Mandatory Bible study in Texas ‘risks fuelling anti-Semitism’

Jewish leaders say Trump-backed ruling is unconstitutional and will alienate their children

The Texas ruling prompted demonstrations at the state Capitol in Austin Credit: Jay Janner/Getty

Emily Smith Foreign Breaking News Reporter Show biography

Published 17 July 2026 10:30am BST

Mandatory Bible reading for Texas school students has split the state’s religious Right, with Jewish leaders warning the move risks fuelling anti-Semitism and eroding religious freedom.

The Republican Texas state board of education voted to approve mandated Bible study in the school curriculum for more than five million students, with a spokesman declaring: “We’re going to stop watering down American history.

“We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state.”

The changes, which will take effect in 2030, are the latest step in Texas’s drive to bring religion back into the classroom and will see children study stories such as David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion’s Den and Noah’s Ark from the age of six.

However, the measure has prompted fierce opposition from Jewish leaders, who argue it is unconstitutional and will fuel a rapid rise in anti-Semitism across the state.

Rabbi Josh Fixler, associate rabbi at Congregation Emanu El in Houston, Texas, was among those who testified against the measure. “I absolutely think that this will contribute to anti-Semitism,” he told The Telegraph.

“If anti-Semitism is about making Jewish people feel isolated and pushing Jews out of public spaces and having Jews feel that their religious tradition is less than, then kids hearing these messages in public schools is absolutely going to isolate them.”

He added: “It’s going to result in non-Christian students, including my own kids, feeling alienated and isolated in spaces where they should feel belonging.

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San Francisco Central SDA Church Vandalized With Slurs and Swastikas

2 February 2026 |

No church-goer should arrive at their church on Sabbath morning to see swastikas and hate speech graffiti on the walls of their church. Unfortunately, this was the reality for congregants of Central Seventh-day Adventist Church on the Saturday morning of February 28.

Officers arrived at the church in San Francisco’s Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood at around 8:45 am. Reports were of swastikas, antisemitic language, and homophobic slurs written in fresh paint on the side of the church. The police estimated around $20,000 worth of damage to the church and city utilities located in the 2800 block of California Street. That same day, Sadat Mousa, 51, was arrested in connection with the crime.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Mousa was booked into San Francisco County Jail on suspicion of felony vandalism with a hate crime enhancement, terrorism for desecrating a cross on private property, and possession of graffiti instruments.

Mousa appears to have a history with law enforcement, including a prison sentence for making threats of violence to family members in a 2010 domestic violence case.

His bond was set at $100,000.”

Some were fearful that the outburst of hate speech might have been in response to heightened tensions regarding the recent Iran strikes. However, The church’s pastor, Mark Ferrell, does not believe it was influenced by the recent attacks by the U.S and Israel.

“Personally, I don’t think it was directed so much at the church,” Ferrell said Saturday night. “There’s a lot of high emotions right now in a lot of people. It’s not just what happened today in Iran.”

The police wrote in a statement:

“This kind of hateful act will never be tolerated in our city,” said SFPD Chief Derrick Lew. “We will do everything in our power to protect our communities and ensure justice is served in this case. I want to thank our officers who acted swiftly to make an arrest in this case.”

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Catholic commissioner removed from White House Religious Liberty Commission

Religious Liberty Commission Hearing on Feb. 9. Department of Justice video screengrab / YouTube

Elise Winland on February 11, 2026

Carrie Prejean Boller, a Catholic commissioner on the White House Religious Liberty Commission, was removed from the panel Feb. 11 after arguing during a hearing that her Catholic faith does not require support for political Zionism and that criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza should not automatically be labeled antisemitic.

Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who chairs the commission, announced the decision in a post on X.

“No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue,” Patrick wrote. “This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision.”

During the Feb. 9 hearing, which focused on debates and riots on American college campuses and the role of government officials in protecting religious freedom, Prejean Boller cited multiple Catholic scholars, Scripture passages, and Jewish leaders to support her position and pressed witnesses on whether they believed her opposition to Zionism, grounded in religious conviction, made her “antisemitic.”

US sanctions prompt Georgetown to drop scholar

Story by Emily Prescott •

U.S. Sanctions Prompt Georgetown to Drop Scholar

Georgetown University has removed U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese from its list of affiliated scholars.

Albanese has been sanctioned by the United States and criticized internationally for remarks many called antisemitic and for statements accused of supporting terrorism.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, saying Albanese “has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.”

Germany responded to Albanese, stating, “To justify the horrific terror attacks of 7/10 (and) deny their antisemitic nature is appalling. Making such statements in a U.N. capacity is a disgrace and goes against everything the United Nations stands for.”

The case is part of a wider trend of American institutions distancing themselves from figures accused of moving from criticism of Israel into antisemitism or advocacy that appears to justify violence.

