. With over 108,000 students applying for recent freshman classes, admissions have become highly competitive.

Getting in is one thing, staying in is another. Anecdotally, I know many kids who started at the University of Michigan, but the rigors of the coursework, the competition, and the stress caused several to take a semester or a year off, transfer, or drop out of college entirely. There are many at the school with lots of anxiety and mental health challenges from the pressure.

That’s because they may have been the best and brightest at their high school, but at UMich, everyone admitted IS the best and brightest from their high schools. The majority of admitted students hold an unweighted GPA between 3.9 and 4.0, with a significant portion recording a perfect 4.0.

To be a Wolverine puts you on the path to knowledge, success, perhaps wealth, and access to a networking pool of alumni that is unmatched by any other institution of higher education.

Most do not see it as a path to committing acts of terrorism that can get you 10-20 in the Big House, and I’m not talking about the one where they play football.

The eight students, or former students, threw it away and, in true jihadi fashion, martyred themselves for their cause.

Someday, psychologists, at least the ones that have not been impacted by the antizionist rhetoric that is hijacking their field, will study this time in history to learn why and how so many young people threw away their lives for the lost cause of Palestinianism. They should also examine why so many women are drawn to this cause. In fact, five of the eight defendants here are women.

Was it coming out of the isolation of the COVID pandemic, looking for a good cause?

Was it because they felt their lives lacked purpose and community, and in Palestinianism, they finally found it?

Or, was it their professors who indoctrinated them, faculty who proudly sit as members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, faculty who think they are untouchable because of their tenure?

Society may one day look back at this time and see that Palestinianism was nothing more than a death cult that infected minds here, just like Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA infected a generation of minds to militarize them to make them believe that the highest calling in life is to become a martyr against the Zionists.

But for now, let’s look at the lives of four of the eight who have been indicted by the Department of Justice.

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Defendants ZAINAB ALIASGARHAKIM AMAIULLAH ALIASGAR HAKIM PAIGE ELIZABETH FEYOCK AHMET KEREM KORKAYA JONATHAN HONGRU ZOU are accused by the Department of Justice of threatening University of Michigan administrators and their families, places of business, and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

At last, justice may be coming for the pro-Hamas movement that has engulfed college campuses across the country, most notably the University of Michigan, and terrorized Jewish students and the Jewish community at large.

The United States Department of Justice indicted eight people who at the time were students at the University of Michigan.

“In America, we rule by law, not by fear,” U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in a statement upon the release of the indictment. “These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice.”

At last, the keffiyeh-cloaked and masked faces bringing terror in the night, in a string of many incidents I covered for the Detroit Jewish News in 2024 have been revealed.

They include the multiple cases of vandalism, intimidation and harassment of the private homes of Santa Ono, then-President of the University of Michigan, University of Michigan Board of Regents President Sarah Hubbard, University of Michigan Provost Laurie McCauley, the private home and place of business of University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker and, on the first anniversary of October 7, the building of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

The names of the defendants are:

Zainab Aliasgar Hakim (Canton, Michigan) (age 23), Amatullah Aliasgar Hakim (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (age 21), Paige Elizabeth Feyock (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (age 26), Ahmet Kerem Korkaya (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) (age 28), Jonathan Hongru Zou (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (age 22), Alexander Matthew Sepulveda (Chicago, Illinois) (age 23), Mariam Muhammed Odeh (Dearborn, Michigan) (age 24), and Colin Hunter Weger (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (age 24).

This is a separate set of individuals from the pro-Hamas agitators whom Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel attempted to bring to justice in September 2024.

Back then, Nessel’s office filed with the Washtenaw County Court, announcing criminal charges centered around “intifada” encampment activities that took place on the Diag, a large park space located in the central part of UM’s campus. The charges issued were not, as so many have tried to mislabel it as, an attack on protected speech.

Rather, the charges were issued because the encampments were deemed illegal as the protesters constructed, without a permit, a perimeter fence that violated the Ann Arbor Fire Code and obstructed free movement for others. The charges were issued because protesters were asked several times by law enforcement to dismantle the encampment. When they failed to do so, several were involved in altercations with law enforcement.

