SAN DIEGO (SDJW) — In response to news that American diplomats have met with Syria’s new leader Ahmad al-Sharaa and that the U.S. has removed the $10 million bounty for his capture, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-California) said on MSNBC “This is such a crucial moment for the Syrian people who have finally overthrown the brutal Assad regime and have a real opportunity to build a more inclusive prosperous Syria. And I think it’s incumbent on us as Americans to be doing everything we can to help push and help … create that inclusive, democratic, peaceful Syria that I know so many Syrian people want.”
Jacobs, representing San Diego, sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.
The three American diplomats who met al-Sharaa were Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf; Daniel Rubinstein, former special envoy for Syria, and Roger Carstens, chief envoy for hostage negotiations.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Face the Nation on Sunday: “We are keenly focused on the instability in Syria and whether that can create some space for the reemergence of ISIS there.”
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Lord Peter Benjamin Mandelson has been appointed as Britain’s next ambassador to the United States by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said: “The United States is one of our most important allies and as we move into a new chapter in our friendship, Peter will bring unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength.”
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Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) strongly condemned a vote by the faculty union at Rutgers University urging divestment and a boycott of Israel. “to immediately and publicly reject this harmful resolution and reaffirm its commitment to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all students and faculty.”
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Guatemalan authorities took into protective custody approximately 160 minors who they say were being abused by the Lev Tahor (Pure Heart) sect established by anti-Zionist Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans in 1988 – described as a cult that dresses women in burka-like robes and favors child marriages.
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Australia’s Governor-General Samantha “Sam” Mostyn and her husband, Simeon Beckett, visited the St Kilda Shule in a show of support for Australia’s beleaguered Jewish community. She met with Rabbi Yaakov Glasman as well as with Naomi Levin, CEO of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and Daniel Aghion, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
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Rabbi Yoni Wieder, chief rabbi of Ireland, told The Telegraph that “there is no doubt in my mind that the inflammatory rhetoric by Irish political leaders against Israel over the past year has contributed to hatred against Jews in this country. … The fact that we’ve reached the point where Israel has felt it right to close the embassy is very upsetting.”
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Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff