12/22 Links Pt2: Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places; Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed; JVP Got One Thing Right

From Ian:

Stop Ignoring Antisemitism in Inconvenient Places

An exhibition that is currently running at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London reveals that in every European country that fell under Nazi control, there were Jews who mobilized and formed underground resistance organizations while also participating in armed uprisings. Their heroism was also displayed through cultural resistance. Risking their own lives, they held clandestine religious gatherings, established underground schools, and helped smuggle important documents out to be preserved by history. Even in the face of unspeakable terror, Judaism was not viewed as an inconvenience.

Today, for some Jews, our religion is primarily being redefined by our entrenchment in social activism. We have become so deeply embedded in promoting tikkun olam, that we ignore instances of antisemitism when they come from sources claiming to represent social justice.

This past summer, the horrific and criminal killing of George Floyd ignited months of social unrest in this country. As was the case during the 1960s civil rights movement, many Jews sprang into action and were quick to attach ourselves to the largest and most popular civil rights organization of our time, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Yet with Martin Luther King, Jr. at its helm, the civil rights movement of the 1960s does not mirror some of the ideals currently espoused by the BLM movement. And while everyone can agree that all Black lives matter, there is a difference between that sentiment and some formal organizations affiliated with BLM.

Dr. King’s protection and love of the Jewish people was shown through numerous speeches he made, including one at Harvard in 1967, where he remarked: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism.”

The Zionist tenets encompassing Dr. King’s movement contradict one BLM platform, which labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and accused it of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people. (This version was later retracted.)

In May, a BLM rally in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles resulted in the defacement of Jewish institutions and businesses, with participants yelling anti-Israel obscenities. While the violence was never called for by BLM, there was hardly any repudiation or rejection of it.

EU court prioritizes animals over Jews and Muslims in backing ritual slaughter ban

Without question, Thursday’s ruling stands in stark contrast to Europeans’ preferred image of themselves as open-minded and tolerant. Insisting that Jews and Muslims adapt religious laws, which seek to minimize animals’ pain, simply to suit contemporary sensibilities is anything but that. European Christians might also note this decision overturns the logic of Genesis, with Muslims and Jews no longer “rul[ing] over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

This decision will also have tangible consequences. As Benizri foreshadowed to me in a July exchange, this ruling not only “matters as a [legal] precedent. It also matters in terms of the security of the supply chain, and we know from the current sanitary crisis that we cannot rely solely on imports." He went on, "Some damage has been done, but the Brussels region may be tempted to adopt similar rules if the Walloon and Flanders laws are upheld, and other countries might follow suit.”

In other words, this ruling won’t be contained. Kosher meat, which is already expensive, will likely become even harder to obtain in a growing number of countries. Further, this ruling is likely to encourage political extremists who would relish making life inhospitable for their countries’ Jewish and Muslim minorities.

Reflecting from abroad, Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, president of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, which represents rabbis in 12 Muslim countries, told me, “It seems at times that Rabbis in Muslim countries are more respected and enjoy more religious freedom than their counterparts in Europe. We have been able to practice our Judaism without interference or disturbance for thousands of years. Kosher slaughter is done in many Muslim countries.” Chitrik continued, “The ruling of the European Court should also serve as a reminder that Jews and Muslims are facing similar religious struggles in Europe and elsewhere, and it is high time for Jews and Muslims to confront together both Islamophobia and antisemitism.”

Europe’s hostility toward religious outsiders is a centuries-old tradition. It appears that it will always find a way to justify bigotry.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Neighborhood Bully’ Gets Memory-Holed

I wanted to hear the Bob Dylan song “Neighborhood Bully” off his 1983 record Infidels. That’s how I discovered that YouTube won’t let you hear the song. It turns out that this man Bob Dylan, so beloved by the American cultural establishment and winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature, is guilty of hate speech. Sooner or later, they all are.

I wanted to hear “Neighborhood Bully”—a jaunty four-and-a -half minute rock ‘n’ roll number—but I can’t remember why. The song has its charms, including a driving three-chord electric guitar, but it’s nowhere near Dylan’s best and I’m not some kind of fanatic who enjoys wallowing in the master’s obscurities. The impulse might have come to me while I was trying to Google something else, and the search results triggered the association.

