Monday, March 05, 2018
JPost Editorial: Farrakhan’s fellow travelers
During a panel at New York City’s New School in November, Sarsour defended Farrakhan by saying, “If what you’re reading all day long, morning and night, in the Jewish media is that Linda Sarsour and Minister Farrakhan are the existential threat to the Jewish community, something really bad’s going to happen and we’re going to miss the mark on it.”Seth Frantzman Where antisemitism and racism intersect
We believe it is perfectly legitimate for Jewish organizations to call out so-called human rights activists for their hypocrisy. On one hand they claim to be fighting discrimination based on one’s race, gender ethnicity or other aspects of a person’s identity that are not chosen, yet at the same time they are willing to associate with crude antisemites like Farrakhan.
Farrakhan and his fellow travelers resolve the contradiction by claiming, for instance, that given the long history of racial oppression in the US and the Jews’ purported role in that oppression, attacking Jews and Jewish power is a completely legitimate as a form of affirmative action. But similar verbal attacks on blacks, Hispanics or members of the gay community are seen as racist or bigoted because these communities have been victims of oppression.
This point was illustrated when Mysonne, a rapper from the Bronx and left-leaning activist, attempted to defend the Women’s March movement’s Mallory. Yet, as the National Review’s Mairead Mcardle pointed out, Mysonne himself has in the past accused the Jews of oppressing black people, saying in a Twitter post that “Farakahn [sic] has a view of Jews based on the pain and harm that he can prove they’ve inflicted on blacks for hundreds of years!” “To disagree with farakhan [sic] is understandable,” he posted, “but to act as if the violence, pain, control and destruction that people he has evidence that are in fact Jewish have imposed on Blacks is not realistic.”
The twisted logic goes something like this: All Jews are fair game for being derided and lambasted because some Jews might have oppressed black people.
As long as movements such as the Women’s March don’t condemn the likes of Farrakhan and say any antisemitism is unacceptable, they should be kept out of the tent of peace-loving, conflict resolution-seeking organizations.
Their backhanded endorsement of Farrakhan’s views speaks volumes.
‘If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader,” wrote Women’s March co-founder Tamika Mallory on Twitter on March 1. Her bizarre tweet came as she was under fire for attending a speech by Louis Farrakhan at the Saviour’s Day convention in Chicago. The ADL has condemned Mallory for attending and noted she received a special shout-out from Farrakhan. Now everyone is piling on Mallory and the Women’s March to denounce antisemitism.Democratic Congressman Confirms Relationship With Farrakhan, Unbothered By ‘The Jewish Question’
“Memo to the Left: Denounce antisemite Louis Farrakhan,” wrote Elad Nehorai at The Forward.
Large numbers of people seem to agree that Mallory is in the wrong for her silence about antisemitism and for attending these kinds of events. But the focus on Mallory misses the forest for the trees. Mallory is just one person.
Her views of Farrakhan are shared by large numbers of people – including former US president Barack Obama.
In January 2005 a photo of Obama with Farrakhan emerged. Taken by Askia Muhammed at a gathering of the Congressional Black Caucus, the photo was buried for 13 years. An article by Vinson Cunningham at The New Yorker notes that “after some pressure from one of the caucus’s staffers, Muhammad agreed to bury it.” He writes that “Farrakhan is the author of vile, uncountable, unreconstructed, cause-derailing antisemitic slurs, but his Million Man March made him and the Nation a stubborn unignorable feature of the political landscape for black would-be public servants who came of age in the 1990s.” This includes Keith Ellison, the rising Democrat.
Connect the dots and what you get is not just one passionate Women’s March leader, but a whole forest of people who have hung out with Farrakhan. And it’s not really about Farrakhan. He’s just one person. It’s about his ideas, his words and the fact that people didn’t feel ashamed to be associated with him.
Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny Davis confirmed in an interview Sunday that he has a personal relationship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite, and said he isn’t bothered by Farrakhan’s position on “the Jewish question.”ADL says Democrat who won’t condemn Farrakhan lacks ‘courage’
Farrakhan has repeatedly denounced Jews as “satanic,” praised Hitler as a “very great man” and has said that white people “deserve to die.” (RELATED: Seven Louis Farrakhan Quotes On Jews, Gays And White People)
Davis previously told The Daily Caller that he considers Farrakhan an “outstanding human being” and said he regularly meets with Farrakhan. Davis’s office falsely told the Anti-Defamation League that the congressman had been misquoted.
