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Delegation of Israeli municipal leaders say they were forced to undergo extensive searches for concealed Jewish garb at Jordanian border, with several members ultimately forced to return to Israel.

By World Israel News Staff

Border guards in Jordan barred members of an Israeli delegation from entering the country Tuesday after they were found to be in possession of traditional Jewish articles of clothing, including yarmulkes and tzitziot (a tasseled, four-cornered ritual garment), Israel Hayom reported Wednesday.

The delegation, which was organized for an educational tour of Jordan, was made up of senior municipal officials from cities and regional councils across Israel.

The participating officials were slated to cross into Jordan at the Yitzhak Rabin Crossing in Eilat, adjacent to the Jordanian city of Aqaba, when guards on the Jordanian side of the border insisted on thoroughly examining the delegation members for any possible hidden Jewish religious items.

According to participants cited in the report, the Jordanian border guards ordered the delegation members to lift up their shirts, so that border officials could see if they were wearing tzitziot.

While the delegation members had agreed not to openly wear Jewish clothing items at the border, they did not anticipate the refusal of border officials to even allow them to retain such items in their luggage.

All delegation members with yarmulkes, tzitziot, or any other visibly Jewish clothing items were ordered to surrender them to border officials or be barred entry into the Hashemite kingdom.

One member of the delegation reported that a border official took his yarmulke and threw it in a garbage can.

At least two of the delegation members, the directors-general of Modi’in Illit and the Binyamin Regional Council in Samaria, refused to comply with the Jordanian border guards’ demands and returned to Eilat.

“We wanted to put the tzitziot and kippot away in our bags, but they didn’t agree,” a delegation member told Israel Hayom. “We were instructed to collect [all the Jewish items] and return them to Eilat. It’s so shameful; if we would have done something like this at the Israeli border or the entrance to the Temple Mount and said there was no problem so long as you leave behind any religious items, the whole world would have condemned us.”

This is not the first time Jewish visitors to Jordan have reported harassment by border guards.

In September 2022, tourists entering the country were told that Jewish religious items, including prayer shawls and phylacteries, were “illegal.”

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center has received numerous complaints of harassment, attempted confiscations by Jordanian officials of these basic religious items that millions of Jews don each morning during their prayers,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a joint statement.

“Security officials the world over know that these holy items pose no security threat whatsoever. Some travelers have reported they were told that it is illegal to bring these holy items into Jordan.”

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The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA enters negotiations with studios today over a new contract. Members just returned a 97.91 percent vote in favor of authorizing a strike — meaning striking film and TV writers could soon be joined on the picket line by actors.

SAG-AFTRA members and others supporting a WGA picket line outside NBCUniversal headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, on May 23, 2023. (Stephanie Keith / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It was never a sure thing that the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) would hold a strike authorization vote, a move that would grant the union’s board of directors the ability to call a strike should negotiations with the studios over a new three-year contract fall apart. The possibility has been a frequent topic of discussion on Writers Guild of America (WGA) picket lines since the writers walked off the job on May 2, but there were reasons for uncertainty.

In comments made to Deadline at a Paramount Pictures WGA picket line last month, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher seemed to downplay the similarities of the issues facing writers and actors, stating, “I don’t think that what’s very important to writers . . . is the kind of stuff that we’re going after.”

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher on a possible actors strike: “It’s a very big, complicated conversation,” she tells Deadline outside Paramount Pictures in LA today #WritersStrike pic.twitter.com/lK3QXnY69b

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 9, 2023

The cautious tone alarmed some SAG-AFTRA members, and they responded by building pressure within the union to hold a strike authorization vote, which would give the union’s leadership the ability to call for its roughly 160,000 members to walk off the job. They noticeably increased their presence on WGA picket lines, and on May 17, the union’s board unanimously voted to recommend holding the vote.

Unlike the WGA, which is now in its second month of a strike, the actors are not particularly prone to strike. While the union struck the video game industry in 2016 and commercial producers in 2000, the union has not struck the film and television industry since a ninety-five-day walkout in 1980 (SAG and AFTRA struck separately at the time, as they only merged in 2012). The union hadn’t even held a strike authorization vote for its TV/Theatricals contract since 1986; that year, membership voted 86.8 percent in favor of authorizing a strike, but an agreement was reached without a work stoppage.

That may not happen this time. As SAG-AFTRA’s bargaining committee enters negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) today over their contract, which expires on June 30, their members have given them an overwhelming mandate to fight. The strike authorization vote returned 97.91 percent of ballots in favor of authorizing a strike, one-upping the nearly unanimous strike authorization vote held by WGA members in April (97.85 percent in favor). Turnout in the SAG-AFTRA vote was 47.69 percent; for perspective, SAG turnout to ratify the last contract in 2020 was 27 percent, with 74 percent of those ballots favoring ratification.

In other words, this is an unprecedented message to the studios: actors are willing to fight and even strike for a fair contract, and they see this as the moment to join with their coworkers in the WGA to win a future better than that which the studios have been pushing.

“The strike authorization votes have been tabulated and the membership joined their elected leadership and negotiating committee in favor of strength and solidarity,” said Drescher in a statement announcing the strike authorization results. “Together we lock elbows and in unity we build a new contract that honors our contributions in this remarkable industry, reflects the new digital and streaming business model and brings ALL our concerns for protections and benefits into the now!”

“As we enter what may be one of the most consequential negotiations in the union’s history, inflation, dwindling residuals due to streaming, and generative AI all threaten actors’ ability to earn a livelihood if our contracts are not adapted to reflect the new realities,” added SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “This strike authorization means we enter our negotiations from a position of strength, so that we can deliver the deal our members want and deserve.”

