Support JooTube's disseminating independent video journalism - improve your condition for the new Hebrew year

During this solemn Week of Judgment between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the words of Unetaneh Tokef (prayer about life and death in the coming year, such as "who shall live and who shall die, who by water and who by fire") call upon us to consider these three actions that can lessen the severity of the decree of our fate for us in this New Year:

1. Teshuvah - repentance and return
   
   
2. Tefillah - prayer
   
   
3. Tzedakah - charity and righteous giving
   

Tzedakah is more than conventional charity. It is an act of righteousness - accepting responsibility for strengthening the people, institutions and endeavors that serve our community.

At a time when Israel, antisemitism and Jewish communal affairs are too often reported without sufficient context - or overlooked entirely - JewTube.Info works to provide an independent, Jewish video-news voice. Much of what we disseminate these days is directly on social-media, via our YouTube, Twitter/X.com, and Facebook channels. But we do aim to publish original web articles monthly on both JewTube.Info and DemocracyBroadcasting.com / DemoCast.TV.

Our stories illustrate the breadth of our mission: documenting Jewish communal life, preserving firsthand testimony, questioning public officials and institutions, examining threats to Israel and Jewish safety, and celebrating Jewish faith, culture and resilience. 

Our initiative produces and publishes original video journalism, including:

• Interviews with political, religious and community leaders
  
• Coverage of conferences, rallies, public forums and Jewish communal events
  
• Reports concerning Israel, antisemitism and the challenges facing Jewish communities
  
• Speeches and firsthand accounts that viewers might otherwise never see
  
• Video stories produced for audiences seeking substance beyond brief headlines and conventional news narratives

During the past 12 months, our original reporting has included:

• Are Public Chanukah Menorah Lightings Days After the Bondi Massacre Prudent?, examining the balance between security, Jewish visibility and the determination to answer darkness with greater light.
  
  

• Israel Achieves 78 Years of Liberty, reporting from a Los Angeles Independence Day celebration and asking how more than 30 months of war have affected diaspora Jews.
  
  
• Israel’s Lifeline When Missiles Strike - Magen David Adom Explained, featuring our interview with MDA Chief of Staff Uri Shacham about Israel’s emergency medical and blood-services network.
  
  
• Israel as America’s Will-to-Act, presenting security analyst Ken Abramowitz’s assessment of Israel, Hamas, Iran and the resolve required to confront Islamist threats.
  
  
• Jewish and Israeli Gaming-Industry Conventioneers Gather for an October 7 Survivor’s Perspective, preserving photographer, Inor Kagno’s firsthand testimony about surviving the Nova Music Festival massacre and confronting the information war that followed.
  
  
• An Historic, Rabbinic Transition at American Jewish University - New Horizons for the Ziegler School, examining the succession of Rabbi Bradley Artson by Rabbi Cheryl Peretz and the future of rabbinic education.
  
  
• Loay Alnaji, Who Killed Paul Kessler, Will Likely Serve Just Six Months, continuing our coverage of the killing of a Jewish Californian who stood publicly in support of Israel.
  
  

We distribute this work through our own website, JewTube.Info, as well as through YouTube, X at @JooTube, and our Facebook pages, JooTube and Israel, Jewish Community Middle East Crisis. Publishing across these platforms allows our reporting to reach viewers wherever they receive their news, while preserving JewTube.Info as an independent home for our original work.

During these Days of Awe, we ask you to consider including JewTube.Info in your act of tzedakah. Your contribution will help us continue covering important stories, preserve consequential testimony and bring Jewish and pro-Israel voices before a larger audience.

Your donating can repay part of the cost of producing this informative multimedia for you now and in the future.

Get the mitzvah by please donating here or utilize the Donate window at the top of the right margin column on JooTube.TV. 

Your support is not merely a contribution to a website. It helps sustain independent Jewish journalism and ensures that important events, arguments and voices are recorded rather than forgotten.

May our teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah help bring a year of life, peace, security and blessing for us, for the Jewish people and for Israel.

Thank you for watching, subscribing and supporting this work.

May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year!

