03/26 Links Pt2: Where BDS goes, antisemitism follows; Melanie Phillips: Labour and the Jews, John Bolton; Shmuley Boteach: Israel Is a Haven for LGBT Palestinians Escaping Persecution ~ EoZ

From Ian:

It’s that time of the year when the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement launches its infamous “Apartheid Week” on university campuses. “Apartheid Week” is just the climax of a yearlong activity on campuses where BDS is most active in promoting an anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agenda, which calls for a widespread boycott of Israel. While many view BDS as mostly “Israel’s problem,” its antisemitic roots and rhetoric should worry Jewish communities across the world and especially American Jews.

The concept of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is not new. Even before the BDS movement’s creation, Jews and Israel had to fight for their place in the global economy while being boycotted by the world's Arab nations.

Nevertheless, Israel was able to establish a thriving economy, join leading intergovernmental economic organizations such as the OECD and become one of the world’s innovators in Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech and Security. However, the danger with BDS is not only the potential economic damage to Israel but rather its deep-rooted antisemitism that spreads through its activism across campuses. Where BDS goes, antisemitism follows. Naturally, this is a cause for concern for Israel but, the danger doesn’t stop there.

According to the ADL’s recent Anti-Semitic Incidents report, in 2017 in the US alone, there was an 89% increase in antisemitic incidents on college and university campuses, where BDS is most active. 90 reported incidents constituted actual harassment and another 114 were antisemitic vandalism. It’s important to remember that these figures were compiled from reported incidents, so the real numbers are in all likelihood much higher. Just a year ago, the universities of Central Lancashire and University College London in the United Kingdom canceled “Apartheid Week” on their campuses, acknowledging that it violated British laws against antisemitism. The BDS movement has long flourished on college campuses in the UK, but the acknowledgment that BDS equates to antisemitism was the most effective challenge to the movement so far. In the United States, the increase in antisemitic incidents on campuses is enough to suggest a worrying emerging picture.

Besides the BDS antisemitic strategy to delegitimize the only Jewish state and to put it to different standards from the rest of the world, the BDS hides behind its argument that it is not antisemitic but “anti-Zionist”, all the while seeking to blur the distinction between the two concepts. On the one hand, it disregards Jews’ right to self-determination, despite promoting its distorted definition of Zionism as a “colonialist” power that seeks to “take over control of land and resources and forcibly remove Palestinians” and engages in “ethnic cleansing.” Even more so, it seeks to rewrite any manifestation of Jewish identity that does not fit its propaganda. In doing so, all Jews are referred to as “Whites” in an attempt to align Jews with colonialist powers, the South African apartheid regime, and the white supremacy movement. The only time that Sephardi Jews or Ethiopian Jews are mentioned, is when propagating the lie that the “White” Jews are “also” committing genocide against Sephardi Jews.

Melanie Phillips: Labour and the Jews, John Bolton

Please join me here in discussion with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired. We’re talking about the explosive row over Jeremy Corbyn and the Jews, and the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser.

EXCLUSIVE - Shmuley Boteach: Israel Is a Haven for LGBT Palestinians Escaping Persecution

Israel provides a safe haven for gay Palestinians fleeing persecution and honor killings, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach told Breitbart Jerusalem, noting the Jewish state’s equal treatment of the LGBT community in all aspects of civil and military life.

The Orthodox rabbi, who heads up the World Values Network, said that many LGBT Palestinians seek asylum in Israel after facing death in their hometowns either by their families or even the Palestinian police.

“Israel’s laws protect human rights. LGBT Palestinians suffer beatings, imprisonment and even death at the hands of their families and the police,” Boteach said.

“Many are lucky enough to escape to Israel,” he added.

Boteach noted that in Israel members of the LGBT community — as with any other minority community — are afforded the same rights as everyone else.

“Gay Israelis can be members of parliament, serve openly in the military and are protected by law, whether or not people agree with their lifestyle,” he said.

“It’s immaterial when it comes to the Jewish insistence on the infinite value of life and protecting innocents from harm.”

