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November 23, 2025

‘Tis the Season to Be Jihadi

It’s that time of year again: Christmas trees and Hanukkah menorahs; tinsel and dreidels; plum puddings and potato latkes; Christmas caroling and Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song—and, of course, everyone’s favorite holiday cheer: Muslims proving once again that “Peace on Earth and goodwill toward Men” is a Judeo-Christian tradition that they want no part of.

Over the past few weeks, Islamists in Nigeria destroyed 100 churches and killed and kidnapped nearly 300 Christians, many being children. Combine that with the arson and vandalism of over 1,000 churches in France, 150 in the United Kingdom, 68 in Canada, and 60 in Germany. A year ago, an Islamist mob torched a Christmas tree in Damascus, Syria after firing bullets inside a church. The tree was meant as a gesture of interfaith solidarity.

Germany and France are preparing for the seasonal Muslim ritual of ramming cars and firing weapons into—and planting bombs inside—Christmas markets. This has happened over the past few years in European cities such as Magdeburg (five killed, including a nine-year old), Trier (five dead, including a nine-week-old), Nantes (10 killed), Strasbourg, Dijon, Potsdam and Berlin, where a truck slammed into a Christmas market in 2016. The giddy driver, high not on eggnog but some hadith, could be heard screaming, “Allahu Akbar” upon impact.

‘Tis the season to be jihadi. I’ll take Scrooge and the Grinch any day over Muhammad’s anti-Christmas humbug.

And let’s not forget the New Year’s Eve surprise white women in Germany, Finland, Sweden and Austria received in 2016 when approximately 1,200 were sexually assaulted by Muslim men who believed the Koran gave them permission.

Europeans are fed up, as they should be. Americans are still mostly unmindful of the edicts compelling Muslims to reject interfaith fealty, and to murder and rape Christians and Jews because Allah is the final word on revelation.

Europeans are fed up, as they should be. Americans are still mostly unmindful of the edicts compelling Muslims to reject interfaith fealty, and to murder and rape Christians and Jews because Allah is the final word on revelation.

This past week Germany’s interior minister stripped a man of his citizenship for supporting Hamas. His reasoning: naturalized citizens forfeit their citizenship when they are unable to uphold German values. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims made Germany their home over the past decade. Far too few of them—not unlike Muslims in France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the U.K.—have any interest in abandoning Islam’s implacable hostility to the West, Christianity and Judaism.

Germany reformed its nationality laws in 2024, specifically requiring that applicants for citizenship declare their commitment to liberal democracy and the separation between mosque and state. Given Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust, new citizens must also recognize the nation’s unique duty to protect Jewish life.

Most Muslims around the world, however, believe themselves to be bound to Sharia law alone. And the Koran clearly states that Jews are to be killed, not safeguarded.

To promote the integration that so many Muslims abhor, Austria plans to prohibit girls under the age of 14 from wearing hijabs (headscarves) in schools—both public and private. This would include playgrounds, gymnasiums and sports fields. The government views such Islamic requirements as oppression, not religion.

Back in 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy unsuccessfully attempted to ban the wearing of the burqa, for similar reasons. Democracies are open societies that depend upon a national acceptance of human dignity and public engagement.

How is that possible when faces are shrouded? Religion is beside the point during the holiday season. Its purpose is mainly to foster feelings of interfaith solidarity and social cohesion.

New Yorkers had an interesting week of disrespectful interfaith snubbing. The City College of New York invited the school’s many religions to a “workshop” dialogue. It didn’t take long before it came to an abrupt end. An imam took the stage and proclaimed the superiority of Sharia law.

He then got more specific and anti-social: “I came here to this event not knowing that I would be sitting next to a Zionist and this is something I’m not going to accept. … If you’re a Muslim, … I ask you to exit this room immediately.”

Over 100 Muslim students felt no qualms leaving their fellow classmates, most of whom were not even Jews. Afterward, the college’s Hillel director stated that had the imam directed the students to “attack this Zionist,” they probably would have unflinchingly complied.

