08/08 Links Pt2: How the Jews Ruined Anti-Semitism; Al Sharpton and the Decline of the Democrats; The West Bank’s Unreported Forbidden Roads

From Ian:

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How the Jews Ruined Anti-Semitism

Jews today are caught between competing definitions of who we are and who we must be. We are not convenient. According to taste we are colonizers and liberators, belligerents and victims, a religion and a state. The post-war obsession with the Nazis has inevitably corralled Jews into a place of significance that flatters us but that we cannot ultimately bear. That significance turns Israel-Palestine into the struggle, an object of fascination, horror and support across the world. The world can pick and choose the Jewish state that it imagines: Israel as the symbol of Western oppression, the symbol of resistance to Islamic supremacy, the symbol of redemption, the symbol of irredeemable violence.

However much the world wants to settle on the image of the Jew of their choice, something always escapes control. Some or all of us refuse to be what is required of us, causing frustration and disappointment. And that means that we have inevitably ruined anti-Semitism too, building on the Nazi’s sterling work in doing the same.

We ruined anti-Semitism for consensus anti-Semites by seeking to take control of our existence, by building up worldly power.

We ruined anti-Semitism for those who do not wish to be consensus anti-Semites by ceasing to be defensible.

We ruined anti-Semitism for Jews, by not taking the easy route, by refusing to be “Jews.”

Given the now inescapable fact that Jews as an entirety cannot be assimilated into narratives about what anti-Semitism is, non-Jews are increasingly being selective: choosing the Jews they damn and the ones they save. And we are playing along, telling the world who the real Jews are, the Jews that are worth defending. This has not only contributed to the ruination of any kind of understanding that can encompass Jews as a whole, it has contributed to our own fragmentation as a people.

What freshman members of Congress should learn on their trip to Israel

This year’s August congressional trip to Israel is different from previous years, as so much attention is focused on who is not joining, specifically the members of the pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) “Squad,” Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

However, most members who come to Israel do have an open mind and can grasp the difficulties that have thwarted decades of efforts at resolution of the conflict between Israel and its enemies, some who will not be satisfied until there is no Jewish state and no Western-oriented presence in the region.

Some say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about the occupation, and Israel for its own good should unilaterally withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, and that the Jews of all peoples, after centuries of oppression, should not be occupying another people’s land.

Yet if there is to be created an autonomous Palestinian state adjacent to Israel, is it reasonable to expect that missiles won’t be exploding in Tel Aviv, or that they won’t have to run their children into bomb shelters all the time everywhere in Israel?

Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Its reward was three wars launched from the coastal enclave and plenty of indignant international condemnation for Israel defending itself against forces launching missiles from school yards and hospitals, and digging tunnels under borders to sneak across and murder civilians.

CAMERA: The West Bank’s Unreported Forbidden Roads

A Reuters article yesterday about a Palestinian-developed app to help West Bank drivers avoid traffic caused by Israeli checkpoints covers up select forbidden West Bank roads — those prohibited to Israeli drivers (“Palestinian app helps drivers avoid Israel checkpoint bottlenecks“).

Correspondent Rami Ayyub asserts:
Around 3 million Palestinians live in the territory along with some 450,000 settlers, who can generally drive in the area without major restriction using so-called “bypass roads” built to avoid Palestinian towns.

The notion that Israeli settlers “generally drive in the area without major restriction” is belied by the fact that West Bank roads are heavily restricted to Israeli drivers. In fact, Israeli drivers are prohibited from entering at all in Area A of the West Bank, which constitutes more than 10 percent of the territory. In other words, Israeli drivers are kept off entire roads in the areas under full Palestinian control.

As a result, Israeli drivers must take a much more circuitous, time-consuming routes to avoid forbidden Palestinian locales. So while there are surely bypass roads, their existence is not tantamount to driving “without major restriction.” Bypass roads exist precisely because of the major restrictions.

Have you ever seen a sign in Israel that says "Palestinians are not allowed to enter"?

They can enter my city, and no one will hurt them, I can not enter their city, and they call Israel an apartheid state?

Via @yankifarber pic.twitter.com/AO7PwZ2nkO

— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) April 26, 2018

Al Sharpton and the Decline of the Democrats

Can this Sharpton, who fomented anti-Jewish riots for several days following the murder of Rosenbaum, be the same saintly fellow whose praises are being sung daily by Senators Harris and Warren and Sanders (and let us not forget Mayor Buttigieg) claiming he “has dedicated his life to the fight for justice for all”? The same paragon upon whom a branch of CUNY confers awards for his achievements on behalf of “equity”?

To register the extent to which the Democratic Party has fallen from what it once was, let us recall what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who knew a thing or two about race relations, said of Al Sharpton’s role in poisoning them. He called the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum a “KKK-style lynching,” and suggested New York use the south as a model.

“We got rid of the lynching in the South by a process of … public abhorrence, so the people involved became ashamed, and law enforcement, which took a long time,” he said.

