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Elder of Ziyon
The New Anti-Semitism is the Old Anti-Semitism
And when the Nazi Holocaust confronted the world with the ghastly handiwork of unbridled evil, the world embraced the Jewish people as the poster children for the overarching moral standards that govern civilized society. The innate empathy of mankind began to emerge. Anti-Semitism became as indefensible as infanticide.
Tragically, the pendulum has swung back again.
In part, memory fades. More significantly, politics has come to replace religion as the guiding doctrine of mankind. The principles introduced to the world by the Jews have been hijacked and conscripted to defend an ideology of utopianism. Judge every person favorably has mutated into non-judgmentalism. Charity has morphed into entitlement. Liberty has devolved into libertinism. Civility has been weaponized into political correctness.
Most perversely, Israel has been compared to Nazi Germany.
As moral autonomy supplants moral duty, the traditional values of Judaism become worse than irrelevant; they become a threat. The mere suggestion of higher moral authority annuls the right of the individual to define his own moral code. Traditional values become a form of heresy, and all heretics must die.
Ideologies become entrenched. Truth becomes subjective. Civil discourse disintegrates. Rhetoric becomes weaponry. Society descends into empathy deficit disorder.
Inevitably, violence follows as bullying becomes the new normal.
The resurgence of Jew-hatred, therefore, is a symptom of the moral decline of man, not into immorality but amorality, the rejection of moral absolutes and embrace of relativistic moral autonomy.
Ironically, anti-Semitism, has much more to do with non-Jewish society than it does with either the Jew or his Judaism. It is the bully’s reflexive response in the face of moral maturity on the playground of human society.
Is there a solution? Of course.
How Pro-Israel Students On Campus Can Fight Back Against Jew-Hatred
Do my fellow proud Zionists see the problem here? The Palestinian-Arab side of the argument may be genocidal and jihad-loving, but at least they present a morally framed narrative (no matter how grossly immoral that narrative actually is). The pro-Jewish/pro-Israel side, by contrast, tends toward an AIPAC-inspired, overly defensive posture that relies on a non-substantive, purely procedural narrative.BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, due to speak at Labour conference fringe, fails to secure UK entry visa
Interestingly, then, the fight against Israel-inspired Jew-hatred on the university campus can actually learn much from the ongoing conservative dialogue between the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari and National Review’s David French. Procedure-based arguments, especially when confronted with a substance-based argumentative opposition, are unlikely to be sufficient; the only way to truly make a dialectic dent is to argue on the substantive merits of an issue and argue in overtly moral terms. I wrote as much in June: "Advocates for Israel on the American university campus must transition away from pleas for 'peace' and 'tolerance' and toward arguments grounded in the inherent, biblically derived morality of a Jewish state existing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."
This simply must be the path forward for Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus who are invested in helping to turn back the tide of rising on-campus anti-Semitism. Jewish and Zionist students must make the moral, historically informed case that Zionism — which is simply the Jewish right to self-determination in the Jews' biblical, ancestral homeland — is an inherently beautiful phenomenon. These courageous students must argue that the culmination of Herzl's Zionist vision, the establishment in 1948 of a sovereign Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael for the very first time in millennia, represents one of the most profoundly beautiful developments in human civilization over the course of the last century. These students must advance direct, overt, morally based arguments that defend the beauty of that Zionism. These students must also advance historically and legally informed arguments that rebut the utter mendacity that is "Nakba" and other purported Palestinian-Arab "national" humiliations.
Appeasement and unilateral disarmament — here, in terms of the use of overt moral terminology — never work. The students who take the lead on this initiative will necessarily be bold. They will be valiant. And they will face mighty resistance from the leftist/Islamist alliance all across the nation. But these students will have the benefit of standing for truth, morality, and, fundamentally, justice. It's time to get the ball rolling and begin to defeat on-campus Jew-hatred in America.
The co-founder of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, who was due to speak at a number of fringe events at the Labour party conference, has been denied an entry visa to the UK.
Omar Barghouti had been due to speak at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event in Brighton on Sunday, alongside prominent Labour party politicians including Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary and Lisa Nandy, chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, and Josie Bird, president of the Unison union, were also due to speak alongside him.
However, on Friday, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) announced that Mr Barghouti had been unable to travel to the UK “because his visa was abnormally delayed by the British government without explanation.”
The PSC blamed his lack of a visa on “growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinan rights.” The organisation added that Mr Barghouti would speak via a video link-up instead.
