California man pleads guilty to sending money to ISIS, having homemade bomb
(JNS) — Mark Lorenzo Villanueva, of Long Beach, Calif., pleaded guilty in federal court on Jan. 27 to sending money to people he believed were members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and to illegally having a homemade explosive device.
The 29-year-old admitted that he tried to “provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization” and to “being a felon in possession of a firearm,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.
According to court records, Villanueva began talking on social media in February with a person who claimed to be an ISIS fighter living in Syria and who “told Villanueva how to send him money in Syria.”
Prosecutors said Villanueva sent more than $1,600, believing the funds would be used to purchase “ammunition, weapons and other supplies” for ISIS. He also discussed carrying out attacks in the United States for the terrorist organization.
In an August search of Villanueva’s home, law enforcement “found a manufactured bomb packed with large amounts of ball bearings and other metal objects, including nails, screws and nuts,” according to prosecutors.
At the time, he was prohibited from owning a firearm due to a felony stalking conviction from 2017.
Sentencing is scheduled for June 17. Villanueva faces up to 35 years in prison.
Conservative British pro-Israel commentator Douglas Murray joins Yeshiva University
(JTA) — Yeshiva University has announced that prominent British conservative author and pro-Israel commentator Douglas Murray will teach a class at the school this spring.
Murray, who is not Jewish, was appointed as the school’s inaugural President’s Professor of Practice, a role the flagship modern Orthodox university in New York City billed as bringing “a leading public intellectual into the academic setting.”
“Douglas Murray will join a generations-long conversation about great works from the Jewish canon and the broader humanistic tradition that is alive and impassioned on our campuses, and we look forward to him sharing his insights and perspectives,” said Rebecca Cypess, Y.U.’s dean of the undergraduate faculty of arts and sciences and vice provost for undergraduate education.
At Y.U., Murray is set to teach an honors poetry course titled “The Values of Verse: Sacred and Secular Perspectives.”
“Great poetry is not an ornament of civilization,” Murray said in a statement distributed by Y.U. “It is one of the ways civilizations think, remember and endure. In an age of noise and distraction, returning to verse is a way of recovering seriousness — about life, love, loss and responsibility. I’m honored to join Yeshiva University in a setting where those questions are taken seriously and explored with intellectual rigor.”
‘Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally,’ Trump antisemitism envoy says in refuting Walz’s ICE comparison
(JTA) — In the lead-up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day, both the State Department’s antisemitism envoy and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for invoking Anne Frank in discussions of federal immigration raids.
The remarks by Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the antisemitism envoy nominated by President Trump, that “Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and abided by Dutch law” added fuel to an ongoing debate over the appropriateness of modern-day comparisons to the Holocaust. Other Jewish leaders have mobilized in force against immigration agents in the state.
“Ignorance like this cheapens the horror of the Holocaust,” Kaploun posted Jan. 26.
He was responding to Walz’s press conference over the weekend, in which the Governor stated, “We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank.”
Kaploun continued with a dig at the state’s large migrant community, the focus of chaotic Immigrations and Customs Enforcement activity that has prompted intense criticism.
“Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and abided by Dutch law. She was hauled off to a death camp because of her race and religion. Her story has nothing to do with the illegal immigration, fraud, and lawlessness plaguing Minnesota today,” the envoy wrote. “Our brave law enforcement should be commended, not tarred with this historically illiterate and antisemitic comparison.”
NY man charged with two hate crimes for alleged assault of rabbi on Holocaust memorial day
(JNS) — Eric Zafra-Grosso, 32, of Queens, N.Y., is being charged with two hate crimes for allegedly punching a rabbi after making antisemitic remarks on Jan. 27 in Forest Hills, Queens, the New York City Police Department told JNS.
According to the NYPD, officers responded at just before 3 p.m. on International Holocaust Remembrance Day to a reported assault at the intersection of Queens Boulevard and 71st Avenue.
A 32-year-old man told officers that “an unknown individual approached him, made antisemitic comments and engaged him in a verbal dispute,” the NYPD told JNS. “The individual then punched the victim to the chest and about the face.”
The victim was treated for minor injuries, and Zafra-Grosso was arrested and charged with two hate crimes — assault and aggravated harassment — and assault causing injury.
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, said he was “horrified by the antisemitic assault on a rabbi in Forest Hills.”
“On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, New Yorkers were confronted with a painful truth: antisemitism is not a thing of the past,” Mamdani wrote. “It is a present danger that demands action from all of us.”
The mayor added that “there is no place for antisemitism in our city” and that he stands “in solidarity with Jewish New Yorkers” and his administration is “committed to rooting out this hatred.”