According to the AG’s September statement, two individuals were charged trespassing, a maximum 30-day misdemeanor, for failing to vacate the encampment after ample time following clear lawful orders to do so and when the police action to clear the Diag was obviously underway. Police halted their progress repeatedly to repeat the dispersal order and allow time for students to clear the space.

Seven more were charged with trespassing and an additional count of Resisting or Obstructing a Police Officer, a maximum 2-year felony. While many in the camp initially refused the lawful order to vacate, or impeded the police action to some degree, criminal Resisting or Obstructing charges have been filed only against demonstrators who are alleged to have attempted to halt or push back the police by making direct contact with the officers’ bodies or physically obstructing an arrest.

The charges were filed in the State of Michigan’s 15^th Judicial District in Washtenaw County Court.

Amir Makled, a Dearborn-based defense attorney, led a team of defense attorneys who took on the case on a pro-bono basis. In May 2025, AG Nessel dropped all the charges, to which Makled and his colleagues, draped in keffiyehs in the Washtenaw County courtroom, declared it a victory for “pro-Palestinian activists” and “free speech.”

Now, he will be on the ballot in November and is running to become a University of Michigan Regent.

At a May 11^th 2025, town hall meeting for Metro Detroit’s Jewish Community, held at Temple Israel, which is currently under reconstruction due to the March 12 Hezbollah attack, Nessel told the members of the Jewish community that the cases were taking up immense resources from her and her staff. And though the charges were ultimately dropped, she believed that the charges would have stuck if the cases went to trial before a jury, and she would never file charges in cases unless she believed she could carry out a conviction.

She added no longer found it worthwhile to pursue those charges because of what she called a “circus-like atmosphere” around the legal proceedings, as well as ongoing delays and efforts to have her removed from the case due to allegations of bias.

That claims she said, were “ludicrous,” stating that as an attorney general, her biases were siding with the people of Michigan and as the state’s AG, she was not expected to be impartial.

“I would not have taken up this case in the first place if I did not truly believe that these individuals were guilty of the crimes they were charged with,” Nessel said. “I hope every prosecutor who charges a case really thinks that the people they charge are guilty when they charge them. I’m an advocate on behalf of crime victims, of the people of Michigan, and public safety.”

Ultimately, Nessel dropped the charges because she wanted to focus her office’s efforts on bigger cases when it came to the ramifications of the encampment protests.

The circus, including the tents, is packed up and over.

This time, it’s different.

Because this is not a county case, but one that will be brought before a Federal Grand Jury.

According to the affidavit, the Department of Justice filed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern Michigan District a six-count indictment that paints a stark picture of how politically motivated protest can, in their view, cross the line into criminal conspiracy.

The affidavit stated: “The goals of the defendants and unindicted conspirators included forcing the University of Michigan and other businesses to sever all perceived ties with the State of Israel.”

The affidavit continued: “To accomplish this goal, the defendants and their unindicted conspirators, in the Eastern District of Michigan and elsewhere, used encrypted messages, social media, and overseas collaboration platforms to research, target, and attack their victims. Then, they posted pictures of their attacks on social media, along with additional threats and warnings. Their criminal activity included spray painting threats, breaking windows, and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes. They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints. They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel.”

At the heart of the case are eight separate counts of conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce, brought under Title 18 of the United States Code. The defendants, a loosely organized group of activists, are accused of targeting corporations, shipping companies, university leaders, Jewish community institutions, and individual figures they associate with support for Israel.

According to the indictment, this was not a series of isolated acts. Prosecutors allege a coordinated campaign in which online research, encrypted messaging, late-night planning, and real-world vandalism were all woven together into a pattern of conduct meant to intimidate.

Eight Counts of Conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce: Who Was Targeted

Across the eitght counts, the government alleges a consistent structure:

1. Corporate and institutional targets

2. Trespass and vandalism at offices and private homes

3. Documentation of damage through photos and videos

4. Online amplification of those acts, framed as political statements

5. Use of interstate channels of communication—the internet, phones, mapping apps, and encrypted messaging—to deliver what are alleged to be “true threats.”

Among the counts:

Rolls-Royce as a Symbolic Target

The first two counts focus on Rolls-Royce Solutions for America and its executives and employees. Prosecutors say several defendants, working with unnamed co-conspirators, devised a plan to:

• Trespass and vandalize Rolls-Royce business property

• Take pictures of the resulting damage

• Use the internet to send messages interpreted as “true threats” to company leaders and others they viewed as “complicit in supporting Israel.”