Joachim Gans, the First Practicing Jew to Set Foot in North America, Finally Gets His Due
Late last month, in a ceremony alongside a North Carolina highway, a small group of scholars and politicians unveiled a black-and-gray plaque dedicated to Joachim Gans, the first recorded practicing Jew in North America. A metallurgist from Prague, Gans played a key role in the first attempt by the English to settle the New World. His accomplishments in the 1580s helped plant the seed for what became the United States.Their Boys, Not Ours
Gans’ long-delayed recognition comes at a time of escalating anti-Semitic attacks such as the deadly shootings targeting Jews earlier this year in Pittsburgh and near San Diego. The modest sign commemorating Gans is a potent reminder of the largely forgotten but surprising diversity that marked early English colonization.
It also arrives amid a national debate about the meaning of monuments and memorials to the Confederacy. The Gans marker now stands 200 miles east of the University of North Carolina campus where Silent Sam, a bronze statue of a Confederate statue, once stood. Erected in 1913, student activists toppled the statue last year and the controversy over whether or not to raise him back up continues to roil the state. Amid these controversies, highway markers like the one dedicated to Gans offer a quiet, cheap, and democratic alternative to memorialize new heroes ignored by previous generations.
How did a German-speaking Jew end up in the first English colony in the Americas? Gans grew up in 16th-century Prague, then the center of innovation in mining and metallurgy. England was still a relatively poor and backward European country, desperate for help in extracting copper and tin. Growing tensions with the Spanish Empire would soon would lead to war, and the English needed cannon to arm their merchant ships and navy. Jews had been banned since 1290, but a courtier of Elizabeth I secured Gans a kind of Tudor H-1B visa. Soon after, Sir Walter Raleigh sought a credible scientist to join England’s first venture to colonize the Americas on what is now the North Carolina coast. In Gans, Raleigh saw the perfect candidate for the specialized job of sourcing and analyzing metals.
Gans arrived on Roanoke Island in 1585, along with a motley crew of more than 100 men that included French, Portuguese, Belgian, Irish and Scottish men as well as English soldiers and merchants. The Prague Jew, who made no secret of his religious background, quickly constructed a state-of-the-art chemistry lab outfitted with Bavarian crucibles and a high-temperature furnace. He tested metals brought to him by local Algonquian-speaking tribes and tramped through the swamps in search of mineral deposits. Though he failed to find gold, , as Raleigh had hoped, there is evidence he isolated iron, silver, and copper in his experiments. That was promising news for an England eager to access metal deposits. (h/t Zvi)
The miniseries Our Boys—created, directed, and acted by Israelis and released simultaneously in the U.S. and Israel—takes place in the summer or 2014, on the eve of the Gaza war. At its heart is the abduction and brutal murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, an Arab Jerusalemite, by three religious Jews, and the police who identify and capture the perpetrators. While calling the series “a drama of uncommon power,” Stephen Daisley finds it deeply flawed:Why Are the Left’s Favorite Muslims Anti-Semites?
What Our Boys does not tell is the story of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel. They were the Israeli teenagers whose deaths inspired [Abu Khdeir’s murderers]. The yeshiva students were abducted while hitchhiking home from Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, a hill-scattered region south of Jerusalem and frequent target of Palestinian terrorism. Despite police efforts, their mothers’ appeals, and prayer vigils in Rabin Square, their bodies were found dumped in a field eighteen days later. They had been shot at close range.
The yeshiva boys of Gush Etzion, like thousands of other Israeli victims of homicidal Palestinian anti-Semitism, do not long detain the plot of Our Boys. [We] learn nothing about them. On the other hand, we learn that Mohammed, the Arab victim, went to the mosque faithfully, that he was planning to meet up with a girl from Turkey, and that he preferred flirting with her on WhatsApp to working for his father.
This is a series that communicates a particular perspective on Israel to a particular audience, namely Americans. Brian Lowry has given the game away on CNN.com, writing that the series “puts faces on a conflict often seen—especially in the U.S.—from a distant aerial view.” . . . [W]e can infer that what he means by “distant aerial view” is a view insufficiently sympathetic to the Palestinians. Our Boys does put faces on the conflict—but its Arab faces are almost entirely sympathetic while its Israeli faces are crazed settlers, racist cops, and a smattering of well-meaning liberals trying their best in a suffocatingly hateful society.
Critics have accused the drama of moral equivalence, but in truth there is no equivalence: the introspection is entirely one-sided. All the harsh truths are broken to Israelis, all the urgent conversations about race and hatred are to be held in Hebrew. With the macho-liberal bravado of the Israeli center, Our Boys tells Israelis to shape up but has nothing to say to Palestinians.
On Monday, the organization that runs the now-annual anti-Trump Women’s March announced that, after a variety of complaints, it had severed its ties with three of its four former leaders: Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, and Linda Sarsour. Presumably among those complaints were Mallory’s close association with Louis Farrakhan and Sarsour’s record of venomous hatred of the Jewish state. Siraj Hashmi comments on what followed:Antisemite Billoo Lashes Out After Being Dumped By Women’s March
Monday’s announcement should have been a turning point for a movement that has been tainted by the recurring strain of anti-Semitism. Instead, in a move both remarkable and disheartening, the Women’s March has managed to find yet another anti-Semitic Muslim woman to serve on its board.
