August 25, 2019

(JTA) — A former medical resident at the Cleveland Clinic who lost her position after scores of anti-Semitic social media that she wrote were exposed, has requested a hearing before the State Medical Board of Ohio.

She was informed last month that following an investigation, including a deposition in which she admitted to authoring the tweets, the medical board would discipline her, in punishments that could range from fines, permanent suspension or limiting her license, the Cleveland Jewish News reported. She is entitled to request a hearing to defend herself.

Kollab, who attended medical school at a college associated with the Jewish community, apologized in January when the anti-Semitic posts she wrote from 2011 to 2017 came to light.

She said she visited Israel and the Palestinian territories every year as an adolescent and “became incensed at the suffering of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.” The posts came because she had “difficulty constructively expressing my intense feelings about what I witnessed in my ancestral land.”

They resurfaced after being publicized by the controversial website Canary Mission, that hosts dossiers on pro-Palestinian student activists, professors and organizations, focusing primarily on North American universities. Among the posts that got the most attention was a tweet from 2012, when she was a medical student, which said: “hahha ewww.. ill purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds….”

Kollab worked at the Cleveland Clinic as a first-year resident from July 2018 to September 2018, and was then fired over the post that threatened to harm her Jewish patients with the wrong medicine. She was fired in March 2019 from a second residency at Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, California, for failure to disclose the posts.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel, the fourth such attack in the last two weeks.

Two of the rockets fired on Sunday night were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

A third rocket landed next to a highway in southern Israel sparking a small fire, according to reports.

No injuries or damage were reported.

Thousands of residents of Sderot and surrounding smaller communities ran for bomb shelters. A large annual concert that was on stage in Sderot at the time of the attack was cut short.

(JTA) — A former camper at an upstate New York Boy Scout camp is accusing former Rep. Gary Ackerman of being a sexual predator.

The lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court accuses Ackerman, who served for 15 terms as a New York City congressman until his retirement in 2012, of trying to touch and fondle the a 17-year-old teen in 1966 before forcing oral sex, when Ackerman was director of the camp in upstate New York, the New York Post reported over the weekend.

The alleged victim is now 70. Ackerman is 76.

The lawsuit calls Ackerman a “known predator.” The Boy Scouts told the newspaper they had no record of abuse allegations against Ackerman.

The lawsuit was filed under New York’s recently enacted Child Victim’s Act, which allows victims in the state one year to file civil lawsuits, regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred. It went into effect on Aug. 14, and more than 500 lawsuits already have been filed, including one filed by 38 men claiming they were sexually abused at Yeshiva University High School for Boys in a period from the mid-1950s through 1986.

Ackerman says the incident never happened, his attorney told the Post.

The alleged victim’s attorney said his client filed the lawsuit “because he feels he was wronged, and taken advantage of, and he wants to have his opportunity to have his day in court.”

He said his client had PTSD symptoms every time he saw the former congressman on television or heard his name mentioned.

Ackerman, a champion of Israel in the House of Representatives, served on the House Financial Services and Foreign Affairs committees, where he was the ranking member on the committee’s Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee.

(JTA) — Hundreds of children in a Hasidic community near Montreal were vaccinated against measles after five confirmed cases cropped up in recent weeks.

Some 350 children in the Tosh Hasidic community were vaccinated over four days in two temporary clinics set up by the public health authority, the Canadian Jewish News reported

The free immunizations were voluntary, and offered to those whose medical records said that their immunizations were not up to date, according to the report.

Prior to the opening of the temporary clinics, some 90 percent to 95 percent of the children of the Tosh community already were vaccinated, Isaac Weiss, responsible for security and public safety in the Tosh community, told the CJN.

Unvaccinated children will not be permitted to enter the community’s schools in the fall, Weiss said.

It is not known who brought the measles to the community, though it is believed to have been brought from someone who visited New York. It is the first cases of measles in the region since 2011.

(JTA) — A U.S. Army commander of a recruiting company in Houston was suspended after he distributed a memo in which he used the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frie.”

The phrase, which means “Work Will Set You Free,” was displayed on the gate of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

The commander, whose name and unit have not been released, used the phrase to headline a section of the memo that explains incentives, including time off, available to recruiters depending on the number of contracts that they are able to complete, the U.S. military newspaper the Stars and Stripes reported Friday.

The memo first came to light in a tweet from “Truth of Army Recruiting.” The post includes a photo of the infamous Auschwitz entrance gate, though the memo, which was distributed electronically, reportedly did not include such a photo.

The commander’s use of the term is under investigation, Stars and Stripes reported, citing Kelli Bland, spokeswoman for Army Recruiting Command, based at Fort Knox, Ky.

The commander was suspended until the end of the investigation and has apologized to his unit.

“Army recruiting leaders will take appropriate action once the investigation is complete and all facts are known,” Bland told the newspaper. “When an individual enters into the military, they are held to high moral and ethical standards — soldiers who choose not to live up to our values will be held accountable for their actions.”

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s military said it thwarted a planned attack by Iran-backed fighters using drones armed with explosives.

Israeli fighter jets late on Saturday night attacked Iranian targets in Syria, the IDF said in a statement. They struck several targets of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and Shiite militias in the village of Aqraba south of the Syrian capital of Damascus, thwarting an attack against northern Israel.

It was a rare public admission of airstrikes in Syria. The Israeli government and military have been more direct in recent months about acknowledging airstrikes on Syria, usually targeting bases linked with Iran.

The equipment and four drone commanders arrived in Damascus in recent weeks, according to the IDF, which said it has been monitoring the plot.

IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus in a statement called the use of “kamikaze drones” a “new and different tactic.”

Iranian forces launched rockets and missiles at Israel from Syria three times during 2018, in more conventional attacks.

The Israeli attack on Saturday night targeted “a number of terror targets and military facilities belonging to the Quds force as well as Shiite militias,” Conricus said. It took place after the IDF determined the Quds force attack was “imminent.” Israeli forces on the Syrian border remain on high alert.

“Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every sector against the Iranian aggression. ‘If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first.’ I have directed that our forces be prepared for any scenario. We will continue to take determined and responsible action against Iran and its proxies for the security of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also serves as defense minister, said in a statement.

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on the exterior walls of a synagogue in Connecticut.

The graffiti on the Congregation Adath Israel synagogue building in Newtown was discovered at 7:30 Saturday morning.

The graffiti was removed and painted over prior to the start of scheduled Shabbat services with the assistance of the town’s Public Works Department, the Newtown Police Department said.

Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. They have increased patrols in the area as a result of the attack, the local NBC affiliate reported.

Newtown First Selectman Dan Rosenthal called the graffiti a “hateful desecration.”

“Newtown has always been a place where people of all religions are welcome and have worked together hand in hand to build a better community and the hateful actions of an individual or individuals will not change that. I look forward to personally asking the courts to offer no leniency when the vile individual is apprehended,” he said.

“In the wake of violent acts of white supremacist terrorism this year targeting the Jewish, Latino, African-American, Muslim and LGBTQ communities, we must take this vandalism seriously and make sure our communities are safe in the face of hate,” said Anti-Defamation League Connecticut Regional Director Steve Ginsburg.

“Our congregation would like to extend our gratitude for the tremendous outreach we have experienced over the course of today in response to the intolerable acts of defamation upon our synagogue. We vigorously oppose any acts of hate or disrespect and will continue to stand united against acts of anti-Semitism or any other forms of hateful acts against any institution, religion, race or gender,” the synagogue said in a statement.

(JTA) — The roof of the Milwaukee Jewish Day school collapsed, sending steel beams and debris crashing down into a classroom, a week before the start of school.

Two staff members were in the classroom on Friday preparing for the start of school, but left when they heard creaking noises, according to local reports.

Moments after the staff members left the room to call security and building maintenance about the noises the roof came crashing down.

“The entire ceiling just came down. So much so that even some people in the basement could hear and feel the shake of the boom,” Dan Tyk of the North Shore Fire Department told local news station Fox6. “Anybody who had been under that would have suffered severe injury or potentially been killed.”

It is not known what caused the roof to give way and collapse.

The Milwaukee Jewish Federation said, in part, in a statement: “The safety of the children, their families, and the staff who use this building are, as always, our priority. Currently school is not in session, and no one was in the classroom at the time. The Fire Marshall and Building Inspector from the Village of Fox Point have inspected the building. The affected area will remain unoccupied until a structural engineer has evaluated it.”

Earlier in the week, two Milwaukee-area synagogues called police to investigate suspicious packages. They were found to be harmless, but one of the synagogues also received a threatening phone call.