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Tuesday, July 21, 2020

07/21 Links Pt2: Amar’e Stoudemire offers to bridge the gap between Blacks and Jews; Oxford optimism: In early test, UK coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response

From Ian:
Amar’e Stoudemire offers to bridge the gap between Blacks and Jews
Former NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire said there is a “lack of leadership” in the Black community that has led to expressions of anti-Semitism, and he has offered to bridge the gap between Jews and Blacks.

Stoudemire, who lives and plays professionally in Israel for Maccabi Tel Aviv, was reacting to a number of recent antisemitic social media posts by Black sports figures and celebrities.

He told the TMZ website that the Black community needs an education.

“I do think, I know with me being in the position where I am where being an African-American Jew who’s learning at a high level, I think there’s a narrative shift that’s happening,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to now, you know, teach the next generation on, you know, positivity.”

Stoudemire said that due to the leadership vacuum, many Black people have turned to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for inspiration. Farrakhan has a long history of antisemitic comments, including comparing Jews to termites and denouncing what he calls the “Synagogue of Satan,” and has praised Adolf Hitler.

In January, Stoudemire in an Instagram post called for an end to antisemitism among Blacks in response to a stabbing attack on a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, days earlier during a Hanukkah celebration.


Oxford optimism: In early test, UK coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response
Scientists at Oxford University say their experimental coronavirus vaccine has been shown in an early trial to prompt a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.

British researchers first began testing the vaccine in April in about 1,000 people, half of whom got the experimental vaccine. Such early trials are usually designed only to evaluate safety, but in this case experts were also looking to see what kind of immune response was provoked.

In research published Monday in the journal Lancet, scientists said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55.

“We are seeing good immune response in almost everybody,” said Dr. Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. “What this vaccine does particularly well is trigger both arms of the immune system,” he said.

Hill said that neutralizing antibodies are produced — molecules which are key to blocking infection. In addition, the vaccine also causes a reaction in the body’s T-cells which help to fight off the coronavirus.

He said that larger trials evaluating the vaccine’s effectiveness, involving about 10,000 people in the UK as well as participants in South Africa and Brazil are still underway. Another big trial is slated to start in the US soon, aiming to enroll about 30,000 people.



What 1,000 top US cops have learned in Israel, and why it’s controversial
What the trip participants bring home

The delegations do broach uncomfortable topics, organizers say. When it comes to racial profiling, for example, the Georgia State program’s Friedmann said, “We receive briefings based on the policies,” and that participants learn about the process for filing complaints.

“What’s important is not to suggest that Israel is a perfect society,” he said. “But it is a society based on the rule of law, and if an officer is behaving egregiously, it will be handled.”

Similarly, Selim said, the ADL trips naturally discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including on its visits to Palestinian police in the West Bank and to an Israeli border crossing. He said those portions of the trip are especially valuable for participants from border cities in the United States.

“It’s impossible to talk about policing and security in Israel without talking about the conflict,” he said. “When there are police executives from Southern California or from Texas or from Arizona, New Mexico, that have joined the delegation in the past two decades, these are in many instances border cities and border towns on the Mexican border.”

He added, “Issues of cross-border dialogue, engagement, holistic community policing in those cities is very real for them. So to see that in an international context is very helpful for a comparative sense of what works, what doesn’t.”

In addition to discussing counterterrorism, the trips also show Israel’s efforts at community policing in Arab-Israeli cities. Micky Rosenfeld, the spokesperson for the Israel Police, said the police have opened new police stations in Arab-Israeli areas and increased their efforts to recruit Arab police officers.

“The situation in America is complicated in the same way that the situation [in Israel] is also complicated,” he said. “Building an ongoing relationship with the community is something that takes time, and it has to come both from the community and law enforcement.”
Jim Clyburn compares federal officers in Portland to Nazi Gestapo
A top Democratic lawmaker compared the federal law enforcement officers who used unmarked vehicles to detain protesters in Portland, Oregon, to Nazi Germany's secret police.