Zahra Billoo [is] an attorney and the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Billoo’s hateful and anti-Semitic tweets, particularly in relation to Israel, were brought back into focus when she was promoted to the Women’s March board. In a June 2012 tweet, [for instance], Billoo wrote, “Apartheid Israel kills children as a hobby.” . . . Billoo also made direct comparisons between Israel and the terrorist Islamic State (IS), posting on Twitter, “Who has killed, tortured, and imprisoned more people: apartheid Israel or IS?”
In the intervening days, the organization announced that it was removing Billoo from her position; but, to Hashmi, the incident points to a larger problem, which he sees as well in the progressive left’s elevation of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison:
Unfortunately, Billoo’s racist tweets do not stand alone. They seem to reflect the views of most prominent Muslims in America on the left. . . [I]t’s disheartening, not least because not all Muslims are anti-Semitic. The left’s apparent alliance with American Muslims who hate Israel and are openly anti-Semitic is doing a great disservice to all Americans, including Americans who are Muslim like me, and is damaging to the fabric of our country.
In an attempt at reflection, Billoo acknowledged that “anti-Semitism is indeed a growing and dangerous problem in our country, as is anti-Blackness, anti-immigrant sentiment, Islamophobia, ableism, sexism, and so much more. I condemn any form of bigotry unequivocally, but I also refuse to be silent as allegations of bigotry are weaponized against the most marginalized people, those who find sanctuary and hope in the articulation of truth.”Hearing Explodes When Republican Asks Sharpton About Past ‘Racist And Anti-Semitic’ Statements
But she cannot bring herself to consider that her blind hate towards Israel and its supporters, which include 95 percent of American Jews, constitute a form of the bigotry she claims to condemn.
She acknowledges “that I wrote passionately. While I may have phrased some of my content differently today, I stand by my words,” she wrote.
The Women’s March was slow to act with Sarsour and her colleagues. That may be one reason why it quickly saw a problem with Billoo, although her controversial views were hardly a secret before she joined the board. But the March was dogged by antisemitism accusations, and it quickly became clear that Billoo’s presence would only exacerbate the problem.
She remains safely ensconced at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), however, where she runs the group’s San Francisco chapter. Zahra Billoo: Too antisemitic for the Women’s March, but right at home with CAIR.
Social justice activist and MSNBC host Al Sharpton testified on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee as an "expert" witness on policing practices in the United States, but when a Republican congressman from Florida asked about a resolution submitted in 2000 by former Rep. Joe Scarborough, now one of Sharpton's fellow MSNBC hosts, the hearing quickly unraveled.
When given a chance to asked Sharpton a few questions Thursday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) pulled out a copy of Scarborough's House Concurrent Resolution 270 "Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton," which Scarborough submitted to the Judiciary Committee back in March of 2000 (full text below).
"Mr. Scarborough's resolution began by saying, 'Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as "bloodsucking [J]ews'', and "Jew bastards",'" Gaetz read. "My question to you is does Mr. Scarborough's assertion that you said these things, is that true or did you not say those things?"
"They are patently untrue," said Sharpton, clearly agitated by the question.
As Sharpton and Gaetz begin to talk over each other, Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sided with Sharpton, saying since "aspersions" had been cast against him, he should be allowed to speak.
"No, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, aspersions weren't cast," countered Gaetz, noting that he was asking Sharpton if the claims in the resolution submitted by Scarborough were true.
Appearing to be increasingly annoyed, Nadler brought the gavel down again, this time with a little more force, and again gave the floor to Sharpton.
"The answer is no, that was not true," said Sharpton of the infamous comments. He then noted that he and Scarborough are now colleagues at MSNBC.
But Gaetz wasn't done. He then asked Sharpton about the resolution's assertion that he "has referred to members of the Jewish faith as 'white interlopers'' and 'diamond merchants,'" a reference to inflammatory rhetoric Sharpton made amid the ultimately deadly Crown Heights riots.