Between Yom Kippur and the U.N.: A Season of Vigilance- 53yrs after 1973, 25yrs after 9/11/2001

Kenneth Abramowitz's case for resolve on Iran, set against this year's diplomacy — and a holiday season that asks Israel to remember 1973 as much as to atone.

The National 9/11 Memorial on the 25th commemoration of the attacks.

This year, the sun sets on the 25th anniversary of al-Qaeda's attack on America. It rises on Rosh Hashanah 5787 — the Jewish new year beginning at the exact moment the country pauses to remember its deadliest day.

The calendar carries other anniversaries too. It's been eleven years since the Obama administration and a Democratic Senate minority pushed through the JCPOA, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, over the objections of every Senate Republican. Three years after that, Israeli intelligence produced an archive of roughly 100,000 Iranian nuclear documents, seized in a 2018 raid. The IAEA and Western intelligence agencies reviewed the material. President Trump cited it that same year when withdrawing the U.S. from the deal. Those are questions raised in 2001 — who is the enemy, how far does the war against it extend — that media and civic leaders have downplayed ever since. This year they returned in a very literal form: an actual war between Israel, the U.S., and Iran that began in late February.

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz

That tension ran through a recent interview with Kenneth Abramowitz, founder and president of SaveTheWest.com and a leader with the Florida-based Citizens for National Security, recorded at the Republican Jewish Coalition's Leadership Summit in Las Vegas — hours before the same coalition gave Vice President JD Vance a standing ovation.

Full interview above. Click any "watch this moment" link below to jump the player to that point.

In His Own Words

Mr. Abramowitz, who spent time in Israel this year, opened with a blunt diagnosis of what he believes the White House misunderstands about the region.

▶ 0:09 — watch this moment

Israel's population, he said, has learned that it is "surrounded by death cults."

▶ 0:16 — watch this moment

"No more Mr. Nice Guy," he said, arguing the same posture should apply to American bases and to the U.S. itself.

He extended the label well beyond foreign militant groups.

▶ 1:19–2:20 — watch this moment

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Democratic Socialists of America, he said, both qualify as "death cults" in his framework — grouped together, in his telling, by a shared hostility to the Constitution, the rule of law, and policing.

The late Mickey Bienenfeld (heard in "The Ten Commandments") sounded the shofar

On Iran, Mr. Abramowitz framed the confrontation as three overlapping wars — a recent six-month conflict, a 47-year state of hostility dating to 1979, and what he called a 1,400-year war with a strain of Islam. Asked whether America's involvement against Iran amounted to anything short of an "America First" action — the critique he said JD Vance tends to gesture toward — he didn't back away from it.

▶ 4:06–4:31 — watch this moment

He argued the U.S. has both a right and a constitutional obligation to act against foreign and domestic threats alike.

▶ 5:04–5:30 — watch this moment

He cast advocates of a more restrained "America First" posture as unwitting heirs to Charles Lindbergh's isolationist movement before Pearl Harbor.

Asked whether higher gas prices were worth pressuring Iran, he didn't hedge.

▶ 5:30–6:06 — watch this moment

"I'd rather have gas at $4.50 and be living than having it at $3 and be dead," he said, arguing a nuclear-armed Iran was the true cost of cheaper fuel.

The Diplomacy Around It

This context sits outside the interview itself — a separate thread in this year's actual diplomacy, worth setting alongside it. What Mr. Abramowitz described as America's posture toward Iran — "no more Mr. Nice Guy" — matched the early part of this year but not the rest of it. Israel and the United States went to war with Iran in February; the war ended in ceasefires brokered largely by Qatar and Pakistan, not Washington or Jerusalem. Gaza has followed a similar shape: Hamas's disarmament is being run through a Board of Peace that President Trump created and chairs, with Netanyahu's government sitting outside much of that process rather than directing it.

Quadrilateral Iran talks 

A different kind of year

Vice Pres. JD Vance at RJC via JTA

None of that record dampened the reception the Pres. and the V.P. got in Las Vegas. The V.P. received a standing ovation taking the stage and another leaving it, and RJC board members said afterward they'd back him in 2028.

