Friday, December 30, 2022
Melanie Phillips: The religious culture war comes to Israel
Far from creating a liberal, tolerant society, progressive ideologies are profoundly illiberal and coercive. Far from producing the brotherhood of mankind, left-wing universalism sets group against group in a battle for power over each other.David Collier: How the Twittersphere spreads antisemitism
A constitutional monarchy, such as exists in Britain, promotes unity because it exists above politics and therefore above division. This was the great insight of King David, who unified the tribes of ancient Israel to form a coherent nation and whose limited monarchy was the inspiration and template for the British Crown.
King Charles’s patent desire to bring the British people together has transformed him from a figure widely disparaged and distrusted as cold and remote into a person viewed affectionately as the benign and genial grandfather of the nation.
The State of Israel, of course, doesn’t have a monarchy. Nor does America, which is being pulled apart over these cultural issues.
For all the unifying strength of the monarchy he represents, however, King Charles is actually in a lonely and perilous position. For the prevailing culture in Britain is actively undermining the religious continuity he realizes is essential.
No political party in Britain is prepared to face down and defeat the culture warriors writing women and conservatives out of the public sphere. No party is prepared to stop children being taught the lie that Britain and the West were born in the original sins of colonialism and oppression. No party is prepared to conserve and defend the classical liberal settlement underpinning freedom, tolerance and democracy. And no party is prepared to challenge radical, pagan environmentalism—to which the King, with his belief in the spiritual unity of all creation, is unfortunately also deeply attached.
In America, the parallel collapse of conservatives’ understanding of what was at risk and needed to be defended led to the implosion of the Republican Party and the rise to power in 2016 of Donald Trump as the only way to defeat the cultural predations of the left.
In Israel, the collapse of the moderate, religious Yamina Party meant that those who believe the combination of Jewish religious integrity with a modern economy, scientific advancement and the duties of citizenship is crucial to Israel’s identity and survival were left with no political representation.
They have been presented instead with a stark choice between religious zealots in one camp and left-wingers in the other screaming about the end of democracy while urging insurrection against an elected democratic government—and with Netanyahu holding the line against the extremism on either side.
Considering the way Netanyahu has been characterized as beyond the pale, this is indeed an irony. He and King Charles, it turns out, have something rather crucial in common.
We all know that Jew-hate spreads in the Twittersphere, but nobody touches on how much of it is there. Nor do people draw comparisons between the level of ‘anti’ activity, and the level of ‘pro’ that seeks to answer it.Facts most Arabs and a hostile world would rather not admit
As a quintessential minority group, Jews are drowned out on social media, and because these platforms operate on algorithms that reward ‘popularity’, Jewish people are on a loser from the start. Networks of hate even gang up to have Jews removed from the platform.
‘Zioporn’ addicts. Thousands of accounts in the Twittersphere that indulge their ‘kink’ by watching, liking, or sharing, either fake or butchered images that demonise Israel or Israelis. The more gruesome the image, the better the high. Authenticity is irrelevant. The ‘happy ending’ normally involves a tweeted utterance of disgust or outrage directed towards the state of Israel, or those that support it.
In a world which contains brutal regimes that slaughter millions, this tweet (posted 28/12 at 2:28am) suggests Israel is the ‘most despicable’ nation on earth:
A Twittersphere snapshot
I wanted a snapshot. Analysing a period on Twitter and then quantifying the output that was found. Such an exercise would also allow me to draw a comparison with the way other nations are treated on social media – showing just how exceptional (and therefore antisemitic) the anti-Israel rhetoric is.
I took a 36-hour period, from midnight on the 28 Dec, to noon on the 29th. Only two search terms were used. As nobody has any interest in a troll spamming his way to 100 dormant anti-Israel tweets a day, I set a bar for a minimum number of retweets. This ensured that only the hate that travelled was tallied.
I was complimented some time ago by a reader of one of my earlier published articles, titled, Lies, Myths and Obama, which dealt – as many of them do – with the history of Israel and its enemies: Biblical and post-Biblical.
I had included in the article the following sentence: “Only one people has ever made Jerusalem its capital and only one people ever established their ancestral and Biblical homeland between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea: the Jews.”
I had also added that: “the Jews were the indigenous inhabitants of the Land for millennia long before the Muslim religion was created.”
The reader, nevertheless, had correctly pointed out that most people, because they have been exposed for so long to anti-Israel Arab propaganda, believe that there has not been a continuous Jewish presence in the Land during the last 2,000 years. They are thus unaware that the territory was never Judenrein (that is empty of a Jewish presence). And most Arabs and a hate filled world would rather you forget also that Jews lived for millennia in Mesopotamia or what became later known as British created Iraq.
Indeed, Jews had resided for nearly 3,000 years in that territory from the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BCE onwards. It was when Israel was reborn in 1948 that the Iraqi Arabs drove the Jews from their ancient homes, turning them into penniless refugees who found sanctuary in Israel; an impoverished country barely able to support them at the time.
More Jewish refugees were created than Arab refugees as one Arab state after another in the Middle East and North Africa drove out their Jewish populations. A monumental crime, which hardly is ever recognized.