Gaetz: "Have you ever referred to African Americans that disagreed with you as ‘cocktail-sip negroes’?”— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 19, 2019
Reverend Al Sharpton: "I have." pic.twitter.com/oSUNri8XC7
David Collier: Two days before conference, JVL antisemitism at Jackie Walker event
This weekend the Labour Party Conference opens again in Brighton. I was there in 2017 the last time it was held in the town, and the level of antisemitism witnessed at the event led to threats to ban the party from holding future conferences there unless it tackles antisemitism. I find it difficult to believe how anyone left sane on this planet actually believes Labour have tackled anti-Jewish racism – and yet here we are.Ilford Momentum disinvites guest of honour conspiracy theorist Rev. Stephen Sizer, claiming they did not know his views
The conference fringe
Running alongside the conference there is the ‘fringe’. A host of events that allow Labour ‘deniability’. Most of the entities who bait Jews or rely on antisemites for support, manage their antisemites with a similar strategy. For example, the Palestine Solidarity campaign (PSC) distances itself from the high levels of antisemitism in their camp by denying any responsibility for its own branches. At conference, Labour uses the fringe. The fringe contains hundreds of events by organisations that are not officially ‘inside’ the conference. But whether the Labour Party like it or not, there is a registration process and the party have to accept you.
There is little excuse for the run of events scheduled for this year’s conference. Both Jewish Voice for Labour and the PSC have official fringe events scheduled. But the true situation is worse. The gathering of the faithful creates ‘unofficial events’. Inside the Labour CLPs and online forums, groups like Labour against the Witchhunt are advertising their ‘unofficial’ events.
Labour’s response of course is – ‘anyone can organise an event in Brighton at the same time as our Conference. This does not mean they are part of it.’ Deniability. In the JC article on the issue the Labour Spokesperson even resorts to the most twisted excuse of all – by suggesting that ‘nobody who has been suspended or expelled’ is a part of the official fringe listings. This may be true, but what about all those the party should have expelled but haven’t. It isn’t for nothing the party is being investigated by the EHRC.
A simple official statement from Labour to say these people are not welcome, nor wanted by the party, may have ‘cleansed’ some of this, but those inside the Labour Party know that their movement is as reliant today on the energy of antisemites, as the PSC is.
Disgraced conspiracy theorist Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer, who claimed that an Israeli conspiracy was behind 9/11, was due to speak at a “Charity Dinner for Gaza” on 3rd October organised by Ilford Momentum, before the hosts withdrew the invitation following an outcry.Salma Yaqoob Plagiarises Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Campaign
Upon being made aware of Rev. Dr Sizer’s views and record, the organisation announced that “we weren’t aware of Stephen Sizer’s past comments. After having been made aware of them this morning we rescinded his invitation and cancelled the charity fundraiser within minutes…We deeply regret not checking the history of the speaker prior to promoting the event online,” adding that “we strongly oppose the harmful conspiracies spread by Stephen Sizer and antisemitism in all its forms. We sincerely apologise for any offence caused.”
The original invitation to the dinner presented praise for Rev. Dr Sizer by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: “I do admire the excellent work that he does and personally.” This is not the first time Mr Corbyn has been associated with Rev. Dr Sizer. In February 2015, the reverend was ordered by the Church of England to stop using social media after posting the conspiracy myth that Israel planned 9/11. While the Church said the material that Rev. Dr Sizer posted was “clearly antisemitic”, the Daily Mail revealed that Mr Corbyn wrote to the Church defending Rev. Dr Sizer, saying that he was being victimised because he “dared to speak out against Zionism.”
Momentum is an influential grassroots organisation that supports Mr Corbyn and his wing of the Labour Party. Numerous controversial individuals have been associated with it, including Jackie Walker, a former Vice Chair who rejected the International Definition of Antisemitism before eventually being expelled from the Labour Party.
Momentum’s pick to be the next Labour candidate for West Midlands Metro-Mayor has put out some pretty professional looking material. But sadlyColumbia Jewish Students Call for Protection Ahead of Upcoming Speech on
for former Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob, virtually none of it is her own work. Her main campaign video is completely ripped off from the US Democrats’ new socialist firebrand AOC…
Yaqoob isn’t the first Labour politician to nakedly plagiarise US Democrats. Disgraced Labour MP Kate Osamor stole her campaign victory speech from President Obama, and plagiarised her maiden speech. Plenty of Labour Party precedent…
Across the pond Joe Biden plagiarising Neil Kinnock’s ‘first in my family’ speech destroyed his presidential hopes in 1987. Sadly Guido somehow doubts it will do the same to the Momentum backed candidate…
For our American readers, Guido thought an introduction to Yaqoob was in order:
The Corbynisation of the Democratic Party is not all one way…
- She called the 2005 London 7/7 bombings a “reprisal event” for the Iraq war
- She was part of the campaign team which supported the family of Abu Hamza
- She wrote an article in which she imagined Britain becoming an Islamic Republic
- She attended a protest at which the Israeli flag was burned
- She referred to the IHH terrorists on board the Mavi Marmara as “martyrs“
- She endorsed the closure of the Israeli embassy in London
- She supported the pro-Hamas ‘Viva Palestina’ convoy
- She accused “Zionists [of abusing] the memory of the Holocaust to bolster support for today’s Israeli state“
- She is a staunch supporter of the boycotting Israel economically and culturally
Campus by Antisemitic Malaysian PM
A Change.org petition protesting an upcoming Sept. 25 speech at Columbia University by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad — who has a long record of antisemitic statements — had received more than 800 signatures by Friday afternoon.German city rescinds literary prize to author due to BDS
“Universities should present divergent and radical opinions, but they are not environments in which absolutely anything goes,” the petition — an initiative of the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter at Columbia — says. “A language that encourages racism, bigotry and hate speech has no place in academic discourse.
