Monday, November 06, 2017
Syrian Diplomat Who Accused Israelis of Trafficking Children’s Organs Now Professor at Rutgers University
A former Syrian diplomat who accused Israeli officials of trafficking children’s organs is now working as a professor at state-funded Rutgers University in New Jersey, The Algemeiner has learned.U.S. should deport Rutgers prof who represented Syria, abetted genocide
Mazen Adi, an adjunct professor in Rutgers’ Political Science Department, worked for Syria’s foreign ministry in various roles for 16 years starting in August 1998, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Most recently, between January 2007 and July 2014, Adi served as a diplomat and legal adviser at the Permanent Mission of Syria to the United Nations in New York. He represented the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as it met pro-democracy protesters with lethal force in 2011, sparking a conflict that has left an estimated 465,000 people dead or missing.
By the time Adi left Turtle Bay, the Assad regime had faced years of international opprobrium and sanctions, having been accused of perpetrating atrocities including mass killings, systematic torture, forced starvation and chemical weapons attacks.
Adi voiced Assad’s views — and occasionally those of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — at both the UN Security Council and Sixth Committee of the General Assembly. Among his comments, found in UN records from 2008 to 2011, were allegations that Israel systematically targeted civilians, destroyed the environment and buried alive enemy soldiers; that Syria was a “trailblazer” in the fight against terrorism; and that Assad was committed to seeking a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict and implemented “sweeping reforms” following popular protests.
An international human rights group today called on Rutgers University to fire Mazen Adi, a professor on war crimes law, on grounds that as a Syrian diplomat and legal advisor he justified the war crimes of the genocidal Assad regime.Rutgers prof: "Israel trafficking in children's organs"
UN Watch, an independent non-governmental monitoring group based in Geneva, also called on the U.S. to deport Mr. Adi, whose identity was first exposed by The Algemeiner newspaper yesterday.
“The U.S. government needs to investigate how a long-time agent of the Syrian regime, close ally of Iran, was granted a visa to work and teach in America,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“It ought to be a matter of profound concern that an American university would allow an apologist for the Syrian regime’s genocide to be a teacher.”
“When the United Nations debated Syria’s culpability for bombing its own people, Mazen Adi said that the Syrian authorities ‘upheld all their legal and judicial responsibilities,’” Neuer went on to say. “He is a liar and an apologist for mass murder.”
While serving as a Syrian delegate and legal advisor at the UN, Mr. Adi systematically acted as an apologist for the mass murder committed by the Assad regime against his own people, helping Syria to win impunity at the UN to conduct continued war crimes.
Mr. Adi joined Rutgers in September 2015, where he teaches international criminal law, political science, and United Nations and global policy studies.
Prior to Rutgers, Adi had served for 16 years as a Syrian diplomat, including as a legal advisor and occasional chargé d’affaires at the Syrian mission to the UN in New York.
Rutgers prof Mazen Adi spins Assad genocide as "democracy"
Rutgers prof: Syria "upheld all legal responsibilities," "preserves rights of accused"
Melanie Phillips: The roots of Labour's antisemitism problem
The extent of this unambiguous Jew-hatred in the Labour party is now so bad that the Jewish Labour Movement is holding training sessions for party members to try to stamp it out.Comment: As Theresa May names the “new antisemitism”, Jeremy Corbyn rushes to protect it
Well good luck with that one. For the Labour party is still in denial about the deep roots of this scourge within its own ideology. It still wrongly believes that the examples which have publicly surfaced over the past few months are some kind of aberration. John Cryer MP, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party who described these tweets as “stomach-churning” and “awful”, demonstrated the problem when he said: “I have no idea why people who hold these views would want to be a member of the Labour Party”.
But they hold them precisely because they are members of the Labour party – because they are committed to the thinking that has become an article of faith on the left, which has turned the “Palestinians” into the signature cause for progressive people on the utterly false grounds that aggressive, brutal, colonialist Israel has deprived them of their historic right to a Palestine state.
This thinking uses precisely the same uniquely deranged and obsessional charges – diabolical cosmic power, covert conspiracy against the world, crimes of which the accused is not only innocent but is in fact the victim, expectations of standards of behaviour applied to no other people and overall demonisation based on systematic falsehoods – which have characterised hatred against the Jews as people and now identically characterise hatred against the collective Jew in Israel.