The congressman wasn’t sure why the ADL wrote that he had been misquoted in his praise for the anti-Semite, and said he wasn’t sure if someone from his office had told the ADL he was misquoted, he told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Sunday. “I think that was what they wanted to write. Nah, I don’t have no problems with Farrakhan, I don’t spend a whole lot of my time dealing with those kind of things,” Davis said.
The Anti-Defamation League blasted on Sunday Rep. Danny Davis, an Illinois Democrat, for lacking the “courage” to condemn anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan.The Antisemitism Problem of the Women's March Co-Founders
“It is unfortunate that the congressman apparently can’t muster up the courage to denounce Farrakhan’s blatant anti-Semitism and instead chose to praise him,” an ADL spokesman told JTA.
Davis in a Daily Caller interview posted Sunday doubled down on an earlier interview in which he called the Nation of Islam leader “an outstanding human being who commands a following of individuals who are learned and articulate.”
The ADL had sought a clarification from Davis on the earlier interview, an ADL official said, and Davis said the remarks were out of context and he asked for more information about Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. The ADL provided Davis with a compilation of Farrakhan’s virulent attacks on Jews over the decades.
The adamant refusal of Women's March co-founders Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory to condemn the virulent antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan. An absolute disgrace to women's rights. Even (third) Women's March co-founder Sophie Ellman-Golan has condemned Farrakhan's antisemitism.
The House of Windsor’s Israel Problem
The bald fact remains, then, that a monarch who was crowned when the wounds of the Holocaust were still fresh, who witnessed at least three attempts by Arab states to eliminate the Jewish state and who always maintained a cordial relationship with Britain’s Jewish community, never asserted the importance of a visit to the land where Christianity was born.Honest Reporting: Shocking Headlines Omit ‘Israel’ From Royal Visit
Yet she made her way to Germany in 1965, at a time when most Britons could still remember the Luftwaffe’s decimation of cities like Manchester, Coventry and London. Most of the Middle East’s autocracies — Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Qatar, Iran under the Shah, Turkey — received a visit, too. There are few major democracies or Western allies that have not received one.
It beggars belief that the shrewd Elizabeth has not herself recognized this anomaly, and for whatever reason, has willingly complied with a stance of pretending that Israel doesn’t exist. Even if one could make a realist case that a visit to Israel during the mid-1970s would have been unwise in the face of the Arab oil weapon, what held the royals back in the comparatively more peaceful times of the late 1990s? When Arab leaders and the leaders of Israel’s former Communist enemies can and have made the trip, why has Elizabeth not done so?
Perhaps we shall discover the reason in a diary fragment that emerges in future years. Or perhaps it will always remain an odd secret that will be largely forgotten a decade from now. Because at that point, if all goes to plan and barring a scientific miracle, the Queen will have been replaced by King Charles III. Prince Charles, you see, and not William, is Elizabeth’s direct heir, and coincidentally, has never paid an official visit to Israel either.
William will, I am sure, say most of what needs to be said when he arrives in Israel in May. But as you listen to him, do remember that his grandmother should have said exactly the same a long time ago.
The BBC, Sky News and other media outlets across the UK shockingly omitted Israel from their headlines about Prince William’s visit, despite the future king being set to make the first official Royal Family visit to Israel. He will also be visiting Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, but in an example of blatant bias by the media, many headlines only highlighted his visit to the “Palestinian Territories.”
Some of the press went even further by referring to Palestinian Territories as Occupied.
Most readers of the Sky News report would have been led to believe that his visit excluded Israel and that it was only historic because of the Palestinian Territories. Sky News has been biased against Israel for some time, but this latest example shows that their journalism is now completely pro-Palestinian.
Similarly, the BBC News bulletin announced that the Duke of Cambridge will be the first member of the Royal Family to visit the “Occupied” Palestinian Territories. Sadly, this same biased phrase was used in the Kensington Palace statement itself.
Yisrael Medad: You Know April 9 Is "Deir Yassin Day"?
