‘This is an American problem; it's not a Jewish problem': Tree of Life chair reacts to Boulder attack
Michael Bernstein, board chair of the Tree of Life, an organization which aims to uproot antisemitism, speaks to Bianna Golodryga about the rise in safety concerns for Jewish communities in the US and beyond.
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New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
Israel launches second attack on Iranian nuclear site in 8 days as US deploys B-2 bombers to Pacific
'Overnight, we deepened the strike on the nuclear site in Isfahan and in western Iran. On the screen, you can see the site where reconversion of enriched uranium takes place. This is the stage following enrichment in the process of developing a nuclear weapon. We had already… Israel struck one of Iran's biggest nuclear facilities Saturday as part of an overnight campaign that dropped hundreds of missiles across the Islamic Republic — just as the US deployed nuke plant neutralizing B-2 stealth bomber jets to the Pacific. Entering the ninth day of conflict between the warring countries, the attack on the Isfahan nuclear site was intended to 'deepen' the damage the Jewish state had already inflicted on the facility after a bombing back on June 13 strike, the Israeli Defense Forces said. 'We had already struck the site in the operation's opening blow—and last night, we struck it again in a wide-scale strike to reinforce our achievements,' an IDF spokesperson said in an X post. Advertisement 3 The IDF targeted the Isfahan nuclear site during an overnight strike. x/IDF The military shared video of the aftermath, showing charred remains of uranium conversion infrastructure and labs where Iranian officials were allegedly developing weapons. The IDF also claimed to have caused 'significant damage' to Tehran's centrifuge production capabilities. Advertisement Several buildings on the Isfahan property appeared to be destroyed, but Iranian media reported that there was no leakage of hazardous materials. The attack on the nuclear plant was part of a far-reaching overnight campaign that saw the Jewish state drop 150 missiles on dozens of targets in Iran. 3 The Isfahan nuclear plant seen before it was bombed by Israel this month. AFP via Getty Images Four primed Iranian ballistic missile launchers were 'neutralized' in strikes, as well as trucks used to launch drones, and Iranian radars and air defense sites, the IDF said. Advertisement IDF strikes Saturday also took out a nuclear scientist and 15 Iranian Air Defense personnel, as well as three top commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to state media reports. In separate strikes, three commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed, including the 'founder of the Iranian regime's plan to destroy Israel,' officials in Tel Aviv said. In return, Iran fired an overnight volley of five ballistic missiles at central Israel, all of which the IDF claims to have intercepted. But an Iranian Shahed drone made landfall, crashing into a two-story building in Beit She'an in northern Israel, according to initial reports. Advertisement 3 The attack was intended to 'deepen' the damage wrought from a strike carried out last week. Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies/AFP via Getty Images Meanwhile, the US Air Force deployed B-2 stealth bombers — the only aircraft that can deploy 15-ton bunker busting bombs to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities — abroad Saturday. Six bombers were sent to a military base in Guam. Others, flanked by supply planes, appeared to be heading toward Diego Garcia, a strategic military base in the Indian Ocean, according to reports. The warplanes were using the call sign MYTEE21, which is typically associated with stealth bomber missions, according to The Times. The bombers each carry two 15-ton bunker buster bombs — the Israelis possess neither — which have the capability to carry out an attack on Fordow, Iran's most secure nuclear facility buried 300 feet inside a mountain. The Pentagon had already sent at least six of the B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia back in April in what analysts said was a warning to Iran amid growing tensions. Both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been adamant about disarming Tehran's nuclear capabilities, with Netanyahu warning that Iran intended to use the nukes for the 'annihilation' of the Jewish state. Trump has teased that he would make his final decision on whether to enter the conflict and strike Iran in the 'next two weeks,' as he maintains slim hopes that Tehran returns to the negotiating table. Advertisement Iranian leadership has said it will not reengage the US in talks as long as Israel continues its offensive. 'I think it's very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing,' Trump told reporters outside Air Force One on Friday. The Yemeni Armed Forces warned Saturday that it would help Iran attack US ships and warships in the Red Sea if American forces take up arms 'in support of the Israeli enemy.' Trump was at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, but is expected to return to the White House Saturday afternoon.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump hints at detente with Harvard: ‘Very possible that a Deal will be announced'
The feud between Harvard University and President Donald Trump could be coming to a close, after months of bitter legal battles between the Ivy League school and the White House. The president on Friday signaled a 'historic' deal between his administration and Harvard may now be on the table. 'Many people have been asking what is going on with Harvard University and their largescale improprieties that we have been addressing, looking for a solution,' Trump said in a post on Truth Social, the social media site he owns. 'We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so.' Since Trump took office in January, his administration has been in a multi-front war with Harvard. It has accused Harvard of perpetuating antisemitism; terminated $2 billion in grants; and tried to ban the school from granting admission to foreign students. Trump on Friday said that the school has 'acted extremely appropriately' during negotiations, and that it appears to be 'committed to doing what is right.' 'If a Settlement is made on the basis that is currently being discussed, it will be 'mindbogglingly' HISTORIC, and very good for our Country,' the president concluded. A spokesperson for Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Harvard has not been the only school to draw the president's ire. Columbia University was the first school to come under the administration's scrutiny. In March, the administration cancelled $400 million in grants to the New York school. At the time, the administration said the school had failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic protests on campus. Shortly after the funding was pulled, Columbia agreed to a series of changes the administration set forward, including changes to the school's on-campus protest policies, security and the Middle Eastern studies program. Trump's suggestion that a deal with Harvard might be imminent came just after a federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction extending her earlier block on one of the Trump administration's highest profile moves against the school. U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs said on Friday that the Department of Homeland Security cannot move forward with an attempt to stop visas for Harvard's international students based on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's May 22 letter purporting to immediately kick the school out of the 'Student Exchange Visitor Program.' Burroughs, an Obama appointee, has also issued a temporary restraining order preventing officials from implementing a proclamation Trump issued earlier this month attempting to use his immigration powers to block international students and 'foreign exchange' visitors destined for Harvard. The order blocking Trump's directive is set to expire Monday, but the judge is considering a longer-term injunction against the president's action.