A few days later, outside a Manhattan synagogue, an angry mob of 200 antisemites heckled Jews and chanted “Death to the IDF!” and “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada!” The leader of the demonstration proudly told the cheering crowd, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events. We need to make them scared.”

As a longtime law professor, I can assure you that the First Amendment offers no protection to that last statement. Yet the NYPD watched this medieval spectacle play itself out right beside the synagogue’s front door.

And what sin was purportedly taking place inside the synagogue that required such a show of Islamist force and intimidation? A Zionist organization that assists Jews in moving to Israel was making a presentation.

The newly elected Muslim mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who promised during the campaign to protect his Jewish constituents, issued a statement: “New Yorkers should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”

What international law is he talking about? Is it now illegal in New York City for Jews to even contemplate moving to Israel?

Mamdani doesn’t seem to mind that the “sacred spaces” of mosques are used the world over to plot terrorist attacks, awaken sleeper cells and incite violence against Western infidels. Maybe that’s because, unlike Judaism and Christianity, global conquest is integral to Islam. Jesus and Moses, after all, were peacemakers and lawgivers. Muhammad was a warrior general.

Terrorism violates international law, but Mamdani might feel that such a law is worth violating—“by any means necessary.” The world has resigned itself that Islamists are the finest practitioners of the trade, and it just so happens to be Islamophobic to point that out.

New York Christians, beware: The new mayor may soon determine that your scared spaces aren’t being used properly. Bingo games and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings inside your churches might become verboten.

New York Christians, beware: The new mayor may soon determine that your scared spaces aren’t being used properly. Bingo games and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings inside your churches might become verboten.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in New York City, Ethiopian Jews, the Beta Israel community (yes, Jews are neither lily white nor abundant in white privilege), celebrated the holiday of Sigd. It marks the Ethiopian Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the community’s embrace of Judaism. Israel designated Sigd an official holiday in 2008.

Beta Israel traces its ancestry to the Tribe of Dan during the Exodus from Egypt. That’s several thousand years before there ever was an Islam. Talk about Jewish continuity and diversity! And here’s something for both Jew-haters and the “Michelin Guide” to consider: A kosher Ethiopian restaurant, Tsion, is doing a brisk business in Harlem.

Yet another inconvenient truth about Israel. Persecuted Jews of color living in Ethiopia in the 1980s and 1990s sought refuge in Israel. I suppose they, too, are among the “settler-colonialists” those protesting outside the synagogue in New York would have strangled had they been given the chance.


Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.

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Lighting Up Times Square: Brec Bassinger and the Push to Make T1D Visible

Spotlight on Brec Bassinger This World Diabetes Day

For World Diabetes Day, we’re shining a bright, unwavering light on the strength, resilience, and voices of the type 1 diabetes (T1D) community — and few embody that strength more powerfully than Brec Bassinger.

Brec Bassinger on a hike in Zion National Park with her Dexcom (2023)

I had the privilege of working with Brec when she was the star of Bella and the Bulldogs, serving as her on-set teacher. Even then, I watched the extraordinary effort she and her mother put into managing her diabetes while she balanced the intense demands of being a young working actor. The careful planning around food, the constant choices she had to make, the blood sugar checks between scenes, the insulin management that followed her everywhere — she handled it all with remarkable professionalism and resilience.

Lisa Niver and the cast of Bella and the Bulldogs at Nickelodeon

As Brec has often shared, T1D doesn’t pause for school, for filming, or for childhood. In her words: “There are no days off from diabetes. It’s with me every second of every day. But I will never let it stop me from living my life fully – At times, it might just take a little more preparing and a little more bravery.”

