✡︎ Lauren

“That’s a violent hat.” “I’m not kicking you out because of [your hat]. Are you a Zionist? Are you a Zionist? Leave, get out.” This is merely hipster for “Juden raus.” When Jewishness itself provokes discrimination, it’s nothing to do with Israel.

I am deeply saddened by the passing of Eliot Engel, whose career of public service was as legendary as it was longstanding. He was not merely a Member of Congress; he was a hero to many. The lives of hundreds of thousands were saved by his unwavering advocacy. He played a pivotal role in protecting Kosovo Albanians from ethnic cleansing and genocide at the hands of the murderous regime of Slobodan Milošević. For decades, he was an institution in the Bronx, a steadfast champion of the U.S.–Israel relationship, and a ferocious fighter the independence of the world’s youngest democracy: Kosovo. The legacy he leaves behind will endure for generations to come.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a theological earthquake because it showed that the Hebrew Bible was already fixed and faithfully transmitted centuries before the time of Jesus. This overturned earlier scholarly theories that the Jewish scriptures had been extensively rewritten in late antiquity or the Middle Ages. There are people who believe that the Torah was changed and corrupted over time. The Dead Sea Scrolls proved them wrong.

Since 2021, I have delivered over $62 million in community-funded projects for the Bronx. Included in the $62 million is a total of $18.6 million for FY2026 and $15 million in the latest appropriations bill.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day requires more than mere remembrance. It is a universal call to action against antisemitism—one that knows no national boundaries and one that has taken on the fierce urgency of now in a post-October 7 world. “Never again” is not a slogan. It is a sacred social contract. And the equally sacred responsibility for upholding it does not belong to Jews alone. It belongs to all of us, in all places, at all times.

Last week, I was in the UK with my work colleague, who wanted to take me to a karaoke place, since I had never been to one in my entire life. This was the first night of what was about to be a packed, long trip to London, where we were to be part of a host of events, speaking engagements, direct engagements, and interactive programs, all focused on Gaza, the ceasefire, and the pathway forward. We wound up at a British karaoke pub that happened to be in our pathway back to the hotel after having flown in that morning (very early) from the United States. Inside, we came across a large Israeli group, sitting there minding their own business, friendly enough to me and others, and I went in, said hello, and sat down to see what karaoke was about. A few minutes in, an Israeli song came on that caught the group's attention, but the DJ immediately turned it off. This happened several times: the same song came on for a few seconds, then the DJ immediately turned it off, causing confusion and disappointment among the Israelis, particularly. Out of curiosity, I went up to the DJ and actually asked him what the issue was, to which he made it clear that he cut off the music because they are Israelis. I said to him, “Well, those folks aren’t bothering anyone. I am from Gaza, and I even had a friendly exchange with them, and so it would be nice if you would play that silly song and get on with the night.” The DJ then suggested to me that he would be willing to play the song (Tel Aviv Ya Habibi) if one of the Israelis in the group came on stage and loudly chanted, “Free Palestine!” I was truly surprised, grossed out, and turned off by this exercise in short-sighted “activism” where it is least appropriate, making it clear to him that such actions and behavior push away prospective allies of the Palestinian people, rather than entice and invite them. This was my first evening in London, as I was quickly registering and realizing the extent to which polarization, divisive rhetoric, discriminatory action, and yes, antisemitic behavior, have unfortunately, and tragically, become the norm across different facets of UK society – ostensibly in the name of ‘helping Palestinians.’ Acts such as this, no matter how petty they might appear, should not be tolerated, for their totality is what makes an intolerant and deeply divided people and society.

@HenMazzig Moments like this make me militantly #LandBack 🇵🇱✡️

“Go back to Israel. Not here. This is my country.” On Holocaust Remembrance Day, an airport employee harassed a visibly Jewish man at a Polish airport. Never mind that 6 million Jews were murdered, or that, 81 years later, the lesson still hasn’t been learned. Can we acknowledge the irony of an antisemite telling a Jewish man to leave Poland?

Hide them in cemeteries, and cry foul when the cemeteries are destroyed! After taking multiple bodies of deceased Israelis into Gaza following its horrendous October 7th attack, Hamas made the atrocious and despicable decision to hide dozens of them in Palestinian cemeteries in the coastal enclave, particularly in the north. This was immediately picked up by Israeli intelligence and turned what should be the spiritual resting place of the dead into another battlefield of the horrific war that ensued. The IDF, either deliberately, recklessly, due to bad intelligence, or operating with little to no information, went into multiple cemeteries and destroyed them while searching for bodies and remains of deceased Israeli hostages. This included the Al-Falluja Cemetery in Jabalya, northern Gaza, where my dad, Dr. Fouad Alkhatib, was buried – his grave is among those that were desecrated and destroyed by the IDF, ostensibly while searching for the remains of Israeli hostages. Still, there’s immense irony, symbolism, and meaning to having the body of the last Israeli hostage recovered from a Palestinian cemetery. Who is responsible for placing it there and inviting the devastation of the cemetery? Why did Hamas and PIJ think it was acceptable to place dead Israelis in a sacred space that meant so much for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians? Can dead Palestinians be spared from Hamas’s terrorism? How could two extremist Islamofascist groups tolerate burying a non-Muslim in the heart of a Muslim graveyard, which is governed by strict Sharia rules and requirements? You can criticize Israel all you want, and hundreds of millions have been for the past two years. But at the end of the day, there is only one, and just a singular party upon which the blame falls squarely for bringing Israeli military occupation and devastation onto Gaza; only one party that permitted itself to operate in schools, hospitals, shelters, tents, displacement zones, used mosques, cemeteries, kindergartens, markets, NGOs, journalists, ambulances, and humanitarian workers to conduct guerilla warfare – and that is Hamas. That is why it is criminal even to contemplate going easy on the terror group and allowing them the opportunity to be recycled into Gaza’s future. Hamas as a brand must be eliminated, destroyed, annihilated, and prevented from ever operating as a cohesive body, even if its ideology remains, and even if some of its mid and lower-level personnel are somehow rehabilitated.