He called the Crown Heights affair a “race riot” and one that “was as bad as … Detroit in 1943 when black workers were dragged from streetcars and killed by white workers.”

He dismissed with contempt the now fashionable progressive view that “people of color” can’t be bigots: “The notion that there is any race that is immune to the failings and sins of other people is itself a racist idea.”

What Democrat would dare say this today?

Blind Anti-Israel Hate Drives the Campaign to Fire Jake Tapper

If Saturday’s horrifying terrorist attack on an El Paso Walmart had taken place in Jerusalem, leaving 22 Israelis dead, the killer would rot in jail knowing that his family would be taken care of — i.e. paid every month by his government.

He also might one day have a park, a school, or a street named in his honor. He would be held up as a hero and used to inspire more killing. Children would be encouraged to follow his lead.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of how the Palestinian Authority and others help incite violence against Israeli civilians. But it’s why, in the wake of discussions about the role that political rhetoric plays in attacks like the El Paso massacre, CNN anchor Jake Tapper made a passing reference to Palestinian incitement.

For the sin of invoking a real thing, Israel-haters are demanding Tapper be fired.

It seems to have started with Sana Saeed, a host and producer with Al-Jazeera‘s online arm, AJ+.

“Collect your man, CNN,” she wrote on Sunday after calling Tapper’s remarks “the height of unethical journalism.”

That’s a charge on a scale with plagiarizing, lying, or stealing information. What, exactly, did Tapper say to generate such an accusation?

“You hear conservatives talk all the time — rightly, in my view — about the tone set by, well, the Arab world,” Tapper said. “The Palestinians and the way they talk about Israelis, justifying … no direct link between what the leader says and the violence to some poor Israeli girl in a pizzeria — but the idea you’re validating this hatred.”

“You can’t compare the ideology of Hamas with anything else,” Tapper said, “but at the same time, either tone matters or it doesn’t.”

It's 16 Days since we released a damning video & report on:
1. Vile anti-Semitism of @AMPalestine
2. Their Partnership With @IfNotNowOrg

So far @IfNotNowOrg have not condemned AMP, not apologized, and not expressed regret. Their silence is revealing. https://t.co/OxJp0IGZj7

— Canary Mission (@canarymission) August 6, 2019

The Social Geography of the BDS Movement and Antisemitism

An original analysis of the global distribution of BDS Internet searches revealed disproportionate interest in countries such as New Zealand, Ireland, and Sweden, as well as in coastal US states with large academic institutions. In the former regions there are few Jews and little contact with Israel, while in the latter, there are many Jews but proportionately fewer Christian supporters of Israel. A simple explanation for these patterns is that BDS interest correlates with post-Christian contexts in which Jews are relatively absent, or with “white” class anxiety emanating from academia. In the US, growing negativity about Israel in liberal Western communities is likely a class-based transfer of anxiety regarding ”white privilege” onto Israel and Jews.
View PDF

Hillel Frisch’s highly original analysis of the popularity of BDS raises important questions about the character of this global ”movement.” In brief, by examining the geography of Google queries on BDS and Israel’s legitimacy, Frisch concludes that interest in BDS may be slowing, but it is also distributed uniquely.

Underlying this distribution are important factors that deserve highlighting.

Frisch found, for example, that Google searches regarding BDS in New Zealand, Ireland, and Sweden exceed those in the US and Britain. That is to say, individuals in post-Christian countries with almost no Jews and few relationships with Israel exhibit a disproportionate interest in negative information regarding both.

One explanation for this is that it is precisely the relative absence of Jews and contact with Israel that drives interest. There is a curious symmetry there with the obsessions of Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, which are entirely Jew-free. In both, Israel and Jews are given a disproportionate place in media and scholarship and are ascribed an outsized role in world affairs, albeit with different interpretations. (h/t IsaacStorm)

European mental health group rethinks nixing Israel meeting after backlash

A European mental health association said it will rethink a decision to cancel a planned conference in Israel following widespread objections by academics worldwide.

The European Network for Mental Health Service Evaluation, or Enmesh, had decided to scrap the gathering out of concern that it would cause pushback from pro-BDS groups. Instead it led to vocal protests from academics in the United States, Canada and Europe, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

“The deliberations around whether the ENMESH conference should or should not be held in Israel were never intended as an academic boycott of any kind, nor should they be perceived as such,” the group said in a statement.

“ENMESH has been sincere throughout in expressing its wish to host a conference in Israel. We were only ever concerned by practical considerations, given the very limited ability of an unfunded and informal academic network to manage the potential campaigning that such an event might attract.”

California Curriculum Shows the Price of Complacency About BDS

While many in the Jewish world have been sounding the alarm about the threat from the BDS movement, others have said the concern about this issue has been overstated. Some have pointed out that the movement to boycott Israel has in most respects been a spectacular failure, and that support for Israel in the United States remains strong. As far as some leftist critics of the push against BDS is concerned, the effort to focus on it is out of proportion to any actual danger, and they think it distracts Jews from dealing with other threats that are more urgent and important, such as that of white-nationalist hate.