Jim Clyburn, a congressman from South Carolina, warned this sort of law enforcement tactic could threaten the "preservation of the greatest democracy."

"I would really like to know who ordered those people to be there," the House majority whip said during a Monday morning interview on CNN's New Day. "The way I understand things, it seems that somebody had to be deputized by the attorney general, or some order from him, to do what they were doing. And so, I believe law enforcement of that nature should be left up to local communities and these communities. If they want help, they will then summon the federal government to intercede."

Law enforcement officials from Customs and Border Protection's Border Patrol Tactical Unit and the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group were sent to the city to protect federal property following calls from some activists to tear down statues of historical figures. Protesters, demonstrating following the death of George Floyd, began raising the alarm last week about masked and camouflaged federal officials grabbing them off the streets using unmarked vehicles.

"For all of a sudden for these people to go in there, nothing from the governor, nothing from local law enforcement, just show up with their faces covered in unmarked cars," Clyburn stated, before adding. "That kind of activity is the activity of a police state, and this president and this attorney general seem to be doing everything they possibly can to impose Gestapo activities in local communities, and that is what I have been warning about for a long time."

His comparison to the Nazis echoes what was said by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who derided the federal agents as "stormtroopers." She, along with Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, issued a statement accusing the officers of "kidnapping" Portland protesters.


Why celebrities keep quoting Louis Farrakhan — despite his antisemitism
In 2018, then-Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota was scrutinized over past ties to Farrakhan that he had since cut off. Last year, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey had to forcefully disavow any ties with Farrakhan on the presidential campaign trail. Tamika Mallory, a co-founder and leader of the Women’s March, declined to withdraw her praise of Farrakhan in 2018, leading to a backlash against her movement. And in 1994, Arsenio Hall ended his talk show in part because of widespread criticism he faced for hosting a long — and, critics said, softball — interview with Farrakhan.

Several Black commentators have called out the latest round of Farrakhan praise. In response to DeSean Jackson, NFL player Zach Banner posted an emotional video defending the Jewish community and detailing how the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting affected him — especially as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The prominent ESPN commentators Stephen A. Smith and Michael Wilbon both called out Stephen Jackson.

“He has no credibility now,” Wilbon said on his ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption” about Jackson, who was become a leading Black Lives Matter activist. NBA Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Charles Barkley have weighed in on the subject, too.

“I’m so disappointed in these men,” Barkley said in a video posted Monday. “I don’t understand how you beat hatred with more hatred.”

Jemele Hill, a columnist and former ESPN personality, wrote that the Farrakhan posts reflect a broader problem in the Black community, which she witnessed growing up.

“Stereotypical and hurtful tropes about Jews are widely accepted in the African American community,” she wrote in The Atlantic. “As a kid, I heard elders in my family say in passing that Jewish people were consumed with making money and that they ‘owned everything.'”

She added, “This also doesn’t mean that my family — or other African Americans — are more or less antisemitic than others in America, but experiencing the pain of discrimination and stereotyping didn’t prevent them from spreading harmful stereotypes about another group.”
Madonna Instagram post of Louis Farrakhan video racks up 700,000 views
In the past few weeks, several celebrities have faced a backlash for sharing statements from Louis Farrakhan.

But one star seems to have escaped notice: Madonna.

On July 4, Madonna posted a video to her Instagram account that was a trailer for a speech by Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has spouted anti-Semitic rhetoric over the years, that same day. It has since racked up 710,000 views. Madonna has more than 15 million Instagram followers.

Some of the comments on the video express surprise that Madonna, who has been an advocate for the LGBTQ community and been an enthusiastic proponent of the study of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, would boost a man with a long history of anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ statements.

“No no no no no no no this is not a voice you should be sharing,” one commenter wrote. “Much love but good god.”

Several other celebrities have defended or praised Farrakhan and echoed his anti-Semitic rhetoric over the past several weeks. They include NFL player DeSean Jackson, former NBA player turned talking head Stephen Jackson, TV star Nick Cannon, comedian Chelsea Handler and rapper and actor Ice Cube. All but Ice Cube apologized.


