Shas Pulls Its Own Soldier Ad

A U.S. envoy walked back his own claim that Israel still occupies the Golan Heights. Ambassador Tom Barrack made the claim Friday, against Trump's 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty there; he reversed himself Sunday. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the remark "full of inaccuracies." ¹

Israel's election czar ordered Shas to pull its own campaign ad. The video showed a soldier home for Shabbat and claimed "30,000 conscripts and career soldiers" voted Shas last election. The Central Elections Committee ruled it broke the ban on military imagery in campaigns, after a rival party's complaint. Shas has spent three years fighting to keep Haredi men out of that same draft. The backstory → ²

Israel barred two Swedish lawmakers from entering the country. Left Party members Jonas Sjöstedt and Hanna Gedin were denied entry Sunday; officials said they'd pushed to prosecute Israelis abroad for war crimes and spread false claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza. ³

Bill Ackman is done waiting on universities. Instead of funding one, the hedge fund billionaire is building his own brain research institute in Manhattan for more than $400 million, and he said flatly why he skipped the usual donor route: campus politics, disrupted classes, and what he called the "curse of antisemitism" have made universities "a much less attractive place to work." Five years ago, he figured he needed a university's name to recruit the best scientists. Not anymore. Two years of treating Jewish students' complaints like a PR problem produced a defector with a checkbook, walking away with $400 million to prove he doesn't need you. ⁴

Ninety-seven years ago this week, rioters killed 67 Jews in Hebron over three days, ending centuries of Jewish life in the city; nineteen Arab families sheltered Jews in their homes during it. We're eleven days into Elul now, about three weeks from Rosh Hashanah. ⁵⁶