03/04 Links: Gil Troy: The Huwara Riot Was No ‘Pogrom’; Thirty years on, Schindler’s List should never have been made; When is journalism antisemitic? ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Gil Troy: The Huwara Riot Was No ‘Pogrom’

Anti-Palestinian violence comes from the margins of Israeli society. Anti-Jewish violence comes from the Palestinian mainstream.

As a Russian correspondent for the Times of London explained on Dec. 7, 1903, pogrom ”is a national institution” and is “not a massacre in the ordinary sense of the term.” Rather, pogroms are “directed against Jews.” Local and national authorities “encouraged” the thunderous destruction. The Times emphasized: “from the very first pebble thrown by a small boy to the last murder committed, all is absolutely under the control of the Government.”

By contrast, pictures from Huwara showed Israeli soldiers saving Palestinians from the flames. Mainstream Israeli leaders condemned the violence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Don’t take the law into your own hands.” Israel’s army is trying to find the rioters, with 14 suspects already arrested.

Pogroms came from the center of Eastern European society, while the anti-Palestinian violence came from the margins of Israeli society. Meanwhile, anti-Jewish violence comes from the Palestinian mainstream. Palestinian leaders openly call for the destruction of the Jewish state and sponsor “martyr’s funds” to pay the families of those that carry out attacks against Israel. Palestinians celebrated the murder of the Yaniv brothers, Hillel, 21, and Yagel, 19, by joyously distributing sweets. By contrast, the Hurawa riots outraged most Israelis. Yair Fink, a liberal and Orthodox Israeli politician, raised more than $300,000 for Hurawa’s victims overnight. No Cossacks ran post-pogrom charity drives for Jews.

Words matter. Calling this despicable revenge attack by Jews against Palestinians a pogrom is like calling any black-on-white violence in the George Floyd riots a “lynching.” Misappropriating words fraught with historical and emotional significance wrenches them from their context. It cruelly alleges that the once-innocent victims of bigotry have themselves become bullying bigots. Scavenging a people’s past pain to weaponize it against them today is no way to work through conflict toward a healthy future.

Jonathan Tobin: Biden isn’t serious about opposing Palestinian terrorism

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) knows that even if Biden were trying to stop the Palestinians rather than covering for them, Abbas and his Fatah Party will continue to use foreign aid to pay those who murder Israelis and Americans. So he is planning to introduce a bill that will put more teeth in the legislation. His bill would prevent any bank that processes or facilitates payments to terrorists from doing business in the United States or using dollars in any transaction. It would also restrict any financial institution that did or does business with Hamas.

Given the global commercial network that connects most fiscal institutions large and small throughout most of the world, this would inflict considerable hardship on the P.A. That’s because it needs its banks to have connections to the West in order for it to receive the massive payments it gets from international bodies and European governments, much of which is lost due to the rampant corruption in the P.A. that extends all the way up to Abbas and his family.

Cotton first tried to pass this bill back in 2021, but it failed in the Senate due to opposition from Democrats and indifference from some establishment Republicans. The latter may still be an obstacle. According to Jewish Insider, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was the original principal sponsor of the Taylor Force Act, thinks it isn’t necessary. Graham actually thinks the act is working well.

That is a typical congressional reaction. Having passed a law that was supposed to deal with a challenging issue, Graham, who spends most of his time lately promoting more U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s war with Russia, considered the problem solved once his bill was passed. That’s true even if, as with Palestinian terrorism, the law isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do because of loopholes and the executive branch’s unwillingness to enforce it.

Though the odds are still against him given the lack of Democratic interest in stopping Palestinian terrorism, Cotton is still to be commended for trying. But as long as Biden is committed to evading the Taylor Force Act, Washington will still be part of the problem rather than the solution.

With the intersectional left largely calling the tune in a Biden administration that has been in thrall to so-called “progressives” and their even more radical allies in the congressional “Squad” since it took office on a host of issues, the issue goes deeper than mere indifference. In a party and administration where adherence to toxic left-wing myths like critical race theory is pervasive, the labeling of Israel as a state benefiting from “white privilege” and oppressing “people of color” is routine. Among such people, genuine concern about terrorist murders of Israelis isn’t terribly likely. That’s why despite lip service being paid to the memory of Elan Ganeles, the Biden administration has become a principal obstacle to efforts to end Palestinian terrorism.