“Free speech is an important fundamental right to any individual living in a free society,” it continues. “Mohamad can say anything he wants, of course — that is free speech. But being able to speak at Columbia University — or at any university, for that matter — is a privilege, not a right.”
“This is not a matter of free speech, or of scholarly freedom,” the petition notes. “It is a matter of basic academic decency.”
The petition concludes by urging Columbia President Lee Bollinger to “undertake immediate measures to ensure the safety and well being of Columbia’s Jewish students.”
“Such measures should be canceling Prime Ministers Mohamad’s expected speech at Columbia, or at the very least, denouncing, on stage, the Prime Minister’s vile and antisemitic remarks,” it demands. (h/t Dave4321)
The city of Dortmund’s jury for the Nelly Sachs literature prize pulled the plug on its award for a British-Pakistani author on Wednesday because she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state.StandWithUs Students Fight Hate and Bias in California's Education System
The author, Kamila Shamsie, also rejects translations of her books into Hebrew because it involves the State of Israel, she claimed.
According to a statement from the jury, at the time of voting for the award, “the members of the jury, despite previous research, were not aware that the author since 2014 has participated in the boycott of the Israeli government because of its Palestinian policy.”
The jury added that it "decided to cancel their original vote and take back the award to Kamila Shamsie. Kamila Shamsie's political stance to actively participate in the boycott of culture as part of the BDS campaign against the Israeli government is in clear contradiction to the goals of the awards and the spirit of the Nelly Sachs Prize."
The Ruhrbarone news website first broke the story this month about the city’s award to Shamsie, triggering widespread media coverage.
The prize is named for poet and playwright Nelly Sachs (1891-1970) who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966.
Four outstanding StandWithUs High School interns were in Sacramento on September 20th, opposing antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in California public schools. They traveled to the state capital to speak to the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), an advisory body to the California State Board of Education. The IQC is in the process of reviewing a deeply flawed and widely criticized draft Ethnic Studies curriculum.UK Councils and Universities Face Being Named and Shamed in New Anti-Semitism Crackdown
"As a member of an ethnic minority, I fully support the goal of ethnic studies," said Michaela Pelta, a student from Lowell High School in San Francisco. "However, this proposed curriculum not only doesn't include me, but actively marginalizes me with antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric."
"My family's experiences as Jewish immigrants from the Middle East are nowhere to be found in this curriculum," added Kian Mirshokri, a student from Palisades Charter High School in Los Angeles. "I'm urging the IQC to make changes, so public high school students like me are represented and understood by our peers."
On August 2nd, 2019 StandWithUs released an urgent action alert calling on the public to submit feedback about the draft curriculum to the IQC. Through our efforts alongside IAC, AJC, JCRC of San Francisco, AMCHA Initiative, Club Z, and others, we mobilized nearly 18,500 comments focused on, "concerns with a lack of inclusion of Jewish Americans and antisemitism, and concerns with the inclusion of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement".
The move – due to be announced by Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick – comes after a record 1,652 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in the UK in 2018. Mr Jenrick, who today writes in the Sunday Express, will also unveil an extra £100,000 of funding to tackle anti-Semitic hatred online. Speaking to the Board of Deputies of British Jews tomorrow, Mr Jenrick is expected to say that institutions taking taxpayers’ money cannot duck signing up to the definition.
He will say: “Councils have a duty to stamp out anti-Semitism wherever they find it so it’s troubling that, in some cases, we’re seeing the reverse.
“I am also concerned with some of the stories coming out of our universities – Jewish students whose experiences on campus are not the same as everyone else’s.
“We wrote to many universities urging them to adopt the IHRA definition yet many didn’t reply.
“These organisations are recipients of public money. Failure to act is simply unacceptable.”
The rise of anti-Semitism in the UK has been largely fuelled by leftwing ideology and a criticism of Israel.
Earlier this month, Sheffield City Council was criticised for refusing to adopt the IHRA definition and recognising the state of Palestine instead.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also faced accusations of anti-Semitism within the party. Jewish MP Luciana Berger quit Labour over the abuse while John Mann left after the party failed to tackle the issue.