While concern about right-wing hate is entirely appropriate, the notion that BDS poses no real menace to the Jewish community is utterly bogus.

Proof of that comes from California where, as a JNS feature pointed out, an anti-Israel and antisemitic ethnic studies curriculum being promulgated by the state of California has illustrated just where complacency about BDS can lead us.

The ethnic-studies model that has been proposed and is currently under review by the California Department of Education remains a watershed moment for the BDS movement. On the one hand, the proposal completely ignores the history and contributions of Jews as an ethnic and religious group in the United States. On the other, it fully embraces a course of study about Arabs that views the Palestinian war on Israel solely from the point of view of those who wish to destroy the Jewish state.

Groups Call on California to Safeguard ‘Biased Agenda’ of Proposed Ethnic-Studies Track

After an immediate backlash over a proposed ethnic-studies curriculum by the California Department of Education, 83 organizations emailed a letter to the department, calling for it to establish safeguards to prevent any and all “future attempts to use educational curricula to indoctrinate students with a biased, inaccurate and hateful agenda,” according to a statement from the AMCHA Initiative, which organized the Wednesday letter.

Addressed to Soomin Chao, chair of the department’s Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), the organizations acknowledged the letter sent to her from individuals and groups, including California Legislative Jewish Caucus, but stated they were writing to her “because we believe these concerns highlight a much deeper and graver problem, namely, the fact that an educational curriculum can be hijacked by those pushing a political and hateful agenda.”

“If not addressed, this problem threatens to undermine not only the current effort to develop an ethnic studies model curriculum, but all other curricular efforts undertaken by the Department of Education,” continued the letter. “In order to prevent such abuse and the extremely harmful consequences that will ensue from it, we believe safeguards must be put in place before any state-mandated curriculum is adopted for use in California classrooms.” (h/t IsaacStorm)

Legal Insurrection Foundation opposes proposed anti-Israel public school curriculum in California

Legal Insurrection has long tracked and opposed the spread of anti-Israel curricula at the university level, and has documented efforts to push that political activism into high school and elementary schools. Our research and litigation exposing anti-Israel activism in a third-grade class in Ithaca received national attention, VIDEO: Activists manipulate third-graders into hating Israel.

One of the most audacious anti-Israel propaganda efforts is taking place right now in California, through the proposed California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). As described below, Legal Insurrection joins over 80 groups in opposing ESMC and urging California educational authorities to revise the curriculum to remove clear politicization designed to imbue young students with hatred of Israel.

Enter the AMCHA Initiative, a California-based non-profit organization that documents, studies, and fights expressions of anti-Semitism on campuses across the United States and Canada.

We have covered AMCHA’s work before, including August 2018, when AMCHA published a study (pdf.) that provides further empirical confirmation of how this Israel-related harassment and intimidation is contributing to an increasingly hostile campus environment for Jewish students—even more so than do incidents involving ‘classic’ antisemitism (i.e., instances of Nazi swastika graffiti).

Now, Legal Insurrection Foundation has joined AMCHA—and a whopping 81 other community and student organizations—in opposing the proposed anti-Israel public school curriculum for a new Ethnic Studies course. A letter outlining the extensive problems with the curriculum was signed by all 83 groups and sent to Soomin Chao, chair of the Instructional Quality Commission at the California Department of Education.

Anti-Zionist Former Academic Ditched by US University Urges Boycott of Israel During ‘Academic Freedom’ Lecture in South Africa

An American anti-Zionist academic who lost a tenured university position over his graphically-antisemitic outbursts on Twitter surfaced at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa on Wednesday, where he delivered a fierce attack on the “corporate university” and depicted Israel as the supine tool of an international “ruling class.”

Steven Salaita — whose inflammatory comments on social media during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 led to the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) revoking a tenured job offer it had made to him — delivered the 2019 T.B. Davie Memorial Academic Freedom lecture on what he called “the inhumanity of academic freedom.”

Deploying a mixture of simplified Marxist economics with progressive identity politics, Salaita told the audience in Cape Town that academic freedom meant little in an “economy structured around obedience.”

Assailing the concept of “academic freedom” as a ruse that distracted from the cause of genuine social freedom, Salaita insisted that Israel was a major beneficiary of the “structural forces, often unseen, always beneficial to an elite” who “determine what gets heard,” according to a summary of his remarks tweeted by the Palestine Solidarity Forum at UCT.

“Why does Israel, such a small country, enjoy such prominence on campuses?” Salaita asked. “Because Israel humors the ruling class.”

Canadian Government Reviewing Court Decision Prohibiting West Bank Wine Labeled ‘Products of Israel’

Canada’s government has been “carefully reviewing” a federal court decision from last month that wine made in Judea and Samaria cannot be labeled as “products of Israel.”