Kanye West suggests Israel pays African mothers $1 million per child
U.S. rapper Kanye West suggested on Sunday that Israel should fund a program offering women in Africa $1 million for every child they carry to term.

At the chaotic launch of his unlikely campaign to oust Donald Trump as president in the November election, West told an event in Charleston, South Carolina, that if he were elected president, he would keep abortion legal but suggested offering women $1 million for every child they have.

The "Yeezus" rapper then said that the plan could be carried out globally and that Israel could fund the program in Africa.

"Everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars or something in that range. We will fund it with other countries,” West said, as cited by Israel National News, "America with other continents. There are Israeli continents that do not believe in this. There are African continents that do not believe in this."

Wearing a bullet-proof jacket marked "security," West gave a rambling speech in which he claimed he had wanted his wife, Kim Kardashian, to get an abortion and that renowned American abolitionist Harriet Tubman "never actually freed the slaves."
Israel: For first time in weeks, daily virus count drops below 1,000
At least 259 people are in serious condition and 415 people have died from the disease

Israel registered fewer than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, marking the first time in weeks that the infection rate failed to reach quadruple digits.

Data released by Israel's Health Minister shows that 951 people tested positive for the contagious disease on Sunday, bringing the number of current active patients to 28,424.

At least 259 people are in serious condition and 415 people have died from the disease, the ministry added.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Finance Minister Israel Katz, and Economy Minister Amir Peretz on Monday to continue discussions over a financial rescue package aimed at stimulating the economy.

Netanyahu's initial plan was to allocate a one-time payment ranging from NIS 750 ($218) for single adults to NIS 3,000 ($875) for those with three or more children.

But after hours of negotiations, Israeli media outlets reported that Israelis with an income over NIS 640,000 ($186,000) per year, along with public sector executives who earn more than NIS 30,000 ($8,732) per month, would be excluded from the plan.

In addition, the Knesset (Israel Parliament) committee tasked with overseeing issues related to the coronavirus response continues to deliberate over lockdown measures affecting restaurants, beaches, and public spaces.
Number of corona patients in serious condition increases 3-fold in a week
The number of COVID-19 patients in Israel hospitalized in serious condition has more than trebled, rising from 187 on July 12 to 576 on Monday, of whom 78 were on ventilators, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday morning.

On June 22, the number of hospitalized corona patients listed in serious condition stood at only 44, the ministry said.

Israel's death toll from coronavirus stood at 422 as of Tuesday.

From midnight Sunday to midnight Monday, a total of 1,855 new cases were confirmed by the 27,290 corona tests carried out in that same period. The percentage of positive results continued to rise, standing at 10.2% for that 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, the Knesset Corona committee decided on Tuesday morning not to approve the government's plan to close down restaurants, but did pass the rest of the parts of the cabinet's directives.

Per Tuesday's decision, restaurants will be allowed to operate with up to 20 customers sitting inside and 30 outside.
COVID-19 Is Imperiling the Jewish Day School
Not long ago, Jewish day schools enjoyed enthusiastic growth. Some traced the surge to the panic that ensued after the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey showed that over half of American Jews were marrying non-Jews. Only seven years after the study, a New York Times story noted “a striking resurgence in Jewish education that has seen nearly 40 Jewish private schools open in New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, New Haven, Minneapolis, and Cleveland in the last six years, with many others on the way.” The Forward hailed the news as “one of the most significant trends in American Jewish life in decades.”

“These were the Clinton years,” explained Jonathan Krasner, a Brandeis professor. “This was a time when America was flush with cash—the stock market was booming and you had a long economic expansion that saw real growth in workers’ salaries. So, there was the will to build more schools—and also the way.” Philanthropists lined up to support the effort. The ethos was “if they build more schools, they will come,” said Paul Bernstein, who runs PRIZMAH, a network for Jewish day schools in North America.