As antisemitic crime surges in Britain, there is much to criticise in the authorities’ approach to fighting it, the fight can only be won if our Government leads with the clarity of purpose exhibited by the Prime Minister.British Jewish authors slam Labour party anti-Semitism
Simultaneously, this week an opposite political struggle played out. MEND, a Muslim organisation supposedly established to fight for the British values of tolerance and pluralism was comprehensively outed by the media and the Henry Jackson Society think-tank over its connections to extremism and antisemitism. The media berated MPs who planned to address an event by MEND, and all but the Labour Party’s MPs withdrew. As MPs Wes Streeting and Stephen Kinnock faced the wrath of the media for insisting on speaking at the event, many wondered at their allegiance to MEND, whose founder decried “300 years of the Israel lobby” (since Israel has only existed for 69 years, the statement only makes sense as a reference to the period that British Jews have been permitted to live in Britain following the expulsion of 1290) and which circulates articles claiming antisemitism is sometimes wielded as “a political tool to silence legitimate criticism of Israel policies”.
MEND looked to be truly on the brink but for the support of the increasingly embattled Messrs Streeting and Kinnock, until their steadfastness became comprehensible when the cavalry arrived: for MEND, rescue came at the hands of Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition. MEND’s isolated event in the Houses of Parliament was thrust into the approving embrace of what polls say is the most popular political party in Britain, when Mr Corbyn himself arrived to address those gathered in support of MEND, and to invite the organisation to help the Labour Party to develop policies on “race and faith”. As Mr Corbyn mumbled platitudes about opposing racism and division, he sent the clearest possible signal that he had no fear of protecting those very vices. An organisation with demonstrable links to extremism and antisemitism was on the verge of being ousted from polite society, when Mr Corbyn pushed through and gripped MEND to his bosom.
This week could not have been a clearer demonstration of the precariousness faced by British Jews. As the Prime Minister looked the new antisemitism in the eye and named it, the electorate’s favourite to replace her grabbed it by the hand and defended it from reason and opprobrium.
Howard Jacobson, Simon Montefiore and Simon Schama pen open letter accusing British Labour party of anti-Semitism.
Three prominent British Jewish authors said in an open letter that they are concerned that anti Zionism in the country’s Labour Party is now “closer to anti-Semitism.David Collier: British unions supporting antisemitism and radical Islamic hate
Howard Jacobson, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Simon Schama said in the open letter in The Times on Monday that they are “troubled by the tone and direction of debate about Israel and Zionism within the Labour Party.”
The letter said “We are alarmed that during the past few years, constructive criticism of Israeli governments has morphed into something closer to anti-Semitism under the cloak of so-called anti-Zionism. We do not object to fair criticism of Israel governments, but this has grown to be indistinguishable from a demonization of Zionism itself.”
The authors noted that accusations of international Jewish conspiracy and Jewish control of the media have once again become ubiquitous, as have creating parallels between the Jewish state and Nazism.
“Such themes and language have become widespread in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. So far the Labour leadership’s reaction has been derisory. It is not enough to denounce all racisms in general when this specific strain rages unchecked,” the authors wrote.
Trouble aheadMartin Kramer: Who Saved Israel in 1947?
There is little point in my simply posting hundreds of antisemitic shares by those present at the demonstration. Also the standard antisemitic concentration levels of 40%+ are almost certainly (slightly) diluted at an event like this. It has to be recognised that some good people do turn up at these demonstrations. Not everyone with a Palestinian flag is a bad guy. There are those led by ignorant belief, a reliance on the political views of tainted friends, or most importantly because today Palestine is seen as the ’cause of fashion’. I had conversations with several. If you are not talking to a blind ideological wall, then you are discussing a conflict with someone who knows nothing about it.
Take a look at Hadi Nasrallah’s posts above. On the same day as this march took place, the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned because he is ‘living in fear for his life’. He has accused Iran of sowing ‘fear and destruction’ in several countries, including Lebanon. Many Middle East commentators have recognised, that Iran, with the cover of the chaos in Syria, is making a strategic play for regional control, and an attempt to gain access to the Mediterranean, which also includes using it’s proxy Hezbollah. Yet these people march against Israel!
