Friday, December 07, 2018
The ‘Hyper-Whitening’ of the Jews
At the Forward, Ari Feldman reflects on whether or not recent attacks against Jews in Brooklyn are the result of anti-Semitism. The article is gaining a bit of attention because of its nonsensical premise and because of a few choice quotes. He cites a local salesman as saying, “It’s less of an anti-Semitic thing than they needed a target to respond to this word: gentrification.” And he quotes someone named Mark Winston Griffith from the Black Movement Center, who says that may be the result black people’s seeing Judaism as “a form of almost hyper-whiteness.”America’s Jewish left endorses anti-Jewish discrimination
To reject these explanations as preposterous and offensive is, of course, righteous. But to do that alone is to miss something critical. Considering these claims at face value is important. Not because they have merit, but because they show precisely how anti-Semitism works and what it is.
The Jew is hated as whatever the anti-Semite holds responsible for his own misfortune. If you’re a capitalist, the Jew is a Communist; if you’re a Communist, the Jew is a capitalist. If you’re a pacifist, the Jew is a warmonger. If you’re a warrior, the Jew is a coward. Depending on your circumstance, the Jew can be grimy or snobbish, rootless or nationalist, invader or separatist. And if 100 years ago, American bigots saw Jews as Asiatic cross-breeds, today bigots see them as “hyper-white.” If you want to know what a culture considers most problematic, look at its brand of anti-Semitism. When you have headlines about “white privilege” and “evil white men,” Jews become the epitome of whiteness—except, of course, for neo-Nazis, who see Jews as hyper-integrationists.
No one explained it better than Ruth Wisse in the 2010 issue of COMMENTARY:
Anti-Semitism works through the strategy of the pointing finger. Through political prestidigitation, the accuser draws attention away from his own sins—in the case of Arab leaders, the systematic oppression and immiseration of their own people—by pointing to the Jews, whose demonically inflated image and luridly portrayed wickedness make them a plausible explanation for whatever ails his regime. The pointing finger keeps negative attention focused on the Jews—or Israelis—and the latter, as often as not, obligingly fall into the trap by accepting responsibility for a situation they cannot control. In politics as before the law, whoever points the finger is the plaintiff, and whoever stands in the dock is the defendant. Unless they were to file a countersuit, simply answering to the charge of which they stood accused placed the Jews under the constant obligation of defending their innocence.
In the view of these five groups, every inch of Judea and Samaria is “Palestinian land,” and any Jew who lives there is an “usurper” who deserves to be boycotted, treated as a pariah, and eventually driven out.Gerald Steinberg: Human Rights Day nothing to celebrate
Obviously if Jewish leftwing groups choose to support anti-Jewish discrimination—by boycotting only Jewish settlements and not Arab ones—that is their right according the U.S. Constitution. And if these groups want to advocate that every inch of Judea and Samaria is “usurped Palestinian land,” that, too, is their right.
But that does not mean the organized American Jewish community has to treat such racist positions as legitimate.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization overwhelmingly rejected J Street’s application for membership several years ago. That was a wise move. Jewish umbrella groups that have relationships with the New Israel Fund and the other members of the Gang of Five should reconsider whether they want to maintain those relationships.
Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI), for example, is a member of the American Zionist Movement. It’s fair to ask whether PPI’s support for discrimination against Israeli Jews is consistent with the AZM’s declared mission is “ to strengthen the connection of American Jews with Israel; develop their appreciation of the centrality of Israel to Jewish life worldwide; deepen their understanding of Israeli society and the challenges it faces; encourage travel, long-term visits and Aliyah to Israel; and to facilitate dialogue, debate and collective action to further Zionism in the United States and abroad.”
Is advocating discrimination against Jews in Judea-Samaria consistent with the AZM’s mission statement?
International Human Rights Day – commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Conventions on December 10, 1948 – is marked every year in the United Nations and by other organizations claiming to carry out its noble principles. But in stark contrast to the self-congratulation and high-sounding rhetoric that characterize these events, the reality makes a particularly desolate picture.
If anything, this day is a timely reminder of the failures of the institutions that were created after the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust to protect and defend human rights. Indeed, 2018 was another dismal year, and there is little to celebrate. The massive government bureaucracies and millions provided to groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International did nothing to prevent the carnage in Syria that destroyed millions of lives. And the triumph of the Assad-Russia-Iran-Hezbollah coalition offers no hope for the future. In Venezuela, the tyranny of oppression and repression continues, and hopes that after the death of Hugo Chavez the situation would improve have been dashed.