The Canada Food Inspection Agency emailed The Hill Times that “the Government of Canada is carefully reviewing the Federal Court ruling issued on July 29, 2019.”

The court decision was part of a three-year legal dispute over bottles of Psagot Winery and Shiloh Winery from the West Bank, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Lionel Richie to say 'Hello' to Tel Aviv in spite of BDS pressure

Lionel Richie, the popular singer known for such hits as "Hello" and "All Night Long," who is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on September 12, drew praise from Jason Greenblatt, the US special representative for international negotiations, on Monday for choosing to ignore pressure from the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to cancel his concert.

Greenblatt tweeted, “Lionel Richie refused to cancel his concert in Israel or be intimidated by threats. BDS & intimidation only undermine the chances for peace & do absolutely NOTHING to help Palestinians.”

Last week, Richie, who has won multiple Grammy Awards and whose albums have sold more than 100 million copies around the world, blocked the group Code Pink over its campaign calling on him to cancel his upcoming concert.

Code Pink started a campaign calling on the Richie to cancel his Tel Aviv performance with a petition that accused Israel of “oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people... If you choose to follow through with your performance in Tel Aviv, it will act as an endorsement of Israel’s brutal systems of military occupation and apartheid.”

Scholars slam NY legal decision forcing Fordham U. to recognize BDS group

Bannon wrote that “the consideration and discussion of differing views is actually part of Fordham’s mission, regardless of whether that consideration and discussion might discomfit some and polarize others.”

SJP supports the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign targeting the Jewish state. In May, Germany’s parliament classified BDS as antisemitic.

Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), told the Post on Wednesday that, “Fordham University attempted to take a strong stance against BDS by blocking the creation of an SJP chapter – by arguing the their commitment to freedom of research and inquiry goes counter to SJP boycott ideology. SJP has over a hundred chapters around the country and is the No. 1 springboard for BDS activity on campus.”

Romirowsky added that: “The challenge Fordham and other universities in the US faced has to do with free speech and academic freedom – and above all, the ability to prove when groups like the SJP cross the line from free speech to hate speech as a result of their pro-BDS stance.

“Moreover, the issue became more challenging as it related to discrimination of groups on campus,” he said. “SJP [chapters] have documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and there needs to be a serious look at their ties and influence to terror groups, which would move the debate from a speech issue to an incitement matter.”

The Egyptian government has classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Spuds and us: Why is Ireland turning away from the potato?

As I stare at the very beautiful new season potatoes, I wonder is it time for us to leave the myth of Ireland and the potato behind? I mean, everyone loves potatoes, no? Simmered in salted water and then dressed with butter, sea salt and parsley (though I prefer dillisk) – can you imagine a more wholesome meal?

At the height of our infatuation with the humble tuber, just before the famine, some of us ate an average of 7kg of potatoes a day. And now?

We are turning away from the spud. We now don’t grow enough potatoes in Ireland to feed ourselves. In 2017, we imported 72,000 tonnes of potatoes into Ireland. A box of potatoes from Israel is cheaper than potatoes from Ireland. As well as that, many young people are turning towards lower GI alternatives. Have we just grown tired of the potato?

In 2017, we imported 72,000 tonnes of potatoes into Ireland. A box of potatoes from Israel is cheaper than potatoes from Ireland. https://t.co/1eXjFzcvfO

— Israel Trade Ireland (@Tradeisrael) August 7, 2019

UC Riverside Prof Reza Aslan Calls for Half the Country to Be 'Eradicated'

UC Riverside professor Reza Aslan has a long history of profanity-laden, hate-filled, violent tweets and his latest Twitter storm is no exception.

In response to the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, over the weekend, Aslan---who has joined many Democrats in blaming President Trump for the white supremacist-inspired shooting, while ignoring the leftist political leanings of the Dayton, Ohio, shooter who struck the same weekend---attacked first daughter Ivanka Trump, tweeting, "F--- you and your entire white supremacist family." He then directed his venom towards Trump administration spokesperson Kellyanne Conway, calling her an "evil" that "we need to eradicate."

Finally, as blogger Gary Fouse points out, Aslan went ballistic, labeling Trump "a white nationalist terror leader," all his supporters "white nationalist terror supporters," and MAGA hats the equivalent of a "KKK hood," while calling for "this evil racist scourge" to be "eradicated from society." In other words, Aslan responded to violence committed by unhinged individuals---whatever their motivations---by calling for violence against at least half the country.

One wonders if there's anything UC Riverside would find unacceptable for one of its professors to be spewing on social media. In the case of Reza Aslan, the answer would seem to be a resounding "no."

Owen Benjamin’s Rants Are Not Comedy, But Incitement

Owen Benjamin, a failed actor and comedian, is transitioning. He is starting his third career as a professional Jew-hater who solicits donations from people who share his anti-Semitic worldview. To earn his keep, he promotes hate and hostility toward Jews in general and one Jew in particular, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.