Biden Admin Awards Grant to Palestinian Activist Group Whose Leaders Hailed Terrorist as 'Hero Fighter'

The Biden administration gave a $78,000 grant to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders attended an anniversary event celebrating the founding of a terrorist group and praised the murderer of a U.S. military attaché as a "hero fighter," according to a funding announcement.

The Community Development and Continuing Education Institute (CDCEI), an activist group based in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories, received the grant to promote "youth participation and accountability in local governance," the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced in November.

But an anti-terrorism watchdog group is raising concerns about the funding, after finding that the activist group's board chairman participated in a celebration for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group, while other board members lauded convicted terrorists as "heroes" and applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel.

NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that investigated the CDCEI funding, questioned the federal government's vetting process for grantees. The news of the USAID grant comes as the Biden State Department has faced criticism from lawmakers for funding a Gaza-based journalist training program run by another charity, Fares Al-Arab, that has worked with terrorists and has promoted anti-Israel views.

"These findings reinforce the need for USAID to consult a wide array of publicly available sources when vetting potential grantees, to ensure that taxpayer funds are not provided to organizations led by individuals that glorify violence, espouse anti-Semitic rhetoric, or embrace anti-normalization," NGO Monitor said. "USAID grantees should align with U.S. goals and values."

USAID did not respond to a request for comment. CDCEI did not respond to a request for comment.

Thirty years on, Schindler’s List should never have been made

Schindler’s Jews are terrorised people who cannot be whole in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film

The most important objection was the obvious one: Schindler’s List is not really about Jews. It is about a member of the Nazi Party called Oskar Schindler. Or, rather, it is about two members of the Nazi Party. The other is the commandant Amon Göth.

If you think of the film, you will recollect their faces; Jews here exist to finesse what we can plausibly call the Nazi spiritual journey. The film-maker Ken Jacobs said it was about “styles of manhood and how one deals with one’s lessers”. Jews, he added, functioned as “background and pawns of this dramatic contest.” The first Nazi is redeemed by his treatment of Jews, and the second Nazi is damned by it.

The writer Philip Gourevitch complained: “Schindler’s list depicts the Nazi’s slaughter of Polish Jewry almost entirely through German eyes”. I see this in John Boyne’s repulsive book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas too, which has become the most popular text for teaching the Shoah.

Its hero is Bruno, the son of a Nazi like Göth. He is a tiny Oskar Schindler. Gourevitch adds, and I think he is right: “The mindless critical hyperbole which has greeted Schindler’s List suggests that powerful spectacle continues to be more beguiling than human and historical authenticity — and that the psychology of the Nazis is a bigger draw than the civilization of the people they murdered.”

That is true, too. Schindler’s Jews are terrorised people who cannot be whole. They are a cringing mass, with none of the intellectual or spiritual sophistication of the protagonists which is insane when you consider who did what to whom. The critic Liel Leibovitz said the film was, “the least Jewish in sensibility” of any film about the Shoah he had seen.

This was the director Stanley Kubrick’s response: “Think that’s about the Holocaust? That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler’s List is about 600 who don’t. Anything else?”

Deborah Lipstadt was kinder. She asked: “Did it bring the story to countless people who no other filmmaker would have been able to reach?” Yes, but what did it teach them? I fret that Schindler’s List, for all its artistry and beauty, and perhaps because of it — it looks like it was made in 1942 — eased in the phenomenon that the Shoah is about non-Jews, so there is nothing to learn from it. Spielberg took his story and gave it to everyone for themselves.

That’s his way. And so the dejudaisation of the Shoah rolled out.

I went to see Spielberg’s new film The Fabelmans at the cinema a few weeks ago. I fell into conversation with the young man behind the counter.

I told him that I did not like the scene in Schindler’s List with the girl with the red dress. “I loved that scene,” he told me delighting in the recollection.

“It popped.”

When is journalism antisemitic?

LANDES HAS compiled what he calls a Palestinian Media Protocol – the approach to news reporting that will raise no objections from Palestinian propagandists. Stories must portray Palestinians as victims resisting Israeli oppression, while Israel must never be portrayed sympathetically.

He illustrates the protocol in action. When a Palestinian who murdered two Israeli civilians in Jerusalem was shot, BBC news reported: “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.” When Israeli troops hit a Hamas weapons depot, the explosion caused an adjacent house to collapse, killing a mother and her child. The UK Independent headlined the story: “Israel kills pregnant mother and her baby in revenge attacks.”