Arabs and their anti-Israel supporters try to convince the world that the Jews just appeared in the early 20th century after being dispersed for two thousand years from their Biblical homeland. That is a flat out lie and flies in the face of recorded history. Indeed the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians do not even acknowledge ancient Biblical Jewish history ever existed. But facts never seem to matter to Arabs and pro-Arabs. So this brief history lesson will be for them an inconvenient truth.
Let me start by quoting from an article written in The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998 by Charles Krauthammer:
"Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,500 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one today advertising ice cream at an Israeli corner candy store."
Wiesenthal Center publishes Top Ten antisemitism list for 2022
The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Thursday released its annual Global antisemitism Top Ten list in Jerusalem.NBA Shares Guide to Dispelling Prejudices, Antisemitic Tropes Against Jews
The Wiesenthal list included an exclusive JNS report from November about a former German Lutheran bishop, Gerhard Ulrich, who is embroiled in an antisemitism scandal and yet was appointed to combat antisemitism in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Ulrich has faced criticism from the Wiesenthal Center for contributing to the legitimization of antisemitism in Germany.
Rapper Ye (Kayne West) was ranked No. 1 on the list because he “used his unparalleled social media influence to morph these historic [anti-Jewish] tropes into a firestorm of real-time anti-Semitism—absorbed by millions, and inspiring acts of hate against Jews—living and dead.”
“The unprecedented mainstreaming of Jew-hatred on social media, led by Kanye West (Ye), fueled anti-Semitic hate crimes, and normalized anti-Jewish hate speech,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) founder and CEO.
West fell under the list’s “The Influencers” category.
NBA player Kyrie Irving, who has 22.5 million social media followers, was also included in “The Influencers’ section, because he “shared a promotion of an anti-Semitic movie.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC associate dean and director of global social action, said, “Politicians offer words of solace to Jewish victims but failed to take effective measures to curb the attacks, while U.N. diplomats, cultural and academic elite often legitimize hatred of the Jewish state.”
SWC noted “there were more incidents of anti-Semitism at Harvard University…than at any other U.S. university in 2022,” adding, “Attempts were also made to disrupt pro-Israel speakers. A swastika was found in an undergraduate dorm, the school paper endorsed the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee erected a wall with Holocaust imagery replete with anti-Semitic statements.”
The National Basketball Association shared on its website on Wednesday a guide created by the Anti-Defamation League that can help individuals identify and disprove antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories about Jewish people.J Street is honest about what it is, we just have to listen
The ADL’s “Antisemitism Uncovered: A Guide To Old Myths in a New Era” series highlights the most common antisemitic myths used to promote hatred against Jews, explains their historical context, and helps readers understand how they pose a threat to the Jewish community and also other minority groups.
“Over the past several months, experts have reported seeing an increase in influential individuals with significant platforms invoking longstanding prejudices about Jewish people … Sharing false antisemitic tropes can lead to real-world consequences that can be deeply dangerous for Jews,” the NBA said.
The posting on the NBA website comes two months after Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving promoted on Twitter a documentary film that contains antisemitic tropes about the relationship between Jews and the slave trade. The seven-time All Star at first doubled down on his support for the film, titled “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” but then apologized on social media mere hours after his team temporarily suspended him for not condemning antisemitism. He has also since deleted the Twitter post about the documentary.
Irving further issued a joint statement with the Nets and the Anti-Defamation League in which the basketball player and the Nets said they would each donate $500,000 to organizations that work to combat hatred.
Founded 15 years ago as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization with the vision of being the “blocking back” in Washington for advancing a two-state solution, J Street won fans in synagogues and even some congressional offices.17% of Assaults on NY Jews Were Carried Out By Muslims
But the organization has changed – and it’s time we face reality about what J Street is and what it is not. Last month, its founder and CEO Jeremy Ben Ami that “J Street is not a two-state solution organization, that’s a mistaken premise.”
Ben Ami went on to tell the Forward that the organization’s goal was now to convey to policymakers that American Jews prioritize other issues above Israel.
It is deliberately deceiving for this organization to still be branded as “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” and the stakes are too high for our community to continue to pretend they are either of those things.
The security challenges facing Israel are growing more severe. Iran is advancing its nuclear program while cozying up to Putin. Terrorism is on the rise in the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse. And the new government in Israel may pursue policies that may inflame tensions with the Diaspora.
Pro-Israel organizations should work to diffuse those challenges – navigating us through these tense and complex times toward an outcome where America and Israel emerge stronger, not weaker — more aligned, not less. Yet recently J Street issued a new policy paper of directives for the Biden administration that would only serve to exacerbate tensions. The kindling is smoking, and J Street is fanning the flames. That’s a recipe for disaster.
The group also recently announced that it had expanded its mission to include “pro-democracy” – a noble cause that I subscribe to as well.
But this mission creep is inherently a message in line with everything else the organization has said and done in the past year: Its original priorities have changed. J Street is not what it used to be, while still trying to convince us it is. While it may still have an important role for many in our community, we do ourselves a disservice if we continue to pretend it’s a pro-Israel organization when its track record says otherwise.
"64% of the assaults were committed by black individuals, 17% by Asians (Muslim/Arab),"There’s a lot of talk about the high rates of antisemitic hate crimes. The problem is that hate crime reporting tends to condense assaults, vandalism, and verbal abuse.NEW: Hate Crimes Report by @AmericansAA & @IsraelBitton finally confirms what we've long known anecdotally:
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) December 28, 2022
94% of Anti-Jewish Assaults in New York City (2018–2022) Were Against Orthodox Jews; and
97% Were Perpetrated By Other Minorities.
