#

One of the three women charged in Monday’s antisemitic vandalism at Elbit Systems in Merrimack is a former teen celebrity who has been the subject of fawning press coverage for years. Another appeared on several Disney Channel TV shows.

Calla Walsh, 19, Bridget Shergalis, 27, and Sophie Ross, 22, are all charged with criminal trespass, riot, and sabotage after they were arrested Monday on the roof of the Elbit facility in Merrimack armed with spray paint and incendiary devices. Walsh and Ross were issued $20,000 cash bail due to previous arrests. Shergalis was given $5,000 bail.

Their stunt at Elbit’s Daniel Webster Highway location is part of a long-standing campaign by Palestine Action US. Elbit Systems of America’s parent company – Israel-based Elbit Systems – is the largest defense contractor for Israel. Palestine Action US says its mission is “dismantling Elbit Systems and the Zionist War Machine.”

Walsh may just be 19 years old, but she has an extensive history of Democratic activism and support for Palestinian violence toward Israel.

Walsh is active in the anti-Israel “Boycott/Divest/Sanction (BDS) movement, which many critics say is antisemitic due to its sole focus on the Jewish State. More problematic is Walsh’s involvement in the so-called “Boston Mapping Project,” which created an interactive map identifying places where Jews tended to congregate as well as the locations of Jewish community organizations in Massachusetts. The map included locations of Jewish daycares and schools.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Mapping Project identifies Jewish communal groups as “‘Boston’s Zionist NGO circuit” and accused not only of “supporting the colonization of Palestine” but also of “violence worldwide.”

The New York Times has described Walsh as “representative of an influential new force in Democratic politics,

Calla Walsh

activists who cut their teeth on the presidential campaigns of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.”

But U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) was no fan of her work on the Mapping Project.

“This is just chilling to me. It is tapping into millennia-old antisemitic tropes about nefarious Jewish wealth, control, conspiracy, media connections, and political string-pulling,” Auchincloss, who is Jewish, told the news site Jewish Insider at the time. “To name names and keep lists, which has a very sinister history in Judaism, in terms of how we are targeted, is very irresponsible. [The group] needs to take this down and apologize.”

Walsh is also the founder of Students for Markey, the army of young people who knocked on doors and worked the phones to get progressive Sen. Ed Markey past Joe Kennedy III in the 2020 Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary. Walsh became a semi-celebrity for her Markey activism.

“I just support whoever is the most progressive in the race … I definitely do tend to support the person who’s challenging the incumbent, but Ed, I think, is a special case just because he’s led on so many issues that matter to young people,” Walsh told Dig Boston at the time.

Walsh is credited for being a leader in the “Markeyverse,” the online army of hundreds of teens who used their social media accounts to campaign for the Massachusetts progressive.

Markey’s office did not respond to a request for comment, nor did representatives for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) with whom Walsh campaigned.

Walsh never hid her feelings about Israel and her support for Palestinian violence while she was working on the campaigns of prominent Massachusetts Democrats.

“There is no ‘peaceful solution’ under military occupation. One can’t claim to want to see Palestine liberated if one doesn’t support Palestinians’ actually means of liberation,” Walsh tweeted last year.

Bridget Shergalis

Shergalis had been a working actress with television roles in teen shows like “So Random” on Disney, “See Dad Run” on Nickelodeon, and “Criminal Minds” on CBS. Her social media appears politics-free, and it isn’t clear when she became involved in the anti-Israel BDS movement.

Representatives with A3 Artists Agency in Los Angeles, which represents Shergalis, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ross, unlike Walsh and Shergalis, has a low profile and appears to not have public social media accounts. 

Both Walsh and Ross were ordered held on $20,000 bail Tuesday. The pair had recently been arrested at an Elbit protest in Cambridge, Mass., and were out on bail when they were arrested Monday. Shergalis’ bail is set at $5,000.

Police were called to the Elbit facility around 8 a.m. Monday for reports of people blocking the entrance and smoke coming from the roof. According to a Merrimack Police Department press release, “Officers discovered the front of the building had been spray painted with red paint, windows had been smashed, and at least one of the main lobby doors had been locked shut via a bicycle anti-theft device.” 

