A Free Press investigation found that the viral photos lacked important context: The subjects have cystic fibrosis, rickets, or other serious ailments.

FREE PRESS
They Became Symbols for Gazan Starvation. But All 12 Suffer from Other Health Problems.
Olivia Reingold
Tanya Lukyanova
August 18, 2025

…An investigation by The Free Press reveals that at least a dozen other viral images of starvation in Gaza also lacked important context: The subjects of those photos have significant health problems. Those appeared all over social media, in the reports of leading international aid organizations, and on some of the most prestigious news outlets in the United States, including CNN, NPR, and the Times—without disclosing the complicated medical histories that help explain their stark appearances…But those photos have helped convince a growing number of Americans that Israel has induced famine and is committing war crimes in Gaza. In a poll this month from the progressive Data for Progress, nearly half of the likely voters surveyed said that they believe Israel is “committing genocide against the Palestinian people living in Gaza.” READ MORE

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Since October 7, ‘anti-Zionist’ activist groups targeting Jewish landlords have sprung up across Brooklyn

JEWISH CHRONICLE
More than 30 years after Crown Heights riots, Orthodox Jews face a new threat from their ‘anti-Zionist’ neighbours
Eliana Silver
August 19, 2025

On a recent Tuesday afternoon at the intersection of Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, people queued for free food. The scene looked like any neighborhood outreach effort, tables high with groceries, volunteers chatting with residents. But unlike most food bank programs for needy people, this one was run by a group who have been accused of antisemitic targeting of Jews in the Chasidic neighbourhood...The flyers accuse Chasidic Jews of exploiting Black tenants and fueling gentrification, echoing tensions that have been present in the area for decades. “[What] they’re really doing is taking people that are struggling with poverty…and they’re giving them food while doing a sick form of manipulation by trying to use that food…to create and to plant in them antisemitic ideas and to create racial tension in a community that has come so far over the last 30 years,” Behrman said. READ MORE

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“Korff’s connection to Israel spans several years, marked by his substantial charitable donations to various Israeli causes, including the IDF, medical institutions, and local community projects”

JPOST
Billionaire behind Paramount mega-deal obtaining Israeli residency
August 20, 2025

Brandon Korff, a Jewish-American billionaire renowned for orchestrating one of the media industry’s landmark deals, the $35 billion sale of Paramount, is in the process of securing Israeli residency. A senior government official confirmed that Korff recently filed his application for Israeli residency, framing his decision as a gesture of solidarity in the face of global boycotts and rising hostility. In 2025, Korff significantly increased his time spent in Israel, becoming a more visible figure within the country…His philanthropic support has noticeably grown in tandem with his longer stays in the country. Additionally, his brother served as a lone soldier in an elite IDF unit. Korff is the grandson of the late Sumner Redstone, the influential media mogul behind Paramount, which, under his leadership, grew into a global powerhouse. READ MORE

TJV NEWS Shari Redstone said Oct 7 and CBS News’ anti-Israel bias prompted her to sell Paramount Shari Redstone, the longtime steward of Paramount, said the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel was the decisive factor that led her to sell the family’s media empire after years of resisting offers. She also said she was hoping the longstanding investigative reporting show “60 Minutes” would expose ABC’s anti-Israel bias, but instead, it did the opposite with its feature on Gaza.

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In this imagined essay, Anne Frank reflects on the Holocaust, the massacre of October 7, and why the State of Israel and a strong IDF are the only guarantee that “Never Again” is not an empty slogan.

JEWISH JOURNAL
If I Had Lived: Anne Frank on Why Israel Must Always Defend the Jewish People
Shmuley Botach
August 21, 2025

…On October 7, 2023, Jews again saw what happens when their enemies believe they are weak. Hamas, heirs to the same murderous Nazi hatred that consumed Europe, invaded Israel’s borders, massacring families, raping women, burning homes, and dragging children into captivity. It was a pogrom in the modern age, proudly broadcast on social media. I saw in those horrors the same dark patterns I once lived: babies torn from mothers, women degraded, Jews shot and burned alive for the simple fact of being Jews. And just as in my time, there were those who rushed to justify the slaughter. Intellectuals, activists, politicians explained it away as “resistance.” “The one great difference between my time and now is this: the Jewish people have a state. The Jewish people have an army. The Jewish people are no longer lambs to the slaughter.READ MORE