Boston Globe
16 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Still marching after all these years
Many of us have had a lot of practice: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. We protested every bad government action. Advertisement I learned nonviolent civil disobedience from my parents, growing up in Brooklyn. They were activists even before Vietnam. During the civil rights movement, in 1964, driving through St. Augustine, Fla., they attended a demonstration. When protesters refused to leave a sit-in attempting to integrate the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge restaurant, some were arrested and jailed. My parents were not arrested, but they were present, in solidarity, as lifelong believers in human rights, in including Black Americans in the American Dream. What we now call DEI was already a good goal. Advertisement And me? Young as I was, my good-girl head was down, finishing my master's thesis on Proust, in graduate school far away. I was merely an educated girl, not political yet, not focused on the common good as they were. Both of them had been radicals in the 1930s, when Jewish leftists and others hoped that a popular front could remake US labor relations, control capitalist greed, and bring America closer to equality for women and people of color. Paul Robeson was one of their idols, along with Eleanor Roosevelt. Later, they opposed the Vietnam War, just as my husband and I did. In 1968, running against feckless Hubert Humphrey, treacherous Richard Nixon promised to end the war, and then prolonged it until more than 50,000 men my age died, as well as countless Vietnamese and Cambodians. In 1972 my father worked to elect Elizabeth Holtzman, also of Brooklyn, to Congress. So she was in the House of Representatives in time to vote to impeach the corrupt Nixon in the summer of 1974. My father, with ALS sapping his body, had followed the investigation and trial avidly from the green couch in the living room. But he missed out on the ending. By August he was in a coma; he died two days short of Nixon's ignominious exit. The night Nixon left, making his awkward, hypocritical peace signs, my mother and I were dining in the dim kitchen with my cousin Sherry, grieving and rejoicing. In that painful, complex mood, we poured some wine and drank to him: 'Marty should have been here to see this day.' 'Daddy should have been here.' Advertisement I know my parents would be out with me on the streets now. They were there, in a sense — at a #HandsOff rally on April 5 in Newton, at an April 19 event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution in Waltham, and then at the 'No Kings' rally. The signs were clever and scathing at all these events; drivers going by were honking in approval, shouting, applauding. My laconic father's sign would have said, very big, in block letters, 'NO!' Once when my mother was in her 90s and had lost many memories, I asked her, 'What is wisdom?' She answered unhesitatingly: 'The greatest part of wisdom is kindness.' Her sign, which I saw an older woman hold at the Waltham rally, would have read 'Make America kind again.' 'Nothing is stranger than the position of the dead among the living,' Virginia Woolf wrote in her first, unpublished novel, 'Melymbrosia.' I find it marvelous that my parents can still stand by my side. The rest of our family is in the streets, too: our son and his children in New York City. That solidarity is so welcome to us — just as it must have been to my parents when we opposed the Vietnam War early on, when they felt alone and scorned, when so few Americans had yet come to their senses. Advertisement Intergenerational solidarity is precious. That preciousness includes not only the next generations, but the oldest, too. To all of us lucky enough to have older people in our lives, they comfort us by their presence. Repositories of family lore and legend, they dole out secrets and, for better or worse, guide us by their experiences. And sometimes by the energy of their activism, right now! I see my parents' faces vividly. I summon them and their will to do good, which survives them, in this national emergency. Their memory is a blessing in the here and now and the strife to come.