For the full report, watch this clip: pic.twitter.com/i3zKH7xAUO
What is much more useful is focusing on actual assaults to see where the danger lies.
Dov Hikind and Americans for Antisemitism broke down a number of the assaults on Jews in New York City, which is the epicenter of antisemitic violence, and the results are revealing.
The project documented 194 cases of anti-Jewish assaults in NYC between April 2018 and August 2022, with the perps’ group identities documented in 99 of those assaults. According to the report’s data, 64% of the assaults were committed by black individuals, 17% by Asians (Muslim/Arab), 10% by Hispanics, and 3% by white individuals.
The 17% attacks by Arab Muslims is a striking statistic. The fact that the majority of the attacks came from black perpetrators, many of them teenagers operating in packs, is completely unsurprising. Polar bear hunting, knockout games and more specific antisemitic violence is a routine reality there. It’s one that we can’t talk about but is nonetheless something that everyone who has actual neighborhood experience knows. (That excludes the LIRR commuters who work for the media and then tweet grinning selfies in Manhattan denying that crime is a problem.)
The Muslim numbers are more interesting. Obviously Muslim violence like this has been a constant in Europe, but this suggests that Muslim demographics in New York City have accelerated so fast that it’s starting to parallel Europe.
* Jewish hate crime rate is 35.8/100k
— shevereshtus (@shevereshtus) December 29, 2022
* 94% of victims are Orthodox
* Orthodox Jews 373.4/100k
* Non-Orthodox 2.4/100k
* African-Americans 8.4/100k
An Orthodox Jew is 44.5 times more likely than an African-American to be victim of a hate crime & 155.6 more than non-Orthodox Jew.
Jewish Federation of L.A.'s Billboard Campaign to Fight Antisemitism
The Jewish Federation of L.A. is fighting antisemitism with billboards all over the city ... and the org.'s CCO believes it can help thwart the proliferation of hate.Disappointment in Claims Conference decision to feature Seth Rogen
Rob Goldenberg joined us on "TMZ Live," telling us all about his org.'s new campaign -- focusing on harmony and love, while looking to shut down hate toward Jewish people.
He underscores the negativity's ramped up in recent years, and believes now's the time to bring positivity into the equation. jewish federation of los angeles billboard
FYI -- the Federation's billboards use ancient Jewish texts as inspirational messages ... and with L.A. having the 2nd largest Jewish population outside of Israel, they've partnered with Outfront Media to spread the word.
As you know, hate speech has drastically increased after Kanye West sparked a ton of controversy, doubling down many times about his negative thoughts towards the Jewish community ... while Kyrie Irving got slammed for tweeting about a controversial film called "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America!"
Pro-Israel activists expressed outrage and disappointment this week over the Claims Conference’s decision to feature actor-comedian Seth Rogen as a headliner in its celebrity-studded virtual Hanukkah event honoring Holocaust survivors.Jenna Ortega becomes Hamas poster child, Jewish organizations silent
The Jewish Canadian-American’s public remarks have been interpreted by some as delegitimizing Israel’s existence.
Last week’s event, which remains available for the public to view online, included short speeches by Holocaust survivors from 15 countries, including some who have recently been resettled from Ukraine. Jewish communal leaders paid tribute to the survivors, as did Israeli President Isaac Herzog, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and celebrities including Henry Winkler, Barbra Streisand, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Jason Alexander, Tovah Feldshuh and Rogen.
Not everyone was pleased.
“Seth Rogen? Really?” said former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind. “Who needs enemies when you have people like Seth Rogen?”
Controversy has dogged Rogen for remarks he made on a podcast that aired in July 2020, coinciding with the release of his then-new movie, “An American Pickle.”
Asked on “WTF with Marc Maron” by podcast host and fellow comic Maron if he would ever live in Israel, Rogen answered, “No.” He went on to express security concerns, then to state, “… don’t understand, to me it just seemed like an antiquated thought process, like if [Israel] is for religious reasons, I don’t agree with it because I think religion is silly.
“If it is for truly the preservation of the Jewish people it makes no sense,” he continued, “because again, you don’t keep something you’re trying to preserve all in one place, especially when that place has proven to be…pretty volatile.”
In a further illustration of what happens when people with seemingly good intent spread propaganda about things they don’t understand, Jenna Ortega, the American actress who rose to fame as Wednesday Addams on the eponymous Netflix series, has become — literally — a poster child for Hamas via their Quds News Network.The Middle East and Human Rights: A Road Map After the Qatari World Cup
Shamefully, American Jewish organizations have said nothing.
Ortega’s Tweets
As noted previously, the actress shared a link to the “Decolonize Palestine” website. At first glance, it seemed in keeping with previous social media posts – she’s championed the cause of Planned Parenthood, Ukrainians, the women of Iran, and children in Iraq and Yemen. However, while she supports women rising up against Islamic theocrats in Tehran, the “Decolonize” link was essentially a list of talking points in line with Hamas, an organization funded in large part by Iran and which imposes an Iranian-style theocracy on Gaza. Some of what appears on the site has been disavowed even by the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, which the site calls “subcontractors for Israeli control of Palestine” (as does Hamas).