The three women reportedly lit “incendiary devices” and took them to the roof, where more damage was found.

Jewish students at the University of New Hampshire say they are feeling fearful as the anti-Israel slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is heard across the campus and swastikas appear on the walls. The chant was also heard at an anti-Israel rally in Manchester on Saturday, along with attacks on Israel as an “apartheid state.”

Thus far, New Hampshire’s elected officials are largely standing with Israel. All four members of the state’s federal delegation have condemned the use of the “from the river to the sea” language, and Gov. Chris Sununu has declared the phrase “nothing short of requesting another Holocaust.”

But New Hampshire’s far-left activists denouncing Israel are getting support from some members of the UNH faculty, including a nationally-known progressive academic who is using her large social media following to attack Israel as an “apartheid state” and to compare Hamas terrorists to the Polish Jews who fought Nazi SS troops during the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Assistant Physics Professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is paid close to $100,000 a year to teach physics and gender studies at UNH. In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,400 people and injured another 3,400, Prescod-Weinstein has kept up a flurry of anti-Israel posts on the X social media site. Her feed, which has more than 115,000 followers, includes denunciations of what she calls Israel’s “setter colonialism” and defenses of antisemitic Rep. Rashid Tlaib (D-Mich.)

“Everyone harassing Rashida Tlaib — who is wildly popular with her constituents — looks like a complete *a**hole* attacking her while her people are facing *genocide*,” Prescod-Weinstein posted on X. “Complete a**hole. Cannot stress this enough.”

Particularly troubling, critics say, is her Nov. 9 tweet in which she appears to compare Hamas terrorists to Polish Jews during World War II.

Describing the current political conversation surrounding Israel’s military response to the Hamas terror attack, Prescod-Weinstein posted, “The people in charge are those who would have condemned the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.”

Prescod-Weinstein did not respond to an email from NHJournal seeking clarification on her tweet. She has tweeted almost nonstop in support of Palestine, and in strong opposition to Israel over recent weeks. NHJournal could find no tweet or written statement from Prescod-Weinstein in which she condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Asked directly by an X user if she is “saying that condemning Hamas is like condemning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?” Prescod-Weinstein responded cryptically: “If that’s what I wanted to say, that’s what I would have said. Instead, I said what I said.”

This isn’t Prescod-Weinstein’s first political controversy.

In the past, she signed a letter opposing a call for more free speech and intellectual diversity on campus. And she argues that human beings should rethink going to Mars over concerns of “colonialism.”

“Can we be trusted to be equitable in our dealings with each other in a Martian context if the U.S. and Canadian governments continue to attack indigenous sovereignty, violate indigenous lands, and engage in genocidal activities against indigenous people?” Prescod-Weinstein asked at a 2018 symposium on “Decolonizing Mars.”

 And according to a January 2020 story by Campus Reform, Prescod-Weinstein wrote posts claiming Black people cannot be anti-semitic. Prescod-Weinstein describes herself as an “agender queer” Black feminist. She grew up in Los Angeles with a Black mother and a White Jewish father.

“Antisemitism in the United States, historically, is a White Christian problem, and if any Black people have developed antisemitic views, it is under the influence of White gentiles,” she wrote. “White Jews adopted whiteness as a social praxis and harmed Black people in the process … Some Black people have problematically blamed Jewishness for it.”

In June, UNH rewarded Prescod-Weinstein with her tenure. A university professor with tenure can only be fired for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances. 

After news of the “river to the sea” chants at UNH, Sununu told NHJournal he hoped “the leadership over at UNH was swift and firm to condemn this language.”

Instead, the university released a statement merely acknowledging the phrase is “hurtful” to many.

“The university is proud of its record of protecting free speech on campus, including speech that may be objectionable,” UNH said in a statement. “The individuals in the video participated in an assembly to speak out on an issue, as is their right. We understand the phrase used in the video has deep and hurtful meaning to many. Neither these individuals nor anyone exercising their free speech rights on campus speak on behalf of the University of New Hampshire.”

