Lara Kollab, a graduate of Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, was fired in 2019 from her position as an internal medicine resident at the Cleveland Clinic, "after it emerged that she had been fanning anti-Semitic sentiment on Twitter for at least the last six years."

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She repeatedly called on followers to "destroy the homes of the Jews" and urged Arab nations to unite to "destroy the terrorist Nazi State of Israel."

In one of the most disturbing tweets, Kollab joked about intentionally giving her Jewish patients the wrong medication, writing, "I'll purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds."

On Monday, Kollab was forced to hand over her license after it was revoked by the State Medical Board of Ohio.

Kollab has apologized for her comments and wrote a message to the Ohio medical board in which she stated that "The things I wrote do not represent who I am."

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The clip, published on Twitter on Nov. 30, shows CSCC student Malek Mustafa, who has an anti-Israel history and has minimized Hamas terrorism, cut down the Israeli flag from the display.

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Out of 26,935 students, there are only five Jewish students, according to Hillel International.

"Columbus State has confirmed a recent incident in which a miniature Israeli flag was forcibly removed from an international flag display on college property. An investigation is underway," tweeted the school on Nov. 30.

Columbus State is committed to a safe, inclusive environment for all students and the community. The college is undertaking a due process review of the recent incident of a man cutting down and throwing away a miniature Israeli flag from an international flag display on campus.

— Columbus State (@cscc_edu) December 2, 2019

On Monday, CSCC further tweeted about the incident.

"Columbus State is committed to a safe, inclusive environment for all students and the community. The college is undertaking a due process review of the recent incident of a man cutting down and throwing away a miniature Israeli flag from an international flag display on campus," posted the community college on Twitter. "We first learned about this incident Saturday along with the rest of the public when the video posted to social media and quickly went viral. The college must and will abide by student privacy laws in disposition of the incident."

We first learned about this incident Saturday along with the rest of the public when the video posted to social media and quickly went viral. The college must and will abide by student privacy laws in disposition of the incident.

— Columbus State (@cscc_edu) December 2, 2019

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Five Democratic presidential candidates addressed thousands of attendees on Sunday and Monday at the national conference of J Street, founded in 2007 as a liberal counterweight to Washington advocacy that its leaders saw as aligning US policymakers with the Israeli government exclusively enough to limit the prospects for meaningful peace with Palestinians. The candidates' attendance – in addition to videos sent to J Street by five other hopefuls who could not attend – underscores the importance of the Democratic-leaning Jewish American voting bloc.

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President Donald Trump's long embrace of Benjamin Netanyahu has helped the conservative Israeli prime minister with the battles for his political survival amid two deadlocked elections and a looming indictment threat. But the Trump-Netanyahu alliance has also strengthened J Street's case for Democrats to stand against the Israeli leader's pursuit of settlement expansion and annexation in the West Bank.

So far, at least three Democrats vying to replace Trump – Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders – have said they would consider using US aid to Israel to help press its government to take a less hawkish tack.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said Monday at the conference that US support for Israel should not "turn into a go-ahead where we would be endorsing anything like annexation." He took a slightly more measured approach about whether US aid to Israel should be used to help curtail its settlement enterprise.

The prominence of the Democratic debate over how to pressure Israel marks a victory for J Street, which this week launched a push to add "formal opposition to Israel's ongoing occupation of the West Bank" to the Democratic Party's 2020 platform. Separately, the establishment liberal group Center for American Progress released recommendations Friday for a "progressive policy alternative" that includes conditions on US aid to Israel.

Yet the ascendancy of Jewish American progressive organizing under Trump isn't limited to J Street's agenda, with newer groups gaining ground to its Left, including some that focus on domestic issues. As Trump mobilizes his base by calling Jewish Democrats "disloyal" to their faith and to Israel, however, the group's core argument – that Jews can support their faith and Israel while criticizing the Israeli government – has resonated more widely, according to J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami.

Trump's polarizing effect makes it "easy to understand" that criticizing a US leader is not the same as anti-Americanism, Ben-Ami said in an interview. "The same thing goes for Israel."

Buttigieg made a nearly identical case during his Monday remarks, saying that just as "deeply patriotic" Americans can still criticize Trump, they can be "committed to the US-Israel alliance" while not signing onto every "individual policy choice by a right-wing government." Warren said the same in a video message to the conference.

Sanders, a vocal advocate for using US aid as leverage to help bring Israel-Palestinian relations closer to peace, was more direct: "It is not anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist," he told the conference. After Sanders similarly derided the Israeli government earlier this year, a cabinet member in Netanyahu's party pushed back in an interview with an Israeli TV station, defending its voters' choice of conservative leadership.