His comments come after his organization honored TV personality and former Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner with the “Champion of Israel and LGBTQ rights” award earlier this month. Boteach noted that Jenner, who was presented the award at the sixth annual World Values Network gala, “is an important friend of Israel.”

NGO Monitor:
Analysis of B’Tselem’s “Minors in Jeopardy” Report

Overview

B’Tselem’s report “Minors in Jeopardy,” was funded by UNICEF and echoes the claims of Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), UNICEF, Military Court Watch (MCW), and its own 2012 and 2015 reports on the subject. This practice of “copying and pasting” and the financial support provided by UNICEF demonstrate the close coordination between Palestinian, Israeli, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in a concerted effort to falsely accuse the IDF of systematically violating the rights of Palestinian minors in order to impose sanctions against Israel.

A central objective is to pressure the UN Secretary-General to blacklist the IDF by including it in the Annex to his annual report on grave violators of children’s rights, alongside terror groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Qaeda. UNICEF and a number of NGOs, including B’Tselem, DCI-P, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Save the Children, and Watchlist are leaders of this dimension of the campaign. DCI-P, as well as other UNICEF partners, have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. The timing of B’Tselem’s report is part of annual NGO efforts in March, before the Secretary-General releases his report.

University of Ottawa rejects BDS a third time

The University of Ottawa, in Canada’s capital city, on Sunday rejected for the third time a motion to endorse the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

B’nai Brith Canada applauded the students for defending human rights and defeating the motion.

The Board of Administration of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) had rejected the motion after having already disapproved an almost identical motion in November. BDS was also defeated at a general meeting of the SFUO earlier in March.

Just days before the vote, a Jewish student with assistance from B’nai Brith filed a complaint with the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Office, alleging anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli discrimination by the SFUO and its leadership.

B’nai Brith has consistently argued that the proposed BDS measures are not only immoral, but also illegal, insofar as they violate the SFUO’s own anti-discrimination policy, it said in a statement.

In late 2017, SFUO leadership also attempted to revoke the club status of Hillel Ottawa and the Israel Awareness Committee, the only two registered Jewish clubs on campus.

Isabel Hardman: Jewish community says ‘enough is enough’ on Labour’s anti-semitism

Jeremy Corbyn this evening said he was ‘sincerely sorry’ for the pain caused by ‘pockets of anti-semitism’ in his party, and is arranging to meet representatives of the Jewish community this week. Tonight the Labour leader has had something of a preview of how that meeting might go, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council publishing a furious letter in which they accuse him of ignoring the ‘mainstream majority of British Jews’.

The letter, entitled ‘enough is enough’, says Corbyn personifies the form of politics that repeatedly fails to take antisemitism seriously, and says that ‘again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with antisemites rather than Jews’. Its authors argue:

‘Jeremy Corbyn did not invent this form of politics, but he has had a lifetime within it, and now personifies its problems and dangers. He issues empty statements about opposing antisemitism, but does nothing to understand or address it. We conclude that he cannot seriously contemplate antisemitism, because he is so ideologically fixed within a far left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities.’

You can read the full text below. This letter is extraordinary, not merely in terms of the accusations it makes, but also in terms of the circumstances in which it has been written: a leader of a mainstream party in Britain is refusing to apologise for backing an artist who painted an anti-semitic mural. The argument of his supporters, including Tom Watson, that it would have been difficult to see the detail of the mural on a phone, is an incredibly weak one; Labour MPs would have been quick to condemn someone who had failed to see the racism in a mural about black people, for instance. The letter points out Corbyn’s long-standing involvement with this form of politics, presumably to highlight that he is not some naive buffoon who hadn’t recognised the very obviously anti-semitic imagery in the mural.

In bitter letter, UK Jewish leaders slam Corbyn for ‘siding with anti-Semites’

Leaders of British Jewry blasted opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an extraordinary letter on Monday, saying he had sided with anti-Semites “again and again” and now “enough is enough.”

The open letter from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council said the veteran leftist was “repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views” but “claims never to hear or read them.”

The organizations were set to protest outside Parliament in London Monday before delivering the letter to a meeting of Labour lawmakers.

“Today, leaders of British Jewry tell Jeremy Corbyn that enough is enough,” the letter says.