Lest anyone think that Israel’s new right-wing government is the problem, the “Decolonize” link Ortega promoted goes out of its way in its “myths” section to argue that this is wrong. Instead, any Israeli government, even if it were composed entirely of left-wing pro-Palestinians, would be the same, since, we’re told, “a colonial society will also produce a colonial ‘left’, and even a colonial ‘peace’ movement. This was exemplified by Yitzhak Rabin.”
Needless to say, the site is full of anti-Semitic tropes, portraying Jews as shadowy operators, lurking behind the scenes to exert control. Take any 19th-century anti-Semitic work, replace “Jew” with “Zionist,” and you’ll have something that looks like “Decolonize Palestine.”
Ortega’s tweet has been shared nearly 10,000 times, and has received more than 32,000 likes. For context, the top 25 percent of Twitter users receive on average only 37 likes and a single retweet per month. Each retweet and each like exposes the link to an even greater audience, and, because she has the tweet “pinned” to the top of her profile, people continue to see it for the first time each day.
The World Cup in Qatar put the myth of a separation of sports and politics to bed.
Like in Qatar, human rights, worker rights, and LGBT rights are likely to be important issues as other Gulf and North African states move center stage as hosts of and bidders for some of the world’s foremost mega-sporting events, including the 2030 World Cup and the 2036 Olympics.
For FIFA, upholding the fiction of a separation of sports and politics will increasingly be perceived as a farce. At the same time, the world soccer body’s decisions on what protests are legitimate during a World Cup, like in Qatar (LGBT, yes, Iran, conditional), will be seen as political.
The 2023 FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco in February and the Asian Games later that year in Qatar are not on par with the World Cup, in terms of global reach. Nonetheless, they are litmus tests for hosts and activists alike.
The responsiveness of hosts to activists’ criticism of their adherence to human, worker, and LGBT rights will indicate the degree to which image is the foremost driver of hosting.
In doing so, the Moroccan and Qatari tournaments, and similar events in the region scheduled for later in the decade, will also test the validity of notions that reputation laundering — or “sportswashing,” an effort to distract from tarnished rights records — is why autocrats host tournaments.
Finally, the responsiveness of Middle East countries will provide insights into what segments of global public opinion autocratic hosts care about, given that activists primarily impact public sentiment in democratic countries where the media report their campaigns.
.@calbaptist Poli Sci student Carol Saad hopes to get into law school with a history of disgusting tweets like “zionists are always so f**king ugly for some reason" and “zionism is a plague to this world, a disease, a mental illness.”https://t.co/HwxkxvCvfj pic.twitter.com/8tz2DnZht5
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) December 29, 2022
Hasidic schools in New York exploiting special education funding - NYT
Hasidic schools in New York are taking advantage of a policy designed to make special education more widely available by siphoning public funding for other purposes, according to an investigation published Thursday by the New York Times.
Private companies serving Hasidic and Orthodox schools are now collecting more than $350 million a year in government money in exchange for special education services that are not always needed or even provided, the New York Times reported, citing government data.
The schools, known as yeshivas, have reportedly urged parents to obtain medical prescriptions for disabilities and apply for aid on behalf of their children. In 25 yeshivas, more than half the students are qualified to receive special education services, the Times reported, citing government data. The newspaper also reported that of the 18,000 applications for special ed services filed by families last year, more than half came from districts with large Hasidic and Orthodox communities, such as Williamsburg, Borough Park and Crown Heights.
The Times said there is “little research into whether disabilities occur more frequently in the Hasidic community than in others.”
The latest in a string of violations
Elana Sigall, a former special education official for the city, told the Times that yeshivas are “accessing tremendous amounts of city resources, but they’re not actually providing special education.”
The Times’ article is the latest in a series of stories about yeshivas that have triggered intense anger among haredi leaders and relief among longtime advocates for improving secular education at the private religious schools. The series started in September when the Times reported that yeshivas were failing to provide secular education as mandated by state law while continuing to collect public funding.
Many Hasidic Jews took to social media to attack the Times’ reporting as defamatory and accused the newspaper of placing undue scrutiny on the Hasidic community out of bigotry or political considerations.
Over the past 14 weeks, NY Times has dedicated 14 articles to attack the Hasidic Jewish community, by a team of reporters solely focused on a mission to present a one-sided view of Jews.
— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) December 29, 2022
The #1 target of violent hate crimes in NY should remember who put the target on their backs https://t.co/x7hqrvOxr3 pic.twitter.com/lVVVzPRyJu
NYT Guest Essay Propaganda in the Guise of Health Scholarship
Asi is being disingenuous by omission, because as someone who insists she has “long felt a responsibility to convey the reality of the situation,” surely she must be aware of the importance of conveying the group’s claims of responsibility for shooting at Israeli civilians and civilian targets as well. After all, the group tried garner attention by posting film clips on social media of their attacks on Israeli targets. And beyond their attacks on soldiers, clips were posted of a Sept. 22 shooting attack toward the Har Bracha settlement, of Oct. 2 shooting attacks at Israeli civilian vehicles on the road near Elon Moreh, including the targeting of a schoolbus and shooting and injuring of a cab driver. On Dec. 26, the Lion’s Den terrorist group publicly claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on an Israeli civilian car travelling on the road to the Yitzhar settlement. Yet Asi hides the terror group’s proud acknowledgement not only of the fatal shooting of Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch but of targeting civilians driving on roads in the West Bank that both Israelis and Palestinians use.Gary Lineker tweet reported to BBC
That is because in Asi’s telling, there is no such thing as Palestinian terrorism, Israeli victims, or the need for Israeli security and therefore, Palestinians bear no responsibility for their situation. Instead, the author bemoans “the buzzing sound of Israel’s military surveillance drones” patrolling the area as “a form of psychological torture” and bleats about memories of “long, winding checkpoint lines, with hostile Israeli soldiers looking through our documents,” and of “having to change taxis” between the Tel Aviv airport and her destination in the West Bank “because Palestinian taxis weren’t allowed to pick us up.”
It is hardly an authoritative, accurate, or research-driven account of the factors that impact Palestinian morbidity and mortality that might be expected from someone legitimized on the NYT pages as an illustrious scholar of public health.
In inviting and/or accepting a guest essay from Yara Asi, New York Times editors should have been well aware of Asi’s history of dishonesty to defame Israel . In her guise as a public health scholar, Asi contributed to creating the coronavirus libel against Israel: In February 2021, she teamed up with BDS proponent Yousef Munayyer, and two months later, she teamed up with other anti-Israel activists to promote the myth that by not running a vaccination program for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel was violating international law and practicing apartheid – a falsehood that has been thoroughly debunked. Asi certainly has never been reticent about using her health credentials as a tool for militant propaganda against Israel.
But perhaps the newpaper’s editors were well aware of this. And perhaps they knew she was exactly the one to deliver what they were looking for to wrap up the year.
Gary Lineker’s Tweet on 22 December 2022 extols a Hamas terrorist, Ahmed Daraghmeh, who was killed in the course of violently attacking Jews visiting a Jewish holy place, the Tomb of Joseph, in Nablus. The visit was coordinated between Israeli and Palestinian authorities in accordance with the Oslo II Accord.Telegraph recycles disproven Israeli 'execution' lie
Lineker’s Tweet accused the Israeli forces of taking his life “treacherously” when they were actually defending a legitimate visit of a Jewish group to pray at the Tomb of Joseph against an armed attack by Ahmed Daraghmeh and other Hamas terrorists.
Hamas has confirmed that Ahmed Daraghmeh was one of its fighters.
Lineker has not apologised for or corrected the misleading information in his Tweet, even though it has been drawn to his attention by a number of replies and other Tweets.
UKLFI has pointed out to the BBC that Lineker violated BBC Guidance on Individual Use of Social Media, paragraphs 2.1, 2.2 and 3(e). These require individuals working for the BBC to behave professionally, to follow the BBC’s values, not to bring the BBC into disrepute and, “if you know you’ve got something wrong, to correct it quickly and openly”.
Jonathan Turner commented: “Gary Lineker has 8.6 million followers on Twitter. He has a serious responsibility to correct the false impression he has given.”
On December 2, 2022, a Palestinian man (Imad Mahdi Naif Muflah, also known as Ammar Mufleh), armed with a knife, tried to break into an Israeli car in Hawara, south of Nablus in the West Bank. An off-duty IDF officer and his wife were in the vehicle at the time. When Mufleh realised the door was locked, he picked up a rock at tried to smash the window.BBC WS radio airs Palestinian disinformation in Israel government item
The Israeli man shot at Mufleh, apparently wounding him. Then, seeing a patrol of Border Police officers nearby, Mufleh approached and stabbed two of them, and then tried to take one of their weapons. The commander then shot and killed him. Both the commander and a Border Police fighter were wounded.
Though an edited clip of the incident was circulated by antisemitic propagandist Mohammed el-Kurd, showing only the few seconds where the shooting can be seen, a longer video, which included footage of the initial struggle, was tweeted by former IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner a few hours later – which we’ll show below.
A Telegraph article by Middle East correspondent James Rothwell (“West Bank mourns deadliest year in decades as young Palestinians take up arms”, Dec. 28), begins thusly:
When Ammar Mufleh travelled to the West Bank town of Huwara, his relatives said that all the young Palestinian had on his mind was collecting a prescription.
But by that afternoon, Mufleh was lying on the pavement, dying after being shot four times by an Israeli police officer in an incident some have described as a roadside execution.
After context concerning the rise in West Bank violence in recent months, the article continues:
Speaking to The Telegraph from their home near Nablus, Mufleh’s relatives insisted that the young man had no links to any militant groups and denied that he was the initial aggressor.
Khifam Mufleh, 50, said that her nephew was a cheerful, easygoing young man who was more interested in TikTok videos than politics.
According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), the Fatah movement in Usarin issued a mourning notice for him, noting he belonged to its ranks. The death notice in question is shown in the very photo used in the Telegraph article.
Listeners were not informed that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip over 17 years ago before they heard a recording of pure propaganda from a person who is obviously not an Israeli voter and who had nothing at all to say about the result of the recent Israeli election.