Benjamin suggests that that if you’ve been harmed in a war that Shapiro supported, you’re entitled to kill him. In a YouTube video that has seen by thousands of viewers, Benjamin declared “I’d kill the guy” if one of his sons were to die or suffer from the after-effects of fighting a war Shapiro supported. “My son will never fight your fucking Jew wars, Ben,” the wild-eyed Benjamin said in a video posted on YouTube on March 30, 2019.

In the same video (titled “Chickenhawk Ben Shapiro is the Worst”) Benjamin also declared “If anyone has ever had anyone die in the military or had their fucking brain fried and then you have this little faggot Jew [say], ‘Wait, wait, we gotta invade Syria,’ it’ll drive you insane.”

In the same video, Benjamin stated, “Ben Shapiro… he deserves to be in prison” and that Shapiro is “an American citizen and all he can think about is Israeli global dominance as our friends die.” In the midst of a rant about the suffering soldiers have endured as a result of their military service, Benjamin stops himself and declares, “Ben Shapiro is a cu-t” before going back to describing the suffering of his military friends. It’s not too hard to imagine that if something bad were to happen to Shapiro, Benjamin would rejoice.

Western Arabic news outlets distinguish between ‘good Jews’ and ‘bad Zionists’

(This is the second in a series of posts by CAMERA Arabic showing how Arabic language news networks, including those affiliated with Western media outlets, frame the topic of Jews who originate from or live in the Middle East and North Africa, by distinguishing between ‘loyal’ Jews and ‘treacherous’ Zionists. All translations, emphasis and in-bracket remarks are by CAMERA Arabic unless otherwise specified.)

Part 2:
The first post in this series (published on August 1st in BBC watch) was an analysis of an isolated incident which involved Jews native to Tunisia. It was there that an Israeli tourist of Tunisian descent praised both of her motherlands on camera during an Israeli news report, sparking protests in the North African country. The protestors called for a stop to Tunisian “normalisation” with the “Zionist entity” and demanded the sacking of the country’s Jewish minister of tourism, René Trabelsi.

As that previous post demonstrated, BBC Arabic’s attempt to cover the incident impartially was largely overshadowed by the network’s apparent need to set Israeli Jews (like the tourist) apart from supposedly “patriotic” Tunisian Jews (like Trabelsi) who, in the words of the report, “resist Israel’s temptations” and “cling to their Tunisian roots”.

The online report (and its accompanying TV program) also quoted social media comments in a manner inconsistent with BBC standards. A few commenters – which the report uncritically quoted in full – leveled baseless accusations against the Israeli tourists, suggesting they were performing a military act on Tunisian soil. One Facebook comment, which is still embedded in the BBC article, is outright antisemitic. It alleges that Trabelsi was usurping the role of President, rejects the distinction promoted by the Tunisian government between Zionists and Jews, and accuses them all of engaging in a conspiracy against Tunisia, its people and their Arab identity. The report did not denounce the comment, while the TV program selectively presented only the parts of it that were less hateful.

This second post aims to examine the debate that was already revolving around Tunisia’s small Jewish community in Arabic-speaking media outlets prior to this incident, and ever since a community member was appointed minister in November 2018.

A Skewed NY Times Story on BDS, Then a Skewed Letters Section

After the New York Times published a skewed story about the anti-Israel BDS campaign, we detailed how the newspaper's reporters "put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS."

One of the many examples we noted: The authors quoted all of five words by critics of the BDS movement, which seeks to eliminate Israel. (This was alongside over 75 quoted words by the movement and its founders.)

The newspaper hardly did better in its subsequent Letters section, which was likewise skewed in favor of anti-Israel and pro-BDS voices.

In all, three short letters totaling 308 words focused on criticism of the BDS campaign. In the remaining five letters, 815 words were dedicated to defending BDS, attacking Israel, and slamming critics of BDS.

So the final words of our critique of the Times news story bear repeating, this time about the Letters section:
If the BDS movement’s few successes were “public-relations victories,” as the Times put it, perhaps it is only because they have people in the media who serve as good PR agents. The New York Times reporters might want to consider how they fit in to this.

HonestReporting: Edmonton Journal Cartoon Criticized For Antisemitism

The cartoon was in reference to the Capital One data breach where as many as six million people in Canada may have had their personal information (social insurance numbers, bank account information, etc.) leaked. Mayes illustration depicted what appears to be a menacing looking old Jewish man with a gratuitous big nose who was the data hacker and who stole people’s money as he sits inside their wallet. Importantly, the Capital One data hacker was identified as a woman, yet Mayes drew an image of an elderly (apparently Jewish) stereotypical man.

The only thing missing from this cartoon is a Star of David and a yarmulke to play off the age-old antisemitic trope and Jewish conspiracy theory.