Ignoring most of the victims around the world, the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva continues to be controlled by some of the worst violators, including Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia (a major offender long before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi), Egypt and China. The member-states and UN officials they appoint routinely exploit the rhetoric of international law to deflect attention from their own behavior, and obsessively target Israel. Syrian and Iranian diplomats take the floor to make poisonous accusations against Israel, while their governments make genocidal threats that turn the 1948 declaration into a mockery.
This year, the council voted to again conduct a pseudo-investigation of Israel, this time over the claims of excessive force and war crimes during the Hamas-orchestrated violent “Grand Return March” incidents along the Gaza border with Israel. Like the infamous (and eventually discredited) Goldstone Report published in 2009, the one-sided results of this version were decided before the commission members were named. For these reasons and more, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared “the Human Rights Council is the United Nations’ greatest failure.” After all efforts to enact reforms were rejected, the US suspended its membership, further diminishing the council’s legitimacy.
‘Europe is finished,’ leading lawyer says as he leaves UK for Israel
A top British lawyer and his partner immigrated to Israel this week, citing rising anti-Semitism in Europe.Video Appears to Show Marc Lamont Hill Accusing Israel of Poisoning Palestinian Water
“Europe in my view is finished. Every day you see people being attacked in one way or another across Europe,” Mark Lewis told Israel’s Channel 10 news, which accompanied his arrival, together with partner Mandy Blumenthal, at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
“You see people murdered in museums in Belgium, people murdered in schools in France, people attacked in England. There is only one place for Jewish people to go,” Lewis added.
Lewis, 54, one of the UK’s leading libel lawyers, said he has been increasingly subjected to hate speech and threats for being Jewish, including being subjected to regular abuse and death threats online.
The decision to leave Britain did not come easily, the couple has said, but they feel it was inevitable. “We’re a wandering people, and it’s time to wander again. People just don’t want to see it,” Lewis said of his fellow British Jews.
Mark Lewis, right, and Mandy Blumenthal arrive at Ben Gurion Airport, December 5, 2018. (Channel 10 screen capture)
“We’ve accelerated our decision of moving to go to Israel because of anti-Semitism being so institutional and accepted in mainstream life,” Blumenthal charged.
“So many people have these ideas about Jews being responsible for every disaster that’s ever happened in the world.”
Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University and prominent left-wing commentator, appears to accuse Israel of poisoning Palestinian water in a newly surfaced video.
The video is from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) conference held on Sept. 28, according to the Jewish Journal.
"I can't just think about political prisoners here in the states; I have to think about political prisoners in Palestine," Hill said. "And I have to ask questions about what the face of those prisoners look like, and what legitimate resistance looks like."
Hill also said that people who struggle tend to favor a "civil rights tradition" that "romanticizes nonviolence."
"How can you romanticize nonviolence when you have a state that is at all moments waging war against you, against your bodies, poisoning your water, limiting your access to water, locking up your children, killing them?" Hill asked. "We can't romanticize resistance."
The Jewish Journal noted that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas previously accused "certain rabbis in Israel" of telling "their government that our water should be poisoned in order to have Palestinians killed," although he later walked back his remarks.
"So for me," Hill added, "part of the challenge is when we start saying we should overcome and holding hands and sit-ins, which is an important and indispensable strategy, I would never disrespect that strategy. We just can't fetishize that strategy. We can't fetishize that here in the states."
Here is video of @TempleUniv university professor @marclamonthill telling the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights in September that Israel is "poisoning" the water of Palestinians
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) December 6, 2018
He also appears to compare himself favorably to convicted Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled pic.twitter.com/r4ryjZFr1Y
To Jeremy Corbyn and His Ilk, Israel Is an Enemy That Must Be Crushed
In Britain, notes Daniel Johnson, the waving of the Union Jack is increasingly greeted with “condescension and disdain or worse” in elite circles, although EU flags seem entirely acceptable. And for members of the Labor party, there is another favored flag:NGO Monitor Podcast: "Human Rights &
[No] animosity greeted the unprecedented (though by no means spontaneous) flag-waving that erupted at the Labor party conference last month. Not that any member of what was once the party of Clement Attlee and Tony Blair would be seen dead waving a Union Jack. No, the eruption of flags brandished by the far-left delegates who now dominate the largest “progressive” party in Europe elicited no censure. That’s because they were Palestinian flags.