The obsession of the unions
At the recent Labour Party conference, in discussions I had with both ‘free Syria’ and ‘free Iran’ groups, it became obvious that Labour party activism is being suffocated by the Palestinian cause. Groups supporting real democratic change in the Middle East are not having their voice heard. If you stand with the Palestinians, you will find yourself in opposition (or left to ignore) most of the real humanitarian causes in the region. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah become ‘friends’.
So for a moment, we should forget the several hundred hard-core antisemites that walked the streets of London. We need to ask why it is that those people are being supported by British unions, including Unite the Union, UNISON, NUT, GMB, ASLEF, RMT, FBU, UCU & CWU.
‘Palestinianism’ is a cause of war (not to be confused with seeking to better the lives of Palestinians or working for real peace between the different sides of the conflict). Far too many people are stifling the conversation by taking genuine humanitarian concern, and aligning it with the cause of ‘Palestinianism’. As the Middle East burns – on the very day another fragile nation shows further signs of trouble, British unions support a march against Israel. Those unions who are meant to represent British workers, are overtly strengthening racism, antisemitism, rejectionisim and undemocratic forces within a conflict zone. That, more than a few antisemites on the streets of London, is the truly worrying aspect of the march.
No Zionist today would think to celebrate the partition vote by praising the wise foresight of Comrade Stalin. But it would be a missed opportunity (and bad history) to celebrate it only by hailing Truman, the would-be Cyrus. On that day, the world welcomed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. It happened because shrewd and persistent Zionist statesmen and diplomats persuaded the leaders of both increasingly antagonistic great powers that a Jewish state would serve the interests of each.This Ongoing War: "Watching the Moon at Night", the documentary film Swedish TV has suppressed, is being screened in Israel
“In terms both of Soviet and of American policy,” wrote Paul Johnson in the 1998 essay I quoted at the outset, “Israel slipped into existence through a window that briefly opened, and just as suddenly closed.” It was Zionist statesmanship—critically coordinated with Zionist arms—that opened the window just wide enough, and kept it open long enough, for Israel to enter. Surely this achievement is the one that deserves to be remembered and celebrated in Flushing Meadows 70 years to the day. The saga of the partition vote, far from being a singularly American story, is a reminder that Israel must remain ever-nimble in maneuvering among the powers, and not rely exclusively on a single one. This was crucial at Israel’s birth, and might prove crucial again.
Finally, there is yet another cause for reflection as Israel approaches its 70th anniversary. In the early years of the 20th century, the Zionist and the Russian revolutions occurred in tandem. They arose from related discontents, in much of the same geographic space. Not surprisingly, they both competed for the allegiance and energies of Jews. The Soviet Union lasted almost 69 years to the day, from 1922 to 1991. As of this year, the state of Israel has lasted longer, and it continues to flourish. Israel won the war for the Jews, as surely as the United States won the cold war.
The Soviet legacy is damnable with regard to Israel, too. The Soviet Union later armed and incited the Arabs to wage wars on Israel that drew blood and inflicted suffering. But let Israel record two credits to the ledger of that calamitous 20th-century regime. First, as Israel’s founders attested and as this essay has shown, the Soviet Union gave vital support to Israel at its birth. Second, it saved millions of Jews from otherwise certain destruction by the Nazis—Jews who, with their descendants, would crucially augment the population of Israel upon the eventual Soviet collapse.
This does not mitigate the crimes perpetrated by Stalin, whose barbarity sometimes rivaled Hitler’s. It is a reminder that while Israel should always prefer the good company of the righteous, the others must not be neglected.
We have written about “Watching the Moon at Night” several times in the last two years.Prof. Phyllis Chesler: I support the women who have accused Tairq Ramadan of assault
It's a fine, made-for-TV documentary film the leading US Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum described as “an intellectually informative, visually compelling, emotionally moving and highly disturbing exploration of the phenomena of terrorism in our time”.
The film's co-director, the acclaimed Swedish film-maker Bo Persson, will be the special guest at two Israeli screenings during November.
The film was shown last year in the European Parliament and the Swedish parliament, at many international film festivals and in front of audiences in the United States and Europe. But it won't be shown to Swedish television viewers because of some outrageous politically-motivated manipulation.