They are all home. At last.

The body of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, has been recovered and returned to Israel. 843 days after the October 7 attack and abductions, there are no remaining Israeli hostages—alive or deceased—in Gaza. The long-overdue return of Gvili’s remains closes one of the most tragic and traumatic chapters of the war for Israel, the Jewish diaspora, and the free world.

@ShabbosK Wow, Shabbos!! Yasher koach!!

8 months ago I donated my kidney to a stranger. It was emotional tonight to finally be able to meet him, a dad with two sets of twins. Glad to say he is back to 100% health. Grateful to the doctors, staff, and hospital that made this possible. Make America Healthy Again!

A trans nazi. I don’t think those two things are actually comparable in practice. It’s just more Zoomer mental illness/profound ignorance of reality. The nazis would have erased every last modern trans person without a second thought. Get your kids on the internet as late as you can, and keep them offline as much as you can.

4pm hotel check in and 11am check out is one of the biggest scams in our society ..

Doing wonders for my Zio Rich property value

@RachelMoiselle Pardon the code switch, so but so inherently an elegantly tsnius that you may have been born to be frum.

I jumped on the 2016 trend and noticed that a skirt I still wear regularly today was bought almost decade ago! Left: 2016 Right: 2025 I bought it in Kilkenny Design. Since I was an older teen I have always tried my best to buy local and buy Irish in terms of fashion. It of course is more expensive than buying fast fashion, but if you care for them correctly these clothes will last you a lifetime. A few hundred euro is well worth it for a decade of wear (and you can feel satisfaction knowing it’s money given to an Irish owned and operated business). I never understood the stigma around rewearing clothes that you like and that suits you. You can reject the culture of disposability and still look stylish.

Today’s News: Torres challenger releases antisemitic video Fixed it, @X

@academic_la If true, awful. Corrections officers (notably sadistic worldwide) = “Israel”? Sadistic corrections officers here = America?

New testimony and reports leave no doubt at all. Israel is systematically sexually abusing and raping prisoners. Sami al-Saei, a survivor said “I tried to prevent them by clenching my muscles (in my anus), but I could not. They forced it in very deep, it was extremely painful,” he said in an interview about his ordeal. “I don’t know how loudly I screamed from the pain.” Tamer Qarmut, 41, said of a guard that “He shoved a wooden stick up my anus, left it there for about a minute, and pulled it out. Then he shoved it back in, even harder, and I screamed at the top of my lungs,” Qarmut said in testimony given to B’Tselem. “After a minute, he pulled the stick out again, told me to open my mouth, pushed the stick into my mouth and forced me to lick it.” Neither Sami al-Saei nor Tamer Qarmut was charged with or found guilty of any crime. This is confirmed by the report of Israeli Human Rights organization Btselem, which concluded that “The Israeli regime has turned its prisons into a network of torture camps for Palestinians, as part of a coordinated onslaught on Palestinian society intended to destroy their existence as a collective." There is no depth of depravity to which Israel will not sink in its treatment of innocent people, taken hostage with no evidence, raped and tortured.

Never let them live down the dead baby parade.

“Dirty Jew” In Nîmes, France 🇫🇷 , the Socialist Party’s local office was vandalized with Nazi symbols and the slur “Dirty Jew.” When someone writes “Dirty Jew” next to a swastika in 2026, this isn’t about left or right. It’s not ignorance. It’s ideology. History didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with slurs on walls and people looking away. Europe knows this story. The fact it’s repeating it anyway is the real disgrace.

Friend: Israelis don’t want peace. If they did, the war would already be over. Me: Peace with what endgame? Friend: Ending the occupation. Justice. Human rights. Me: Fine. What’s the political solution? Friend: Two states. Me: Ok. Then answer one thing. What happens to the right of return? Friend: That’s a later issue. Me: It’s the core issue. What replaces it? Friend: Refugees deserve to go home. Me: Into Israel? Friend: Wherever their homes were. Me: That means millions of Palestinians entering Israel. You know that ends Israel as a Jewish state, right? Friend: Israel shouldn’t be an ethno-state. Me: So just say it plainly. Your solution is the end of Israel. Friend: You’re twisting my words. Me: I’m following them to their conclusion. What’s the alternative to right of return? Compensation? Resettlement? A Palestinian state absorbing refugees? Friend: Why are you so obsessed with this detail? Me: Because without an answer, there is no solution. Friend: Israel just needs to stop the war first. Me: Stop the war and then do what about the demand that makes peace impossible? Friend: We shouldn’t argue hypotheticals. Me: It’s not hypothetical. It’s written into every rejection of peace since 1947. Friend: This conversation is going nowhere. Me: I agree. Because every time we reach the hard part, you opt out. You accuse Israelis of not wanting peace, but you can’t name a single compromise we would make on the one demand that would terminate Israel. If the right of return stays, Israel ends. If Israel is meant to end, just say so. If not, explain what replaces it. Friend: Silence.

@VerminusM Hi. This brought me joy.

Jew haters keep insisting I do a DNA test. I don’t care about genes, but if this is so important to you, I'll play along. However, there's a catch: You want it, you pay for it. If this campaign succeeds, I’ll order a 23andMe test and publish the results on Twitter and Substack. Maybe I’m a lizardperson. Maybe I'm a rare deepwater Jew. Or maybe I’m just a boring old Ashkenazi whose ancestors came from the ancient Kingdom of Israel. This campaign is only for people who hate me! If you like my work and want to support it, use my ko-fi or buy me a beer or something.