The Edmonton Jewish Federation described the cartoon as antisemitic and sent a complaint to the Journal and requested a meeting with the Journal. Meanwhile, Edmonton residents Susan & Murray Lieberman and Pierre Morin condemned the publication of this cartoon, their letters were published on August 3 and 5 respectively: (h/t IsaacStorm)

MEMRI: Yemeni Sheikh Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Mirabi In Friday Sermon: The Jews – Party Of Satan And A Plague; JFK Said 'If Our Children Knew What The Jews Do' To America 'They Would Curse Us Until The End Of Time'; Let The Jews Taste Our Rifles

Yemeni Sheikh Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Mirabi said in a June 28, 2019 Friday sermon in Taiz, Yemen that Allah cursed the Jews and described them as treacherous and deceitful. Sheikh Al-Mirabi said that the Jews are the "party of Satan," and he warned that anybody who believes that peace can be achieved in the Middle East with the Jews is deluded. He then listed some of the conspiracies he claimed the Jews have participated in against the Muslims, including poisoning and killing the Prophet Muhammad, financing the Crusades, killing Islamic rulers, taking part in the inquisition courts during the Spanish Inquisition, toppling the Ottoman Empire, dividing the Arab world, and deposing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Referring to the Jews as a "plague," Sheikh Al-Mirabi said: "Let [the Jews in Palestine] taste nothing but [our] rifles." The sermon aired on Yemen Shabab TV.

"Allah Said That Jews Are Treacherous And Deceitful... The Quran Tells Us That They Mix Truth And Falsehood"

Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Mirabi: "Allah said that Jews are treacherous and deceitful. Hundreds of prophets have failed to reform them. They have chosen to go astray. The Quran tells us that they mix truth and falsehood, that they hide the truth, that they distort the meaning of words, that they sell the verses of Allah for a paltry price, and that they violate pacts with Allah and with His creations. [The Quran says:] 'So for breaking the covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts hard.' Allah tells us that Satan has gained mastery over them, and that they are the party of Satan. Allah knew of their moral values and nature, and so the Prophet Muhammad banished them from Medina and from the Arabian Peninsula in its entirety. Only a few [Jews] lived next to him, because of all the destruction and everything that they bring upon countries. Whoever thinks that he is smarter than the people who came before him, and who thinks that if he only extends his hand to the Jews, they will surrender to him and make peace in the Middle East – such a person deludes himself."

"The Prophet Muhammad Died Because Of The Poison That Was Fed To Him By The Jews"

"Allah has told us about the immutable characteristics of the [Jews].

Copenhagen Imam Mundhir Abdallah: Every Muslim Leader Serving American, "Crusader" Interests

Copenhagen Imam Mundhir Abdallah said in a June 21, 2019 Friday sermon at the Al-Faruq Mosque in Copenhagen that Muslims, their blood, their honor, and their holy places are no longer inviolable. He said that Jerusalem is occupied by the Zionists, who he said are spreading corruption, and he said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is spreading heresy, immorality, and promiscuity in Mecca and Medina. Imam Abdallah said that "Crusader flames are engulfing Muslims" throughout the world and that the blood of Muslims flows in rivers. Claiming that all Muslim rulers have become the "spearhead" for the "crusade" against Muslim lands, he criticized Iran for "serving" the American "crusade" in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, and he criticized Saudi Arabia for being "shoes on America's feet" and for conspiring against the Syrian revolution. Imam Abdallah went on to criticize the UAE and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed for inviting the Pope to hold mass in the Arabian Peninsula and for normalizing relations with the Jews. The sermon was uploaded to Imam Abdallah's YouTube channel and to the Al-Faruq Mosque's Facebook page.

Lithuanian Jewish Community Shutters Vilnius’ Only Synagogue Over Antisemitic Threats

The Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) has closed Vilnius’ only synagogue and shut down its own administrative building in the face of antisemitic threats from right-wing nationalist elements.

In a statement, chairwoman of the LJC Faina Kukliansky said, “In order to insure the safety of members of the community and worshipers and without any indication that the proponents of this escalating provocation will be called to discipline or account publicly, in cases where the law provides for this, the LJC has been forced to make the painful but unavoidable decision to close the LJC building and the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius for an indeterminate period.”

Tensions have been high in Lithuania in recent months over the removal of a plaque honoring Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika and the renaming of a street named after Kazys Škirpa, another Nazi ally. Both men are regarded as heroes by Lithuanian nationalists.

In her statement, Kukliansky appeared to refer to the Homeland Union party as a major factor in the decision, speaking of “the continual, escalating publicly-expressed desire by one political party for recognizing perpetrators of the mass murder of the Jews of Lithuania as national heroes and the demand these people be honored with commemorative plaques and by other means.”

“Antisemitic comments and inscriptions which are posted to social media pages of political parties and their leaders are being tolerated and go unpunished,” she added, “which makes us wonder even more whether we are safe or not.”