The flags alone were disturbing enough. But the context made them even more provocative. The Labor party has been embroiled in the burgeoning scandal of left-wing anti-Semitism ever since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader in 2015. Last summer, new revelations of institutional prejudice against Jews or extreme attitudes to Israel, together with attempts by the leadership to suppress criticism or to purge the critics, made the front pages almost daily. . . . In his speech to the conference, Corbyn announced that his first act on becoming prime minister, on day one, would be to recognize Palestine unilaterally as a sovereign state. . . .
[Corbyn] personifies the pathology of the left throughout the West, admittedly in an extreme form. For hardline leftists, Israel is the archetypal enemy of the archetypal victims: Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular. . . . The existence of Israel is a challenge even to liberal Europeans, because its proud defense of its national identity and independence calls into question the internationalism of the EU. But for the hard left, Israel is not merely an awkward anomaly, to be alternately chastised or cold-shouldered. For them, Israel is an arch-enemy that must be crushed. . . .
Hot Coffee"
On NGO Monitor’s “Human Rights and Hot Coffee” podcast, we discuss Israeli current events through the lens of human rights, international law, humanitarian aid, and international relations.
Episode 3: Should foreign governments give money to Israeli NGOs? What’s the difference between private funding and government funding? How should government’s address the issue of foreign involvement in domestic political affairs?The BDS Movement, Where the Anti-Semites Find Room to Flourish
Bard, who spends much of his time ferreting out libel against the Jews, claims that “The one place in America where anti-Semitism is still considered acceptable is in the university.” Consider, he says, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) conference at UCLA, where students are allowed to foment anti-Semitism and call for the destruction of the Jewish state. He reports that thousands of professors, some monopolizing departments at elite universities, espouse anti-Semitic views. Academic departments routinely organize programs where anti-Semitic views are promulgated without objection. On Nov. 19, the Canadian Federation of Students passed a resolution endorsing the BDS movement.Expert: Palestinian NGO Co-Winner of French Human Rights Award Is ‘Political and Legal Wing’ of Terror Organization PFLP
But surely, while considering the BDS movement and its cousins, we arrive at a crucial question: Who else?
Who else are you campaigning against? Have the Saudi Arabians awakened your conscience by the fierce battles they are fighting in Yemen? Have you turned against the Russians because of their repeated attempts to absorb Ukraine? Has Syria been added to your agenda? There must be a dozen places where a powerful nation is overcoming a less powerful people. How do you decide which most deserves the force of your disapproval?
The chances are that the leaders of BDS can’t name a single state, aside from Israel, that receives its serious attention. BDS has a foreign policy, but it’s limited to one state. I’ve always suspected that it reflects anti-Semitism, since the people who run it show no interest in the sins of states other than Israel.
In a sense, BDS has failed. The Israeli economy flourishes, far from being crippled by years of boycott. Since BDS has had a minimal effect, why does it continue to organize, pass resolutions, issue press releases, etc.? My guess is that its function today is simply propaganda. It exists now as one of many voices reminding the world that Israel’s statehood remains in question.
The Palestinian NGO Al Haq, which has recently been named as a recipient of the prestigious 2018 Human Rights Prize of the French Republic, serves as “the political and legal wing” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group, an Israeli expert told The Algemeiner on Thursday.Following Contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post Changes Inaccurate Headline Blaming Israel for a Private Tech Firm’s Actions
The award, bestowed by the French prime minister and presented by its justice minister, was given jointly to Al Haq and the far-left Israeli NGO B’Tselem. According to a statement from the latter group, this year the award was specifically given to organizations seen as “harassed or pressured” as a result of their work.
Al Haq’s director, Shawan Jabarin, has extensive ties with the PFLP and was previously convicted of recruiting for the terror group. In 2009, the Israeli Supreme Court found that Jabarin’s involvement with terrorism had continued.
According to Gerald Steinberg of the watchdog NGO Monitor, Al Haq is, in fact, little more than a tool for the PFLP to use against Israel. “As the core of the PFLP ‘human rights’ network,” he said, “Al Haq is the leader of the campaign to label Israeli defensive actions against terrorists as ‘war crimes.’ They are the political and legal wing of the terror organization.”