Muna: “Hello, my name is Muna. I’m from Palestine. I live in Gaza City. As you know we have been under occupation since 1948. We think the Israeli occupation have reportedly decide not to hand over of the body cancer-stricken Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hmeid who died yesterday due to medical negligence in Israeli prisons. [unintelligible] dozen of Israeli settlers break into Al Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the occupation forces. Every day we have injured and arrests and a lot of broken hearts. Especially the mother hearts. I wish all of the world know about [unintelligible] and speak about us with our right.”
Reynolds did nothing to counter that deliberate disinformation. No “Israeli settlers” broke into “Al Aqsa Mosque”: what Muna’s dangerously inflammatory claim describes is Jews (regardless of their post code) visiting Temple Mount. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist Abu Hmeid – who was convicted of murdering seven Israelis (as well as five Palestinians) – died in Assaf Harofeh hospital, also called the Shamir Medical Center, rather than in prison. Abu Hmeid died of lung cancer – for which he had been treated – not “medical negligence” as claimed by Muna and other Palestinian propagandists.
Moreover, the BBC’s international editor not only likewise refrained from relieving listeners of the inaccurate impressions given by that totally unchallenged blatant propaganda that BBC World Service radio bizarrely chose to air but provided wind for its sails.
Reynolds: “That was Muna in the Gaza Strip. Jeremy Bowen, our international editor, how does this new Israeli government affect the lives of Palestinians there in Gaza and also in the West Bank?”
Bowen: “Well the lives of Palestinians are already defined by Israeli occupation, by Israeli control, by the way that Israel can control their lives. […] Ahm…the things that she was talking about there – that Muna was talking about – things like the status of Palestinian prisoners who are…err…condemned by Israel as terrorists but in Palestinian society they are about the most respected people of all. They have a real special status. And she also talked about what might be going on on the area around Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Third holiest place for Muslims and it’s an area where there are people within the coalition who believe that Jews should be able to pray in that place they call the Temple Mount as well and that’s something which at the moment isn’t permitted, though it does happen. And Jerusalem itself – anything that changes the status quo in Jerusalem tends to produce a great deal of violence.”
In other words, although Bowen and Reynolds waxed lyrical about “the most Right-wing coalition in Israel’s history” for twelve minutes, they studiously avoided informing BBC audiences around the world of the political coordinates of a society in which mass murderers of civilians are “the most respected people of all” and which violently opposes egalitarian prayer rights at a site holy to three religions.
We recently had a great meeting with @Netflix about problematic Jewish representation. They are eager to learn from us. That being said, we have a long way to go. Madoff is a bonafide villain, but it is NOT ok to put horns on a Jew. Jews as horned devils is pre-medieval trope. pic.twitter.com/haeHcPhkT9
— Allison Josephs (@jewinthecity) December 26, 2022
New Holocaust Exhibit for Kids in New York Focuses on Danish Resistance During World War II
New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage will open its first exhibition for elementary school students that highlights Denmark’s citizens who risked their lives to help save over 95 percent of the country’s Jewish population during World War II.Apple Books found selling the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The International Jew
While Holocaust education in New York City public schools normally begins in the eighth grade, Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark, which will be unveiled in the fall of 2023, is designed for children ages 9 and up. The exhibition “will use age-appropriate themes of separation, bravery, and resilience to help young people make connections to their own lives and reflect on the dangers of prejudice—as well as their own potential for compassionate, moral, and courageous collective action and upstanding,” the museum said.
In a show of support for the exhibition, the Consul General of Denmark in New York, Ambassador Berit Basse, said, “Educating our children about the Holocaust and the story of the courage and compassion of the people that stood up against it in Denmark is a crucial initiative in the fight against hate crime and antisemitism. Our children are our hope for a better future.”
In 1940, the Danish government negotiated with Nazi-occupying forces for limited self-autonomy and refused to implement antisemitic policies in their country. However, by the end of September 1943, the Nazis had plans to round up and deport thousands of Jews to concentration camps on Rosh Hashanah. In an act of defiance and resistance, many Danes hid their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis and less than a week later, Sweden announced it would accept all Danish Jews as refugees.
Three hundred Danish vessels, including fishing boats and kayaks, secretly carried 7,000 Jewish refugees (over 95 percent of all Jews in Denmark) safely from Denmark to Sweden. One such vessel was a work boat called the Gerda III and it saved an estimated 300 Jews in total during multiple trips in October 1943. The vessel will be featured in the upcoming exhibit and Henny Sinding Sundø, a member of the Danish resistance who was 22 when she helped with the Gerda III’s rescue voyages, will be among the exhibition’s narrators to talk about her experiences during the Holocaust.
Apple Books has been found to be selling antisemitic literature on its platform.
When searching for the word “Jew” on the Apple Books app, users are able to purchase the notoriously antisemitic and fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion for 49 pence.
The antisemitic work was originally published in Czarist Russia in 1903 and, having since been translated into multiple languages, is still popular in parts of the world today. It is a fake record of a fictitious meeting of a Jewish cabal discussing its control of the world.
Additionally, multiple copies of Henry Ford’s antisemitic The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem are also on sale, one copy for £4.99 and another for 49 pence.