“We conclude that he cannot seriously contemplate anti-Semitism, because he is so ideologically fixed within a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities.”

“Corbyn did not invent this form of politics, but he has had a lifetime within it, and now personifies its problems and dangers.”

The final straw that triggered the letter was a Facebook comment from 2012 that recently came to light.

Corbyn had offered support to a street artist whose mural in east London depicting bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor was about to be swiftly removed.

READ: JEWISH LEADERS’ CORBYN LETTER IN FULL

Today, leaders of British Jewry tell Jeremy Corbyn that enough is enough. We have had enough of hearing that Jeremy Corbyn “opposes antisemitism”, whilst the mainstream majority of British Jews, and their concerns, are ignored by him and those he leads. There is a repeated institutional failure to properly address Jewish concerns and to tackle antisemitism, with the Chakrabarti Report being the most glaring example of this.

Jeremy Corbyn did not invent this form of politics, but he has had a lifetime within it, and now personifies its problems and dangers. He issues empty statements about opposing antisemitism, but does nothing to understand or address it. We conclude that he cannot seriously contemplate antisemitism, because he is so ideologically fixed within a far left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities.

When Jews complain about an obviously antisemitic mural in Tower Hamlets, Corbyn of course supports the artist. Hizbollah commits terrorist atrocities against Jews, but Corbyn calls them his friends and attends pro-Hizbollah rallies in London. Exactly the same goes for Hamas. Raed Salah says Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood. Corbyn opposes his extradition and invites him for tea at the House of Commons. These are not the only cases. He is repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly antisemitic views, but claims never to hear or read them.

Again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with antisemites rather than Jews. At best, this derives from the far left’s obsessive hatred of Zionism, Zionists and Israel. At worst, it suggests a conspiratorial worldview in which mainstream Jewish communities are believed to be a hostile entity, a class enemy. When Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, Jews expressed sincere and profound fears as to how such politics would impact upon their wellbeing. Our concerns were never taken seriously. Three years on, the Party and British Jews are reaping the consequences.

CAA to send representatives to Parliament Square demonstration this evening

This evening at 17:30, members of the Jewish community and friends who stand with us against racism will meet in Parliament Square, to make our feelings known to the Parliamentary Labour Party which will meet at 18:00 to discuss the recent revelations about Jeremy Corbyn. We will be there as part of a broad show of communal disgust and outrage, and to demand that the Parliamentary Labour Party discusses Campaign Against Antisemitism’s disciplinary complaint against Mr Corbyn.

We encourage those who are able to attend to do so.

Over the weekend, Campaign Against Antisemitism filed a disciplinary complaint against Mr Corbyn which:

Restates our previous disciplinary complaint from 2016, which charged him with bringing the Labour Party into disrepute for dismissing antisemitism and endorsing the views of his brother;

Denounces Mr Corbyn over his membership of, participation in, and lies about the antisemitic “Palestine Live” Facebook group;

Reports Mr Corbyn for his alleged continued membership of the antisemitic “History of Palestine” Facebook group;

Calls out Mr Corbyn’s lies about a second inquiry into Ken Livingstone’s comments about Hitler supporting Zionists;

Denounces Mr Corbyn’s defence of a mural that even he now admits was antisemitic; and

Includes complaints about various other Labour Party figures.

Last night we rejected Mr Corbyn’s attempt to escape responsibility by apologising. Today it has emerged that he signed up to a third antisemitic Facebook group.

Watchdog Plans Mass London Rally Against Labour Party Antisemitism; Lodges Complaint Against Leader Corbyn

A leading British antisemitism watchdog is planning a major rally to be held in London in opposition to the rise in Jew-hatred in the Labour party.

Since Jeremy Corbyn and his far-Left Momentum movement took over leadership of Labour, the party has been beset with antisemitism scandals. Most recently, it emerged that Corbyn himself had supported a mural replete with antisemitic imagery. He later apologized.

Corbyn also ran into trouble when it was revealed that he was a member of a Facebook group called Palestine Live whose members regularly trafficked in antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Prominent Labour members Jackie Walker and former London mayor Ken Livingstone were suspended from the party after making antisemitic remarks.

