Survivor of anti-Semitic stabbing in France joins elite IDF brigade

Danny Brenner

Jonathan Weinberg: I’m happy about what I’m doing
| Photo credit: Courtesy of the Weinberg family

When Jonathan Weinberg was 13, a group of youths attacked him, sending him to the hospital for a month • “I realized that if Jews are brutalized for being Jews, France is no place for me” • Last week, he earned the purple beret of a Givati fighter.

Jonathan Weinberg was only 13 when he fell victim of a violent anti-Semitic attack by a group of French youths. Today, Weinberg is 24, an Israeli citizen, and last Thursday he received the purple beret reserved for new members of the Israel Defense Forces’ Givati combat infantry brigade.

Eleven years ago, Weinberg was living in Versailles with his father. “I came back from synagogue wearing a kippah and a group of eight youths jumped me, stabbed me in the stomach, beat me in the head while shouting ‘Jewish son of a bitch’ and other anti-Semitic slurs,” Weinberg recalls.

He was hospitalized for a month in very serious condition.
“I was unconscious and on a respirator, and it was really tough. I was in shock from what had happened,” he says.

Weinberg says it took him two months to recover from the attack, “and then I realized that in a situation like that of brutality against Jews for being Jews, France was no place for me.”

Eventually, after a short visit to Israel, during which Weinberg grew attached to the country, he decided to go along with his father’s plan to make aliyah.

“My father planned to make aliyah, but unfortunately he died of a heart attack four years ago, at age 54 and didn’t manage to see his dream through. It was a very difficult time for me, which made me want to make aliyah and fulfill my father’s dream even more,” Weinberg says.

Two and a half years ago, Weinberg moved to Israel and began studying Hebrew in ulpan. He enlisted in the IDF eight months ago, with the intent of serving in a combat unit. He refused to budge from the IDF’s main enlistment office until he was cleared to start basic training with the Givati Brigade.

Last week, after an exhausting final induction march at the end of which he received his Givati beret, Weinberg was moved to tears by the sight of his mother, Silvie, who came especially from Paris to attend the ceremony.

“I was very touched that my mother came to Israel for three days just to be with me at the ceremony. … We only had one day together before she went back. I’m happy about what I’m doing, at peace with my choice and happy that my mother, who stayed in Paris with my sister, supports me,” Weinberg says.

How US Universities Encourage Hate Speech Against Jews and Israel

Leora Eisenberg

“Israeli Apartheid Week” in May 2010 on the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA) campus. Photo: AMCHA Initiative.

The facade of a building conveys the general state of affairs inside. If a building is kept clean, we conclude that those inside it care about its upkeep and productivity. By the same token, if a building has broken windows, we are left to assume that it has been abandoned — and justifiably so. It means that no one has bothered to fix it.

The broken windows principle was first established by Professors James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, and later popularized by the journalist Bret Stephens, among others. It maintains that if a window is broken and left unrepaired, people are sent this signal: you can smash as much glass as you’d like, without fear of repercussions.

Imagine that our “building” is a university campus, and its windows are its various institutions and ideals: free speech, tolerance, and open debate. Imagine further that our building, in the name of these very ideals, has allowed purveyors of anti-Israel hate speech –like the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement — to expand.

When this happens, the university’s stand against hate speech is a building with broken windows.

As someone who intends to keep windows whole, I am not against there being anti-Israel groups on campus, as long as they respect the institution’s rules. They are entitled to their point of view, however misinformed. That said, they are not entitled to shatter the democratic ideals on which an institution of higher education should be based. They are not entitled to break windows with impunity. When they promote intolerance through hate speech, they are breaking those windows.

Just a few days ago, I was the target of a hate video from a young woman who seems to be affiliated with a university that I will not name here.

Although I could not take that person’s preposterous ramblings seriously, I was dismayed at the language in the video. In it, support for terrorism ran rampant (“These people are upset… These people are not terrorists…”). Likewise, this video preached vile antisemitism (“We saved the Jews from the Nazis. Hitler tried to kill the Jew. Look what happened, it backfired. They’re like one thousand times more powerful now”). Facebook did not remove the video under the bizarre claim that it did not violate the social network’s “community standards,” and the university has remained silent.

This particular university is renowned for its broken windows. Antisemitism, often but not always, taking the form of anti-Israel activity, is tolerated on this campus and met with little other than half-baked words of criticism.

The woman in the video was not afraid to expose her opinions — them being that I am a whole host of expletives, all to the great joy of an ecstatic public that supported her with the usual cries of “Free Palestine,” as well as some choice phrases that I don’t care to repeat in print.

The fact that a university student attacked a high school student 2,000 miles away in a video of this kind shows what the anti-Israel movement has become.

And the university’s failure to do anything in response speaks volumes for its supposed ideals of tolerance, free speech, and respect of all individuals. That woman in the video represents a university’s tolerance for intolerance, and its blind eye towards antisemitism.

If I were in charge of that university, I would be ashamed.

Leora Eisenberg is a high school Israel activist who will be attending Princeton University next fall. Her thoughts on Israel, Judaism and the BDS movement have been featured in the Orthodox Union, the Forward, Israel Hayom, Hevria, and the Jerusalem Post.