Brec Bassinger as STAR GIRL

This year, Brec joins Ryan McCartan and other extraordinary individuals in partnership with Outfront Media to illuminate Times Square and show the world what it truly means to See T1D. And this visibility is happening at a moment when representation is expanding in powerful ways — including the release of the first-ever Barbie with type 1 diabetes, a milestone that has meant so much to so many families.

https://shop.mattel.com/products/barbie-fashionistas-doll-with-type-1-diabetes-polka-dot-outfit-hyt97

It’s important to remember that T1D can strike anyone, at any age, at any time — though it often affects children and young adults. It is not caused by diet or lifestyle. It’s an autoimmune condition that requires constant, often invisible work: carb counting, monitoring, planning, adrenaline management, and responding to highs and lows that can appear without warning.

In the midst of that, community support and reliable resources can make an enormous difference. That’s one of the reasons I value the work of Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) so deeply. They are committed not only to driving research toward cures but also to improving everyday life for those who live with T1D right now.

Breakthrough T1D offers resources for newly diagnosed families, adults navigating T1D at different life stages, and caregivers who shoulder much of the unseen emotional load. They share updates on research progress, provide guidance on technologies like CGMs and pumps, and offer community programs that remind people — especially kids and teens — that they are not alone. Their advocacy work has helped secure critical funding for science that has already led to major breakthroughs in care.

For families trying to understand the early days of diagnosis, for young people wondering how T1D will fit into their lives and dreams, and for adults managing a lifelong autoimmune condition, these resources can be grounding, empowering, and sometimes life-changing.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 13: Shelly Bassinger and Brec Bassinger attend The Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) 2025 Promise Gala at Waldorf Astoria Hotel on November 13, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Breakthrough T1D)

For World Diabetes Day, I’m proud to spotlight Brec’s courage and advocacy, and to honor everyone — children, teens, adults, and families — who navigate T1D with strength, creativity, and determination. Every story deserves to be seen. Every person deserves the tools, visibility, and support to thrive. And organizations like Breakthrough T1D help make that possible.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRDKczlAO-c

MAKE A DONATION:

The past year brought major developments in type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Gifts during National Diabetes Awareness Month will be 5x-matched thanks to the generosity of the Speer Dream Foundation. Your gift provides crucial funding needed to advance treatments, improve the quality of life for those living with T1D, and drive toward cures.All donations to Breakthrough T1D are being matched x5 until December 31, 2025.

“The State of T1D” Takeaways:

  • Most people with T1D are between the ages of 45 and 65.
  • Demographic research shows that most people living with T1D in the U.S. are Non-Hispanic White (68%), followed by African American (16%), Hispanic (13%) and all other races (3%).
  • The prevalence of T1D is increasing across all populations, most significantly among Hispanic youth.
  • Of the approximately 1.5 million Americans living with T1D, almost 200,000 are children under 20.

About Breakthrough T1D, Formerly JDRF

As the leading global type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization, Breakthrough T1D helps make everyday life with type 1 diabetes better while driving toward cures. We do this by investing in the most promising research, advocating for progress by working with government to address issues that impact the T1D community, and helping educate and empower individuals facing this condition.

About Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) T1D is an autoimmune condition that causes the pancreas to make very little insulin or none at all. This leads to dependence on insulin therapy and the risk of short and long-term complications, which can include highs and lows in blood sugar; damage to the kidneys, eyes, nerves, and heart; and even death. Globally, it impacts over 9 million people. Many believe T1D is only diagnosed in childhood and adolescence, but diagnosis in adulthood is common and accounts for nearly 50% of all T1D diagnoses. The onset of T1D has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. While its causes are not yet entirely understood, scientists believe that both genetic factors and environmental triggers are involved. There is currently no cure for T1D.

Brec making her dreams come true:

 

Brec Bassinger in Tanzania with G Adventures

Do You Want Your Candy Dreams To Come True?

Becoming a cartoon! When Brec Bassinger from Bella and The Bulldogs on Nickelodeon met Michelle Khare from Buzzfeed.

Michelle Khare, Brec Bassinger and Lisa Niver at BuzzFeed!

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