“Jabarin is not the PFLP’s only Al Haq operative,” Steinberg added. “Indeed, the evidence reflects a close connection between the terror group and the ‘human rights’ NGO.”
In a statement, B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad said, “It is a particularly special honor to receive this award — together with our colleagues from Al-Haq — on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We, at B’Tselem and Al-Haq, share the same values and the same realization: that only by ending the occupation can there be a future based on human rights, equality and liberty.”
After contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post changed an inaccurate headline about an Israeli-founded tech firm.25 years after release, ‘Schindler’s List’ returns as preeminent Holocaust film
A Dec. 5, 2018 Op-Ed by columnist Max Boot, initially entitled “Israel is selling spy software to dictators–and betraying its own ideals,” detailed the workings of a private firm, NSO Group, in creating surveillance software. The organization was created by veterans of the Israeli intelligence agency, Unit 8200 and is based in Israel. However, a San Francisco-based private equity firm owns NSO Group.
The Post’s headline implied that the nation of Israel was itself responsible for creating the software—conflating the actions of a private firm with that of a government. Following contact from CAMERA, The Post changed the headline to “An Israeli tech firm is selling spy software to dictators, betraying the country’s ideals.”
Nowadays, it’s practically a criminal act to suggest that Jews should make a homeland in Israel without first offering a list of prevarications. Here’s a record that it wasn’t always this way.Tel Aviv gears up to host Eurovision
A recent survey showed that one out of five millennials in the United States had minimal understanding of the Holocaust. This is upsetting, but may not be so new. In 1993, at New York University of all places, two different non-Jewish classmates felt the need to “apologize” to me after seeing the film. Other Jewish students reported the same phenomenon. It made us feel awkward. None of us had anything to do with the Holocaust; it was all okay.
That’s the difference for me between seeing the movie then and now. The big conclusion in which Schindler, played by the strong and broad Liam Neeson, has the realization that he “could have got more out,” was, I confess, something I once lightly ribbed as being a little over the top. Naturally, it’s the part that kills me most today.
The enormous Neeson sobbing and collapsing in tiny, frail Ben Kingsley’s arms, overcome by guilt at having been part of the system for so long, for being too greedy, or too frightened to take a stand. This is a moment all of us who have lived a little bit must confront in ourselves. No, we are not living in the Third Reich, but even in our personal lives, and with our families, or even with ourselves, are we doing enough? Are we doing what’s right? No, probably not, at least not always.
So, like my mother says, and as Spielberg acknowledges, it’s hard to watch “Schindler’s List.” But it is outstanding.
It’s difficult to speak solely about the craft of something so emotionally fraught, but this is masterful filmmaking. It opens with a benediction, a candle prayer in color, the smoke cutting to the puff of a train then the rhythmic thrum of bureaucracy. Stamps, names, papers. Schindler arrives in Krakow and schemes his way to his position. He impresses the right Germans and enlists the right Jew. It’s like a heist picture, and the music is upbeat and propulsive. Even his repossession of a rich Jewish home (as the well-heeled owners are dismissed to the dirty ghetto) is cut together with a degree of playfulness. Like Schindler himself, we are removed from the horror, navigating the waves to come out on top. Until something, thankfully, changes.
I’ve seen “Schindler’s List” a number of times and yes, perhaps due to its “happy ending,” I know I’ll watch it again. I can’t say the same for “Son of Saul,” a remarkable artistic triumph that exploits cinematic formalism in all the best ways, but is too unbearably bleak to revisit. There will likely never be another Holocaust movie as widely accepted as “Schindler’s List,” a critical and economic phenomenon, but luckily it is a triumph. See it again in a theater. And may we all live long enough to see it’s next revival in 25 years.
On any given week, the Expo Tel Aviv convention center could be hosting close to a dozen events. From conferences to concerts, exhibitions and trade fairs, the 45,000-sq.m. complex of indoor and outdoor spaces is almost always bustling with activity.'Vampire Diaries' star Kat Graham tours Israel
But for almost a month next spring, the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds’ convention center will be closed off as it prepares for an event the likes of which the country has never seen before: Eurovision 2019.