Jewish sisters find swastikas in Indiana college's dorm room

The University of Indianapolis has launched an investigation after two Jewish sisters from Israel found swastikas drawn inside their dormitory room just after arriving on campus for the fall term.

Michal Sasson said she and her twin sister, Shira, were still carrying their suitcases when they discovered two pinkish-red swastikas Monday night on a wall in their room at Roberts Hall. She said the shocking find "was like a kick in my stomach" and that she and her sister were scared.

"I just said: 'We're miles and miles away from home, and this is our home away from home,'" Sasson told The Indianapolis Star. "And at that moment, I felt even further away from my house. I just felt like I was excluded, and it was very painful."

The sisters, who are juniors, have attended the private university on Indianapolis' south side for the past two years. Both play basketball for the college, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

School officials said in a statement that they're "saddened and angered by this act of hate and bigotry" and are investigating.

German Nazi camp guard, 92, charged as accessory to thousands of murders

German prosecutors have charged a 92-year-old former concentration camp guard with being an accessory to murder, in what will be one of the last ever cases against Nazi-era war crimes.

Hamburg prosecutors accused the man, identified only as Bruno D., of aiding and abetting 5,230 cases of murder during the almost nine months he spent on duty at a concentration camp watch-tower at the end of World War Two.

According to Die Welt newspaper, which first reported the charges, the man admitted to prosecutors during a voluntary interrogation last year that he had seen people being taken to gas chambers to be murdered.

“What good would it have done for me to leave? They’d just have found somebody else,” he told prosecutors, according to the newspaper.

“I felt bad for the people there. I didn’t know why they were there. I knew that they were Jews who had committed no crime.”

D., who was 17 when he began serving at Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk in present-day Poland, said he had only joined the SS, the paramilitary wing of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, because a heart weakness meant he was only suited for “garrison service”.

He said he had not been a Nazi sympathizer.

Should a London soccer team be able to use the word ‘Yids?'

Tottenham Hotspur soccer club are querying their fans to find out how comfortable they are using the word “Yids,” in chants and cheers.

Supporters are being asked to complete an online survey by August 18, according to a report by Alegemeiner. The survey asks, “Do you think the use of the Y-word by [Tottenham Hotspur] Spurs fans contributes to a lack of clarity on what constitutes antisemitic abuse by fans, even if unintentional?” and “To what extent do you agree that the use of the Y-word needs to be reassessed?”

The survey is being done as the English Premier League kicks off this coming weekend. The team has a sizable contingent of Jewish fans. However, according to Algemeiner, in the past some rivals have targeted the Tottenham team by deploying the word Yids in offensive and derogatory chants.

This is not the first time the club has polled on such a topic. In 2013, a similar poll found that 74% of non-Jewish and 73% of Jewish fans were generally in favor of being allowed to use the Y-word.

'Solomon’s Temple' church in Brazil to house Holocaust museum

The largest church building in South America’s most populous city will feature a museum dedicated to remembering Holocaust victims.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God will build a Holocaust museum within its 10,000-seat Solomon’s Temple complex in Sao Paulo, Brazil — a $300 million replica of the most revered house of worship in the Torah.

The church said in a statement that the project is in the initial phase of consultation with Jewish community leaders, the Estadao newspaper first reported Monday.

The Holocaust museum will be the country’s second following one dedicated by the Jewish community in Curitiba in 2011. In 2017, a Holocaust memorial opened in Sao Paulo.

“It was on a guided tour of Solomon’s Temple a month ago that I was astounded to discover the plan of the church’s leadership,” the Estadao reporter wrote in a first-person feature article. “The clergyman who led the visit, dressed in white robes and biblical sandals, commented at length on the Holocaust Museum.”

Brazilian Jewish leaders have not commented on the proposed museum. However, they have generally taken a relaxed approach to the Solomon’s Temple, which opened in 2014.

Salesforce to acquire Israeli company ClickSoftware for $1.35b.

American cloud technology giant Salesforce has agreed to acquire Israeli-founded field service management company ClickSoftware Technologies for $1.35 billion.

ClickSoftware, founded by Moshe Ben-Bassat in Givat Shmuel in 1997, has been owned by American private equity firm Francisco Partners since 2015. Salesforce says the acquisition will enhance its Service Cloud customer relationship management (CRM) platform for customer service and support.

The acquisition – Salesforce's largest purchase of an Israeli company to date – is expected to close by October 31, subject to antitrust clearance in the United States and Israel.

"At Salesforce, we introduced our Field Service Lightning product in 2016 in close collaboration with ClickSoftware for our customers to manage field service," Elad Donsky, Salesforce vice-president of engineering and head of Israel R&D, told The Jerusalem Post.

"The product became very successful with our customers and the business is growing really fast. We decided recently that we want to work on this product together, listen to our customers and actually acquire Click, the leading company in providing field service tools."