#MirandaGallo is a disgrace who should not be allowed to run for @NDP https://t.co/PjlAPl4zko cc: @theJagmeetSingh #NDP #Canada #BDS #Israel— (((David Lange))) (@Israellycool) September 20, 2019
NY will increase police presence in Jewish neighborhoods for High Holidays
The New York Police Department said it will increase its presence in Jewish neighborhoods before and during the High Holidays.New Images of Suspects in Attack on Orthodox Jewish Man in Brooklyn Released
Increased foot patrols and specialized units such as counterterrorism teams will be deployed throughout the communities, Commissioner James O’Neill announced Wednesday. He said not all of them would be identifiable.
The NYPD has reported a 63 percent rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes throughout the city this year. Brooklyn’s heavily Jewish neighborhoods have seen a slew of attacks on visibly Jewish people over the past several weeks.
O’Neill appeared at a news conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“It’s my obligation as mayor to make sure the Jewish population is protected not just the High Holy Days but every day, and the sacred responsibility of the NYPD as well,” De Blasio said. “We’ve seen the rise of hate crimes in this city even this year compared to last year, but we cannot be afraid.”
He added: “We will not accept hatred in New York City.”
New surveillance images of the men who attacked and robbed an Orthodox Jewish man in Brooklyn this week have been released by police.Poway killer told 911 he was ‘defending our nation against the Jewish people’
The surveillance images come following the initial release of a lower quality surveillance video of the assault, which shows the suspect being accosted, chased, and assaulted by four men.
According to the local New York CBS affiliate Channel 2, the victim, 24, was attacked at Warsoff Place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The men surrounded the victim and said, “Give me everything you’ve got.”
The victim threw his cell phone away, at which point two of the suspects attacked him.
Police are not investigating the attack as a hate crime.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) offered a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers.
The assault took place amid a rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the area that has deeply disturbed the Orthodox community.
“This incident comes at a time when visibly observant Jewish individuals are unable to walk the streets of Brooklyn without feeling fearful that they may be assaulted or attacked because of their religion or faith,” said the ADL.
A man suspected of opening fire at a Southern California synagogue last spring told a 911 operator in the moments after the shooting that he did it to save white people from Jews, according to a recording played Thursday at a preliminary hearing to determine if the case should proceed to trial.Former Security Guard Indicted for Plotting to Bomb Las Vegas Synagogue
One woman was killed and three wounded in the shooting, which happened at the Chabad of Poway synagogue on the last day of Passover.
“I’m defending our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people,” John T. Earnest is heard saying on the 911 call. He told the operator he believed he had killed people and gave detailed descriptions of the San Diego intersection where he was parked shortly before he was taken into custody.
The recording was played at the hearing where witnesses also included a combat veteran who confronted the suspect and a medical examiner who described the wounds of the woman who was killed.
Earnest, 20, has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and an unrelated arson charge at a mosque. The murder charge, classified as a hate crime, would make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted, but prosecutors have not said what punishment they will seek.
Oscar Stewart, an Iraq combat veteran, testified that as the gunfire erupted he moved toward the suspect and screamed at him. The shooter dropped his rifle and fled.
A former security guard was charged with compiling bomb components and guns to kill people at a Las Vegas synagogue, and of drawing up plans to attack a bar catering to LGBTQ customers and a McDonald’s.Los Angeles synagogue targeted with anti-Semitic graffiti
Conor Climo, 23, pleaded not guilty to a federal firearm charge in federal court on Wednesday.
He was accused of possession of unregistered destructive devices found at his home after he was arrested on Aug. 8. Prosecutors and a US magistrate judge said the suspect identifies himself as a white supremacist and shared with an FBI informant detailed plans to attack a synagogue near his northwest Las Vegas home.
“The defendant is a member of the Feuerkrieg Division of Atomwaffen, which is known as an organization that encourages, and may even commit, violent attacks on people of the Jewish religion, homosexuals, African-Americans and federal infrastructures,” Magistrate Judge Nancy Koppe wrote in Climo’s detention order.
“The defendant had gathered component parts that can readily be assembled into a destructive device,” said Koppe, and “had very specific plans about attacking one specific synagogue near his house,” including “wanting to light an incendiary device and having others join him to shoot people as they came out of the synagogue.”
A synagogue in Los Angeles was vandalized with an anti-Jewish message.Swastika painting in Brussels art gallery sparks outcry
“Six million $ was not enough,” read the message drawn in marker on the welcome sign affixed to the gate of Temple Ahavat Shalom.
The Anti-Defamation League called the graffiti “blatant anti-Semitism.”
The graffiti refers to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. The dollar sign apparently is meant to slur Jews as rich or greedy, per the stereotype.
California has seen a rise in anti-Semitic harassment assaults and vandalism for three consecutive years into 2018, when there were 126 hate crimes targeting Jews compared to 104 the previous year, Spectrum News reported. The California paper reported that 2019 “is seeing much of the same.”