The issues mentioned by Crabtree-Ireland sound similar to those at stake in the WGA strike. The shorter seasons that characterize streaming television have hit WGA members hard, as have streaming’s paltry residual payments compared to those enjoyed before new media came to dominate the industry. Concerns about AI echo those voiced by the WGA, and the members want regulations on the technology’s use in writing. There are also the standard needs: higher rates and improvements to the union’s health, retirement, and pension benefits.

At least one actor-specific issue is the matter of self-tapes, in which actors record their own audition tapes rather than audition in-person for a casting director. The practice has become standard in the pandemic years, and it has saved the studios an estimated $250 million just from not having to pay people to read scenes with an actor during the audition; now actors must enlist their families and friends (often meaning other actors) to do that work for free. It is hard to calculate how much more producers have saved in other costs, from renting space for auditions to assembling lighting and camera equipment. The shift is a boon to the producers, and SAG-AFTRA wants additional regulations on the practice.

Not all of Hollywood is lining up to strike simultaneously: the Directors Guild of America (DGA) is negotiating its own new contract with the AMPTP, and the two sides have just reached a tentative agreement, quashing hopes among WGA members that the directors would break from their past and unite in solidarity with them. Still, this show of unity between SAG-AFTRA and the WGA ratchets up the actors’ leverage at the bargaining table. The prospect of some of the most famous union members in the United States appearing on picket lines beside WGA members, criticizing the studios and shutting down the entire industry, is the stuff of producers’ nightmares. Come July 1, it may be their reality.

Marcus Garvin, 33, was sentenced to 45 years in prison last week for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, 30-year-old Christie Holt. Garvin’s crime was sparked by the discovery of texts between Holt and another man in which they were making fun of the suspect for his lack of a job and prospects. In a fit of rage, Garvin woke Holt up and confronted her with the texts, and after she denied their accuracy, he stabbed her 51 times with a knife.

The shocking brutality of the attack was followed by an insane attempt to hide the evidence, as Garvin spent the next six days trying to dispose of Holt’s body. He attempted to dismember it in the bathtub using a small knife but was unsuccessful.

He also used a grocery cart and a dolly to try and move the body but was unable to fit it in either. Garvin eventually dragged Holt in a motel sheet and comforter across the parking lot to a creek but was spotted by a passing clerk who immediately called the police.

When the police arrived, they found the suspect in the bathroom of room 210 and also discovered two knives on the floor near the bathtub and a cut-off GPS tracking device which Garvin was wearing following his December 2020 arrest for battery. Surprisingly, he was only granted bail of $1,500 and released free of charge by a non-profit bail program.

Garvin initially denied any knowledge of Holt’s death when interviewed by police, but once confronted with the facts, he admitted to dragging her body from his room. He explained that he still loved her and regretted his actions but said she deserved it.

Tragically, Holt’s mother, Lisa Fox, blames the justice system for her daughter’s senseless death, citing her case as a warning of the dangers of a legal system that fails to adequately protect the public from convicted criminals.

Garvin’s case is a reminder of the importance of caution towards those on pretrial release and a demand for an improved justice system that properly evaluates the risk of danger posed by offenders.

Lawfare Project turns to New York Supreme Court in bid to prevent anti-Jewish law school graduate from CUNY, Fatimah Mohammed, from being accepted to the New York State Bar.

By World Israel News Staff

A New York-based human rights group is petitioning the New York State Supreme Court to bar a law school graduate with a history of making anti-Zionist and antisemitic public statements from practicing law.

On Wednesday, The Lawfare Project urged the Character and Fitness Committees of the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division to reject any future application by Fatimah Mousa Mohammed — a recent graduate of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law — to practice law in the state.

In order to enter the legal profession, in addition to graduating from law school and passing the bar examination, the state bar requires certification of a candidate’s good moral character and fitness. According to The Lawfare Project’s petition, Mohammed’s actions – including her anti-Jewish rhetoric – make clear that she does not meet these requirements.

On May 12, 2023, at the CUNY Law School graduation ceremony, Mohammed delivered an inflammatory speech in which she used her platform to repeatedly vilified “Zionists,” “Zionism,” and the State of Israel. Expressions of hatred and prejudice towards “Zionists” are widely understood as being directed towards Jews.

Mohammed has previously published highly anti-Jewish remarks on social media and reportedly spoke at a rally held in New York City by Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an anti-Jewish hate group, during which a WOL member violently assaulted a Jewish bystander (and client of The Lawfare Project) and is currently serving an 18-month federal prison sentence. Rally participants were instructed by WOL to refer to targets as “Zionists” rather than “Jews” — just as Mohammed did during her graduation speech.

In its letter to the Character and Fitness Committees, The Lawfare Project wrote: “The legal profession plays a pivotal role in upholding the rule of law and protecting the rights of all individuals, irrespective of their religious or ethnic background.

“Lawyers must maintain impartiality and treat all clients, colleagues, and members of the public with dignity and respect. Indeed, the Application for Admission to Practice as an Attorney and Counselor-at-Law in the State of New York specifically asks applicants if they have engaged in behavior that would call into question their ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner. Ms. Mohammed’s expression of hostile and discriminatory views leaves no doubt that she is incapable of adhering to these tenets and fulfilling her responsibilities as a legal professional.”

Benjamin Ryberg, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Research at The Lawfare Project, said Mohammed “has a history of publicly expressing prejudiced and discriminatory views, specifically demonstrating a profound animosity towards the Jewish community. These views are fundamentally incompatible with the ethical obligations and principles upheld by the legal profession and leave no question that Ms. Mohammed lacks the character and fitness to practice law.”

Anti-Israel propaganda was not the most alarming part of Mohammed’s speech, which included “rage” against American institutions and values and encouraged “revolution.”

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