ClickSoftware's 700-strong workforce, including approximately 200 employees at its Petah Tikva office, serve over 15,000 customers from a wide range of industries, including leading brands Bosch, Deutsche Telecom, Ericsson and Unisys. The acquisition of the company will increase Salesforce's existing Israel workforce to more than 600 employees.

Actress Hedy Lamarr, the Real-Life Jewish Wonder Woman Whose Inventions Led to WiFi and GPS

Once in Hollywood, Lamarr was typically cast as uncanny “others,” characters that Barton calls “exotic dames.” These ranged from worldly bad girls in Algiers (1938) and Boom Town (1940), to the winsome Soviet Communist true believer in King Vidor’s ham-fisted screwball comedy Comrade X (1940), to a European refugee in Come Live With Me (1941), to characters meant to be of mixed race, as in Lady of the Tropics (1939) and, most risibly, the jungle movie White Cargo (1942), for which, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther noted, she was “given a mahogany finish” to play the “native” femme fatal, Tondelayo.

Lamarr’s remote, haunting beauty nearly justifies a number of otherwise inconsequential films, mostly released just before and during WWII. In fact, she had something else on her mind. A child who took apart and reassembled a music box at age 5, a young woman who listened in silence (and, however bored, evidently forgot nothing) while her husband and his associates discussed innovations in the arms trade at dinner, Lamarr had what can only be described as mechanical genius.

Her hobby was inventing—something that, of all the men in her life, only Howard Hughes seemed to appreciate—and as war broke out in Europe, she sought to invent something that would help defeat the Nazis. Together with Antheil, the 26-year-old Lamarr developed plans for a radio-controlled torpedo that by switching from one frequency to another, could elude enemy detection and jamming. (The idea for frequency hopping came in part from Antheil’s attempt to synchronize player pianos; the knowledge of weaponry was Hedy’s.)

The two sent their proposal to the National Inventors Council in late 1940 and applied for a patent in 1941. Their plan for a guided torpedo reached the U.S. Navy later that year and was rejected as too heavy—although the Patent Office did issue two patents on the Antheil-Lamarr “secret communication system.” The Navy acquired the patents and did nothing until, once expired around 1960, the plans became the basis for the similar “spread spectrum” technology that would ultimately lead to Wi-Fi, surveillance drones, satellite communications, GPS, and many cordless phones.

Lamarr and Antheil never made a dime.

Large Batch of Franz Kafka’s Papers Unveiled in Israel After 12-Year Legal Struggle

A massive collection of writings by legendary Jewish author Franz Kafka has been brought to Israel after 12 years of legal wrangling.

According to Israeli news outlet Kan, the collection — unveiled by Israel’s National Library on Wednesday — includes hundreds of items handwritten by Kafka, such as essays, notes for his fictional works, letters and drawings.

Also included are texts written in Hebrew.

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883. Though he wrote in German, he had a strong if conflicted Jewish identity and is now seen as one of the greatest Jewish writers of the 20th century. Among his most admired works are The Metamorphosis and The Trial.

Before he died young in 1924, Kafka asked his friend, Max Brod, to burn his unpublished works. Brod ignored Kafka’s request and brought the material to then-British Mandate Palestine, where they were edited and published.

The new batch was acquired following a long legal struggle over ownership of the papers. They were originally left by Brod to his secretary, and the National Library has been involved in a protracted fight with her family to obtain them. The case worked its way through the legal system over the course of 12 years before a Tel Aviv court ruled in favor of the National Library.

Israel National Library Reveals Kakfa Papers

Israel's national library has revealed the very last collection of Franz Kafka's writing after a decade long legal battle. Our Jotam Confino has the story.

JCPA: The Forgotten Discovery: A First Temple Era Water Cistern near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

At the southern corner of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a rare, preserved cistern from the First Temple period has been found, concealed from view and unknown to many. The Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered the cistern seven years ago, but difficult access to the site prevents public visits. The entranceway is locked and is not included in the various tour programs sponsored by the City of David and local tour guides, despite the enormous archaeological importance of the cistern, whose volume approaches that of a small reservoir.

The discovery of the cistern undermines the long-standing thesis that during the First Temple period, Jerusalem was sustained from the waters of the Gihon Spring alone. For five decades, archaeologists have searched in vain for archaeological evidence to confirm the biblical and historical testimony woven into a biblical speech of Rab-Shakeh, commander of Assyrian King Sennacherib’s army. Rab-Shakeh tried to convince Hezekiah, King of Judah, and the beleaguered inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender, saying: “Come out to me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern [Isaiah 36].”

For many years, archaeologists searched in vain for the cisterns mentioned by Rab-Shakeh. Many reservoirs were discovered from the Second Temple period, but none from First Temple days were found. The prevailing assumption, therefore, was that during First Temple times, Jerusalem was sustained only by the waters of the Gihon Spring.

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