Gideon Falter, Chairman of the UK’s Campaign Against Antisemitism group, told The Algemeiner, “Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party has been seized by racists. Jeremy Corbyn is at home amongst them, having spent his political career seeking out and giving his backing to Holocaust deniers, genocidal antisemitic terrorist groups, wild antisemitic conspiracy theorists and a litany of Jew-haters.

“This is the point of no return: Britain must stand up for its Jewish community against the racists in control of the Labour Party. Future generations are watching: To be silent is to condone. On 8th April at 2pm, the British public will take a national stand against antisemitism in London. We are calling on a broad coalition of those who oppose racism to join us.”

The CAA is expecting a large turnout. A previous rally held by the CAA in 2014 was attended by 4,500 people.

CAA rejects Jeremy Corbyn’s apology, saying he is “taking the public for fools” and it is “too late”

In response to our earlier disciplinary complaint and call for a national demonstration, Jeremy Corbyn has issued a statement of apology.

Mr Corbyn said: “Labour is an anti-racist party and I utterly condemn antisemitism, which is why as leader of the Labour Party I want to be clear that I will not tolerate any form of antisemitism that exists in and around our movement. We must stamp this out from our party and movement.

“We recognise that antisemitism has occurred in pockets within the Labour Party, causing pain and hurt to our Jewish community in the Labour Party and the rest of the country. I am sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused.

“Our party has deep roots in the Jewish community and is actively engaged with Jewish organisations across the country. We are campaigning to increase support and confidence in Labour among Jewish people in the UK. I know that to do so, we must demonstrate our total commitment to excising pockets of antisemitism that exist in and around our party.

I will be meeting representatives from the Jewish community over the coming days, weeks and months to rebuild that confidence in Labour as a party which gives effective voice to Jewish concerns and is implacably opposed to antisemitism in all its forms. Labour will work to unite communities to achieve social justice in our society.”

BOARD OF DEPUTIES: CORBYN ‘SWIMS IN A SEWER OF ANTI-SEMITISM’

As Corbyn maintains his silence this morning, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews Jonathan Arkush ramped up the condemnation on GMB:

“[Jeremy Corbyn]’s fostered a culture in which people feel free to come out with rank anti-Semitism… the political sea, or perhaps I should call it a sewer, in which he swims, is totally polluted by anti-Semitism.”
Labour MP Louise Ellman, former chair of Jewish Labour Movement, says the party is in crisis:

“Jeremy Corbyn has failed to take the correct action… it’s taken us to get to this crisis situation where you can hear the voices of the Jewish community in absolute fury and great distress… Jeremy has failed to act… we’re in a very bad place.”

Her colleague John Mann says he doesn’t know if Corbyn is an anti-Semite

Jeremy Corbyn’s Support, Admiration, Love, and Respect for Violent Antisemites

Mind you, Hamas is not enough for IHH. This outfit is so depraved that it saluted the mass murderer Shamil Basayev when he was killed. Oh, and the killing of Osama bin Laden was condemnable “American terrorism”.

It is easy to know what to say about this kind of horde. It is unspeakably hideous. No one with even the slightest sense of decency should stand up for it.

Jeremy Corbyn had a rather different view on the flotilla. Days after the confrontation on the Mavi Marmara, he spoke angrily on behalf of the extremist thugs. As he came to the end of his remarks, he said:

“I want to finish by saying, my support, my admiration, my love and respect for all those that were on that convoy”.

All of this horror was in plain view. This blog covered it at the time. Ignorance is an entirely unacceptable excuse, above all from a politician who claims he wants “peace” in the Middle East.

I don’t believe ignorance even comes into play, by the way. Antisemites are Mr Corbyn’s true love and most cherished cause. His record shows this, for years on end, again and again and again. If the antisemites in question are violent, Corbyn’s passion is all the greater.

If the oldest hatred is not your cause, then Labour must not be your party.

The Quislings of the Jewish Voice for Labour

The head of the so called Jewish Voice for Labour is Jenny Manson. Though for some reason she got her own name wrong and signed it ‘Mason’ on a list of about 20 dodgy Jews who are shilling for Jeremy Corbyn.