This is not the first instance of these works being available for purchase. In the past, Blackwell’s, WH Smith and Oxfam rescinded its copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion following public outcries.Hey @AppleBooks
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) December 29, 2022
Why, when you search “Jew”, are you offered a copy of the notoriously antisemitic and fraudulent “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and multiple copies of Henry Ford’s antisemitic “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem”?
This needs to be fixed. pic.twitter.com/1N2UTOt2ul
Man reportedly shoves Jewish one-year-old child and yells “move on f ing Jew, I will stab and kill you” before cutting the father’s neck
A Jewish father and child were both reported to have been physically assaulted by a man in Stamford Hill.Herzog fuels myth that wartime sultan ‘saved’ the Jews
The Jewish father was walking with his one-year-old child and his wife, who is eight months pregnant, when his child stopped walking in the middle of the street.
A passer-by, described as a Black male with short hair and a green jacket, allegedly then pushed the child and yelled: “Move on f***ing Jew, I will stab and kill you.”
The child’s father then stepped in, telling the suspect to leave his child alone. The suspect reportedly then pulled out a lighter and used the metal component to cut the man’s neck and hand.
The alleged incident occurred on Olinda Road in Stamford Hill at 15:10 on 24th December and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.
My comment: Historians have already debunked this myth. French historian Georges Bensoussan, speaking on the Israel (French) channel Kan. affirmed that the King may have shown his sympathy for Jews in private, but he signed every single anti-Jewish dahir promulgated by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in 1940/1. Deportation was never on the cards. The yellow star was never mandated in Morocco and only in Sfax in Tunisia (there were other towns – ed).Israeli doctor pushes the frontier of surgery in Ethiopia
In fact Bensoussan says that the Bey of Tunisia was more liberal towards his Jews than the sultan of Morocco, who made sure that Jews were banned from employing young Muslim girls as maids.
The historian Michel Abitbol says that the sultan had no choice but to comply with the anti-Jewish decrees, or risk being deposed. The decrees mainly concerned the relations of Jews with the French administration (dismissal of Jewish officials, expulsion of Jewish children from French schools and property inventories) . The order forcing Jews settled outside the Mellahs of major cities back into Mellah, the ban on the practice of certain liberal professions or any press or cinema-related profession concerned a limited number of Jewish people and were generally not applied.
Abitbol explains :
“People forget that real power lay with the Resident-general of the French protectorate ( Abitbol told Information juive – July/ Aug 2008 – Les juifs d’Afrique du Nord sous Vichy). The King kept the trappings of sovereignty, but had no way of opposing the French, unless he put his throne at risk, as he did in the early 1950s.
In the 1940s, however, the king had no choice but to countersign French edicts, such as the notorious 1930 Berber Dahir, a real blow against Islam, and the anti-Jewish Vichy laws. On the personal level, however, he was sympathetic to the many Jews in his entourage. But as the ‘statesman’, he was forced to sign. ”
It is not true to say that His Majesty (Mohammed V) managed to oppose the enforcement of the racist Vichy laws against Moroccan citizens of the Jewish faith.
Mohammed V signed every single anti-Jewish decree. There were decrees forcing the Jews back into their ghettos, instituting quotas or bans in higher education and restricting them in their professions. But he procrastinated on some, keeping them in a drawer unsigned for a month, and tried to reassure a Jewish delegation, who came to see him in an armoured truck, that the decrees meant nothing.
When Prof. Hanoch Kashtan visited Ethiopia in 2013, he did not know that the trip would change his professional life forever.7,000-year-old fibers in Jordan Valley oldest known evidence of cotton in Near East
“I used to work very closely with a male nurse who was originally from Ethiopia,” said Kashtan, who recently joined the staff at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital. “He arrived in Israel as a young adult after a month-long journey from Gondar to Sudan by foot. He invited me to accompany him on a trip to reconnect with his roots.”
During the trip, the two colleagues visited a hospital in Bahir Dar, the capital city of the Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia.
“When we entered the emergency room, we saw a person lying on the floor with an arrow stuck in his abdomen,” Kashtan recalled. “I was then amazed to discover that the patient had walked for two days in that condition to reach the hospital.”
The man received the medical assistance that he needed and managed to recover.
“However, he had to undergo open surgery as opposed to minimally invasive surgery, which has been the standard practice in Israel for many years,” Kashtan said. “And after having open surgery, he had to walk for another two days to get home.”
Minimally invasive surgery is an operating technique that involves smaller incisions compared to traditional surgery. It is suitable for patients presenting a variety of conditions. The incisions are known as “ports.” After performing them, the surgeon uses the ports to introduce narrow tubes in the patient’s body, through which the surgeon can insert the surgical instruments alongside a miniaturized camera.
Israeli archaeologists have discovered the earliest evidence of cotton in the ancient Near East during excavations at Tel Tsaf, a 7,000-year-old town in the Jordan Valley.Israeli play spotlights Rabbi A.J. Heschel 50 years after his passing
The newly uncovered microscopic remains of cotton fibers join an array of other preserved prehistoric organic materials found at the site: Over the past several years of excavation, Tel Tsaf, located near Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, has provided a wealth of discoveries, including the earliest example of social beer drinking and ritual food storage.
“Tsaf is a site with amazing preservation of organic materials,” Prof. Danny Rosenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa told The Times of Israel on Sunday.
