ISSUES

At CUFI, we are focused on several key issues with the goal of defending Israel’s strength, security, and sovereignty.

If you want to keep up with all things Israel, sign up for CUFI’s Daily Briefing – our daily news roundup created exclusively for CUFI members. Every morning, Monday through Friday, receive an email with some of the top headlines in the news so you are always informed and ready to debunk lies with the truth.

Hamas

NYU president says he didn’t support award for Students for Justice in Palestine

JTA — The president of New York University said he did not support an award that the college gave to the pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice in Palestine.

Andrew Hamilton made his comments in a Monday opinion article in The Wall Street Journal written in response to an article that claimed the university was tolerant of anti-Semitism

“Had...

Holocaust

Israel to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day

Israel will begin commemorations of Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday evening with a state ceremony to remember the six million Jewish victims of Nazi persecution and to honor the remaining survivors of WW2 atrocities.
A state ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day will be held at 8:00 p.m. local time atop Warsaw Ghetto...

US-Israel Relationship

Florida Senate passes anti-Semitism bill with clear mandate

(April 29, 2019 / JNS) The Florida Senate unanimously passed an anti-Semitism bill previously passed unanimously by the Florida House, which adopts the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism and mandates that discrimination against Jewish people be considered similar to acts of racial discrimination in Florida’s public-education...

Hamas

Trump’s Mideast envoy blasts NY Times over ‘dangerous and despicable’ cartoon

US Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt on Monday slammed the The New York Times after it published a caricature that the paper has since acknowledged was anti-Semitic and for which it has apologized.

The cartoon showed a blind, skullcap-sporting US President Donald Trump being led by a dog-like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a Star of...

US-Israel Relationship

Israeli Ambassador whips out Bible to make case for Jewish land claim at UN Security Council

Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon addressed a special session of the UN Security Council, during which he outlined four pillars he said "prove the case for Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel."
In order, Danon listed the four pillars as "the Bible, history, international law, and the pursuit of international peace and security."
"Israel...

Medical Advancement

Israeli researchers discover MS drug could help epilepsy patients

Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that a drug used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis may be adapted to help epilepsy patients.

The development is significant because 30-40 percent of epilepsy patients do not respond to the pharmaceutical treatments available today, particularly children with a rare and severe form of the...

Terrorism

Islamic Jihad denies firing rocket after Israel limits Gaza fishing zone

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group on Tuesday denied firing a rocket toward Israel on Monday night that prompted the military to scale back a recently expanded fishing zone in the Gaza Strip.

“The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, has not announced that it shot a rocket toward the occupation,” PIJ...

Antisemitism

There were 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in 2018, ADL finds

(JTA) — Last year saw the third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since 1979, despite a decrease from the previous year, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League.

Though the 1,879 incidents in 2018 dropped from the 1,986 incidents in 2017, according to the ADL’s annual survey of incidents released Tuesday, the number of...

Antisemitism

New York Times acknowledges publishing cartoon with ‘anti-Semitic tropes’

(JTA) — The New York Times acknowledged that it published in its international print edition a political cartoon that “included anti-Semitic tropes.”

The cartoon showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog (a dachshund) wearing a Star of David collar and leading President Donald Trump, who is wearing a black kippah.

“The...

Hamas

Reducing reliance on Russia, Poland considers purchase of Israeli gas

Polish state-controlled energy company PGNiG is considering the purchase of Israeli natural gas as it seeks to reduce its dependence on key Russian supplier, Gazprom.

"We want to be the company at the crossroads of North-South and East-West... we need something to the south," PGNiG chief executive Piotr Wozniak told Reuters last week.

So we are...

Holocaust

Thousands mourn revered Israeli rabbi and Holocaust survivor

Thousands attended the funeral Sunday for a revered Israeli rabbi and Holocaust survivor known for his especially brutal treatment at the hands of the Nazis and his efforts to memorialise the genocide's victims.
Menahem Mendel Taub, a Hassidic rabbi, died at the age of 96 in Jerusalem on Sunday, drawing tributes from Israeli Prime Minister...

US-Israel Relationship

UMass students file emergency motion to block anti-Israel event

April 26, 2019 / JNS) Students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst filed an emergency motion on Thursday asking a Massachusetts court to block an upcoming event featuring several anti-Israel speakers that is being sponsored by university departments.

The May 4 event, titled “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech & the Battle for...

Antisemitism

Israeli film festival in UK hits back at boycott campaign

The Seret Festival, a celebration of Israeli film and television, kicked off on Monday in six cities across the UK, despite attempts to organize a boycott of the event.

The two-week long festival is bringing more than two dozen Israeli productions to movie theaters in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Brighton and Cambridge. Last week, days before the...

US-Israel Relationship

US shooting renews debate on anti-Semitism and its political response

WASHINGTON — The latest shooting at a US synagogue heightened the sense of alarm Sunday of a rise in anti-Semitism, despite President Donald Trump avowal to overcome the “evil” of hatred.

A 60-year-old woman, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed and three people were wounded when a gunman burst into the synagogue in the southern Californian town of...

Event Recaps

April 22 – Bronx, NY – Why Israel Spanish

Event Recaps

April 22 – Farmington, NM – Pastor’s Meeting

Event Recaps

April 19 – Portland, OR – Why Israel

Holocaust

Discovery Channel and PBS to air Holocaust documentaries for Yom Hashoah

JTA — Alan Moskin served in Patton’s 3rd Army as it liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp. The experience, he said in an unintentional wordplay, was “tattooed right here on my heart, on my soul.”

He didn’t share what he saw — not with his parents or siblings, not his wife and children — until 50 years after he came home. But when he finally...

US-Israel Relationship

Congress members call for Israeli visitors to have easier entry into U.S.

Two Congress members called on the Department of Homeland Security to admit Israel into a program that allows some of its visitors expedited entry into the United States.

Reps. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., and Brian Mast, R-Fla., sent a letter Wednesday to the acting Homeland Security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, urging him to admit the Jewish state into...

Hamas

Crypto terror financing: Hamas shifts tactics in bitcoin fundraising

LONDON/JERUSALEM - The armed wing of Hamas is using increasingly complex methods of raising funds via bitcoin, researchers say, highlighting the difficulties regulators face in tracking cryptocurrency financing of outfits designated by some as terrorist groups.

The Gaza-based Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, which is proscribed by the United...