A new year opens on an old question

This week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is traditionally a time of accounting — a moment, in Jewish tradition, to ask honestly what changed and what didn't. Mr. Abramowitz closed his own interview with a version of that same question, cast across a much longer arc than one election cycle or one administration.

▶ 8:07–8:22 — watch this moment

He invoked the biblical command to fight Amalek "every generation," arguing that communists, Islamists, and globalists are this generation's incarnation of that same enemy, returning, in his telling, precisely because each generation forgets the one before it.

Yom Kippur carries its own memory of forgetting. It was on this holiday in 1973 that Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israel, catching the country at its most unguarded moment of the year — a reminder, still marked each fall, that vigilance and devotion are meant to sit together, not in tension. 

This year the holiday falls as Prime Minister Netanyahu prepares to travel to New York, expected to address the UN General Assembly within days. Whatever he says there, the coincidence of the calendar is its own kind of question: whether the discipline Yom Kippur asks for — an honest accounting of what's changed and what hasn't — extends as readily to guarding against complacency - as it does to observance itself.

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Watch the full interview above, or at youtu.be/puF7R18vu9o. Timestamp links jump directly to the moment quoted.

At 25th Anniv. of 9/11 Attacks, UCLA Law School defends the professed killer of Prof. Judea Pearl's journalist son, Daniel Pearl, & 3,000 people in NY, DC, & PA on Sept. 11th, 2001

UCLA School of Law marked the 25th anniversary of September 11 with a two-day symposium, “25 Years After 9/11: Reimagining Freedom, Justice, and Security,” on September 10–11. The sponsors were five law-school centers: Critical Race Studies, International & Comparative Law, the Institute for Technology, Law & Policy, the Promise Institute for Human Rights, and the Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law & Policy. 

Melanie T. Partow, a defense attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was listed on the Friday morning panel “Torture, Rendition, and Detention: The Erosion of the Rights Regime post 9/11.” She did not respond to the Los Angeles Times.¹

Melanie T. Partow, defense attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who later claimed to have beheaded Daniel Pearl.

Mr. Mohammed is the accused architect of the September 11 attacks. In a 2007 Pentagon transcript, he said he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.²

Daniel Pearl in captivity in Pakistan, 2002.

Daniel Pearl’s father, Professor Judea Pearl, has been at UCLA for 56 years.³ He founded and hosts an annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture on that campus. Next month that lecture is scheduled to feature Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.¹

Prof. Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl and a pioneer in artificial intelligence, has been at UCLA 56 years.

Pearl told the New York Post he was ashamed of his university. He accused the law school of “weaponizing the painful days of 9/11 and 10/7 to promote hateful ideologies.”⁴ He later told the Los Angeles Times: “To my esteemed colleagues at these five centers: Please find different dates to engage us with your political sophistry.”¹ He also said a September 11 event “should be used to commemorate the victims of that attack: Innocent Americans.”⁵

The program gave the dead fifteen minutes on Friday morning. Lunch got an hour.⁶ The panels addressed torture, detention, surveillance, immigration enforcement, “White Christian nationalism,” and “the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” Other speakers included Hussam Ayloush of CAIR-California, who after October 7 said “Israel should be attacked”; Yale’s Aslı Ü. Bâli, who called counterterrorism a “racist gravy train”; and Amna Akbar, who called the alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a “spectacular act of protest.”⁷ No panel listed 9/11 families, first responders, or prosecutors.

A UCLA Law spokesman had said the school has a “longstanding commitment to academic freedom,” that program events do not speak for the school, and that it “does not withdraw invitations because a speaker or viewpoint is sensitive or controversial.”⁸

On Friday, September 11, Chancellor Julio Frenk issued a campus statement. He said Judea Pearl is “a deeply valued member of the UCLA community,” called Daniel Pearl’s murder “an act of unspeakable evil,” and said: “Nothing about this event at the UCLA School of Law, which we do not endorse, changes or qualifies those commitments.” He added: “Academic freedom does not require us to be neutral about antisemitism or terrorism.” He said he understood why Pearl and others were “deeply hurt.”⁹ He did not cancel the symposium. He did not remove Partow from the program.