An Expanded Network, Same Alleged Crime

The third count widens the lens. Here, additional defendants are charged with knowingly and willfully joining a broader conspiracy to transmit threats. The pattern is familiar:

• Identify individuals and institutions aligned, in their view, with Israeli policy

• Plan actions involving trespass and vandalism

• Pair those actions with online communications designed to intimidate, not merely to persuade.

Prosecutors repeatedly emphasize the use of interstate communication tools as what transforms this from local property crime into a federal offense.

The Maersk Shipping Company, a global shipping giant.

According to the indictment:

• One defendant allegedly searched Maersk online repeatedly, sometimes adding terms such as “Plymouth” and “Israel.”

• Miriam Muhammad Odeh, described as the president of an organization called SAFE, is said to have discussed monetary support, provided it could be delivered in a “secure, untraceable way.”

• In the early morning hours of July 8, 2024, a group allegedly vandalized a Maersk building in Michigan:

• Throwing red paint balloons

• Smashing a front window

• Writing slogans on the sidewalk, including:

• “Free Palestine”

• “Fuck the IOF”

• “Cut ties with genocide”

• “Fuck Maersk”

• “Arms embargo”

• “Intifada”

Afterward, according to the filing, participants discussed details such as a knife brought to the action and praised each other as a “very solid team.” Another conspirator allegedly warned that their activities could “hit RICO territory very quickly”—a chilling acknowledgement, prosecutors argue, of the legal risks they perceived.

Late-Night Drives and a Threatening Letter

The fifth count shifts from corporate and institutional targets to a third individual victim, whose home in Michigan allegedly became another focal point of the conspiracy.

Federal investigators say:

• On or about August 25, 2024, one defendant’s iPhone accessed multiple websites about this victim, including a biography and Facebook page.

• On October 3, 2024, another defendant allegedly drove from Wisconsin to Michigan in a black 2022 Kia sedan to participate in the planned actions.

• Around October 26, 2024, two conspirators collaborated on CryptPad to draft a demand letter, which included the chilling line:

“Do not forget you sleep only because we let you.”

The indictment also details a web of Signal messages and mapping searches—including routes to and from a Family Dollar in Ypsilanti, multiple victims’ homes, the Jewish Federation of Detroit, and other locations—occurring between roughly 1:24 a.m. and 5:13 a.m. on October 7, 2024.

That same night, according to prosecutors, the group:

• Vandalized the third victim’s house

• Spray-painted inverted red triangles

• Scattered nails in the driveway

• Painted slogans like “Free Palestine” and “Divest now”

They then allegedly posted images and statements to social media accounts, including one called @UnityofFields, framing their acts as part of a campaign marking “one year of genocide against the Palestinian people” and demanding divestment from Israeli-linked institutions.

Threats Against the University of Michigan President

The sixth count focuses on Santa Ono, then president of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, identified in the filing as “victim four.”

Here, prosecutors say the defendants devised a plan to:

• Trespass at and vandalize Ono’s home

• Photograph the damage

• Use the internet to transmit threats directed at him and at others they accused of “supporting Israel.”

The language attributed to some of the conspirators is particularly stark. In one conversation on or around May 21, a defendant is alleged to have said that “victim four has got to die” and that his entire family was now on a “hit list.” Later:

• On September 24, 2024, one defendant allegedly searched online for information about Ono.

• On October 2, 2024, others allegedly discussed where to meet to plan out the actions.

Taken together, these details form the basis for the final conspiracy count.

A Through-Line of Protest, Pressure, and Threat

Across all counts, the indictment frames the defendants’ actions not as spontaneous protests, but as a structured, escalating campaign:

• Political messaging: References to Palestine, genocide, divestment, and arms embargoes appear repeatedly in graffiti and social media posts.

• Coordinated logistics: Online research, map queries, late-night drives, and secure chats suggest deliberate planning.

• Public spectacle: Vandalism was often paired with immediate online publication of images and statements, amplifying the impact on targeted individuals and institutions.

• Threatening tone: The government highlights language about death, hit lists, and the idea that victims “sleep only because we let [them]” as central to its claim that these were not just acts of civil disobedience, but “true threats” transmitted in interstate and foreign commerce.