In considering the deep roots of the Arab-Israel impasse, Landes contrasts two very different cultures. While the Western world, by and large, evolved positive, progressive, egalitarian societies, many African and Middle East nations developed cultures that Landes describes as “shame-honor.” In these societies, a man without honor is contemptible, despised. If someone kills his kin, he must retaliate in blood. Landes postulates that the Arab opposition to Israel is a case study in shame-honor.

For some 13 centuries, Jews in Muslim societies were classed as dhimmi, accepting public degradation and legal inferiority in order to avoid persecution. Arab and Muslim honor lay in their domination and humiliation of their dhimmi. To the honor-driven Arab mind, the very idea that their erstwhile dhimmi had set up a sovereign state on Arab land was intolerable, and the establishment of the State of Israel was a deep psychological trauma.

The humiliation was only deepened by Israeli victories in the subsequent united Arab attacks. Landes maintains that the West has never fully appreciated the shame-honor phenomenon that motivates Arab reaction to the conflict and the numerous failed peace initiatives.

Landes is equally convinced that the West fails to appreciate that extremist Muslim forces are engaged on a global jihad, determined to convert the world to Islam. They intend to destroy the liberal democracies from within, using their own institutions to do so. Religious freedom allows the spread of radical mosques. Freedom of speech permits the spread of radical ideas. The legal system presumes innocence; proving guilt is replete with obstacles.

Landes has no answers to the dire situation he reveals. He asks what it would take to change deeply embedded false perceptions or to spread awareness of the real dangers facing the democratic world but admits that his suggestions are unrealistic. He can imagine what such a sea change could be like but holds out no hope that it is possible.

However, to the question he poses in his title – Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong? – his closely reasoned, gripping and revelatory work returns a clear answer. Yes.

The Palestinian war against Israel isn't a reaction to Netanyahu gov't -opinion

Some journalists and pundits who write about Israel seem to be afflicted with what I call Born Yesterday Syndrome, in which they pretend that Palestinian Arab terrorism is a response to some recent Israeli policy. The most common example is when they claim that Arab terrorism is a response to Israel’s presence in the territories it won in the 1967 Six Day War – as if there had not been any Arab war against Israel prior to 1967.

Now we’re seeing signs of Born Yesterday Syndrome in the allegations that the latest Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks are the fault of the recently-elected Israeli government.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association this week declared that the latest “outbursts of violence” by Arab terrorists “are largely the result of the Israeli government’s [policies] and the rhetoric of some members of the governing coalition that can only be seen as spurring it on.”

J Street likewise says that “the far-Right Israeli government’s latest major moves toward annexation and deepening occupation” are to blame for “relentlessly feed[ing] the cycle of worsening conflict and injustice.” (In reality, the government has not “annexed” anything, nor has it altered the “occupation” of the territory that the Oslo accords put under Israel’s control – but never mind those inconvenient facts.)

Along the same lines, a recent dispatch by the Reuters news agency claimed that “Tensions have risen further since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in December with religious nationalists in key cabinet posts...”

Seth Frantzman: This week's US update on ISIS fight shows how complex the fight is

In general, the update on the operations was relatively thin on any real details about the operations against ISIS. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that ISIS is largely defeated and operations are smaller than in the past. The goal is to keep ISIS defeated.

Four US troops were wounded in mid-February during a raid on a senior ISIS leader which is one of multiple setbacks suffered by ISIS in February. The questions posed at the briefing indicate that the major challenges to the anti-ISIS mission don’t necessarily come from ISIS, but rather from Iran and Turkey and other issues.

Basically, the anti-ISIS mission faces many hurdles because of the issues involved with operating in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq, it is Iranian influence that can undermine the mission. In Syria, it is not only Iranian proxy threats along the Euphrates river, where Iranian proxies target US forces at Conoco and Omar field, but also the continues Turkish threats to target the SDF and invade the area.

One of the central features of the ISIS war, since ISIS took advantage of the chaos in Syria in 2013 to emerge as a major organization, is that many countries have used the “war on ISIS” to their own advantage. For instance, ISIS was able to exploit anger at the pro-Iranian Maliki regime in Iraq to take over many Sunni Arab cities in 2014. ISIS then used this as a springboard to genocide against Yazidis in Sinjar.