I have blogged previously and profusely on Deir Yassin, the Arab village near Givat Shaul, in today's Har Nof neighborhood and specifically, the grounds of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center.Do Western "Goodists" Really Care about Helping Syrians, Palestinians?
It was overrun by Irgun and Lechi forces, assisted by a Palmach unit who provided mortar fire and the Hagana command who supplied ammunition and medical services during the fighting, on Friday, April 9, 1948. This year it falls on a Monday. There's now a film. There's a commemorance site. Even a Facebook page.
And now, Shmuel Rosner has reviewed the new book that has appeared in Hebrew in his The Truth of Deir Yassin.
The author is Eliezer Tauber, an Israeli academic who specializes in the modern history of the Middle East.
And to the crux. As I have noted, the Arabs themselves created the myth.
...the myth was perpetrated not because of confusion. It was a deliberate attempt by the Palestinian leadership to force the Arab militaries of surrounding countries to intervene in the battle over Palestine. The leaders of the Palestinians sowed a wind and reaped a whirlwind.
The West is drowning in a sea of double standards and moral relativism in which murderers and tyrants are allowed to wallow in their crimes, while global indignation is turned only against the sole democracy in the Middle East: Israel.Where is the right to free speech for Israel advocates on campus, academics ask
Israeli hospitals have never stopped treating Palestinians, even during wars in Gaza. In Syria, by comparison, Bashar Al-Assad continues to bomb the country's hospitals.
Instead of scapegoating Israel, perhaps these "goodists", if they really care about helping oppressed people, as they claim, will finally promote a freedom flotilla to liberate Gaza from Hamas's tyranny and Syria from Assad's butchery?
Eight years ago a group of Muslim students shouted down Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as he delivered a speech on US-Israel relations at University of California.SPME BDS Monitor: A Rapid Descent Into Antisemitism
Flash forward to last Friday night at the University of Virginia. Pro-Palestinian students disrupted a number of Israel Defense Force reservists participating on a panel “Building Bridges.”
Whether it’s eight years or eight days ago, when pro-Israel speakers come to campus it’s almost a sure bet those aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) will show up to boo, hiss and intimidate, said Mark Yudof, former president of the University of California. He was speaking last Monday night during a conversation hosted by The American Society of the University of Haifa.
“The name of the game is shouting down Israeli, Jewish and pro-Israeli speakers. [After the event] I was told, ‘Mr. President, free speech is for marginalized people, not for privileged people.’ And that is the problem,” Yudof said during the panel discussion with Ron Robin, president of the University of Haifa.
Started in 2005, the BDS movement has grown into a global campaign determined to promote various forms of boycott against Israel. While trying to emulate the 1980s campaigns against South African apartheid, the movement uses anti-Semitic rhetoric, and frequently targets Jewish students, Israeli guest speakers, or pro-Israel speakers on college campuses in North America and Europe.
Disparate BDS events in February suggest that the anti-Israel boycott movement is being forced to reorient itself due to unprecedented pushback. This included US pressure that was key to the Irish parliament’s decision to postpone a vote on BDS legislation and the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to release only partial information regarding a blacklist of companies working in the West Bank.PreOccupiedTerritory: Palestinians Just One Hijacked Student Gov’t Meeting Away From Total Victory Over Zionism (satire)
Without effective political leadership and with deteriorating behavioral norms regarding harassment and intimidation, BDS is rapidly degenerating into overt antisemitism.
Some of the most important BDS developments in February took place in the international sphere. Reports indicated that pressure from the US State Department was essential to changing the position of the Irish government from its previous support for BDS legislation, which would have criminalized economic relations with Israeli settlements. The bill reflected longstanding Irish antipathy towards Israel, and would have put Ireland at odds with US and European anti-boycott statutes.
In another case, US and Israeli pressure appears to have caused the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) to postpone release of a full blacklist of international and Israeli firms with ties to the West Bank. UNHCR stated that it had not yet contacted all 206 firms, most of which are Israeli, on the blacklist.
The blackmail implicit in the constructing and publicizing of the blacklist is palpable, and reflects the organization’s obsession with Israel. The situation is so extreme that a US Congressional resolution has been introduced to reduce funding or cut ties altogether with UNHCR.