  ---

If I may editorialize here, to me, it is chilling to see how the actions of the indicted mimic the actions of Hamas, minus, of course, the massacring, raping, burning alive or kidnapping of their targets.

It is chilling to know how brazen they were on their demands and the threats they carried out when demands were not met, also mimicking the activity and behavior of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is chilling to me how they filmed their actions and bragged about them on social media, just as their Hamas counterparts did on October 7th, without a notion of thought given to what would happen if they got caught.

It gives full-blown evidence that they truly believed, and they were supported in their beliefs, and we will find out who supported them - they were right, and their actions were justified and moral.

Several times, it has been publicly documented that the Board of Regents listened to the demands of students to divest from Israeli holdings or Israeli academic connections in scheduled and recorded Board of Regents meetings, all available to the public.

And repeatedly, the Board of Regents rejected BDS calls to Israel, citing that the mission of the Board of Regents is to protect the overall integrity, financial and academic interests of the University and not be swayed by politics or global political events or conflicts.

Back in May of 2024, Regent President Sara Hubbard explained it to me this way as I covered the aftermath of the attack on her home:

“We will not divest our endowment,” Hubbard said. “I want to remind everybody that the endowment supports scholarships for needy students. We cannot allow these kinds of political impacts to undermine the ability of our endowment to provide the best return on investment possible for us for our academic excellence and mission.”

On the demand to boycott Israeli academic institutions, Hubbard reminded the public that the university has academic relationships with institutions worldwide.

“We will continue to have robust relationships with academic institutions in Israel and everywhere else that we do business and have good research relationships. Finally, I can assure you that I will not be voting to defund our police to keep a safe campus for our students, faculty and staff. This is an absolute nonstarter for my colleagues and me.”

Whether a court ultimately agrees with that legal framing will depend on how judges and juries interpret the line between protected political expression and criminal intimidation. For now, what is clear is that federal prosecutors are treating these actions as part of a serious, multi-defendant conspiracy case, one that may set important precedents for how protest-linked direct action is prosecuted in the years ahead.

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Sunday night was a great night to be Jewish on Broadway

The host of the 79th annual Tony Awards, held at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall and aired by CBS, was the living out loud proud, strong and powerful Jewish goddess herself, Pink!

The Rock Star and an aerial artist has never graced a Broadway stage before, but she lived up to the role as emcee. And after she danced and belted out All That Jazz, a tribute performance to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Chicago, many of us are scratching our heads and wondering, well, why HASN’T Pink been cast yet?

Rachel Dratch of SNL fame, raised in a Reform Jewish home, was also wonderfully spooky in her performance of Time Warp as a tribute to the revival of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Buy me a theater ticket

Among the Jewish awardees were Shoshana Bean, who played Elphaba in Wicked, and won BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL for her powerhouse vocal chops as single mama “Lucy Emerson” in the smash hit The Lost Boys.

Another Broadway veteran, Caissie Levy ( a former “Elphaba” understudy on Broadway plus full-time in the sit-down LA company) won as BEST LEADING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL for her emotional performance as the unnamed “Mother” in Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of RAGTIME!!!

But more importantly, at least in my house, is that Levy got her start in theater in a place near and dear to the hearts of my family: Camp Ramah in Canada.

Here she is, at Camp, where she performed in the camp performace of Les Misrables, and she performed it all in Hebrew. That’s right. My kids also performed in the Camp Ramah musicals, from Mama Mia to Grease, and all the lyrics were translated into Hebrew by the camp’s Israeli staffers.

Shmigadoon, produced by Lorne Michaels, won for Best New Musical.

And that’s the thing about Broadway, Broadway would not be Broadway had it not been for the Jews. Yes, of course the gay community, of course, but Broadway, with so much of its roots in Yiddish Theater, owes its existence to the Jews. Cue up the song from Spamalot!

And each time a Jewish performer, producer or artist took the stage to accept the award at the Tonys, they most likely kept the eternal speech about how to give a thank you speech at an awards show by British comedian Ricky Jervais.