I can assure you that Googling “Neighborhood Bully” was in no way intended by me as a political statement or gesture. “Neighborhood Bully” is assumed to be a song about Israel being singled out and maligned among the world’s nations, but Dylan has rejected this interpretation just as he always denied narrow political readings of his work. “I’m not a political songwriter, he told an interviewer shortly after the record came out. “‘Neighborhood Bully,’ to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If you’re talkin’ about it as an Israeli political song—in Israel alone, there’s maybe 20 political parties. I don’t know where that would fall, what party.”

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

My intentions were not to make trouble. It's not as if I started off the day seeking out banned materials and deviant songs. It's just that one thing led to another. You know how it is: The links start thinking for themselves, the minutes turn into hours, and you end up watching some YouTube video with no connection to whatever you’d been looking for in the first place, hazily trying to recall how you got there like a drunk guy who’s woken up in a strange room. Only, I was brought up short. I couldn’t listen to “Neighborhood Bully” because the song wasn’t there. It had vanished. (h/t Yerushalimey)

JVP Got One Thing Right

Stipulating that only Jewish scholars should be included in discussions about anti-Semitism also leaves out crucial experts. In 2016, for example, I started writing and directing a documentary called “The Conspiracy Libel,” which contextualizes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at different places and periods in history. One of the scholars that appeared in the film was Professor Graeme Garrard of Cardiff University, who specializes in French history and the French Revolution. He is not Jewish, but as a scholar of that period, he has the credibility to describe the way in which the Revolution impacted the people that experienced it, including Jews.

Similarly, during the crisis surrounding anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom’s Labour party, some of the most outspoken critics of former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s worldview were non-Jewish writers and activists, such as Euan Phillips, spokesperson for Labour Against Anti-Semitism. Phillips is not Jewish, but if anyone were to organize a panel discussing Corbyn’s anti-Semitism, he should be one of the first people contacted. Not including Phillips because he is not Jewish would be an unnecessary hindrance to our effort to educate and to combat anti-Semitism.

Beyond reducing the number of voices in the discussion, demanding that only Jewish voices should be heard in discussions about anti-Semitism reduces it to a threat that could only be understood by people who have experienced it in the present. This is a profound mistake. Anti-Semitism should not only be understood as a present danger to Jews (though, of course, that’s true) but also as a historically persistent set of dangerous impulses that could bubble up anywhere in any form, threatening whatever society it takes hold. Non-Jews have a stake in this fight, too, and including their voices would strengthen our outreach efforts, increase awareness and add new minds to the ongoing conversation.

Anti-Semitism always ends with hatred of the Jews, though this is not where it always starts. Anti-Semitism starts with irrational theories and ideas about how power is wielded in a given society, especially during times of turmoil. In our attempts at education and action against anti-Semitism, we must not limit ourselves with milder expressions of irrationality like proposing that the history of anti-Semitism could only be relayed and taught by Jewish voices.

Let us continue to fight with facts, history and an understanding that anti-Semitism is a human problem that threatens all people. Rather than only cheer for Jewish-only panels, we should be equally inspired by non-Jewish students of history that share our concerns about the threat of anti-Semitism.

JVP got one thing right. Let’s be better.

CAMERA: UPDATED “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) What the Media is Concealing

The self-proclaimed anti-Zionist group “Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)” has been described in the mainstream media as: “an organization that opposes Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and the continued expansion of settlements in the region” (Chicago Tribune, May 5, 2014)
“an anti-discrimination group” (Boston Globe, Aug. 7, 2015);
“an American Jewish group” that has been “critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians” (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 8, 2018 and Sept. 9, 2015);
a “U.S. organization…run by Jewish activists” (Washington Post, July 8, 2018);
“an organization that opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” (Detroit Free Press, Sept. 14, 2019);
a “liberal group… critical of the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu” that “advocates Palestinian rights” (New York Times, Dec. 7, 2017 and Sept. 19, 2019)

Given its choice of name and the media’s descriptions, people might believe Jewish Voice for Peace is a human rights group representing Jewish concerns while promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace, but nothing can be further from the truth: The name “Jewish Voice for Peace” is simply a mask – the group neither promotes peace nor represents the overwhelming majority of Jews. Rather, it partners with anti-Semites of all sorts to attack mainstream Jewish organizations and interests while it labors to redefine “anti-Semitism” to exclude its own activists’ malevolent activities.