As an American feminist, I support the incredibly brave Muslim and ex-Muslim women who have just accused Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and a revered Professor at Oxford, of having violently raped, battered, humiliated, confined, and death threatened them if they talked.Low Expectations: Tariq Ramadan and Tahir ul-Qadri
I also support Ramadan’s Swiss underage students who have just come forward with stories of his inappropriate behavior and of sexual abuse.
Ramadan has denied these accusations and threatened to sue for defamation. I do not believe his denials.
Young girls and women are hooked on fairy tales and trained in naïveté. Each thinks of herself as “Beauty” and believes she can tame the Beast by her vulnerability and trusting nature. Yes, the women are ambitious and hope to snare a Prince. While they are not innocent of such ambition, neither do they want to be sexually assaulted, humiliated, raped, and dumped.
Religious Muslim women, especially those whose lives have been lived face-veiled and in purdah, as was Ramadan’s first accuser, have sought him out as a spiritual counselor, a holy guide. No matter how mixed their motives may have been, he abused their trust in the most vulgar way.
Ramadan cuts a smooth and dashing figure and has been warmly embraced by Western intellectuals. His Chair at Oxford has been endowed by the government of Qatar.
If correctly reported, this response to allegations of rape levelled against Tariq Ramadan is both perverse and dangerous.University of Ottawa rejects BDS
[Professor Eugene] Rogan reminded students: “It’s not just about sexual violence. For some students it’s just another way for Europeans to gang up against a prominent Muslim intellectual. We must protect Muslim students who believe and trust in him, and protect that trust.”
Muslims should most certainly be protected from discrimination or harassment; more subtle problems (like the Times’ apparent misreporting of a recent fostering case) should also be countered. However it’s outrageous to suggest that the reality of anti-Muslim bigotry should mean that Tariq Ramadan is treated differently from anyone else in his situation. That’s like saying antisemitism might reasonably be invoked to insulate Harvey Weinstein from scrutiny.
This tendency to be overprotective of Muslims, or set Muslims a lower bar with regard to their behaviour or beliefs, only makes things worse, fuelling the anger of the far right. Yet again and again we can find examples of people with prominent and responsible positions in public life being prepared to work alongside unsavoury groups and individuals. Recently Wes Streeting, Stephen Kinnock and, of course, Jeremy Corbyn have all shared a platform with MEND.
Students at the University of Ottawa, Canada's capital, have voted down a motion to endorse the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.Israeli businessman 'hounded' in UK for selling Dead Sea products
The motion was amended to remove all language related to BDS, and replace it with a statement of support for peace between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.
StandWithUs Canada welcomed the move on Sunday.
The motion was first brought up on Friday, hours before many Jewish students stop working in order to observe Shabbat, said StandWithUs Canada in a statement.
The Student Federation (SFUO) at the university came forward with a motion to endorse a number of social justice causes, with item 47 being that the SFUO will support the BDS movement and take a "pro-Palestine stance". This came shortly after the SFUO tried to revoke the club status of Hillel Ottawa and the Israel Awareness Committee.
An Israeli man living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland, said he is being hounded by pro-Palestinian activists in what he described as a “game of chase the Jew.”Cutting Costs, The Forward Now Just Links Straight to Linda Sarsour’s Twitter Feed (satire)
His story has gone viral after BBC Scotland reported on it last Thursday. Nissan Ayalon is the owner of Jericho Skin Care, which sells Dead Sea products and said he faces weekly protests at his stall.
“It’s like I don’t have the right to exist,” he told BBC Scotland. “I have to justify my existence. I have to ask for permission to live, to walk to work. We were accused of murdering, mass murdering, slaughter, criminals, we were called criminal enterprise. We were called baby killers. There is nowhere else for me to go. I love it here. Where is my equal opportunity?”
Ayalon’s business has been targeted in the past when he sold his products in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a video was filmed showing anti-Israel activists throwing red paint and dolls at his stall. Incidents of this kind continued when he moved to Glasgow, and followed him again to Aberdeen.
The Jewish Human Rights Watch group accused the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) of targeting Ayalon and, in July, welcomed a Scottish court ruling which found Mick Napier of the campaign guilty of aggravated trespass and ignoring a police order.