As the host of the 2020 Golden Globes, Jervais told this to an auditorium full of entertainers:

“If you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything … You know nothing about the real world. So if you win, right, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your god, and (FUCK OFF the stage you go..)” ,

Most of the Tony Awardees on Sunday stuck to the Jervais theory of thank you speeches. They stuck to the theme of gratitude: for their supportive cast, to be in the universal community of theater lovers, their family. Other themes included not to give up on ones dreams. There were shoutouts to single moms and telling women not to be afraid to take up space.

And not a single Jewish presenter or awardee brought up anything having to do with Israel. Not that they are not supportive of Israel or Zionism, but, because frankly, the Tony Awards is not the time or the place for politics.

Another stand-out thank you speech for me was given by Joshua Henry who won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the Broadway revival of Ragtime. He thanked his predacessors, he recognized and honored all the grit and determination in the faces and souls of all his fellow Broadway performers on or off stage, and most touching of all was when he thanked his familly and his very first vocal teacher.

But there was one Tony winner last night whose speech crossed the line and delved into divisiveness in a room, in a theater community that is meant to break down barriers. Instead, he put them up, and a bulk of the audience cheered him on.

Ali Louis Bourgzi, age 26, won the Tony Award for best featured actor in a Musical in the role of David in The Lost Boys.

With shaking fingers, he opened his prepared speech and read the opening line:

"Sometimes humanity needs a fantastical lens outside of ourselves to look at and explore questions about our own nature. Vampires represent those who have shunned their own humanity in order to achieve a non-existent sense of superiority.”

So, right away, he set it up.

With the use of the word “humanity.” Something the world has been duped into believing that the Palestinians have, and the Israelis lack.

The vampire imagery.

The inhuman blood suckers.

Their never ending thirst to take the life of others for their existence.

That they are seemingly superior.

First, Bourgzi bashed the wealthy billionares.“The Billionares will never find happiness in their money.”

Ahhh, but here’s the thing, Ali. The billionares, the generous ones at least, are more than happy to bankroll and finance Broadway hits such as the show you are currently starring in. You would not be on Broadway if the benevolence of the wealthy did not contribute to the $25 million in production costs that it takes for you to fly in the air and gyrate on stage in your latest role.

Your last role, as Orpheus? Haddestown initial production costs were 11.5 million.

Next, he went for the jugulars, the “colonizers.”

“The colonizers will never find fulfillment from the land and lives they steal.”

That was met with applause.

And with those 13 words, Ali alienated not only his fellow Jewish theater colleagues but Jewish Broadway theater goers, who are probably right now trying to get a refund or sell their Lost Boys matinee tickets on Stub Hub out of complete disgust.

With those 13 words, he gave a nod of approval and validation to the throngs of pro-Hamas terror sympathizing agitators who crowd the outside of New York City’s synagouges, at the subtle approval of their new mayor, who dare to hold programming about Zionism, Israel, and the prospect of making aliyah, because that is how bad things are getting for Jews in the city they helped build.

Which colonizers are you talking about Ali? You brought up the subject, so let’s stick with it for a bit.

Certainly, you did not mean the Jews, because how can they, the Jews, who originate from ancient Judea, colonize our own homeland?

But let me let your fellow Jewish, Zionist Broadway star, Jonah Platt, also of Camp Ramah fame, break it down to you.

I am quoting him from his last post, entitled: Apartheid, Colonizer, Baby Killers, Genocide: A Field Guide to the Lies About Israel.

So thank you, Jonah for putting out your post with this information just in time:

You cannot colonize a place you are from.

There is no other land Jews are collectively connected to. Every Muslim holy site in the land is literally built on top of a Jewish one. A state founded by an indigenous people — already living there or returning from exile, with no mother empire, mostly arriving as refugees fleeing for their lives — does not meet the definition of settler colonialism by any stretch.

Arabs, on the other hand, are from Arabia. Which, I probably don’t need to tell you, is not in Israel. There’s a reason there are 57 Muslim-majority countries stretched across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Now that’s effective colonizing.

Colonizers?

While we are on the subject, Ali, let’s look at the country your family is from: Morocco.