Organizers answered Frenk. Law professors Ahilan Arulanantham and LaToya Baldwin Clark said they were “enormously proud of the symposium we organized, and UCLA should be too.” They said critics who did not attend missed memorials, including Arulanantham’s account of being in Manhattan on September 11 and Jasleen Kohli’s account that her mother nearly boarded a hijacked flight.

Law professor Aaron Littman said he was “profoundly disappointed in our chancellor, as a member of the UCLA law faculty and a Jew,” and that treating the invitation of a defense lawyer as an endorsement of the client’s deeds “is a threat to democracy.”

Law professor Seana Shiffrin called the program “academically serious” and said a torture-and-rendition panel is stronger with counsel who has handled those cases. She did not attend Partow’s panel.¹

A defense lawyer may speak on campus any week of the year. Guantánamo counsel is a lawful job. September 11 is not an ordinary programming date. UCLA put Mohammed’s lawyer on that date, at Pearl’s university, while Pearl’s own lecture in his son’s name remains on the calendar. Frenk said the university does not endorse the event. The five centers held it anyway. Pearl asked them to pick different dates. They did not.

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Notes

¹ Jaweed Kaleem, “UCLA chancellor rebukes law school event featuring attorney of alleged 9/11 ‘mastermind,’” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2026. Link

² Pentagon transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, released 2007, quoted in Ross O’Keefe, New York Post, September 10, 2026, and in Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2026.

³ “At 90, UCLA’s Judea Pearl is still asking the big questions,” UCLA Newsroom, September 11, 2026. Link

⁴ Ross O’Keefe, “UCLA professor blasts university for hosting lawyer tied to son’s murderer,” New York Post, September 10, 2026. Link

⁵ Ross O’Keefe, “UCLA chancellor condemns controversial 9/11 campus event,” New York Post, September 11, 2026. Link

⁶ UCLA School of Law, “25 Years After 9/11 Symposium” program, September 10–11, 2026. Link

⁷ Aaron Sibarium, “‘Israel Should Be Attacked’: UCLA To Host 9/11 Symposium Featuring Terror Apologists,” Washington Free Beacon, September 8, 2026. Link

⁸ UCLA Law spokesman, quoted in Sibarium, Washington Free Beacon, September 8, 2026.

⁹ Chancellor Julio Frenk, “Comment regarding media coverage on Sept. 10,” UCLA Newsroom, September 11, 2026. Link

An Historic, Rabbinic Transition at American Jewish University - New Horizons for the Ziegler School

The landscape of Jewish leadership in North America is entering a significant new chapter. At American Jewish University (AJU) in Los Angeles, the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is undergoing a historic leadership transition. After 25 remarkable years of guiding the institution, Rabbi Bradley Artson is transitioning into a new role. Succeeding him is his long-time partner and student, Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, who takes the helm as the new Dean this summer.

This transition represents not just a change in leadership, but a continuation of a shared vision. Together, Rabbi Artson and Rabbi Peretz have cultivated a generations-spanning legacy of openhearted, intellectually rigorous, and deeply loving Judaism.

Watch the official announcement: AJU President Jay Sanderson on the Ziegler Dean Transition (0:00 - 1:15)

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1. "The Jewish Heart and Soul": Rabbi Brad Artson’s Relational Legacy

For a quarter of a century, Rabbi Bradley Artson served as the dean of the Ziegler School. Throughout his tenure, he did not merely lead from an office; he transformed how rabbinic training is experienced. Described as "one of the great Jewish thinkers of our generation," Rabbi Artson's leadership was characterized by profound intimacy and vulnerability. When giving sermons, he would famously walk off the Bimah to stand eye-to-eye with his congregants, demonstrating a Torah that is direct and accessible.

Colleagues and students note that he "loved people" and was a "relentlessly positive and deeply empathic" mentor. His inclusivity expanded the school's reach, allowing for innovative curriculum changes and a broader, more welcoming admissions process.