Within hours of the pro-Palestinian protest on campus, students reported finding fresh swastika graffiti. Student Mark Rittigers found a swastika drawn on the bathroom tiles in his dorm.

“It’s gross; no one wants to see that in their bathroom,” he said.

The 18-year-old said there is a sense of hostility on campus when it comes to Israel. The pro-Palestine rally was an effort to direct hate at Jewish people and those who support Israel, he said. Rittigers is not Jewish, but he supports Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. Those are not opinions he is always comfortable expressing on campus.

“It feels unsafe,” he said. “There are people who I am sure would get violent over this. There are people who are quite passionate about their beliefs and more than willing to use violence.”

UNH did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment on the swastikas. 

Joy Douglas and two dozen fellow members of New Hampshire’s Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) took to the streets of Manchester Wednesday night, chanting in support of Palestine and the “resistance” to Israel.

They were far outnumbered by the 300 or so people who gathered at the State House in Concord to rally on behalf of Israel in the wake of the worst terrorist attack on the Jewish state in its history.

At least 1,200 people were killed by Hamas terrorists, including entire families. There are confirmed reports of infants being beheaded and Israelis being burned to death. At least 22 Americans were murdered as well. Over 150 people have been taken hostage by Hamas, and the terrorists have threatened to execute the hostages and livestream the video.

“We are heartbroken over the terrorist attacks at the hands of Hamas against innocent Israelis – including beloved children, brothers, sisters, and parents,” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a letter of support. “New Hampshire stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Israel today, and every day, and antisemitism will never be tolerated here.”

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), who has long supported the Biden administration’s outreach to Iran and voted against pro-Israel resolutions in the past, announced Wednesday he was calling for the White House to reverse course on the $6 billion in assets released by the U.S.

“We must use every tool available to degrade Hamas’ ability to wage war against Israel. The Biden administration must re-freeze the $6 billion in assets currently held by Qatar and ensure that none can be used to aid and abet these heinous acts of terror.”

Even far-left progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have decried anti-Israel protests, breaking with her fellow members of “The Squad” like Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)

It might be a change of heart. Or it might be Democrats addressing the new political realities after Saturday’s attack.

A poll released Wednesday found nearly 7 in 10 voters sided with the Israelis (68 percent), while just 18 percent sided with the Palestinians. That included a majority (59 percent) of Democrats, a significant shift over polling in March that found more Democrats backed the Palestinians than Israel.

Opponents like Douglas and the PSL are undaunted.

“We stand with the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressors,” Douglas said. “The U.N. states clearly that those facing oppression, those who are facing apartheid and genocide, have every right to fight back.”

At the same time, Douglas insisted reports of mass Israeli civilian deaths at the hands of Hamas are untrue. No civilians were murdered in their homes, no hostages were taken by terrorists, and no 300 concertgoers were gunned down by terrorists using paragliders.

“There’s no documented evidence that those people are dead,” Douglas said. 

Douglas claimed the stories were lies propagated by a compliant media controlled by Israel.

PSL members are typically found protesting outside city hall, opposing any measure to curb Manchester’s rampant homeless problem. On Wednesday night, Douglas and the dozen or so other PLS members waved Palestinian flags and signs and chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It is a phrase used by Hamas and other antisemitic organizations calling for Israel’s destruction.

Some downtown pedestrians joined the chants, and passing drivers honked and shouted support.

The antisemites of the New England-based neo-Nazis at NSC-131 have also spoken out on behalf of Hamas.

NSC-131 posted a memo on its Telegram channel after the attack with a photo of a Nazi and a Hamas terrorist with the hashtags #DeathToIsreal and #OneStruggle.

Douglas said despite sharing a message with NSC-131 in favor of Palestinian terror against Israelis, the PSL group has nothing in common with the neo-Nazis. Instead, Douglas lumped NSC-131 and the Jews into the same group.

“They are fascists and Nazis; they are a fascist group just as the Zionists are a fascist group,” Douglas said.