ISIS was founded by key Iraqi extremists who transited Turkey to join the group, but it had support from abroad. Later, in 2018, Turkey claimed to be targeting ISIS when it targeted Kurds in Afrin. Russia even claimed to be fighting ISIS when it intervened in Syria in 2015. This means that defeating ISIS was only one part of the overall context of what has been happening in Syria and Iraq. The vacuum left behind by the defeat of ISIS has led other countries and groups to try to exploit the situation. For instance, pro-Iran militias moved into Albukamal and Al Qaim on the Syria-Iraq border after ISIS was defeated.

For the US-led Coalition this creates complexity and the recent briefing illustrates how the situation is more complex than just a counter-terror operation. The briefing didn’t really explain what the future holds for the mission, but it is clear the US is still committed to working with the SDF and advising and assisting Iraq’s security forces, and the Kurdish Peshmerga, against ISIS.

US may deny Smotrich entry due to inciting Huwara comment

The United States is considering barring Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country as planned this month to protest his call to wipe out the West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara, according to reports in the Israeli media.

Smotrich is expected to speak to the Israel Bonds organization and had not been planning to meet with any US officials.

But a number of groups, including the US Jewish group J Street have called on US government officials not to "legitimize his extremism by meeting with him, either in the United States or elsewhere.”

Last week US State Department spokesman Ned Price called his words “irresponsible,” “repugnant,” and “disgusting.” French and Saudi officials' statements

France on Friday said it was “appalled” by his comments. “These remarks are unacceptable, irresponsible and unworthy of a member of the Israeli government, which moreover is in charge of the civil administration of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These remarks only inflame hatred and fuel the current cycle of violence.

“Once again, France calls on the Israeli government to protect Palestinian civilians and hold the perpetrators of violence accountable, in line with the international obligations incumbent upon it as an occupying power,” it said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said it was “an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility.”

The Saudi Foreign Ministry called it a “racist” and “extremist statement" which reflected the level of violence enacted by Israel against the Palestinians. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said it was a breach of human rights and international law.

Former US Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen joins @J_Insider podcast this week to talk about @GlennYoungkin's commission to combat antisemitism - its findings and recommendations for Virginia and other states to follow. https://t.co/IWOeme9rcW
— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) March 3, 2023

What a mother of an IDF special forces soldier would like to tell you - opinion

I want to tell you how it feels when you say goodbye to your son when he goes back to base on Sunday morning; that feeling that something bad is going to happen and you pray it won’t happen to your son, and then you feel bad for praying that someone else will face a tragedy – but I can’t.

I want to tell you what it feels like when you hear that someone in your son’s unit was killed – that crushing feeling of relief and grief all mixed together – but I can’t.

I want to tell you how worried you are for your son – how will the things he’s seen and done affect him – but I can’t.

“He’s been through so much already, how can he take any more?” These words often ring through my head, but of course – I can’t tell you that.

I want to tell you how I just want to hug him tight when he comes home and not let him go, but I can’t as I have to let him; it’s his duty – it’s what he signed up for.

I want to tell you what it’s like when your son finishes his placement in one of the most violent places on earth and starts another in a quieter area; that palpable relief you feel as you no longer spend your nights looking at your phone and scouring Twitter – but I can’t.

I want to tell you about the anxiety you feel when he’s winding down his service, in case his head drops and he becomes less alert. I can’t tell you how many times I told my son to remain vigilant, because quite honestly, I lost count.

I want to tell you about the tangible relief when your son finally gets to the end of his service and hands back all of his equipment – but I can’t.

I want to tell you about the joy you feel when he walks through the door, midweek, in his civvies, as he’s no longer on duty, and how lovely it is just to have him around, unencumbered by the thought of having to “go back.”

But most of all, I want to tell you how proud I am of him – now that – I can tell you.

The Israel Guys: UPDATE: The TRUTH About What is REALLY Happening in Israel

The media reports coming out of Israel have been a dizzying blur of half truths, misportrayal, and in some cases, outright lies. On today’s show Ben gets to the bottom of what’s really going on in Judea and Samaria.