Despite its sanctimonious claim of being “inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice and human rights,” JVP is not focused on constructive promotion of human rights and peace, but on destructive attacks on Israel and Jews. Its animus is not directed against any specific Israeli policy or leader, but against the entire notion of a Jewish ancestral homeland and of Jewish self-determination. Its overarching goal is to delegitimize and promote the dismantlement of a Jewish state and its major focus is to provoke rancor against the concept of Jewish nationhood and nationalism whilst portraying such anti-Jewish hostility as outside the realm of antisemitism.

CAMERA’s backgrounder provides a detailed look at JVP’s actions, demonstrating how – despite its disclaimers – it is, both in effect and intent, an anti-Semitic hate group that seeks to damage the interests of Jews worldwide.

UC Merced professor deletes antisemitism-laden Twitter

A teaching professor in the UC Merced School of Engineering is the owner of a Twitter account that had a pattern of antisemitic posts, J. has discovered. The content was described by the Anti-Defamation League as “repulsive” and promoting “antisemitic tropes.”

On June 14, Abbas Ghassemi tweeted “… reality bites!!!!!!” along with a photo of a “Zionist brain” with labels such as “frontal money lobe,” “Holocaust memory centre” and “world domination lobe.” That same image can be found on the website “Jew World Order,” which peddles antisemitic conspiracy theories.

On Dec. 8, in response to Joe Biden’s election win, Ghassemi retweeted another Twitter user’s post and commented, “Surprise, surprise!! The entire system in America is controlled by [the] Zionist. Change of president is just a surface polish, change of veneer. Same trash different pile!”

Many of Ghassemi’s tweets used “IsraHell” in place of “Israel.”

On Dec. 13, he retweeted something and added the comment, “the Zionists and IsraHell interest have embedded themselves in every component of the American system, media, banking, policy, commerce … just a veneer of serving US interest and population — everyone pretends that is the case.”

Ghassemi tweeted similar posts about Zionists and Israel controlling certain components of the United States another eight times between October and December.

Ghassemi’s account was deactivated after J. sent a request for comment on Dec. 18. However, J. was able to create an archive of his account and take screenshots of a portion of his tweets before the account was deactivated.

Mazel Tov @NerdeenKiswani on being voted the 2020 Antisemite of the Year!

- Cheerleading for convicted terrorists like Rasmea Odeh
- Threatening to set an African American man on fire over his IDF sweatshirt
- Calling for death to America and the Jewish state

You've earned it! pic.twitter.com/iEklJ3qLch

— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) December 22, 2020

#BDS, the latest antisemitic boycott of Israel started in 2005 - how it is doing?

Israel - 🇮🇱

GDP:
2005 $143b
2019 $387b

Tourists:
2005 1.9m
2019 4.5m

Friendly MENA states:
2005 2
2020 6

Exports:
2005 $57b
2019 $114b

🤣🤣

Don't be an antisemite - don't boycott Israel.

— David Collier (@mishtal) December 22, 2020

Just don’t tell 🤫 all those woke hipsters on Campuses in U.S. and Europe! https://t.co/Svn2HPvjJD

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) December 22, 2020

PBS’ NewsHour Joins the Fundraising Campaign on Behalf of UNRWA

While the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine is grappling with a serious funding shortfall, the controversial organization nevertheless enjoys vast marketing and public relations resources, drawing on the support of sympathetic journalists who advocate on UNRWA’s behalf by abandoning their professional responsibilities to provide impartial coverage.

PBS is the latest media outlet to join UNRWA’s fundraising campaign (NewsHour Weekend, “Palestinian refugees celebrate Biden-Harris win, hope for relief,” Dec. 20). Correspondent Leila Molana-Allen obscures the inherent problems plaguing the UN agency and suggests that Trump administration policies regarding Jerusalem and the West Bank are to blame for the hardships of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. She reported:
The US used to provide a third of UNRWA’s budget, its biggest donor by far. Then suddenly, in 2018, the Trump administration slashed the funding. Meanwhile, the U.S. controversially moved its embassy to the disputed city of Jerusalem, and endorsed the building of more Israeli settlements in the West Bank, eroding the hopes of Palestinians that a future peace deal might one day allow them the right to return to the lands where their ancestors lived. . . .