Excitement gripped the Palestinian street today after revelations that their national movement to destroy Israel and replace it with another Muslim state stands on the cusp of ultimate triumph, with only a single American university student government resolution calling for institutional divestment from Israel remaining until the entire Zionist enterprise crumbles.BBC interviewees appear in report on extremism in UK charities
Hushed, tense conversations taking place throughout the de facto Palestinian capital engaged in repeated exploration of the impending victory, with speculation rife among citizens and officials alike with regard to the likely academic institution at which anti-Israel activists will subvert the student body’s democratic procedures to force through such a resolution, which will lead inexorably to the disappearance of the Jewish State.
“My money is on the University of Oregon,” predicted Saeb Erekat, a senior Fatah official, once the chief negotiator with Israel. “The west-coast sensibilities, the social activist tradition, the liberal tendencies in general – I think those will make the difference. It’s so exciting. I can taste the imminent collapse of this cancerous entity.”
“If I were a betting man I’d wager it’ll be someplace in the Midwest,” stated a coffee shop proprietor who gave his name as Azmi. “Those colleges have been dark horse candidates for BDS resolutions for a long time. People pay so much attention to Berkeley, UC-Davis, and even NYU, but it’s like baseball – the coastal markets dominate coverage and hog all the attention, but there’s some real small-market action going on that can’t be ignored. I’d say put me down for the University of Wisconsin.”
The Henry Jackson Society think tank recently published a new report:IsraellyCool: Ontario Jews To Host “Liberation Seder for Palestine”
“The British taxpayer has handed over more than £6 million to charities that are currently, or have been in the past, used by extremists to further their radical agenda, according to a new report from the Henry Jackson Society. […]
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: How Islamist Extremists Exploit the UK Charitable Sector finds that, despite more than a decade of attempts to improve regulations, a concerning number of UK-registered charities continue to fund and support extremism.
Figures from across the Islamist spectrum, including the Muslim Brotherhood, form a network which seeks to delegitimise and push out moderate voices, while masquerading as representatives of ‘true’ Islam. […]
The Charity Commission – legally unable to de-register these ‘bad’ charities – has been particularly ill-equipped to deal with these organisations. Its powers have been extended in recent legislation, but the public is still waiting for those new powers to be put to use to tackle this problem.”
Freeman – described as “a credit adviser from Leicester” – was featured in one of Catrin Nye’s articles and following the kidnapping of Alan Henning he appeared in numerous other BBC reports.
Another charity appearing in this report is Islamic Relief (from p.64). In 2014 the BBC published an article in which that organisation’s links to Hamas were denied and later the same year the BBC produced a very superficial report on an audit of the charity.
The organisation ‘Viva Palestina’ – which had its charitable status removed in 2013 following an inquiry by the Charity Commission – is discussed on page 72 of the HJS report. Its founder – George Galloway – has appeared frequently on BBC platforms.
Among the individuals named in the report is Cerie Bullivant of ‘Cage‘ who not only has his own BBC profile but has appeared on numerous BBC programmes – including one on ‘how best to tackle radicalisation’. Moazzam Begg – also of ‘Cage’ – has likewise been a BBC contributor. The report also names Haitham al Haddad (from p. 96) who was featured in a series of reports by Catrin Nye as well as in additional BBC content.
Hey guys, did you hear? The turkeys are hosting a thanksgiving dinner! In other words, the Jewish Liberation Theology Institute, a rather innocuous name for a rather masochistic group, is hosting a “Liberation Seder for Palestine” in three Ontario cities: London, Hamilton, and Toronto: home to University of Western Ontario, McMaster University, and University of Toronto/York/Ryerson. As usual, they are preying on the young.UK Labour Party Hit With Another Antisemitism Scandal; Speechwriter Claims Israel Commits ‘Genocide’
Because nothing liberates Palestine like removing Israel’s free press and imposing a theocratic, kleptocratic dictatorship in its stead!
Moving on:
This year’s Seder will remember the Nakba and Land Day. We are pleased to annouce that the Jewish Liberation Theology’s very own Rabbi Lucia Pizarro is back to lead this year’s Seder in Toronto.
The only Jewish Liberation Passover is actually about is leaving the bondage of Egypt and finally being able to freely be ourselves in our land, Israel.
Things that make you go hmm.