Here is some information I easily dug up on Morocco’s real colonization enterprises:

Morocco controls roughly 80% of Western Sahara (formerly the Spanish Sahara), administering it as its “Southern Provinces”. While Morocco claims the territory as an integral part of its nation, the UN, the African Union, and the international community widely view the region as a non-self-governing territory under military occupation. [1, 2]

The political and territorial situation in the region involves several key aspects:

• The Conflict: When Spain withdrew from the region in 1975, Morocco annexed the northern two-thirds of the territory. This led to a prolonged war with the Polisario Front, an independence movement representing the indigenous Sahrawi people. [1, 2, 3]

• The Status of the Land: The UN considers Western Sahara a non-self-governing territory and has a dedicated peacekeeping mission (MINURSO) there to oversee a stalled referendum on self-determination. Morocco firmly opposes independence and instead offers a plan for regional autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. [1, 2, 3, 4]

• Demographics and Settlement: As part of its integration and administrative push, the Moroccan government has sponsored settlement programs, relocating thousands of Moroccan citizens to the territory. Today, Moroccan settlers make up a large percentage of the region’s population, which critics and international legal observers (citing the Geneva Convention) classify as an illegal transfer of civilians into occupied territory. [1, 2, 3]

• The Separation Wall: To secure the territory against Polisario guerillas, Morocco constructed a 2,700-kilometer fortified wall called the Berm. The wall is lined with sand, millions of landmines, and heavily militarized zones, effectively splitting the territory between Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara and the roughly 20% controlled by the Polisario Front.

Ali went on:

"This is dedicated to the beautiful tapestry of immigrant families who make this country really special—may you one day not have to audition for the empathy that should be freely given by this country that benefits from your beauty.”

Okay, I can get on that. You me, most Americans, we all came from immigrant families, you know, the ones who stole the land from Native Americans. And none of my family came here crying victim for a handout of empathy from this country we are blessed to live in, the one that’s about to turn 250 years old, a history that has included Jews building that tapestry from its very foundation.

But go on:

Next, you dedicate your award to the queer and trans communities.

Perhaps you should have then launched into giving some shade to your family’s native Morocco:

Let’s talk about gay rights or rights for your LGBT community in Morocco.

There are none:

Homosexuality is illegal in Morocco, where Article 489 of the Penal Code criminalizes “lewd or unnatural acts” with a person of the same sex. Convictions carry prison sentences of six months to three years and fines. There are no legal protections, marriage rights, or anti-discrimination laws for the LGBTQ+ community. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Legal and Social Realities

• Criminalization: Article 489 specifically targets same-sex intimacy. Additionally, sexual relations outside of marriage are banned for everyone under Article 490, which law enforcement often utilizes to monitor the public. [1, 2, 3]

• Societal Stigma: Moroccan society is deeply conservative. LGBTQ+ individuals face significant risks of societal discrimination, harassment, and occasionally mob violence or blackmail when outed publicly. [1, 2, 3]

• Activism: Local rights groups, such as the Moroccan Outlaws movement, regularly submit petitions to Parliament to repeal discriminatory laws, but face intense pushback from authorities and traditionalist media.

You know what I didn’t hear in your bloated, virtue-signaling speech?

Thank you.

Not one thank you.

And I didn’t hear the words

Peace.

Or

Co-existence

If you are such a lover of theater and the Arabic language, you could have mentioned in your speech that the only theaters in the Middle East that encourage artistic collaboration between Arabs and Israeli culture is in Israel, specifically the Jaffa Theater.

The Jaffa Theater is:

• A place that brings together Arab and Hebrew cultures

• A place that believes in the production of theatre to creates social change

• A place that sponsors original productions by leading writers

• Award winning and internationally acclaimed

• and stages more than 200 performances every year.

So go ahead, Ali, and all of the members of the LGBT theater community who cheered for a Free Palestine, to all you Drag Queens and Ball culture queens applauding Ali’s speech from home and on social media, declaring his speech was one of the greatest ever given at the receiving of a Tony Award.

Go ahead.

Free Palestine.

But the question remains: Will there be a full-fledged theater district in a “Free Free Palestine?”

Go ahead.

See what stage will have you, in your corsets and fishnets, in your makeup, wigs, and black nail polish.

Because there is no theater of your kind in a “Free Free Palestine,” unless, of course, you want to cover up and put on a play about martyrs.

So, Ali, save us the theatrics and drama of your speech.

It will be long forgotten by next year, and your light on Broadway will be but a tiny flash.

And Broadway, and all its Jewish and Israel-loving contributors on and off the stage, will go on Without You.