Naomi Ragen: Israel War Diary  In many ways, the war we are now involved with is a Holocaust replay, except that now the Jews are armed and dangerous, not helpless victims. This is because they are no longer just Jews, oppressed, barely tolerated outcasts from mainstream Christian or Muslim societies, they are proud Zionists in their own country. This is the fundamental, underlying cause of the cult of hatred now engulfing the entire world against Zionism. They long for the days when the Jews were easy victims. I use the word cult deliberately. Because no amount of information, facts, photos, reasonable discourse will budge the Israel-haters. Despite the well-documented piles of food literally flooding Gaza, we still have people like Keir Starmer talking about a “catastrophic failure of aid…

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“Lox & Loaded — it’s the catchy name behind a new gun club formed in Chicago”

CBS NEWS
Lox & Loaded gun club aims for self-defense for Jewish community amid antisemitism threat
Charlie De Mar
August 18, 2015

…The gun club is aimed at giving Jews and allies the tools to defend themselves with antisemitism at historic levels in the U.S. On a recent Saturday morning, Gayle Pearlstein was not observing the Jewish sabbath in the traditional sense. She was instead leading a weekly ritual of a different kind — in the form of target practice at Article II Range in Lombard…”I think people that were in liberal households, or weren’t accustomed to firearms, are realizing that the police cannot be at every street corner and every event,” added Pearlstein…The Lox & Loaded chapter that practices at the Article II range is just one of several chapters that meets regularly in the Chicago suburbs and a handful of other states. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Pearlstein said sales for firearm instruction have jumped some 60%. READ MORE

Lox & Loaded™ is a Jewish Owned and Operated Shooting Club. Lox & Loaded™ is here to empower. We introduce responsible firearm ownership and safety in a way that’s approachable, professional, and deeply rooted in community values.

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The book that the Communists wanted to kill is more relevant than ever

FRONT PAGE MAG
Animal Farm Turns 80
Daniel Greenfield
August 20, 2025

…The 80th anniversary of the publication of Animal Farm passed almost without notice on college campuses where Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is the most assigned political work and in a culture where ‘Equity’ took the book’s sardonic corruption of equality from satire to reality. Orwell, a fierce opponent of the Soviet Union, had his journalism relentlessly censored by British Communists and their fellow travelers, forcing him to resort to fiction, first Animal Farm and then 1984…Orwell used a story about some pigs and other barnyard animals to distill a capsule history of the Bolshevik revolution through its various phases from the promise of liberation to the descent into an even bleaker tyranny than anything that had come before. READ MORE

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“How nice to pat yourself on the back for your aid to the implacable enemies who are starving Jewish hostages, thereby joining the ranks of useful Jewish idiots in every generation”

ARTUZ SHEVA
UJA donates $1 million to Gaza: Insanity or worse?
Ronn Torrosion

…This is a despicable act by American Diaspora Jews of whom it can only be said seem today to be enemies of the Jewish state. When representatives of the Israeli government appear before this body and ask them to speak out against a 2-state solution or for voluntary migration of Gazans, they are silent, but to fund Gaza and help free up Hamas resources for rockets, tunnels, and murder that they can do. The UJA, with nary a mainstream Orthodox or haredi Jew let alone a Sephardic leader among them live a life of ignorance, as they fund the very people that kill us, torture us, burn our babies, kidnap us, starve our hostages, and celebrate in the streets when we die. Not one Gazan gave information about where the hostages are being held, even when the Israeli government offered $5 million for information on each one. People braved the Nazis to save Jews. Not the Gazans. Not one “righteous Gentile” among them. READ MORE

JNS Jonathan Tobin: The futility of compassion for those who want to kill you As far as most American Jews are concerned, it’s probably the most Jewish thing any of the numerous organizations that represent them could do. UJA-Federation New York has announced the intended donation of $1 million to help Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip. This humanitarian gesture was widely applauded by many of its donors and community members…However, the decision to allocate Jewish philanthropic funds to aid hostile neighboring Arabs is a bad one. It may be laudable, but it is wrong. Why? Part of the problem is the virtue-signaling aspect of this allocation. UJA wants to do this to be seen as caring for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Still, it is more about making its donors and activists feel good about themselves than actually ameliorating any suffering in the Strip.

