Jews in the United States and elsewhere are weighing whether to go to school or work Friday, as the Palestinian terror group Hamas has declared a “Day of Jihad” and encouraged its supporters to stage protests and rise up in revolt against Israel.
As Breitbart News noted earlier this week, Hamas chose Friday, the traditional Islamic day of gathering — and, coincidentally, a day for the release of ‘Friday the 13th”-themed Halloween horror movies — to encourage worldwide demonstrations of support.
In many U.S. cities, police stepped up patrols of downtown areas, and of Jewish institutions, including schools and synagogues.
Many Jewish families were debating whether or not to send children to school:
Countless Jewish parents tonight are deciding whether it’s safe to send their kids to a Jewish school tomorrow. All of them got notices about threats for tomorrow and security measures.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 13, 2023
I’m not talking about in Tel Aviv or Haifa, but in Miami, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles etc.
The Israeli government warned citizens abroad to avoid pro-Palestinian protests, which it said had been organized to harm Israelis and Jews:
המטה לביטחון לאומי: ממליצים לכל הישראלים השוהים בחו"ל לגלות מחר ערנות ולהתרחק מהפגנות ומחאות – בעקבות קריאה של הנהגת חמאס לקיים "יום זעם" ולפגוע ביהודים ובישראלים
— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) October 12, 2023
There was a stabbing attack Friday at the Israeli embassy in Beijing, leading a local synagogue to cancel Sabbath services.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.