The British Labour party has been hit with yet another antisemitism scandal, with calls to fire a “key aide” of leader Jeremy Corbyn for newly-revealed virulent anti-Israel statements.i24NEWS - French publisher determined to reprint Celine's anti-Semitic rants
Joss MacDonald, a speechwriter for the party, reportedly went on an “online tirade” in 2014 in which he called Israel an “apartheid state” that is treated leniently “because of the Holocaust,” the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported on Sunday.
According to the report, he also accused Israel of committing “genocide.”
Four years earlier, MacDonald went on a similar rant, lambasting Israel for “killing the two state solution.”
Euan Philipps, spokesperson for the group Labour Against Antisemitism, issued a furious condemnation of MacDonald, saying in a statement to The Algemeiner that MacDonald’s “reported comments are abhorrent, deeply offensive, and extremely ignorant. They offer further evidence of the way antisemitism is becoming institutionalized at all levels of the Labour party.”
He also pointed the finger directly at Corbyn, stating, “In December Jeremy Corbyn promised a meeting of Jewish Labour party members that there was ‘zero tolerance’ of antisemitism within the Labour party. Now Mr. Corbyn must make good on that promise and carry out a full and transparent investigation. If it is found that the reports are true then Mr. MacDonald must be removed from his post and the Labour party. There can be no place for anyone with these views in the Labour party.”
The MacDonald affair is only the latest in a long line of antisemitism scandals that have struck the party since the intensely anti-Israel Corbyn took over leadership several years ago.
The head of France's most prestigious publishing house said Sunday he still wanted to reprint a collection of violently anti-Semitic pamphlets by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.Evening Standard omits fact that “acclaimed Palestinian writer” was also a PFLP terrorist
Antoine Gallimard declared that he had "not renounced" plans to publish a 1,000-page compendium of the controversial novelist's essays from the late 1930s after an outcry forced him to put the project on ice in January.
"I have suspended the project, but I have not renounced it," he told the Journal du dimanche (JDD) newspaper.
"The reason for the suspension was simple: you cannot build anything worthwhile when a fire is raging. You cannot make yourself heard in a boiling amphitheatre," he added, referring to heated debate over the texts.
France's main Jewish group said the essays, including some written after the start of the German occupation of France, were a "gross incitation to racist and anti-Semitic hate".
The French lawyer and Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld threatened legal action to stop them, saying that Celine had "influenced a whole generation of collaborationists who sent French Jews to their deaths."
As we noted in a tweet earlier to the journalist, in addition to being an “acclaimed Palestinian writer”, Ghassan Kanafi was also a high-ranking member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. Kanafi was the right hand man to the group’s leader George Habash and met with members of the Japanese Red Army who murdered 26 people in the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972.Guardian opposed US attack on Syria in 2013; Now says inaction led to more bloodshed. Fails to admit error.
PFLP was responsible for a number of terror attacks, including hijackings, suicide bombings and the murder of Israel’s tourism minister in 2001.
This element of Kanafi’s background would of course explain why he was “killed in 1972 by a Mossad car bomb”, and likely why New York’s Public Theater “abandoned” their planned production of the play.
We’ve lodge a complaint with editors over this omission.
The editorial is critical of Obama’s decision not to bomb Assad, but there is just one thing the editorial does not mention –that Observer editors encouraged Obama not to take action in 2013. In August 2013, when Assad used his chemical weapons and Obama decided not to respond militarily, the Observer editorial at the time supported this decision – “An air strike will have no practical benefit” ran the headline, with the byline explaining that “Rebuilding nations is much harder than building cruise missile sites”.BBC muddies a story of anti-Israel bigotry in sport
The editorial argued that “the continuing debate lacks reality, and therefore substance”, that “it won’t stop the killing”, and dismissed it “gesture politics.”
The article even went as far as to say the public should reject intelligence, “The first, practical response to intelligence advanced in support of military action is distrust,” as well as challenging the moral superiority of the West, reminding them of their own misdeeds such as the napalm dropped on Vietnam. Obama’s decision not to bomb Syria in 2013 was seen by his critics as giving the green light to other international actors to act with impunity – but the record is crystal clear, that the Observer supported that decision.