Interesting video out of what appears to be Jenin. A gunman carrying a flag of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, commonly referred to as al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades. This is the first time I've observed what may ostensibly be the group's presence in the West Bank. pic.twitter.com/WOh6qcXZ4B
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) March 3, 2023

Militant groups in the West Bank have always been several steps behind the counterparts in Gaza. They looked more like a rag tag group of gunmen more than organized militant factions. An increase in funding and support has changed that. I'm concerned the threat of militancy will… https://t.co/JpJTm7SXu0 pic.twitter.com/7Y0uI6ASHC
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) March 4, 2023

The correct response was to retract the accusation of faking the image but you decided to block and double down on the lie. pic.twitter.com/xp2hUwgnED
— The Mossad: ?????? (@TheMossadIL) March 4, 2023

Iran's Regime Days Away from Nuclear Weapons

Thanks to the Biden Administration's weak leadership, Iran has been able to make these major nuclear advancements. Unless the Biden Administration quickly emerges from its confusion, Americans may well have the questionable honor of Russia, China and Iran all aiming nuclear weapons at them at once.

The Biden Administration's domestic policies have been alarming enough: runaway inflation, allowing the Chinese Communist Party the run of the US corral, 100,000 hard-drug overdose deaths each year thanks to Biden's open border and the effective destruction of both energy independence and mineral extraction. Instead, the Biden Administration has preferred to go hat-in-hand begging to buy oil from "less than friendly countries," such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- while ignoring Canada -- and minerals from the Chinese Communist Party.

The Biden Administration's foreign policies, however, are arguably even worse: the surrender to terrorists in Afghanistan; the failure to deter Russia from invading Ukraine; helping Ukraine only "too little too late;" what appears a looming failure to deter China from overwhelming both Taiwan and the United States – and, as a crowning triumph, conferring upon the world a brutal, expansionist, nuclear-armed Iran.

Iran Can Make Five Nukes in One Month’s Time, Report Says

Iran can produce enough weapons-grade material to power a nuclear bomb in just 12 days and could produce another four bombs within a month’s time, according to a watchdog group.

The Islamic Republic can enrich enough uranium to power a total of seven nuclear weapons in three months, the Institute for Science and International Security concluded in a report analyzing information provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear oversight group.

The findings show that Iran is closer than ever before to crossing the nuclear threshold. The country, in recent months, has been enriching uranium to levels just below weapons-grade levels, fueling concerns the Islamic Republic could move towards testing a weapon at any moment. The IAEA in its most recent reporting disclosed that Iran has likely enriched up to 83.7 percent at its Fordow nuclear facility, a military site dug deep inside a mountain. These are the highest levels detected at Iranian enrichment sites and highlight the country’s growing technical knowhow.

The detection of more highly enriched uranium at the Fordow site is raising concerns "Iran is undertaking covert experiments that add to its ability to more rapidly break out," according to the report. "Worrisome possibilities include that Iran tested a way to produce near weapon-grade uranium without IAEA detection, or to syphon off a small amount of near 84 percent enriched uranium."

Iran’s decision to stop cooperating with the IAEA also has limited its window into the country’s nuclear activities.

"The IAEA reports that it can no longer reestablish continuity of knowledge about Iran’s activities under a revived [nuclear deal], such as production of advanced centrifuges and heavy water, due to Iran’s decision in February 2021 to deny the IAEA access to data from key JCPOA-related monitoring and surveillance equipment and Iran’s decision in June 2022 to remove all such equipment, including video cameras and online enrichment monitors," the institute said.

Protests break out in Iran over schoolgirl illnesses

Worried parents protested in Iran's capital Tehran and other cities on Saturday over a wave of suspected poison attacks that have affected schoolgirls in dozens of schools, according to Iranian news agencies and social media videos.

The so-far unexplained illnesses have affected hundreds of schoolgirls in recent months. Iranian officials believe the girls may have been poisoned and have blamed Tehran's enemies.

The country's health minister has said the girls have suffered "mild poison" attacks and some politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups opposed to girls' education.

Sickness affected more than 30 schools in at least 10 of Iran's 31 provinces on Saturday. Videos posted on social media showed parents gathered at schools to take their children home and some students being taken to hospitals by ambulance or buses.

Anti-Semite who violently attacked three Jews in NYC, bragged he ‘didn’t even see a jail cell’ learns his fate

A violent anti-Semite and staunch supporter of Palestine was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Friday for a trio of hate attacks on Jews over a one-year period in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Manhattan federal court Judge Denise Cote imposed the term on Staten Island resident Saadah Masoud — saying she believed he is a “deeply angry and disturbed person.”

Judge Cote told Masoud his violent attacks were a “betrayal of your family and a betrayal of what you’re telling me your personal values are.”

Masoud, 29, pleaded guilty in November to a hate crimes conspiracy count for the three attacks.