Michael Koplow, policy director of the more centrist Israel Policy Forum, said that Trump's "deep unpopularity with American Jews has translated to a more critical attitude toward Israel." But he chalked that up less to a Trump-inspired impetus to criticize Netanyahu and more to the two men's closeness.

"I think people who dislike President Trump tend to project that dislike onto Netanyahu and the Israeli government," Koplow said.

But Jewish Americans, who polls show favor Democrats, are not in agreement when it comes to Trump's Israel-Palestinian policies: A Pew Research Center poll conducted in April found that 42% of them said Trump is favoring the Israelis too much and 47% said he's striking the right balance, while just 6% said he's favoring the Palestinians too much.

For all the momentum behind a Democratic discussion about conditioning US aid to Israel, the idea counts limited support from the party's left-wing in Congress, including pro-Sanders Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Two other presidential candidates who spoke at the J Street conference, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), declined to endorse the option, while a third, former US Housing Secretary Julián Castro, de-emphasized it. And the political clout of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the capital's long-standing and more bipartisan vehicle to promote the US -Israel partnership, remains strong.

In addition, some Jewish American leaders who share J Street's opposition to settlement construction are not convinced that discussing contingencies on US aid alone is the best way to achieve those goals.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said in an interview that it's important to communicate that "Israel's safety and security are not mild or passing constraints." Jacobs added that he welcomes a "robust debate" on Democrats' approach to Israel that he described as in its early stages.

As that debate grows louder in the US presidential campaign, with Netanyahu's political future hanging in the balance, J Street will also continue to get its pressure from more left-leaning Jewish American groups that want to see more than rhetoric standing against Israeli policies that have undercut relations with Palestinians.

"If there is a Democratic president in (2021)," said Emily Mayer, political director of the liberal Jewish American group IfNotNow, "the question will be on the table of not only how will they reverse the damage Trump has done ... but also, how would they go beyond what Obama did?"

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The newly renamed Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is the latest in the US to broaden its permanent exhibit and embolden its efforts to inspire visitors to take action to make the world a better place.

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"We're hoping that in the moments that they finish this journey they will be thinking: What can I do? How can I make a difference in my community?" said Mary Pat Higgins, the museum's president and CEO.

Expanding the focus to include more recent atrocities and human rights struggles helps draw in more visitors to be reminded that the lessons from the Holocaust are still relevant.

The museum set to open in Dallas, Texas on Sept. 18 is five times bigger than its older location – a jump from 6,000 square feet (557 sq. meters) to 55,000 square feet (5,110 sq. meters). Museum officials hope to see 200,000 visitors a year – more than double the previous figure.

The Holocaust Museum Houston has already seen a spike in visitors since reopening in June after a renovation and expansion that more than doubled its size. The primary focus of the original museum was the Holocaust, but it now details other genocides and has tributes to human rights leaders including Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who as a child in Pakistan began advocating for girls' education.

"We look at it like this, if we can get them in the door and attract them in – it might be something like social activism – then they can also benefit from learning about the Holocaust when they're here," said Kelly Zúñiga, CEO of the Houston museum.

In Cincinnati, the Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center's move in January into Union Terminal train station meant that it could include a gallery showcasing people who have made positive changes in their community. "We examine individuals who stood up and who seized the moment and we talk about their character strengths," said Jodi Elowitz, the center's education director.

Two years ago the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois opened as part of its permanent exhibit at the Take a Stand Center, which is focused on human rights. "Hopefully they're getting knowledge, they're finding their passion or their particular cause or issue that they're interested in," said Kelley Szany, vice president of education and exhibitions for the museum.

The Dallas museum's orientation video asks the question: Why should visitors care?

"The rest of the museum goes on to not answer the question because we don't provide answers. We do provide direction. We expect you to be able to answer the question however you were impacted," said Eddie Jacobs, who designed the exhibit with fellow Berenbaum Jacobs Associates founder Dr. Michael Berenbaum.

The gallery detailing genocides that happened before and after the Holocaust uses sculpture and graphic novels to help visitors understand the tactics that led to the mass killings. The sculpture on the mass murder of Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994 includes machetes and victims' racial identification cards. A graphic novel notes that polarization tactics that led to the genocide included Tutsis being referred to as cockroaches, pointing out that the Nazis portrayed Jews as rats and poisonous mushrooms.

The last stage of the visit turns to the US for an exploration of how American ideals compare to reality, Berenbaum said. Visitors use interactive touchscreens to explore their own attitudes and biases. As they end their visit, they can learn about volunteer opportunities.

"The Holocaust is remembered. The question then becomes deeper: How is it remembered and what are we to do with that memory?" Berenbaum said.