With the ongoingEconomist promotes Moroccan ‘hasbara’ on “Jewish-Muslim coexistence”slow death of a ridonkulous business modelconsolidation of online Jewish media, the venerable news site The Forward has hit upon a brilliant way to cut costs while still maintaining core brand identity: their web page now sends you directly to Linda Sarsour’s Twitter feed. Ms. Sarsour, noted feminist and Sharia advocate, has featured so prominently in the Forward as of late that it just made sense to cut out the middleman and bring Linda’s woke tweets directly to the Forward’s woke audience. The Daily Freier took a stroll around Park Slope, Brooklyn in order to get all of the facts from The Forward’s key demographic: Lefty Jews in a constant state of Checking their Privilege.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t even notice the change for the first three days.” admitted Ethan, an earnest young person wearing a t-shirt that said “#Resistance“. “I mean, I kept seeing the usual sick burns on the Netanyahu regime, the Trump police state, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I guess I only figured it out when they kept posting shout-outs to Colin Kapaernik.”
“I honestly don’t know what the big deal is.” complained Miriam, as she canvassed for New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s re-election. “I mean, Linda just compared Zionism to White Supremacy and Neo-Nazis. So what? At the Forward that used to be called ‘Tuesdays’….So like whatever.” Miriam then attempted to cross a busy street before jumping back as a car sped past. “That idiot didn’t even stop for me! This intersection is so…so….Intersectional!”
It’s November in Morocco – time for the annual fixture of the cultural calendar – the Essaouira Music festival.Selective BBC framing of Hamas-Fatah ‘reconciliation’ continues
The Economist has been gushing about what it calls ‘Morocco’s little idyll of Jewish-Muslim coexistence’. Yet, the Nov. 2nd article admits that only three Jews still live in Essaouira – a city which used to have as many Jews as Muslims before the great exodus to Israel.
One of those Jews is Jacquy Sebag, who was attacked with an axe by Muslim extremists in 2002 during the Palestinian intifada. You would never guess that unpleasant things ever happened to Jews in Morocco, which the Economist portrays as a haven from European persecution.
It is true that many Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century fled to Morocco, but it is misleading to infer that Jews and Muslims had always coexisted peacefully. In 1492 the Jewish community of Touat was wiped out after incitement by the fundamentalist al-Maghili. The 15th century was also the century when thousands of beldiyeen, Jews who had been settled in Fez for centuries, converted to Islam. Moroccan Jews suffered more massacres than anywhere else in the Arab world, including the Oujda and Jerada riots in 1948.
As the Economist correctly reports, no Arab country has gone to the lengths of Morocco to revive its Jewish heritage. There are sound economic and strategic reasons for this: Tourism attracts 40,000 Jewish tourists, of which 3,000 are Israelis (and not as reported), and is a major Moroccan industry.
Coexistence projects such as the Essaouira festival are mainly for external consumption. The ethnographer Aomar Boum writes in Memories of Absence that the Jewish Museum in Casablanca is almost unknown amongst Moroccans themselves.
Neither did Bateman bother to explain to listeners that the failure to disarm Hamas will put the Palestinian Authority in breach of both its existing agreements with Israel and the Quartet Principles.Nigel Farage tries to end controversy over his remarks but repeats that a “Jewish lobby” exists and is “organised and powerful”
Since the story of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation first broke in mid-September, none of the BBC’s numerous reports concerning that topic have provided its audiences with a proper explanation of why Hamas must be disarmed if the PA is to meet its existing obligations. Neither have any of those reports on a variety of BBC platforms included coverage of statements by Hamas officials clarifying the terror group’s refusal to disarm its militias and its intention to continue attacks against Israel.
As this latest report by Bateman once again indicates, the BBC’s failure to provide its funding public with the full range of information needed to properly understand this story is obviously not a matter of chance omission but of deliberate framing.