Jenny Manson formed the group in order to make sure that anti-Zionist Jews can shill for antisemites in the Labour Party. As she said just the other day at a talk in the London Muslim Centre;
“We started the organisation for two purposes I would say, one was to work with other Jewish organisations that I’ll mention on behalf of Palestinian rights, the other was to tackle allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party but that’s for another night if you’re interested in the talk and I was actually with various members of staff of Jeremy Corbyn and Shami Chakrabarti today talking about that certainly recently Jewish Voice for Labour is starting to be listened to more as things change in the Labour Party.”

So naturally the hard left Labour Party leadership want to push JVL to the fore. Note above that Manson says she has been in meetings with Corbyn and Chakrabarti’s staff to talk about tackling accusations of antisemitism, she said that a week ago.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell says he hopes Manson will be the Parliamentary Candidate for Labour for the constituency of Finchley and Golders Green.

SHADOW CABINET MINISTER: ‘CORBYN IS STEEPED IN ANTI-SEMITISM, WE ARE AN ANTI-SEMITIC PARTY’

Shadow Leader of the House Valerie Vaz was wheeled out to defend Corbyn amid Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis on Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night. Hapless Vaz didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word anti-Semitism, as she repeatedly gaffed:
“[Jeremy Corbyn]’s been steeped in anti-Semitism… we must make sure we continue to show people we are an anti-Semitic party”

Helpful…

BBC News not sure whether Corbyn controversy mural antisemitic or not

This is of course far from the first time that the BBC has refrained from unambiguously informing its audiences that content at the centre of a controversy is antisemitic.

However, with concerns about antisemitism within the second largest party in the UK parliament now prompting the mainstream British Jewish community to take such an action for the first time in decades, it is obviously essential that Britain’s national broadcaster be capable of providing its audiences with a clear and accurate view of the story.

And that necessarily includes being able to unambiguously describe antisemitism as such – without the equivocal punctuation and qualifying terminology all too frequently seen in BBC content.

CORBYN PERSONALLY JOINED THIRD ANTI-SEMITIC FACEBOOK GROUP

Jeremy Corbyn has been active in one anti-Semitic Facebook group. He was a member of a second anti-Semitic Facebook group until last week. And now Guido can reveal he personally joined and is still a member of a third Facebook group filled with extremely anti-Semitic content.

The difference with the other groups is that Corbyn personally and actively joined “The Labour Party Supporter”. He was not added by anybody else. “The Labour Party Supporter” is full of anti-Semitic postings about the Rothschilds, Jews harvesting organs, the Holocaust and conspiracy theories linking Israel and ISIS. Corbyn remains a member of the group this morning.

Antisemitism, homophobia and the NUS’s National Executive Council

Ayo is best known for his role in the Hen Mazzig protest at UCL in November 2016 where Jewish students were trapped in a room by a mob of anti-Israel protestors.

Unsatisfied with his initial attempts, Ayo was this year once again front and centre at the Dan Meridor protest at KCL where Jewish students were again surrounded in a room by a baying crowd of their fellow students.

Ayo believes that Israel is “one of the principal funders of genocides of Africans”. Sound familiar? *Cough*…..Jackie Walker…..*ahem*….

Ayo quite proudly asks people to call him a ‘conspiracy theorist’ as he shares an antisemitic video about the “Rothschild’s master plan”. The video he shares goes on to talk about how the Rothschild’s run every central bank in the world (apart from North Korea, Iran and Cuba). It discusses how the Rothschild’s manipulate countries to go to war for them as they have an “unlimited amount of money and power”. The video suggests 9/11 was an inside job, carried out in order for the Rothschild’s to gain control of Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s banks. The video is quite simply a piece of antisemitic propaganda. Ayo tells people to “do a little research on this” – we did. Google “Rothschild’s master plan” and you will get taken into a world of antisemitic conspiracies, much coming from far-right, neo-nazi sites and forums.

BBC double standards on terrorism on view again

BBC News website coverage of the March 23rd terror attack in south-west France included two reports – “France hostage crisis: ‘Two dead’ in Trèbes supermarket” and “France shooting: Police kill supermarket gunman” – featuring an insert titled “Major terror attacks in France”.