They published an editorial in 2013 that stridently called upon the West not to take action against Syria, saying it would just be a gesture. But now in 2018, in equally strident terms, it criticises the inaction of the West!? This surely seems hypocritical stance to take – at the very least, they must own up to their mistake if they have changed opinion, and admit that they were in the wrong for supporting the inaction. But to lambast the world for a policy which they publicly supported seems inconsistent and unethical.
Unlike the BBC report, the AFP article clarifies to readers that the Iranian policy of refusing to compete against Israelis does not comply with sporting rules.CAA calls for Football Association Chief Executive Martin Glenn to apologise and undergo training after equating Star of David with swastika and Robert Mugabe
“Dozens of Iranian athletes have boycotted competitions against Israelis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, either out of choice or under pressure from authorities.
But they have tended to lose earlier rounds, claim sickness or fail to show up, since an open refusal breaches international sporting regulations.”
Obviously the BBC could have done more to make this story comprehensible to audiences but instead, we once again see the corporation skirting around the issue of discrimination against Israelis in sport.
Campaign Against Antisemitism calls upon Martin Glenn, Chief Executive of the Football Association, to immediately apologise and undergo training after he equated the Star of David with the swastika and images of Robert Mugabe.FA chief sorry for ‘offensive’ Star of David comment
Speaking about rules that prohibit the wearing of political symbols at football matches, Mr Glenn cited a number of “highly divisive” symbols, saying: “it could be the Star of David, it could the hammer and sickle, it could be a swastika, anything like Robert Mugabe on your shirt – these are the things we don’t want.” Mr Glenn was responding to the wearing of a yellow ribbon in support of Catalan independence by the manager of Manchester City Football Club.
The only people who consider the Star of David to be a “highly divisive” symbol are antisemites. Mr Glenn must apologise immediately for his appalling comparison of the Star of David with the swastika and images of Robert Mugabe. He should also commit to undergoing training to understand the Jewish religion and its symbols. We cannot recall ever having come across something like this before.
English Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn apologized on Monday for “offensive” comments he made comparing the Jewish Star of David with symbols such as the Nazi swastika.Top Polish Educator Blames Jews for Communist Atrocities in Antisemitic Facebook Rant
Glenn’s remarks, criticized by a leading member of Britain’s Jewish community, came as he tried to justify the FA’s decision to charge Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola for wearing a yellow ribbon in support of jailed Catalan independence leaders.
Guardiola had until 6 p.m. on Monday to respond to the charge that he has breached FA regulations that ban the wearing of political symbols.
The FA has faced accusations of hypocrisy, given their prolonged campaign to persuade world soccer chiefs to allow players to display a poppy on their shirt to mark Armistice Day.
A leading Polish educator engaged in an angry Facebook rant about alleged Jewish responsibility for Soviet atrocities against Polish citizens, amid deepening anger in Poland over international objections to new legislation that criminalizes public discussion of collusion between Poles and the Nazi occupation forces during World War II.Auschwitz guide’s Krakow home vandalized with xenophobic slogans
“Young Jews should finally understand where the unhealed wounds of the Poles are!” wrote Ryszard Nowak – the director of the highly-regarded Lyceum XII public high school in the city of Krakow – in a Facebook post uncovered by the liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
Claiming that Jews dominated the court system in communist Poland after “your Holocaust,” Nowak named several communist officials as responsible for the 1953 execution of Polish General Emil August Fieldorf by the Soviet NKVD secret police, highlighting their Jewish origins. Those listed by Nowak as culpable for the murder of Fieldorf – a former commander of the Polish Home Army that fought on the Allied side during the war – included “military prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus, a Polish communist Jewish activist, Beniamin Wajsblech, a Jewish prosecutor, Paulina Kern, a judge of Jewish origin, Maria Gurowska, a judge of Jewish origin, Advocate Emil Merz of Jewish origin, Gustaw Auscaler, a Polish advocate of Jewish descent.”
Concern over Nowak’s comments is likely to be heightened by the fact that he is married to Barbara Nowak, the Polish government’s chief education inspector in Krakow – the nearest big city to the former site of the Nazi German Auschwitz slave labor and death camp.
Polish police are looking for the vandals who wrote “Poland for Poles” and in English “Auswitz for Poland guide (sic)” on the door of an educator and guide at the Auschwitz Museum.Israeli Rescue Organization Trains Guatemalan First Responders in UN-Sponsored Program
The victim, who lives in Krakow, is an Italian citizen who has been working with the museum for over a dozen years.