Nigel Farage has attempted to end the controversy over remarks he made earlier in the week when he told LBC listeners that he believes that American Jews exert disproportionate political power and even appeared to agree with a claim that they have financial control over American politics.In Spain, Rivlin pledges Israeli support to Jews against anti-Semitism
After Campaign Against Antisemitism made a formal complaint to broadcasting regulator Ofcom, Mr Farage has now stated that a “Jewish lobby” did not wield influence over the outcome of last year’s Presidential election. He told a caller to LBC this morning that he rejected claims that his remarks were antisemitic but then said: “the Jewish lobby in America is organised and powerful, but not for one moment do I think that they tried to influence the election, I think it’s ridiculous”.
Whilst we welcome Mr Farage’s statement that he does not believe that Jews “used their influence” to determine the outcome of the election, we remain concerned that he is clearly convinced that there is a “Jewish lobby” which is “organised and powerful”, again conflating the political lobby for Israel with Jews in general.
It is common for countries to lobby their allies, and Israel is no different, but in Mr Farage’s call on Monday, it was not merely alleged that Israel conducts lobbying, but that it is carried out by the entire Jewish population of the United States and that in doing so American politics are subverted. Counting all American Jews as lobbyists with disproportionate, subversive power and both major political parties in their financial grips is the stuff of antisemitic conspiracy theories, and whilst Mr Farage has now said that he does not believe that American Jews influenced the last year’s Presidential election, he has only reiterated his belief that there is a powerful “Jewish lobby” at work.
Meeting with leaders of the Jewish community of Madrid on Sunday, President Reuven Rivlin pledged Israel’s support in the fight against anti-Semitism and celebrated 100 years of resurgent Jewish presence in the country.Retired FBI Agent sheds light on investigation into Anne Frank's betrayal
Rivlin took part in an event at Madrid’s Ibn Gabirol School to mark 100 years since the reestablishment of the nation’s Jewish community after the expulsion of 1492.
“The community here today is a magnificent community, with tens of thousands of members of all ages,” he said. “Jewish life on the Iberian Peninsula, which was cut off more than 500 years ago, is now full of life, and this is a great joy. This is a great victory for history and the spirit of the Jewish people.”
He added that he was aware of the community’s concerns over growing incidents of anti-Semitism directed against local Jews.
“According to the Spanish interior minister’s report on anti-Semitism, in recent years there has been a rise of hundreds of percent in manifestations of anti-Semitism in Spain,” and said.
“We must not surrender to anti-Semitism, we must fight it. I am pleased that the Spanish government is taking steps in legislation and enforcement against this ugly phenomenon. We must not be ashamed of or hide our identity.
Retired FBI agent Vince Pankoke shed new light during an interview with Army Radio on Sunday onto his ongoing cold-case investigation into who betrayed Anne Frank and her family.Anti-Semitic posters in California portray Jews as rapists
“We’ve received several hundred tips, [and] at least 10 of them have great substance,” said Pankoke.
“We’ve already found information that hasn’t been brought up before, we’ve already found stories that haven’t been brought up before,” Pankoke told Army Radio.
“We’re imagining that there’s a family member of somebody, somewhere, that has been keeping a family secret and maybe now they’re at the point where they can say its time that the truth be told.”
The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam is assisting Pankoke’s team in its efforts, and has granted access to its archives. Researchers will use modern investigative techniques and software to analyze data and develop new leads.
“There’s so much information out there. All of this information we are putting into this giant database [which] sorts through millions of bits of information and makes connections between people, dates, times, locations and events,” Pankoke explained.
Anti-Semitic posters portraying Jews as serial rapists and praising white supremacist mass-murderer Dylann Roof were pasted to a synagogue in suburban Sacramento, California over the weekend.Students mock Holocaust exhibit on social media
Members of congregation Or Rishon on Saturday morning discovered about 10 to 15 of the hate posters stuck to the building, The Sacramento Bee reported. They were placed on the building overnight between Friday and Saturday.
The posters included one seemingly justifying the June 2015 mass-shooting committed by white supremacist Dylann Roof at a predominantly black church in South Carolina, killing nine. Other posters featured anti-Semitic caricatures.
One poster portrayed Jews as rapists, showing an image of disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and a man with side-locks sexually assaulting a non-Jewish woman. The poster also appears to praise Adolf Hitler and other prominent anti-Semites, exhorting the public to heed their "warnings" against Jews. The poster also used an anti-Semitic epithet.