This story was reported by content partner Modern Newsstand LLC.

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Islamophobia training cancelled over teachers’ ‘anti-Semitic’ posts

Academic speakers at event for psychotherapists compared Zionists to fascists and accused Israel of ‘genocide’ on social media

Posts allegedly shared by Prof Ghazala Mir, of Leeds University, made references to ‘Zionist paymasters’ Credit: Connor Bainbridge

Patrick Sawer

Senior News Reporter

24 May 2025 5:30pm BST

A training session for psychotherapists on tackling Islamophobia was cancelled after three academics leading the event were accused of posting anti-Semitic material on social media.

Messages posted or shared by the trainers on X described Israel as a Nazi state and referred to “a Zionism problem” in healthcare institutions.

The event, organised by the professional body for psychotherapists, had been intended to help therapists and wellbeing practitioners become aware of the impact of Islamophobia on mental health.

But the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) cancelled the session after complaints about the three trainers prompted an internal investigation into their social media activities.

The speakers at the May 15 event were to have been Ghazala Mir, a professor of health equity and inclusion at the University of Leeds; Dr Tarek Younis, senior lecturer in psychology at Middlesex University, and Prof Ahmed Hankir, a consultant psychiatrist and visiting professor at the University of Cardiff.

A post on X by Prof Mir suggests Israel is responsible for ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ Credit: x.com/ghazala_mir

Georgetown scholar recalls terror and ‘mockery of due process’ in immigration jail

A Georgetown University scholar who was targeted for deportation by the Trump administration said he was terrified during his time in immigration jail. Badar Khan Suri was released on bond last week as his lawsuit against the U.S. government’s deportation case continues.

BY OLIVIA DIAZ AND BEN FINLEY
Updated 6:34 PM EDT, May 23, 2025Share


ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — One of the lowest moments of Badar Khan Suri’s two months in federal custody was being crammed onto an airplane with hundreds of other shackled prisoners.

The Trump administration was trying to deport the Georgetown University scholar over statements he made against Israel’s war in Gaza. The guards wouldn’t say where they were headed, but the Indian national was convinced it was out of the United States.

Then Khan Suri had to use the plane’s bathroom. He said the guards refused to unshackle his wrists.

“They said, ‘No, you have to use it like this or do it in your trousers,’” Khan Suri recalled of the trip, taking him to a Louisiana detention center. “They were behaving as if we were animals.”

Khan Suri, 41, was released on bond last week as his lawsuit against the U.S.'s deportation case continues. In an interview with The Associated Press, he spoke Thursday of a cramped cell, crowded with other detainees, where he waited anxiously, fearful about what would happen next.

He also addressed the Trump administration’s accusations that he spread “Hamas propaganda.” Khan Suri said he only spoke in support of Palestinians, who are going through an “unprecedented, livestreamed genocide.”

“I don’t support Hamas,” he said. “I support Palestine. I support Palestinians. And it is so deceiving for some people who just publish canards ... They will just replace Palestine with Hamas.”

Yet, because of his comments, he said U.S. authorities treated him as if he had committed a high-level crime. Fellow inmates said his red uniform was reserved for the most dangerous offenders.

“I said, ’No, I’m just a university teacher. I did nothing,” Khan Suri recalled.

Still, there were rays of hope. He said more than a hundred people from the Georgetown community wrote letters on his behalf to the federal judge overseeing his case, including some who are Jewish.

A crowd also greeted him when he arrived back in the Washington, D.C., area.

“Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims — everyone together,” said Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow who studies religion, peace and violence. “That is the reality I want to live with. That’s the reality I want to die for. Those people together.”

In a statement to the AP on Friday afternoon, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin refuted Khan Suri’s allegations of lack of due process and inhumane treatment.

McLaughlin said Khan Suri was in communication with attorneys “within hours of his arrival at the facility” and did not have to sleep on the floor. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement “takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously.”

The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement

Even before President Trump was re-elected, the Heritage Foundation, best known for Project 2025, set out to destroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.

  The Heritage Foundation headquarters in Washington, D.C.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times


By Katie J.M. Baker
May 18, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

In late April, the Heritage Foundation dispatched a team to Israel to meet with power players in Israeli politics, including the country’s foreign and defense secretaries and the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee.

The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power.

Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious policy paper: Project Esther, the foundation’s proposal to rapidly dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities, at progressive organizations and in Congress.

Drafted in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered “open society.”

Project Esther’s architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have seemed far-fetched. Curriculum it believed to be sympathetic to a “Hamas support” narrative would be taken out of schools and universities, and “supporting faculty” would be removed. Social media would be purged of content deemed to be antisemitic. Institutions would lose public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would have their visas revoked, or be deported.

Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser and the vice president at the Heritage Foundation who oversees Project Esther.

Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times

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