Further down, she adds:
In 2018 when the Trump administration cut UNRWA’s funding, they called the organization irredeemably flawed. They said that money was being wasted. They said that Palestinian refugees have become too dependent on UNRWA. How did you react to that?

Claudio Cordone, UNRWA director in Lebanon, responds:
The accusation is unfair, and we know that it was politically motivated. The reality is that the refugees are going to exist whether UNRWA disappears or not. UNRWA is not a solution. UNRWA is a band aid, it’s a temporary solution. It’s been temporary for 70 years, which is not an indictment of UNRWA, it’s an indictment on the inability of the parties to the conflict and the international community to achieve a solution which will resolve these issues. It’s very important that the US comes back into the fold.

NewsHour does not include a single source critical of UNRWA, nor does Molana-Allen herself point out critics’ argument that not only does UNRWA fail as an effective “temporary solution,” but that the organization itself is responsible for perpetuating the conflict.

BBC ‘fake health advice’ fact checking comes to a halt in Bethlehem

Earlier in the year the BBC appointed a ‘specialist disinformation reporter‘ and the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ produced a series of videos concerning “Coronavirus: Health myths you should ignore”.

“…there’ve also been a variety of myths circulating on social media and elsewhere which amount to fake health advice. So here are a few things to ignore.”

Those things include eating garlic, drinking water every 15 minutes, drinkable silver and avoiding ice cream. Later editions included holding one’s breath, vodka, cow urine and lemon juice, with presenter Chris Morris telling BBC audiences that:

“Separating facts from fiction is really important.”

All well and good: one would indeed expect Britain’s national broadcaster to help the general public it serves to distinguish scientific fact from “fake health advice”, misinformation, disinformation and superstition.

Nevertheless, the BBC News website appeared to be rather less concerned about “separating facts from fiction” when it published a report on its ‘Middle East’ page by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell on December 19th titled ‘Faith and fertility at Bethlehem’s Milk Grotto’.

Over 35% of that article’s word-count is devoted to promotion of the notion of health-related ‘miracles’ following the consumption of limestone powder sourced from a religious site in Bethlehem.

Paris Prosecutor Opens Investigation Into Antisemitic Abuse of French Beauty Queen on Social Media

The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office announced on Monday that it had opened an investigation into the flood of antisemitic abuse received on social media by April Benayoum, who came second in the Miss France 2021 contest over the weekend.

Benayoum — who revealed during the competition that she has an Israeli father — was competing as Miss Provence. Her Israeli connection, however, prompted a vicious outbreak of antisemitism, with tweets calling for her exclusion because of her Jewish heritage and others that declared, “Hitler forgot to exterminate you, Miss Provence.”

Following the Paris prosecutor’s announcement, France’s minister of citizenship said the investigation sent a clear signal to the perpetrators of the abuse against the 21-year-old beauty queen.

“It tells them that you can’t utter these kinds of antisemitic remarks without consequences, since they will, I hope, be prosecuted,” the minister, Marlène Schiappa, said.

The broadcaster and producers of the Miss France contest roundly condemned the abuse directed at Benayoum, who is in her fourth year of business in the French town of Aix-En-Provence.

“TF1, EndemolShine France and the organization Miss France strongly condemn the hateful and antisemitic remarks made last night on social networks against April Benayoum,” they said in a statement. “All our support to Miss Provence, first runner-up of Miss France 2021”.

Neo-Nazi “6 million wasn’t enough” t-shirts removed from sale by Amazon

T-shirts and other items claiming “6 million wasn’t enough” were briefly being sold on Amazon earlier this month.

T-shirts, hoodies and cups, emblazoned with “6MWE”, the neo-Nazi acronym for the phrase “6 million wasn’t enough”, were allegedly offered for sale on Amazon via a third party from 16th December. All of the items were removed after Amazon was made aware of the offending items.

Confirming that the products had been removed, an Amazon spokesperson reportedly said: “All sellers must follow our selling guidelines.” Those who do not would be “subject to action including potential removal of their account.”

The t-shirts were similar to those worn by members of the far-right Proud Boys group in recent rallies.

The neo-Nazi items were allegedly also available for a short time at American online site Teespring, but the apparel site reportedly said that the neo-Nazi attire had been removed and the seller “permanently banned”, with a spokesperson noting that the site “categorically” did not “allow or condone” harmful content that may lead to “harassment or violence” or “threats to the health and safety of the public.”