Now, Rabbi Artson is moving into a new position where he will serve as the "Jewish brain, the Jewish soul, and the Jewish heart" of the entire American Jewish University, helping to put AJU's story out to the wider Jewish world. He will also hold the title of Goldstein Distinguished Scholar and work with AJU’s 2050 Institute to focus on the future of Jewish life.

See the community's tribute: A Legacy of Intimacy and Vision (0:30 - 1:30)

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2. "Shalom, hakol Shalom": Leading with Resilient Love in a Fractured World

At his transition dinner, Rabbi Artson delivered a powerful and deeply moving address, grounding the school’s future in Jewish history and hope. He recalled a scene from the Mishna where young priests (kohanim) in the ancient Temple, eager to cleanse the altar and start anew, slept in side rooms next to the altars so they could begin their work before sunrise. When they met, they greeted each other with a distinct formula: Shalom hakol, shalom—"peace, everything is peace".

Rabbi Artson noted that these young priests were not naive. They spoke of peace in a world that was actively falling apart around them—quaking under the weight of Rome's military violence, pomp, and power. For Artson, shalom hakol, shalom is a stubborn challenge:

"Our love will be more resilient than their hate. The grandeur of our vision will rise above their brittle pettiness... shalom will be because of us, not because we accept the way things have always been or even the way things are, but because we are stubborn enough to be heirs to the promise."

He reminded the audience that Judaism is rooted in a cosmos created by "superfluous love"—an energy that has always marched toward freedom. This unyielding love and vision is what first attracted him to AJU, and what he challenges the next generation of leaders to carry forward.

Watch Rabbi Artson's full, moving speech: The Stubborn Insistence on Peace (0:10 - 2:30)

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3. A 27-Year Symbiosis: Rabbi Cheryl Peretz Takes the Helm

The transition of the deanship to Rabbi Cheryl Peretz is the culmination of a deeply collaborative, 40-year relationship. Their paths first crossed when Rabbi Artson was the Resident Advisor (RA) in Rabbi Peretz's undergraduate dorm. Years later, when Artson became Dean, Peretz joined the staff. Though she originally intended to stay for just one year, she found the partnership so fulfilling that she remained for 27 years, working symbiotically alongside him.

Rabbi Peretz describes their partnership as one of mutual support and intellectual growth. While she playfully humbles herself next to his intellectual stature, she highlights how their strengths complement one another: his grand philosophical focus paired with her fine-tuned attention to detail.

Having graduated from the Ziegler School herself, Rabbi Peretz steps into the role with an intimate knowledge of its culture, a deep respect for the tradition, and a strong personal commitment to its students.

Listen to Rabbi Peretz reflect on their symbiosis: A Partnership Built Over Decades (0:00 - 1:50)

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4. Fostering Constructive Conflict: Navigation in a Polarized Era

As the Ziegler School looks toward the future, it faces a Jewish world increasingly marked by polarization. Drawing on a philosophy she learned from her mentor, Rabbi Artson, Rabbi Peretz views crises not as dead ends, but as opportunities to lean into constructive, rather than destructive, conflict.

Under her leadership, the school remains firmly committed to Zionist ideals as a core ideology, while actively resisting the creation of intellectual echo chambers. When students and faculty diverge on complex political issues regarding Israel, Rabbi Peretz advocates for curiosity, deep education, and dialogue:

"If we just shove people out who disagree or who are outside the bounds, then we're just creating echo chambers... the goal needs to be to show curiosity to and ask questions and to try to understand, but also to help everyone on all sides be able to ask the question of how can I entertain the possibility that what I think may not be the only way to think."

To put this into practice, they co-created an Israel summer intensive program, designed to expose students to a diverse variety of voices, arts, culture, and politics, helping them become well-rounded, thoughtful advocates.

Additionally, Rabbi Peretz embraces the evolution of Conservative Judaism to meet modern needs—such as the post-pandemic adoption of Shabbat technology to reach congregants who cannot physically attend synagogue—while insisting that the core tenants of "intellectual rigor, passion for Jewish living, and love for God and people" must never be diluted.