Representatives of the Auschwitz Museum reported that the man is a licensed educator, with “special, substantive preparation and qualifications” to work at the Holocaust memorial.
The Gazeta.pl website quotes the man as saying, “I am not here by accident, but I have decided that I want to live and integrate here. This is simply a painful thing from a moral and personal point of view.”
The police were informed about the incident on Friday. The perpetrators have not been identified.
Last week, the curator of education in Poland’s Małopolska region, Barbara Nowak, posted on Twitter that “Auschwitz should have only Polish guides licensed by Institute of National Remembrance,” because in her opinion there was a “foreign, not Polish narrative” in the museum.
In Guatemala, 45 volunteers from different local community and emergency organizations came together to participate in a light search-and-rescue training course by Israeli ZAKA International Rescue Unit.Roman Abramovich donates £14.5m to Israeli nuclear medicine research centre
The three-day course, sponsored by the United Nations’ International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), was led by ZAKA Chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and ZAKA International Rescue Unit Chief Officer Mati Goldstein.
The course is designed to give local volunteers the necessary skills to offer immediate assistance to emergency forces in the event of a mass casualty incident in their communities or regions.
“Light search and rescue is going to make a big difference in the next disaster, with trained locals working in the rubble to try to find people and save lives,” explained Goldstein. “ZAKA is here in Guatemala and around the world to make sure that in the next disaster we will have more and more people saving lives, going under the rubble, taking care of the remains of the people that were killed.”
ZAKA’s experience in mass casualty incidents around the world, including the Nepal and Haiti earthquakes, has shown that with the proper training, lives can be saved and emergency response can be more efficient, even before international aid arrives.
Russian-Jewish billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich donated 14.5 million ($20 million) to fund a research centre for nuclear medicine at an Israeli hospital.Noah’s Ark— and Ours
Abramovich, who owns Chelsea football club, made the donation to Sheba Medical Centre at Tel Hashomer, located near Tel Aviv to fund the cutting-edge research centre.
Nuclear medicine can be used for the diagnosis and treatment of a range of diseases including heart disease, cancers, strokes and Alzheimer’s.
Sheba has submitted its permit application to build a new 21,500-square-foot, three-floor, diagnostic and research center for nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.
The entire basement floor will be dedicated to housing a cyclotron, a special nuclear reactor, which will produce small quantities of nuclear isotopes for use in molecular imaging, the medical centre said in its announcement.
John Adams was certain he would be forgotten. “The History of our Revolution,” he fretted to Benjamin Rush, “will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.”
Adams would thus certainly have been surprised had he been in Israel’s Knesset when the parliament welcomed Mike Pence, his successor as vice president of the United States. Prime Minister Netanyahu, in delivering words of greeting, spoke of the history of America’s support for the Jewish state. He then quoted words that Adams had written in 1819, long before Zionism had emerged as a movement: “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.” Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition, then rose to deliver prepared remarks and cited the same quote. The vice president then himself made mention of John Adams’s affinity for the Jewish people, in a speech where Pence celebrated the miracle that was the State of Israel. Suddenly the man who worried so about his legacy was receiving the attention he had so ardently believed he deserved.
This is fitting. If any founder deserves to be celebrated in Israel, it is Adams. Thomas Jefferson thought little of the Jewish intellectual legacy. But the Jews were “the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth,” Adams insisted. “The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern.” Yet few in the auditorium knew the context of Adams’s declaration, noted by Netanyahu, in support of a Jewish restoration in the Holy Land; and this story lends special poignancy to Pence’s visit and to the ardently Zionist speech Pence himself delivered.
The words cited by Netanyahu had been written by Adams to the most prominent American Jew of his age: Mordecai Manuel Noah, a Jewish playwright, politician, and journalist. Speaking in 1818 to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, Noah delivered a passionate paean to the nascent United States and to the home that Jews had found there. “Until the Jews can recover their ancient rights and dominions, and take their rank among the governments of the earth,” he declared, “this is their chosen country.” Yet Noah was convinced, half a century before Herzl, that the Jews could soon return to the Holy Land and create their own state: “Never were the prospects for the restoration of the Jewish nation to their ancient rights and dominion more brilliant than they are at present.”