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A Health Ministry report described the systematic starvation, as well as physical and emotional torture, carried out by Hamas terrorists on hostages released from Gaza earlier this year

JPOST
Gaza hostages face systematic starvation, constant abuse by Hamas, Israeli medical report finds
Dr Itay Gal
August 12, 2025

The lives of the remaining living hostages in Gaza captivity are under immediate threat due to physical and mental torture perpetrated by their Hamas captors, a grim report released by the Health Ministry found on Tuesday. The report, based on the condition of 12 former hostages freed earlier in 2025 as part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal carried out between January 19 and February 7, paints a horrifying image of systematic starvation, severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies, the ingestion of contaminated water, and physical injuries, as well as skin diseases and respiratory illnesses, left untreated… Furthermore, the report described the systematic starvation of hostages, who were given only one meal a day, usually amounting to pita bread and rice, which sometimes contained insects and worms. Captives often went entire days without food, with contaminated water being provided in limited quantities. READ MORE

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Highland Park sets a new standard.

STANDWITHUS
Highland Park Becomes First City in Illinois to Pass the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism into Law
August 12, 2025

In an historic unanimous vote of 7-0 on August 11, the Highland Park City Council passed an ordinance that officially adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of Antisemitism. This landmark legislation positions Highland Park as the first city in Illinois to enshrine this definition through an ordinance rather than a resolution. The ordinance requires the city manager to incorporate the IHRA working definition and its eleven contemporary examples when implementing employment and anti-discrimination policies. StandWithUs extends its heartfelt gratitude to Councilmember Annette Lidawer for her leadership and determination in advancing this essential legislation. The organization also thanks Mayor Nancy Rotering for facilitating the ordinance’s vote. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Highland Park Becomes First Illinois City to Enshrine IHRA Antisemitism Definition in Law In a landmark decision, the Highland Park City Council in Illinois voted unanimously, by a 7-0 margin, earlier in the week to formally enshrine the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism into municipal law. Highland Park, a suburban community situated 25 miles north of Chicago and home to a large and vibrant Jewish population, has made history as the first city in Illinois to adopt the IHRA definition not just in the form of a resolution — as other municipalities have done — but as a binding ordinance. This elevates its status from symbolic support to enforceable law, ensuring that it will have tangible, long-term impact.

STANDWITHUS “Guide to Understanding & Adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism”

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“While support for Israel remains stable (and high) among Republicans, it has cratered among Democrats — just 8 percent of Democrats approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, down from 36 percent just after the attacks”

POLITICO
The new politics of Israel
Charlie Mahtesian and Calder McHugh
August 12, 2025

Would you have voted to oppose sending weapons to Israel (as more than half of Senate Democrats recently did)? How do you think the next administration should handle our relationship with Israel? Do you think it’s time to recognize a Palestinian state? But Pete Buttigieg, a top 2028 Democratic presidential prospect who was queried on Pod Save America on Sunday, still dodged them. His responses, in which he discussed a two-state solution and opposition to Trump, elicited an angry and dismissive response online, in particular from progressives…These rock-bottom levels of [Israel] support explain the subtle, but increasingly noticeable, recalibrations that are taking place among Democratic candidates and elected officials. It reveals that traditional solid support for Israel is no longer politically sustainable in a restive party where the energy is on the left and among its youngest members — the two quarters where sympathy for Palestinians and support for an independent Palestinian state is highest. READ MORE

FORWARD JB Pritzker: Blocking arms sales sends Israel ‘the right kind of message’
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Sunday endorsed a Senate push to block U.S. arms sales to Israel, calling it “the right kind of message” to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the humanitarian crisis and reports of starvation in Gaza. “It’s the right kind of message, which is that Israel needs to make sure that the food assistance that ought to go to innocent Palestinians arrives there,” Pritzker said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “And they should do everything in their power to prevent the starvation that I think we’ve all seen.” A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — supported the pair of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel, to block weapons transfers. 

FRONT PAGE MAG Buttigieg Endorses Arms Boycott, Terror State in Israel Buttigieg announcing that he’s for an arms embargo on Israel and he would recognize an Islamic terrorist state in Israel. That’s not surprising since the last time he ran, Buttigieg had endorsed ending aid to Israel. The media is making this seem like a big win and a pivot to build momentum for a fundamental anti-Israel shift by the Democrats. In his foreign policy address, he falsely claimed that “the Netanyahu government is turning away from peace” and warned Israel, while, referring to himself in the third person, that “President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill.”

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