Textiles made from organic materials break down with time, so few examples are available for archaeologists to study. However, even after a textile has disintegrated with time, the remains of the fibers may still be present in the surrounding sediment. New technologies are offering archaeologists unprecedented ways to study the microscopic amounts of organic remains, including understanding the remains in such detail as to determine whether or not the fibers were woven.
Rosenberg worked with researchers from the United States and Germany to collect sediments scraped from vessels, tools, and other points inside the ancient city and examined those sediments under high-powered microscopes to identify the remains of fibers.
Previously, historians had believed fabrics in this region in the prehistoric time periods were mostly made from other plant matter such as flax and linen, and, thousands of years later, products from animals including hair or wool. Since cotton was not native to this area, it was a surprise for researchers and points to Tel Tsaf’s importance as a global trade hub.
A new Hebrew-speaking theater production displays the life of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel. The solo performance play is an original production commissioned by the World Zionist Organization to inaugurate events marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Heschel, dubbed “one of the most important Jewish thinkers of modern times.”
“Heschel’s Passover Eve,” is the name of this new production that was launched a few months ago. The play displays Heschel a few days before the Passover Seder to which he invited his friend and traveling companion, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in April 1968. The preparations for Seder night infuse the Jewish "Festival of Freedom" with universal meaning and link the call, "Let My People Go," to the struggle for human rights, social activism, the need for Tikkun Olam, the relevance of Jewish tradition, Zionism and Jewish Peoplehood for each one of us.
The actor who plays Heschel is Rodie Kozlovsky, who fits into the role beautifully. Kozlovsky is a veteran actor who performs in theater, television and Israeli films. He most recently appeared in the hit tv series The Arbitrator and in the movies "The Moon with Wolves" and “The Man on the Wall.” The play is in Hebrew, but there are English subtitles displayed on the screen behind him. In addition, Kozlovsky beautifully throws in words in English and Yiddish that make his performance more authentic.
The life of Abraham Joshua Heschel
Heschel was born in 1907 in Poland and he passed away in 1972, exactly 50 years ago. He was considered to be one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel served as a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement.
This production was the brainchild of Dr. Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). “We are proud to celebrate the very significant contribution of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel to contemporary Judaism and Zionism,” Hess told The Jerusalem Post. “Heschel was a leader in the world of Zionism, as an influential rabbi, as a philosopher and a poet, who also touched many Jews in the diaspora, mainly in North America. He himself was a model of commitment to the Zionist idea, the human spirit and human rights.”
The play has already performed dozens of times across Israel and has even premiered already in New York, Buenos Aires and in the UK, during the annual Limmud festival. “These days we are working on an American production in English,” Hess disclosed. “I hope to be able to have Heschel be the prism through which young Jews in the US learn about Zionism, through a unique angle of human rights, Zionism and the love of mankind.”
New special out now on YouTube! https://t.co/mh1nY3XOBm https://t.co/iaz6Ah53Ec
— Elon Gold (@ElonGold) December 25, 2022
Houston Astros star Alex Bregman celebrates Hanukkah at local synagogue
One month after lifting the World Series trophy at Minute Maid Park, Alex Bregman was at Houston’s Congregation Beth Yeshurun lifting a candle to lead the Hanukkah blessing.Washington Free Beacon: 2022 Men of the Year: The Jews
On the fourth night of the holiday, the Astros star third baseman sat down with hundreds of congregants and talked about a wide range of topics, from his bar mitzvah speech to his favorite Hanukkah gifts, his not-yet kosher line of beef jerky and the potential bar mitzvah of his son.
The evening started with Bregman joining his wife, Reagan, and infant son, Knox, at the front of the sanctuary to light menorah candles with Beth Yeshurun Rabbis Sarah Fort and Steven Morgen, who ended the blessing with the words, “Play Ball!”
The special ceremony rekindled memories from Alex’s own childhood.
“We would go to Temple Albert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then we’d come home, invite my cousins over, light the menorah and open up presents,” Bregman said. “It was mostly just family time for us, but it was always a blast.
“My mom would cook latkes, and we still use her recipe to this day. She actually sent it to Reagan, and I think Reagan might make better latkes than my mom, but don’t tell her that.”
Bregman then shared his thoughts for more than an hour in a Q&A with Ari Alexander, a sports anchor on Houston’s KPRC TV news channel.
Kanye wasn’t the only public figure to peddle vile anti-Semitism this year. As the Washington Free Beacon has documented, there has been a disturbing surge in anti-Jewish bigotry, from top universities and celebrities to public officials. Attacks against Jews are at a record high in the United States, with horrific acts of violence reported daily.The most influential figures in 2022
But even in the face of these challenges, Jews around the world brushed their shoulders off and continued to achieve excellence in 2022, proving yet again that haters can’t keep the Tribe down.
In Ukraine, Zelensky has held off the entire Russian army since February while still looking great on the cover of Vogue. Doja Cat crushed it at the Grammys. Two Jewish economists picked up Nobel Prizes. Jerry Bruckheimer got another blockbuster with Top Gun: Maverick, a Jewish journalist broke the biggest news story of the year, and scientists in the Jewish state are on the cusp of curing diabetes, brain tumors and world hunger.
For defying anti-Semitic losers while continuing to make monumental contributions across the globe, the Jews are Washington Free Beacon Men of the Year.
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