Max Glauben, who as a Jewish teenager from Poland spent time in Nazi concentration camps, where his parents and brother were killed, helped found the Dallas museum. Glauben, who immigrated to the US after WWII, hopes that the museum inspires people to take inventory of their own lives.

"Maybe after seeing all this they realize that maybe we should become better," said Glauben, 91.

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In a statement posted Monday on the website of Greek club Olympiakos, Blatt said he was diagnosed with condition, which attacks the central nervous system, "a few months ago" and has experienced fatigue, weakness in his legs and balance problems.

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"I am a coach and my job is to lead and teach and inspire a lot of people. Not being as agile or active doesn't affect my ability to do those things," Blatt said in the statement.

"How could I possibly complain? I absolutely cannot and will not. It's wasted effort and while I ask my players and staff to be the best version of themselves, I must ask and even demand from myself to do the same."

Blatt was appointed coach of Cleveland in June 2014 and took the team to the NBA finals in his first season, losing to the Golden State Warriors.

He was fired partway through the 2015-2016 season, in which Cleveland won the NBA championship for the first time under coach Tyronn Lue. He has coached Olympiakos since June 2018.

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A judge near Youngstown set bond at $250,000 for James Reardon, ordered a mental health evaluation and told him to stay away from Jewish houses of worship and organizations if he is released from jail.

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Police arrested Reardon Saturday on charges of telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing, a day after a Jewish organization contacted authorities.

Ammunition, semiautomatic weapons, a gas mask, and anti-Semitic information were found at a house in New Middleton where he lives with his mother, police said.

New Middletown police said the video posted on Reardon's Instagram account last month included the sounds of sirens and screaming with the caption: "Police identified the Youngstown Jewish Family Community shooter as local white nationalist Seamus O'Rearedon."

The post tagged the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown.

The Youngstown Area Jewish Federation said it found out about the threat on Friday and alerted the police and FBI. The organization said it later learned that "ira_seamus" was an online pseudonym for James Reardon.

"I want to stress that we know of no other threat to the Jewish community or to any of our agencies at this point in time," said Andy Lipkin, the federation's executive vice president. "Nonetheless, I have directed that we maintain the additional level of security for the near future."

Reardon was arraigned by video in Struthers Municipal Court.

A message seeking comment was left with his attorney. There was no answer at a phone number for his mother, and a man who answered a number listed for his father hung up.

Media outlets in Youngstown reported that Reardon attended the 2017 white nationalist rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia.

New Middletown Police Chief Vince D'egidio told WFMJ-TV that Reardon has posted several videos in which he used derogatory remarks toward the Jewish and African American communities.

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On July 11, James Reardon Jr., 20, tagged the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown in an Instagram post that featured a video of a man shooting a semi-automatic weapon. This launched what New Middletown Police Chief Vincent D'Egidio described as an "intense … rapidly evolving investigation."

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Police described Reardon as an "avowed anti-Semite and white nationalist" whose social media was full of racial slurs. He was arrested after the FBI raided his home on Friday and seized a stockpile of semi-automatic weapons and ammunition, bulletproof armor, and a gas mask, as well as anti-Semitic and white supremacist propaganda.

Reardon is currently being charged on counts of telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing. The FBI has yet to announce if it plans to seek federal charges against the suspect.

In response to Reardon's arrest, the Cleveland branch of the Anti-Defamation League tweeted a message of thanks to the FBI and local law enforcement and "community partners."

"We will continue to employ all our resources to stop the spread of white nationalism and violent extremism," ADL Cleveland stated.

According to Action News 4 out of Pittsburgh, where an anti-Semitic shooter killed 11 people and wounded seven the Tree of Life Synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, local police in Youngstown said they intended to provide the Jewish community center with extra security.

Following the arrest, the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation issued a statement of thanks to local police and the Department of Homeland Security that described the pre-emptive arrest of Reardon as "a clear example of everything going right."

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Dayton police announced that the suspect in the early Sunday morning shooting was shot by police. About 26 others were injured and have been taken to local hospitals with injuries.

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Police say the active shooter situation began at 1 a.m. in the Oregon District, outside "Ned Peppers" a local bar, but that officers nearby were able to "put an end to it quickly." The Oregon District is a historic neighborhood known for its entertainment offerings.

Tweets from the Dayton police early Sunday did not include further details, but described the Oregon District shooting as "a large scene and investigation." Miami Valley Hospital spokeswoman Terrea Little said that 16 victims have been received at the hospital, but she couldn't confirm their conditions.

Further information, including the suspected shooter's identity, has not yet been released.

The FBI is assisting with the investigation.

Sunday's shooting came hours after 20 people were killed and more than two dozen injured in a shooting in El Paso, Texas.

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