Toronto radio station severs ties with controversial Polish broadcaster

A Canadian radio station has cut its long-standing ties with a leading controversial Polish broadcaster over its alleged antisemitism.

In a move welcomed by Jewish groups, Toronto AM station CJMR1320 last week notified Polish Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja of the immediate cancelation of its contract.

CJMR vice-president Matt Caine noted that the Polish broadcaster had failed to respond adequately to detailed complaints about its portrayal of Jews and Judaism, and that its Canadian representative had simply dismissed these as “inaccurate.”

B’nai Brith Canada, which had provided evidence of Radio Maryja’s alleged “vitriolic antisemitic content,” apparently including conspiracy theories and references to Jews as “greedy,” said that it was “extremely pleased” by the decision.

Former deputy premier of Alberta, Thomas Lukaszuk, said that by “eliminating the often offensive Radio Maryja” the Toronto radio station was “silencing” division in Canada.

Midwest Queen's Gambit: 200 chess players compete in solidarity with Israel

Chess lovers from Israel and the Midwest competed on Saturday evening during an online competition organized by Chess for All and Israel in Chicago. The first is a chess club with a network of schools across the country, the second is the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.

With the support of Bruce Pandolfini, America’s famous chess coach, the virtual match included roughly 200 lovers of the game of kings who competed over the title. The winner was Grand Master Nitzan Steinberg with the best female participant being Grand Master Marsel Efroimski. Efroimski also won the Queen’s Gambit award.

The show gained a great deal of praise among chess lovers for being accurate and realistic. Sales of chess sets, likely due to the show being aired during a time in which many people are at home because of COVID-19, increased by over 1000%, NPR reported.

Pandolfini, considered to be America’s most experienced chess teacher, served as a consultant for the hit Netflix series Queen’s Gambit which made chess more popular than ever. Based on the 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis, the show follows a young woman, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, on her path to master the game and overcome addiction.

As a coach and trainer, he has possibly conducted more chess sessions than anyone in the world.

TAU, IAA in Research Revealing Evidence of Trade between India and Israel 3,700 Years Ago

A new study by an international team that included researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority reveals that as early as the 16th century BCE there was significant global trade between India and Southeast Asia, and Israel. The trade included exotic foods such as soybeans, bananas, and turmeric – almost a thousand years before the first evidence of the presence of these foods in the Middle East.

The study focused on food scraps identified in the dental plaque of people buried in the 16th century BCE in Tel Megiddo in northern Israel, and the 11th century BCE in Tel Irani near Kiryat Gat in the south.

The remains of various foods were found in the teeth of these people, including food from Southeast Asia such as soybeans, bananas, and turmeric.

The study was conducted by Prof. Philipp Stockhammer of the University of Munich, and researchers from various institutions around the world including, from Tel Aviv University, Prof. Israel Finkelstein and Dr. Mario Martin of the Jacob Alkov Department of Archeology, and Dr. Yanir Milevsky and Dmitry Yagorov from the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The findings were published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Exotic foods reveal contact between South Asia and the Near East during the second millennium BCE).

When we imagine the urban market in Megiddo 3,700 years ago, we think of local ingredients such as wheat, dates, and sesame, and, indeed, according to the researchers, ancient proteins and micro-fossils from these foods were found in the jaws of the ancient residents of the city. But with them were also found remnants of soybeans, bananas, and turmeric, and, according to the researchers, nowhere in the world has older evidence of soybeans, bananas, and turmeric been found outside of South and East Asia. The recent discovery predates their presence in the area of ​​the Land of Israel and in the Mediterranean Basin by hundreds of years (turmeric) and even by a thousand years (soybeans).

This means that as early as the second millennium BCE, long-distance trade in exotic fruits, spices and oils existed between South Asia and the Land of Israel, through Mesopotamia or Egypt – suggesting globalization in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Of course, bananas would not have survived the journey from Southeast Asia to Megiddo, which suggests they were sold and consumed as dried fruit – very much like the lovely banana chips on your supermarket shelf.

A beautiful dedication in honor of Jared Kushner for his indispensable role in the Abraham Accords pic.twitter.com/KkxWM6SgVh

— Avi Berkowitz (@aviberkow45) December 21, 2020

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