"Yikes! Kikes! Hitler, Rockwell, and Pierce warned you about sleazy Hollywood kikes," the poster said, referencing white supremacists William Luther Pierce and George Lincoln Rockwell.
The incident was reported to the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, according to the report.
A school district in Pennsylvania is investigating social media posts from students on a senior class trip that mocked exhibits at the US Holocaust Museum.Dog saves Paris-area Jewish family from ‘anti-Semitic’ suspected arson in their home
The senior class from the Forest Hills School District visited the museum in Washington DC last Wednesday as part of its senior class trip.
Senior class president Gabe Singer told the Associated Press that most students were respectful. But some other students reportedly made inappropriate posts to social media, including disrespectful statements next to a photo of a pile of shoes take from Holocaust victims at a Nazi concentration camp that was posted on Snapchat. Those students “made a mockery of what they saw,” Singer told AP.
In a public letter Singer apologized on behalf of his classmates and called their actions “unacceptable,” according to the AP. He said he hoped that students who come after his class will still be able to visit the museum.
The members of a Jewish family have their dog to thank for their escape from a fire police believe was intentionally set in their home in the Paris area, an anti-racism group said.Holocaust hero who saved children, shot Nazi, to be honored
The family was awakened after midnight Friday night by the dog’s insistent barking to discover that their front door was on fire, with smoke rapidly filling up the interior of their apartment in the southeastern suburb of Creteil, the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, reported Sunday.
Someone had doused the door in a highly flammable liquid at set it alight, police concluded, according to the case report of the BNVCA. The family told police they suspected an Arab neighbor, who BNVCA said has expressed extremist and anti-Semitic views online. Police detained the neighbor in connection with the incident, which BNVCA is calling anti-Semitic.
Last week, an unidentified person set the family’s car on fire. Witnesses saw a man wearing a hoodie set it alight, according to the BNVCA report.
“The incident confirms BNVCA’s observation that anti-Semitic acts that began as targeting property belonging to Jews (synagogues, schools, community centers) or as assaults on people on the street have evolved into attacks on Jews inside their own homes,” the group wrote.
Arnie Pritchard of New Haven and his two brothers knew in a general way growing up that their mother, Marion Pritchard, had sheltered Jews in the Netherlands during the Holocaust.Air force names first female deputy commander of fighter jet squadron
But it wasn’t until 1981, when they were well into adulthood, that they learned the details and scope of her heroism when their mother received the Righteous Among the Nations award from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
It would turn out that, while in her early 20s in Holland, Marion Pritchard risked her life many times over by assisting in saving some 150 Jews, mostly children, killing a man with her pistol to protect a Jewish family and sheltering a Jewish family with an infant for three years. She was even imprisoned for her resistance work.
Arnie Pritchard said his mother wasn’t “gifted with nerves of steel” — she once was terrified when a bat was flying around the house — yet she endured so much risk during that dark time in history when over 6 million Jews were killed.
“It’s not that she didn’t feel the fear. She was able to overcome it,” said Arnie Pritchard, who came to New Haven in 1970 to attend graduate school at Yale University and settled here.
The Israeli Air Force appointed its first female deputy commander of a fighter jet squadron on Sunday, some 16 years after Roni Zuckerman became the first Israeli woman fighter pilot.Israel's Trophy System, Spike Missiles and Iron Dome heading down under
The newly tapped deputy commander, whose name cannot be published for security reasons, will serve in the air force’s Spearhead Squadron, which flies F-15 fighter jets out of the Tel Nof air base in central Israel, the army said on Monday.
The military also announced that IAF chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin had appointed two other women to deputy commander positions in the military’s drone squadrons. (Their names also cannot be published for similar security concerns.)
The head of the Na’amat women’s organization, Galia Wolloch, lauded the appointments, but said “the path to equality is a long one.”
As Australia overhauls its LAND 400 armored vehicles program, Israeli defense giant Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is in the running to provide its Trophy Active Protection System and SPIKE missiles to the land Down Under in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.After 30 years, Boy George arrives in Tel Aviv ahead of gig
In order to meet the anticipated demand, Rafael will be opening a local company in Australia to jointly produce the SPIKE missiles with Australia’s Varley and will be purchasing metal for various system from Australia's Bisalloy Steel Group, the company announced on Monday.