A Hitler-themed swastika painting by a local politician that was recently put on display at a Brussels art gallery has sparked outcry in the Belgian Jewish community.Austria to grant citizenship to descendants of Nazi victims
Fatmir Limani is an artist and the Socialist Party alderman in charge of cultural affairs in the Brussels-area municipality of Koekelberg.
His painting, titled “God created A. Hitler,” is scheduled to be featured until Sept. 30 in the prestigious Bog-Art gallery. The gallery is located 600 yards from the Jewish Museum of Belgium, where four people were killed in a 2014 terrorist attack allegedly perpetrated by an Islamist.
“It’s shocking,” Yohan Benizri, president of the CCOJB umbrella group representing French-speaking Belgian Jews, told the RTBF broadcaster Tuesday. “Seeing something like this on the streets of Belgium, it can be offensive. Seeing it in the context of rising anti-Semitism, it makes Belgium’s image seem even worse than it’s seen locally and international today.”
The artist, Benizri added, has a record of using shocking visuals and did not seem to attempt to single out Jews, but has nonetheless displayed “bad taste” with the swastika painting.
A law passed by the Austrian parliament on Thursday will grant citizenship to descendants of Nazi persecution.In first, Israeli planes take part in British aerial exercise Cobra Warrior
According to the Jewish Chronicle, a British publication, the law applies to children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jews and other ethnicities who had to flee Austria because of Nazi persecution up until 1945, the year World War II ended.
The law will come into effect in September 2020.
Last year, then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told the Jewish Chronicle that he was interested in having Austria’s citizenship laws amended so that "all children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims would have the opportunity to become Austrian citizens if they want to.”
The new law does not differentiate between those who were Austrian citizens when they fled and nationals of a country that used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Israeli Air Force took part in its first aerial exercise in the United Kingdom this month, sending fighter jets and transport planes to simulate dog fights, airstrikes and refueling flights over enemy territory, the army said.Dutch Army to Use Elbit’s ‘Iron Fist’ to Protect Armored Vehicles
In addition to Israel and the UK, the United States, Germany and Italy participated in the nearly three-week-long exercise, known as Cobra Warrior, according to the British Royal Air Force.
This was Israel’s first time participating in an aerial drill in the UK, marking a shift toward a more open relationship between the two nations’ air forces. The RAF and IAF have worked together extensively over the years, but they typically keep this cooperation quiet.
The Israeli planes traveled to the United Kingdom late last month ahead of the exercise, which ended on Thursday.
“This was the Israeli Air Force’s first deployment in Britain, and the first exercise of this size in which the Israeli Air Force and British air force took part,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
The head of IAF training, Brig. Gen. Amnon Ein-Dar, noted the historical ties between the two militaries, namely that Israel’s air force was largely created with British aircraft, specifically World War Two-era Spitfires.
“This is a very special and important exercise for us — foremost on a historical level. The Israeli Air Force was formed from within the British Air Force, so this was a special opportunity to come full circle,” Ein-Dar said.
The Royal Netherlands Army will employ active defense systems developed by Israel’s Elbit Systems, European defense contractor BAE Systems Plc announced on Tuesday.Israel's Enlight Inaugurates Largest Wind Farm in Serbia
BAE was selected to integrate Elbit’s Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS) into a fleet of 150 CV90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles after successful testing.
“Iron Fist is an advanced technology that automatically detects, tracks and neutralizes incoming threats to protect the vehicle and its crew,” said BAE Systems in a statement.
“The APS will give us a significant combat advantage and will improve tactical operation,” said Joost Vernooij, Dutch project manager for the CV90.
Elbit’s Iron Fist won a Israeli Defense Ministry deal worth $250 million, Israel business daily Globes reported in August, and the U.S. Army in the process of acquiring the system for use with its Bradley armored vehicles.
Iron Fist uses electro-optical sensors, tracking radar, launchers and countermeasure munitions to neutralize missiles fired at a vehicle.
Israel's Enlight Renewable Energy has officially opened the 104.5 MW Kovacica wind farm in Serbia, the country's largest, on September 19, energy minister Aleksandar Antic said.Pop star and actress Demi Lovato visits Western Wall
"The project is worth 190 million euro ($210 million) and will produce about 300 GWh of electricity annually, more or less 1% of the total power production of Serbia," Antic said in a video file posted on the website of Tanjug news agency on Thursday.
The wind farm will supply electricity to 68,000 households and was constructed with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Erste Bank, as well as Serbia's central government, the president of Enlight, Yair Seroussi, said in the video file.
Enlight started operating the Kovacica wind farm in July. The company estimates that the project will generate revenues of about 28 million euro ($31.4 million) annually from the sale of electricity throughout the 12-year regulatory period, the company said.
