Yeshiva University Petitions the Supreme Court for Permission Not to Recognize the “Pride Alliance” Club

Aug. 30 2022

Located in upper Manhattan, Yeshiva University has always sought to be both a university in the full sense of the world and an Orthodox yeshiva. While its undergraduates are almost entirely observant Jews, most of whom undertake a rigorous program of religious study, its graduate and professional schools have many non-Jewish students. The tensions between these aspects of its mission have come to the fore in the ongoing controversy over whether it should recognize a club for gay and lesbian students. YU’s decision not to recognize the student group has led it to petition the Supreme Court. Ed Whelan explains the case, and why it deserves a hearing from the country’s highest judicial body:

The particular dispute arises from an effort by Yeshiva students to create an undergraduate LGBTQ club—and to do so precisely in order to alter Yeshiva’s religious environment—but the issue would be exactly the same if, say, other students wanted to form a Jews for Jesus club: does Yeshiva have the religious freedom to implement its beliefs about how to form its undergraduate students in Torah values?

A New York trial court ruled that the New York City Human Rights Law requires Yeshiva to recognize an official Pride Alliance club. It has entered a permanent injunction against Yeshiva, and New York’s higher courts have denied Yeshiva’s requests for emergency relief. The club application process is now open, so absent emergency relief from the Supreme Court, the permanent injunction will require Yeshiva to approve the club “immediately.”

Yeshiva compellingly argues that the lower court’s order tramples its First Amendment autonomy as a religious institution.

Read more at National Review

More about: Freedom of Religion, LGBTQ, Supreme Court, Yeshiva University

Leaking Israeli Attack Plans Is a Tool of U.S. Policy

April 21 2025

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”

Read more at Commentary

More about: Donald Trump, Iran nuclear program, U.S.-Israel relationship