The local company – which will be based in Melbourne and managed by an Israeli and a local Australian team – will expand Rafael’s role in helping arm the Australian Army, both on land and sea, in the LAND 400 Phase 2 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles program.
According to Rafael, several of their systems have been used by the Australian Army for years, including remote-controlled weapon stations, naval systems, aerial attack guidance systems and more.
Giora Katz, executive VP of marketing and business development at Rafael, said the Australian venture is part of the company’s global strategy to create local partnerships with companies in various countries, in order to meet the growing demand to buy locally.
Boy George has landed in Israel, his signature harem pants in place, ahead of his Tuesday performance in Tel Aviv’s Menora Mivtachim Arena.3 millionth tourist to Israel this year to be given dream vacation
The pop singer flew in from Australia, where he is currently acting as a judge on reality show “The Voice Australia.”
It’s been 30 years since the eighties pop singer and his band, Culture Club, played in Israel. The Tel Aviv performance is part of a reunion tour that includes original band members Roy Hay, Mikey Craig and Jon Moss.
George recently signed a new record deal with BMG, his first major label signing in nearly 30 years, and his first project will be a solo cover album, according to his website.
But he’s been busy in recent years, serving as judge on “The Voice.” He’s represented by Paul Kemsley of Nixxi Entertainment, who works with his wife, Dorit Kemsley, in the family business.
On Tuesday, the 3 millionth tourist to land in Israel this year is scheduled to arrive, marking an all-time record high for incoming tourism. The lucky visitor will be given a special prize package to celebrate the event and promote tourism to Israel.Answering the Call of My Father, Elie Wiesel
Photos of the tourist's upgraded vacation will be used to market Israeli tourism as part of a campaign to attract workers to Israel's tourism industry.
Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who was planning to meet the tourist at Ben-Gurion International Airport, said on Sunday that he was "excited to welcome the tourist and break the 3 million barrier."
"We are about to end the year with a great achievement – a result of the enormous efforts we are investing into marketing Israel worldwide, in exceptional cooperation with airlines, and the ties we are working to strengthen with travel agents. All this has been bearing fruit and has so far brought in some 17 billion shekels [$4.8 billion] and thousands of jobs to the Israeli economy," Levin said.
2017 is on track to see a 20% increase in incoming tourism compared to 2016. The tourism sector is expected to keep expanding, and the Tourism Ministry is working on ways to improve tourists' experience in Israel.
Following is the text of an address by Elisha Wiesel at the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity gala on Wednesday night.
I would like to begin with a Chasidic story. It takes place in Eastern Europe in the mid-19th century, in a time when the great Rabbis could transport themselves through prayer in ways we can only dream of.
It came to pass that the great Reb Yitzhak Vurka passed away. His son, Mendel, waited patiently for his father to visit him in a dream, to send word from the after-world and to let him know he was okay. Days went by, then weeks, finally a month. There was no dream, no appearance. So Mendele paid a visit to Reb Yitzhak Vurka’s best friend, the Kotzker Rebbe. Now a word on their friendship – Reb Yitzhak Vurka and the Kotzker Rebbe were the best of friends, but they served God in different ways. The Kotzker Rebbe treasured truth above all else, but the late Reb Yitzhak Vurka was devoted to love.
“Rebbe,” Mendele asked, “have you heard from my father? I have heard nothing from him all this time.” “Ah yes Mendele,” responded the Kotzker Rebbe, “I too had not heard from him from beyond the grave, and was concerned.”
“And so,” the Rebbe continued, “I went up to Heaven and looked for him. I looked in the palaces of the greatest of our sages. I went to the palace of Rashi, of the Ramban, of Moshe Rabeinu, of Avraham – and in each place I looked, I was told ‘yes, he was here, but he has moved on.’ In desperation I went to the angels and said ‘where is he, where is my best friend?’ and was told to search for him in a dark forest at the farthest end of Heaven. And after much searching I found the forest, a terrible, dark forest. I gathered my strength, and entered it. Finally I came to the end of the forest and heard a great sound of crashing and of voices weeping. And at the end of the forest was a huge ocean. And there, leaning on a walking stick, staring out over the vast sea, was Reb Yitzhak.”
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