On May 19, 2021, Masoud and others chatted on the encrypted messaging Signal, laying out plans to disrupt a pro-Israel demonstration in Manhattan the following day.

“I beat the sh-t out of three Zionist[s] yesterday and didn’t even see a jail cell,” Masoud wrote in the chat, according to a sentencing submission filed by prosecutors on the case.

He added: “VIOLENT!! ONLY VIOLENCE… IN PALESTINE THEY WISHHH THEY COULD SMACK A ZIONIST AND NOT GET TORTURED TO DEATH. WE CAN THO!!”

At the Midtown protest the following day, Masoud confronted a demonstrator who was wearing a large star of David necklace and asked, “Are you a f–king Jew?”

He then slugged the man in the face.

Less than two weeks later, Masoud and a co-conspirator drove by the Brooklyn home of Heshy Tischler, a conservative provocateur, and outspoken Jewish activist, and spotted him sitting in his car.

“We know where you live, we’ll get you,” Masoud told Tischler, prosecutors wrote.

Brandeis University Teaming up with New Nonprofit to Fight Antisemitism

Brandeis University has partnered with Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS), a nonprofit founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, to fight rising antisemitism across the US.

On Thursday, the university announced the launch of the “Robert Kraft Family-Brandeis Collaboration on Antisemitism,” which will include a student fellowship program for undergraduates, conferences featuring leading experts on antisemitism, and collaborations with K-12 administrators. Additionally, Brandeis University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Jewish Leadership Program will expand to include “Kraft Scholars,” who will participate in new online degree and certificate programs that will train them to respond to crises caused by antisemitic incidents.

“The rise of antisemitism and hate targeting Jews across the country is a threat to the Jewish community’s survival and needs strong leadership to combat,” chairman and CEO of The Kraft Group, Robert Kraft, said on Thursday. “Through our Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, we are working to find innovative ways to educate and empower Jews and non-Jews to stand up to Jewish hate. Brandeis is the right partner for this important work, as its founding values are based in a commitment to create a better world.”

Brandeis University noted that antisemitic incidents in the US are occurring at record levels, averaging over seven incidents a day in 2021, according to statistics compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The trend is playing out at K-12 schools and also on college campuses, where, ADL and Hillel International reported in a recent study, nearly a third of Jewish students have been victims of antisemitism.

Kraft, who led the remarkable transformation of the New England Patriots from a second tier club to an annual Super Bowl contender and winner of six such titles in under twenty years, founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism in 2019 after being awarded $1 million through Genesis Prize, an honor given to successful members of the Jewish community. FCAS focuses most of its resources on social media, aiming, it says, “to stand up against racist and violent rhetoric aimed at the Jewish people through the most accessible and most powerful avenue of information in the world.”

Connecticut College students revolt after president’s planned talk with antisemitic and racist past

When students at Connecticut College learned that their president had been planning to attend a fundraiser at a historically racist and antisemitic golf club, they began to organize.

But their school’s building for race and ethnicity programming, the Unity House, didn’t have enough space to hold them all. So a pivotal meeting that kicked off a weeks-long campaign against the university took place at a space with a larger capacity: its Hillel house.

“Having a Jewish space on campus that felt like a safe space to gather as a community is something that really struck me as important,” Ilan Listgarten, a Jewish sophomore at the college, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Three weeks later, Connecticut College students have moved to an even bigger location: They have occupied a central administrative building on the New London campus for five days and counting, and are receiving support from faculty and staff. Protestors' demands

The students want the president to resign, and they are calling for increased funding and support for various ethnic studies and student group programs. Their demands include enhancements to the Jewish studies program (the school currently offers a minor) and bias training to address antisemitism.

Tensions have remained so high that Hillel leaders canceled a planned Shabbat dinner with the embattled president, Katherine Bergeron, an annual event that this year had been scheduled for Friday.

‘Incredibly disturbing antisemitic advertisement’ debuts in Toronto

The capital city in Ontario, Canada, launched a “Toronto for All” campaign last September after Toronto police data showed Jews were the city’s most-targeted group for hate crimes in 2021. Now, Jewish leaders are expressing outrage at a very different public effort.

A new advertisement displayed in the city succinctly states that “anti-apartheid is not antisemitism,” above, below and within a blue Star of David.

On Twitter, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center called it “an incredibly disturbing antisemitic advertisement.” It added that it filed a complaint with the advertising company and asked that it be removed immediately.

Last December, a group carried signs stating “Free Palestine” and “Apartheid Zionist child killers” in a Jewish Toronto neighborhood.