Watch her address institutional polarization: Resisting the Echo Chamber (2:50 - 5:20)

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5. Cultivating the "Complete Rabbi": Ziegler’s Practical Curriculum

The modern rabbinate demands more than theological scholarship; it requires practical, emotional, and leadership skills. Rabbi Peretz emphasizes that the Ziegler curriculum is meticulously designed around two core areas:

1. Classical Jewish Thought: Deep study of rabbinic, medieval, and modern texts.
2. Practical Rabbinics: Comprehensive training in pastoral counseling, psychology, professional development, and public speaking.

Students ground this academic knowledge in real-world residencies, working directly under the tutelage of experienced rabbis to build these essential clinical skills. Recognizing that not every graduate is destined for the pulpit, the school actively exposes students to diverse paths—including academic scholarship, education, and community leadership—to help them identify where they can be most successful and fulfilled.

Understand the modern rabbinic curriculum: Training the Heart, Mind, and Pastoral Presence (5:20 - 8:00)

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Looking to the Future

Supported by the lay leadership and AJU President Jay Sanderson, this transition positions American Jewish University to remain a leading force in developing the next generation of rabbis, educators, and professionals. By keeping a singular focus on the future and cultivating creative pathways for individuals to explore Jewish life, the Ziegler School is prepared to guide North American Jewish communities for decades to come.

Loay Alnaji, Who Killed Paul Kessler, Will Likely Serve Just 6 Months for Killing Jewish-Californian – Time for Answers on Alnaji's Citizenship Path

Loay Alnaji (r) waits inside a courtroom in Ventura County Superior Court after Judge Derek Malan sentenced him to one year in jail and two years of probation on June 30, 2026. Alnaji pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Paul Kessler, a Jewish man defending Israel at a protest in Thousand Oaks in November 2023.  JUAN CARLO -The V.C. STAR

Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji, a Jordanian-Muslim, naturalized U.S. citizen (born in 1973), smashed Los Angeleno, Paul Kessler in the head with a megaphone during an anti-Israel demonstration on November 5, 2023. Kessler, 69, fell, suffered blunt force trauma, and died 9–10 hours later. On June 30, 2026, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Derek Malan sentenced Alnaji to one year in county jail and two years of felony probation for the killing — a lenient outcome that has sparked outrage from prosecutors and Kessler’s family.

The sentence followed Alnaji’s guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter and battery with enhancements. Prosecutors and the Kessler family had pushed for prison time, arguing it failed to reflect the severity of the crime or deter future violence at protests. Yet the judge followed the plea deal framework he had indicated earlier.

As a naturalized citizen who holds both U.S. and Jordanian passports, Alnaji benefited from America’s generous immigration system. Public records do not disclose exactly when or how he naturalized — details typically buried in USCIS files. Was everything above board? Did he fully disclose his background, affiliations, or views during the process?

Given the circumstances of this case, concerned Americans have every right to ask:

• When did Alnaji become a U.S. citizen?
• What did his naturalization application and interview reveal?
• Were there any red flags that should have been scrutinized more closely?
  
  

Calls for Review: 
The Kessler family, pro-Israel advocates, and citizens committed to the rule of law should consider:

• Filing detailed tips with USCIS regarding potential issues in the naturalization process.
• Encouraging congressional oversight into how such cases are handled.
• Supporting broader efforts to ensure naturalization is granted — and retained — only for those who truly embrace American values.

Paul Kessler 

Paul Kessler stood up for Israel and Jewish safety just weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His death should not be minimized by a light sentence or forgotten in debates about citizenship accountability.America must ensure its immigration system does not reward those who bring violence to our streets. The Alnaji case is a stark reminder why rigorous vetting — and mechanisms like denaturalization for fraud or serious crimes — matter.
What You Can Do

• Contact your elected representatives and urge review of naturalization integrity.
• Support victims’ rights organizations and groups tracking antisemitic incidents.
• Share verified facts about the case to counter narratives that downplay the killing.

Does Paul Kessler's killer, Loay Alnaji's short sentence fit the crime? L.A attorney James Blatt opines how he believes it falls short.

JewTube.Info will continue following this story and related issues of justice, immigration, and security. Stay tuned for updates.