Obviously the BBC’s description of those attacks as acts of terror is appropriate – notwithstanding the corporation’s supposed editorial policy of avoiding the word ‘terrorist’ without attribution in order to avoid “value judgements”.

However, as regular readers will be aware, while its reports on attacks in certain locations (especially Europe and North America) do use such terminology, the BBC consistently refuses to use the word terror in its reporting on comparable attacks against Israelis and audiences have never been provided with an insert titled “Major terror attacks in Israel”.

BBC Arabic producer breaches social media guidelines again

Few would have been surprised to see Ha’aretz publisher Amos Schocken’s March 22nd Tweet promoting the notion that Israel is guilty of ‘apartheid’: he has, after all, touted such allegations on the pages of his paper for years.

“Of the characteristics of apartheid: one legal system for Jews and another for natives”

Members of the BBC’s funding public may, however, have been disturbed to see a clearly identified BBC Arabic producer retweet that controversial smear to his own Twitter followers.

At Yad Vashem, new German FM condemns rising anti-Semitism

New German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem on Sunday, at the start of a two-day visit to the region.

Maas toured the museum's Hall of Names and attended a memorial ceremony at the Hall of Remembrance. Later on Sunday, he met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

"We must keep the memory," Maas said at the memorial. "Germany is responsible for the most cruel crimes in human history. For us, the Holocaust is both a warning sign and a commitment to work around the world for human rights and for tolerance. We should object to anti-Semitism and racism and act against it every day, everywhere."

A strong advocate of minority rights, Maas also sharply condemned rising anti-Semitism in Germany following a recent incident at an elementary school in Berlin.

In urgent need of an EpiPen? App may find you one, stat

Israeli researchers have teamed up with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical service, to create an app that can provide immediate help to patients having an acute allergic reaction. The app is the first patient-centric social network of its kind for the delivery of emergency medication, Bar-Ilan University said in a statement on Monday.

Millions of severe allergy sufferers are at high risk of going into anaphylactic shock, a serious allergic reaction that can cause death within minutes. The severe reaction can be treated with the EpiPen, a pen-like autoinjector that is used to deliver the life-saving medication epinephrine.

Unfortunately, many allergy patients don’t carry, or forget to carry, their medication with them at all times. In the case of sudden anaphylactic shock, these patients are completely dependent on the timely arrival of emergency services.

To address this problem, Prof. David Schwartz and doctoral students Michael Khalemsky and Michal Gaziel Yablowitz, from the School of Business Administration at Bar-Ilan University, worked closely with MDA’s team, led by Dr. Eli Jaffe, to create the “EPIMADA” app. Launched recently, it already has hundreds of registered users in Israel.

Dozens of ‘Freedom Coins’ from the 66-67 CE Jewish Revolt Discovered in Temple Mount Cave

Bronze coins, the last remnants of a four-year Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, were found near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They were now discovered by Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar during renewed excavations at the Ophel, located below the Temple Mount’s southern wall.

These 1.5cm bronze coins were left behind by Jewish residents who hid in a large cave (21×42 ft.) for four years (66-70 C.E.) during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, up until the destruction of the Second Temple and the city of Jerusalem.
A ‘Freedom Coin’ from the revolt of 67-70 CE / Photo credit: Eilat Mazar/Hebrew University

While several of the coins date to the early years of the revolt, the great majority are from its final year, otherwise known as “Year Four” (69-70 CE). Significantly, during that final year, the Hebrew inscription on the coins was changed from “For the Freedom of Zion” to “For the Redemption of Zion,” a shift that reflects the changing mood of the rebels during this period of horror and famine.

“A discovery like this—ancient coins bearing the words ‘Freedom’ and ‘Redemption’—found right before the Jewish Festival of Freedom, Passover, begins, is incredibly moving,” Dr. Mazar noted.

In addition to Hebrew inscriptions, the coins were decorated with Jewish symbols, such as four plant species mentioned in relation to the Sukkot holiday: palm, myrtle, citron and willow, and a picture of the goblet that was used in the Temple service.

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