On left: Nazi Germany.
On right: Sign outside Jewish-owned business, Toronto, 2023.

Spot the difference? There is none.

Different eras, same hate. pic.twitter.com/sPu8eLpvkh
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 4, 2023

This from Palestinian rep to Canada, @MonaAbuamara. Truth be told, it wouldn’t matter what Israel’s flag looked like, the racist Palestinian leadership would still be committed to the Jewish state’s destruction. https://t.co/YWcXYpEw0R
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 4, 2023

A Dildo Saleswoman Is Apparently In Charge Of An Infamous Neo-Nazi Group On Telegram

One of the most dangerous Neo-Nazi propaganda groups on Telegram is allegedly being run by a former dildo saleswoman in California.

In a recent HuffPost expose, 33-year-old Dallas Erin Humber was named as a leader of the online hate group The Terrorgram Collective, which uses the encrypted messaging app Telegram to promote acts of far-right violence. Humber, who’s been shouting her racist, homophobic, and antisemitic ideologies into the digital void since she was a teenager, is the voice behind the group’s many propaganda videos celebrating mass shooters like Brendan Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter, and Juraj Krajčík, a Slovakian teenager who opened fire on a gay bar last year, killing two patrons. (Krajčík committed suicide shortly after the attack but not before naming The Terrorgram Collective as inspiration for the murders in his manifesto.)

Humber and members of the collective have glorified mass shooters — like the one in Buffalo, who killed 10 Black shoppers at a grocery store, and the one in Pittsburgh, who murdered 11 Jews at a local synagogue — as saints, commemorating their hate crimes with church-like drawings, tribute videos, and memes. But, until now, she was known only by her anime art and many aliases — handles that included “pretty dictator,” “the Lolita of the Far Right,” “Lil’ Lolita,” “hopelessfangirl,” “Lil’ Miss Gorehound,” and finally, “Miss Gorehound,” the name she’s been using to create her latest propaganda.

HuffPost’s investigation also uncovered evidence of Humber’s criminal record, drug use, and, interesting job history. Along with drawing Nazi-inspired anime cartoons celebrating the birthday of noted Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele and creating comic book stories about two SS officers falling in love set to the backdrop of a concentration camp, Humber also held a number of odd jobs. After being arrested for possession of methamphetamine and sentenced to a drug rehabilitation program as part of her probation, Humber — who never attended college — worked as an academic tutor and a dildo saleswoman, posting video reviews of sex toys with coupon codes for her followers.

Mark Nuttycombe is great at writing new lyrics to old songs. What’s not great is that the lyrics are all about his fantasies to kill, gas and/or incinerate Jews. https://t.co/n4YsOQfTGM pic.twitter.com/dA86az7Mt0
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) March 3, 2023

West Hollywood, CA - antisemitic graffiti bearing two swastikas and Stars of David was sadly found at ZPizza earlier this week.

West Hollywood has a significant Jewish community comprised of Jews immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Iran, and Israel. pic.twitter.com/YI5JrWQyPf
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 3, 2023

At 25, ‘The Prince of Egypt’ still ‘delivers us to the promised land,’ rabbi who consulted on it says

The musical film “The Prince of Egypt” turns 25 this year, and as it celebrates no longer having to pay extra fees to rent cars, it remains timely.

“The ancient rabbis taught that we are commanded to see ourselves in every generation as though we personally had left Egypt as part of the Exodus,” Burton Visotzky, a rabbi and professor, told JNS.

“For this past generation, tens of thousands were able to do this thanks to the artistry of the DreamWorks animated feature ‘The Prince of Egypt,’ ” added Visotzky, professor emeritus of midrash and interreligious studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a consultant to the 1998 production. “I have visited communities across America where families have the custom to watch the film every Passover. ‘Prince of Egypt’ delivers us to the promised land.”

On March 26, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, a Smithsonian-affiliated institution in Philadelphia, will screen the movie as part of Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media’s annual Lindy SpringFest, which runs from March 25 to April 1.

“The Oscar-winning, box-office hit of the late 1990s, the kids’ movie musical that moved audiences around the world, the ‘Passover movie’ of all Passover movies … is coming back to the big screen,” Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media states.

It adds that there will be arts and crafts, food and storytime before the screening, and “Singing is encouraged, but not required.”

DreamWorks will release a new 4K Blu-Ray edition of the film on March 14.