In less than six months, the Eurovision Song Contest will kick off in Tel Aviv, with a week of events, rehearsals, shows and activities. Participants from 42 countries, hundreds of journalists, thousands of tourists and enough sequins to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool are expected to converge on the city.
“On March 24 we’re handing over Pavilion 2 to the production,” said Iris Mazel, the vice president of sales and marketing at Expo Tel Aviv, during a tour of the site this week. “They have to set up the stage and the seats and everything. Then from the end of April we are giving them pavilions 1 and then 11, 12, 13 and 14.”
The Eurovision production team has yet to finalize the plans for all of the spaces and pavilions. Expo Tel Aviv is working closely with the KAN public broadcaster, representatives of the Tel Aviv Municipality and officials from the European Broadcasting Union as the show draws closer.
Kat Graham, the star of CW's the Vampire Diaries and a slate of Netflix films, is visiting Israel this week, spending time with family and celebrating Hanukkah.Soccer superstar Messi becomes member of Israeli team’s fan club
Graham, born in Sweden to a Jewish mother and an African father, has a lot of family in Israel and visits regularly. And all week long she has been posting photos and videos of her time in the country on social media - including in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Graham has also shared videos of her family lighting candles for Hanukkah, eating sufganiyot, and exploring the capital with her almost 5 million followers on Instagram.
On Thursday night, Graham dined at the renowned Eucalyptus restaurant in Jerusalem with a few famous friends - including former NBA star Amar'e Stoudemire and TV personality Rosci Diaz. Graham lit candles with the restaurant's chef, Moshe Basson, and took part in his famous maqluba ceremony.
Last year, Graham told Travel and Leisure magazine that "most of my family’s in Israel, so between that" and her busy acting and singing career, "I’m on a plane about twice a week." She added that she has done charity work with the UN Refugee Agency and also traveled to Jordan as part of her involvement.
While Graham regularly visits Israel for family reasons, she is here at least in part on a trip sponsored by the Jerusalem Affairs Ministry and coordinated with the Foreign Ministry. Diaz - who has worked for BET and Entertainment Tonight - is also part of the organized trip under the auspices of "America's Voices for Israel," which regularly brings celebrities and media personalities to visit the country.
Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi is now indirectly connected to Beitar Jerusalem, a popular Israeli soccer team whose fans have been repeatedly accused of racism.Singapore takes public menorah lighting to next level
Here’s how that works: Messi is the brand ambassador for Sirin Labs, a tech company founded by Moshe Hogeg. Hogeg also bought Beitar Jerusalem this year. Last week, Messi became the poster boy for Finney, a “blockchain smartphone” produced by Sirin Labs that comes embedded with a wallet for cryptocurrency.
Messi, who plays professionally for the Spanish team FC Barcelona, is a five-time winner of the FIFA Ballon D’Or prize, which goes to the best soccer player in the world.
At an event this week, Hogeg presented Messi with a membership card for the Beitar Jerusalem fan club at an event promoting the Finney smartphone in Barcelona.
Jewish law instructs that the menorah should be lit somewhere many can see it in order to publicize the miracle during Hanukkah.
Challenge accepted, Singapore said.
At an event welcoming Nati Rom, the founder of the Lev HaOlam organization, Local residents invited him to attend a moving gesture that they prepared; a massive lit up menorah, that was attached to a kite by large chains in the form of "Jacob's Ladder". and flew it high into the sky.
“The gesture of the citizens from Singapore for Hanukkah has excited me personally and is directed towards the entire people of Israel. We have emissaries of the Prophets abroad, and like the Hanukkah candles we must transmit the light and increase it more and more,” Rom said.
Lev HaOlam is an organization aimed at counteracting the BDS movement by sending West Bank products to global communities. Rom lectures around the world and is currently visiting Singapore and the Philippines.
“I hope that with more efforts, we will be able to recruit even more citizens abroad who oppose the boycott and actively support Israel,” Rom said.
Netanyahu, Friedman Light Hannukah Menorah at Western Wall
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, along with Israeli soldiers, lit the menorah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Thursday to commemorate the fifth night of Hanukkah.
“There is a great victory here: The great persistence and continuity of our people, which overcomes all rules of history by the power of our faith and our will. Today, we are celebrating 70 years since the revival of the State of Israel,” said the prime minister.