Today, there are 309 non-Haredi day schools enrolling 83,000 students K-12 in the U.S. At many, enrollment is already below Clinton-era peaks. Steadily rising tuition combined with the 2008 market crash and the ensuing recession, says PRIZMAH’s Bernstein, led to closings or mergers of some Jewish day schools. In New York City, tuition ranges from $30,000 for nursery school to $48,000 for high school per year. Los Angeles’ Shalhevet High School is $33,000 per year, the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle is $27,000 a year for middle school and $19,150 for five-day pre-K. The Joseph & Florence Mandel Jewish Day School in Cleveland is $16,900 for eighth grade and $11,900 for kindergarten.

Meanwhile, demographics disfavor all but the Orthodox. “There has been tremendous population growth in the Haredi wing of the Orthodox world,” Krasner said. “Numbers in the modern Orthodox schools have stayed pretty constant. Parents today are having about the same number of kids their parents had. On the other hand … the Conservative movement has suffered serious declines in membership over the past 20 years, so it is not surprising that the numbers of children going to Conservative day schools has declined. So even if you put aside affordability—there are simply fewer Conservative kids growing up now than there were a generation ago.”

Enrollment in Conservative-movement schools dropped 45% between 1998 and 2013. At the same time, however, enrollment in community day schools, unaffiliated with any movement—like the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan and the Hannah Senesh School in Brooklyn—grew 37% between 1998 and 2013. The day-school accomplishment is deep, preparing students to be fluent in their ancient tradition and qualified for admission to elite colleges, but the numbers are still soberingly small. Only 1 in 10 non-Haredi American Jewish families sends their children to day schools.


High Court rejects claim for judicial review of Ofcom’s decision not to sanction BBC over Panorama’s Labour antisemitism investigation, leaving JVL member with £10,000 in legal costs
The High Court has rejected a challenge to Ofcom’s decision not to sanction the BBC over the Panorama investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party.

The challenge was brought by Justin Schlosberg, a senior lecturer in journalism at Birkbeck University and Jeremy Corbyn enthusiast who is reportedly a member of Jewish Voice for Labour, the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation.

After the BBC rejected complaints against Panorama’s programme titled “Is Labour Antisemitic?”, including by the Labour Party itself, some thirty Labour activists escalated their complaint against Panorama to Ofcom, the broadcaster’s regulator, which declined to sanction the BBC over the programme. (The Labour Party decided not to complain to Ofcom.)

Mr Schlosberg then pressed the High Court for judicial review of Ofcom’s decision, raising £25,000 in a crowdfunding campaign. Mr Schlosberg apparently believed that the programme had not achieved due impartiality, as required by BBC regulations, and that the show misled viewers.

However, the High Court has now ruled not only that Mr Schlosberg filed his application for judicial review too late, but that his case was “nowhere near” the evidential threshold required for his challenge to succeed.

Mr Schlosberg has apparently been ordered to pay £4,812 to Ofcom and £4,000 to the BBC to cover their respective legal costs in respect of their preparation of Acknowledgements of Service.
Second councillor quits Labour in antisemitism controversy causing Party to lose control of Brighton and Hove City Council
The Labour Group is on the brink of losing control of Brighton and Hove City Council as a second councillor has now quit the Party in an antisemitism controversy.

Yesterday, Campaign Against Antisemitism reported that three Labour councillors were facing allegations of antisemitism and considering their political futures. Cllr Kate Knight had resigned from Labour in the face of an impending investigation, Cllr Anne Pissaridou had been suspended from the Party but continued to sit with the Labour Group, and Cllr Nichole Brennan had faced no sanction from the Party.

Cllr Knight’s resignation meant that Labour was no longer the largest Party on the Council, falling from twenty members to nineteen, which was equal to the Greens who served as the Opposition. Labour consequently offered to share power with the Greens.

But now, Cllr Brennan’s resignation means that the Greens are now the largest Party and must decide whether to accept the power-sharing arrangement, let Labour continue to run the Council or seek to take administration of the Council over themselves.

Brighton and Hove City Council is the second local authority in recent weeks to change control due to antisemitism. Recently, in Crawley a Labour councillor resigned from the Party in order to defend herself against antisemitism accusations, leaving Crawley Borough Council with no overall control.