Pop star Demi Lovato made a surprise appearance at the Western Wall in Jerusalem during a trip that appears to be personal and not related to any music touring, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.Former NBA All-Star shooting for better black-Jewish ties
The two-time American Grammy nominee, who has sold millions of albums, has not mentioned the trip on social media.
The Post reported that she tweeted from her now-deleted account in 2012 that she has Jewish roots.
According to the Walla news site, Lovato is accompanied on the trip to Israel by her mother.
Despite his serious thoughts about an NBA comeback, Amar’e Stoudemire is taking a little break from basketball to go to school. The former six-time NBA All-Star, who had never attended college, started this fall as a freshman at Florida International University in Miami.‘Miracle Team Israel:’ On the Road to Competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Though the semester just started, Stoudemire — who has converted to Judaism, has Israeli citizenship and spent three years in the Jewish state playing for Hapoel Jerusalem — has already become a big name at the campus Hillel.
On Wednesday, he launched an initiative to strengthen ties between Jewish and African-American students at FIU. Stoudemire is working with Hillel and the campus Black Student Union to host bridge-building and educational events.
The basketball star has a longtime connection to Judaism. He is in the process of completing a second conversion — “more Orthodox,” he says — and also has associated with the Hebrew Israelites, African-Americans who believe they are connected to the biblical Israelites and adhere to some Jewish customs.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency talked with Stoudemire on Tuesday about the initiative, his Jewish identity and his plans for the upcoming High Holidays.
When the Miracle Mets won the World Series in 1969, baseball was virtually unknown in Israel. Israel had come out victorious in the Six-Day War only two years earlier, the first field was built at Kibbutz Gezer in 1979, and the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB) would be established less than a decade afterwards, in 1986.Memorial Hall of Israel's Fallen soldiers wins international prize
Fifty years later, the New York Mets may need to share their “miracle” nickname with Israel’s National Baseball Team. Team Israel shocked the world in last week’s European Championships and now has its sights on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
Israel got off to an unexpected 4-0 start with victories over the Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany and Great Britain. Israel then lost on Sept. 11 to current European champions, the Netherlands.
Israel finished second in its pool with a record of 4-1 and advanced to the quarter finals, held last Friday through Sunday in Bonn, Germany.
On Sept. 13, Israel faced France, which Pool B with three wins and two losses. Team Israel handily beat France 8-2 in the quarter finals, securing a coveted place in the Olympic Games qualifiers for this week in Italy.
But over last weekend, Israel dropped two games to Italy and Spain, finishing fourth overall in the European Championships. This was the first time that Israel has even gotten that far.
The Memorial Hall of Israel's Fallen soldiers, located in Mount Herzl, will be presented with the international Dedalo Minossee prize for Commissioning a Building on Saturday, a press release on behalf of Dedalo Minosse reported.Orphan of victims killed in attack on Mumbai Chabad House celebrates bar mitzvah
Designed by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects and commissioned by the Ministry of Defense, the site is inside the mountain, offering an intimate and quiet location for remembering those who had given their lives in the wars of Israel. A formation of bricks, with each brick bearing the name of a soldier who gave the ultimate sacrifice and his or her name and date of death, creating a formation which is funnel-shaped and opens to the heavens.
Each brick also has a space for a light-candle to be lit every year on that date, called the Wall of Names, there are currently roughly 23,000 names on it.
Visitors who walk the circular path leading to the sky-opening will see these lights during their journey, each day the site changes a little as names of different fallen soldiers are lit, making the site an example of how to represent "living" memory.
The prize will be given at the Teatro Olimpico in the city of Vicenza, Italy. The city will also host an exhibition at the Palladian Basilica from September 26 to October 6 depicting the winning projects. The exhibition will then be shown in other cities around Italy and the world, including Tokyo, Paris, and Dubai.
Memorial sites for those who died in combat often have a social effect which is larger than just architecture or memorial services.
Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were killed in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai when he was 2-years-old, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah by donning phylacteries for the first time during a ceremony in New York.
Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg were the directors of the Nariman Chabad House in the Indian city when it was attacked on November 26, 2008. Along with the couple, four other Israeli and American visitors to the house were killed.
The Chabad House was among 12 locations targeted in coordinated shooting and bombing attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organization based in Pakistan, that killed 166 people and injured hundreds more in a three-day rampage in Mumbai.
The child was dubbed “Baby Moshe” when a photo of his terrified-looking nanny running from the besieged Chabad House clutching the little boy was splashed on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
On Tuesday, Moshe celebrated the ceremony of Hanachat Tefillin, or putting on phylacteries for the first time, during a ceremony in Stony Point, New York, surrounded by family and friends of his parents, Crown Heights info reported. He also helped a US Navy SEAL put on tefillin.
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