“The power of this spirit finds expression across the world in the rising status of Israel, in the special strength that emanates from here throughout the Middle East, Arab and Muslim states, here in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia and in other places, that want our proximity, our peace and relations with us,” he added.
The ceremony preceded the United Nations rejecting a resolution to condemn Hamas for launching more than 450 rockets from Gaza into civilian areas in Israel, in addition to its continued building of tunnels to infiltrate and attack the Jewish state.
U.S. Ambassador Friedman: Moving Embassy to Jerusalem Resonated around the World
US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital exactly a year ago has resonated throughout the world and has led to enhanced respect both for Israel and the United States, US ambassador David Friedman said on Thursday.One year on, Trump cheered for embassy move at White House Hanukkah party
Friedman, at a Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony at the Western Wall with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Trump’s decision – made on December 6, 2017, and followed up in May with the move of the embassy – showed the world that the US “stands with its allies” and “does not flinch from its enemies.”
In addition, he said, the move showed that the US “no longer embraces a policy born of wishful thinking, but rather follows a policy based upon truth.”
Friedman added that many parts of the world now see Israel through a new lens as well, “as diplomatic and strategic relationships that were unthinkable a decade ago are emerging in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America and elsewhere.”
Friedman asserted that Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was the “most significant political victory since the recognition of the State of Israel by president Harry Truman on May 14, 1948.”
Today, Friedman said, “we celebrate the president’s courageous act, we celebrate the festival of Hanukkah, and we celebrate the city of Jerusalem, which under Israeli sovereignty has become – perhaps for the first time in its long history – an open city in which all religions may come to worship in peace.”
The father of a Florida school shooting victim helped the White House celebrate Hanukkah on Thursday and lauded Donald Trump as a “fighter” who has “retaken Washington for the American people,” as the US president was hailed for deciding to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem a year earlier.Donald Trump Welcomes Holocaust Survivors to White House Hanukkah Party
Trump said the menorah was being lit in the East Room in memory of 18-year-old Meadow Pollack “and all of the precious lives stolen from us this year, and we will pledge our resolve to confront hatred and violence in all of its evil forms.”
Meadow was among 17 people killed in a February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. A 17-year-old student has been charged in the Valentine’s Day massacre.
The audience, which included Israeli envoy Ron Dermer and casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, erupted into cheers when Trump mentioned his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and, earlier this year, to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Trump announced the decision exactly a year earlier, on December 6, 2017, breaking with decades of US policy, and drawing vociferous protests from around the world. He is routinely cheered when mentioning the embassy move, which actually took place on May 14, during speeches in the US heartland.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador David Friedman marked the anniversary during a candle-lighting ceremony at the Western Wall.
“President Trump, in a brave and real move, recognized what we know has existed here not only since the days of the Maccabees, but since the days of King David, 800 years earlier,” Netanyahu said. “In the recognition of Jerusalem, of our heritage and the link that no other people and no other city have, President Trump simply spoke the truth, and truth is the basis for everything and the basis for peace.”
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcomed guests at the White House to celebrate Hanukkah on Thursday, including eight Holocaust survivors.
Trump recalled the history behind the Hanukkah feast day, telling the story of the Maccabees that rebelled against tyranny and recaptured the temple.
He called up the survivors of the Holocaust to join him at the front of the room. The names of the survivors were Sara Censor, Bertha Einhorn, David Einhorn, Ethel Flam, Gita Landau, Dolly Rabinowitz, Ruth Salamon, and Zahava Ungar, according to the White House.
“Each of you has endured evil beyond description,” Trump said, praising them for bearing witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. “Today and every day we renew our solemn pledge. Never again.”
Other guests included Congressman Lee Zeldin, Governor-elect of Colorado Jarid Polis, and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen also attended the ceremony.
“Throughout history, the Jewish people have suffered unthinkable repression and terrible violence, yet in the face of his hardship, the Jewish people have endured, overcome and thrived,” Trump said.
He recalled the October shooting at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburg, again recognizing the victims and praised the congregation who stood against the hate exhibited by the shooter.
Trump vowed to combat anti-Semitism everywhere in the world.
“We must stamp out this vile hatred from the world,” he said.
Thank you President @realdonaldtrump for inviting our precious Holocaust survivors to the @WhiteHouse, honoring them, and establishing for all to see what America stands for. pic.twitter.com/CbWQkpyfF5
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) December 7, 2018
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