New Israel Education Platform Launches: StandWithUs TV!
StandWithUs is proud to announce the launch of a new platform for its video content – StandWithUs TV – which will include the best of its curated videos to date and new episodes of shows to be released weekly.

StandWithUs Co-Founder and CEO Roz Rothstein said: “We are so proud of this new endeavor. StandWithUs remains committed to our mission of educating and inspiring people of all ages about Israel and fighting antisemitism around the world, and that is why we’re launching StandWithUs TV. With this new platform, we will bring dynamic in-depth programming produced by our talented team that people can access from the comfort of home or office. We have high-quality content that will inform and inspire people of all ages.”

Responding to the global pandemic and with people stuck at home during lockdowns, StandWithUs quickly pivoted to increase its output of digital content, which included a hugely-successful online show called “StandWithUs Connect”. Screened live on Facebook, more than thirty shows have already been broadcast, attracting over one millions viewers.

Guests have included former British Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks and Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, former MK Einat Wilf as well as personalities from the field of journalism, politics, diplomacy and academia. Educational discussions were also screened on how the IDF is fighting COVID-19, Jewish-Black relations, combating antisemitism during the pandemic, and other topics.

StandWithUs TV will build on this foundation by bringing interesting and engaging shows to their viewers. Documentaries and productions will cover a range of topics including the history of Israel, battling antisemitism on campus, panel discussions about the conflict and more. The portal is being offered to viewers at no cost at www.standwithus.tv -all that is required is to sign up for access to all content.


New AJC anti-Semitism director: Look at my track record, not my skin or religion
At a time when Jews in the United States are being blamed for COVID-19 or for paying asylum seekers to seek refuge there, fighting anti-Semitism can sometimes feel like standing in the middle of a downpour with no umbrella.

“I would argue that today anti-Semitism is more complex than at any other point in history because all of these factors don’t just exist separately, they also exist simultaneously online,” Holly Huffnagle, the newly appointed American Jewish Committee’s US Director for Combating Antisemitism, told The Times of Israel in a recent interview.

In her new role, Huffnagle will direct the agency’s response to anti-Semitism in the US and its efforts to better protect the Jewish community.

Huffnagle, who previously served as a policy advisor to the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the US State Department, has fought against anti-Semitism since her graduate school days at Georgetown University. Yet, in spite of her resume, Huffnagle’s promotion has been met with consternation in some quarters. That’s because Huffnagle, 33, is an observant Baptist who goes to church every Sunday.

Still, she’s determined to forge ahead.

“As someone who is not Jewish, it’s hard to personally figure out my own voice in this space because I’m not the direct recipient of anti-Semitism or bigotry. However, I want to help American Jewish communities be freer. We can’t necessarily solve the problem, but we can work to make people freer from prejudice,” she said in a Zoom call from her home in Los Angeles.

Prior to her promotion Huffnagle was assistant director of AJC Los Angeles and worked as a researcher in the Mandel Center of Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
California School Boards Support Anti-Semitic Curriculum Lauding Omar, Tlaib, Sarsour
A Leftist protester in Portland recently announced that the goal of the riots that have recently swept the nation is the “abolition of the United States as we know it,” to the applause of her audience (which included not just miseducated children, but a middle-aged priest who should have known better). Rioters around the country, who are overwhelmingly young, middle-class Americans, have made abundantly clear their incandescent hatred for the United States. In the midst of all this, the California Department of Education has given us a vivid illustration of how we got here. It has developed an “Ethnic Studies” curriculum that would make Josef Goebbels proud.

The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported Thursday that “more than a dozen California school boards have adopted resolutions in support of the state’s proposed ethnic-studies model curriculum, despite it have come under fire for containing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content, and not addressing issues of anti-Semitism or including Jewish Americans.”

It’s all happening under the cover of darkness, deception, and coronavirus distraction, thanks to a group called “Save CA Ethnic Studies.” A letter to the California Department of Education (CDE) protesting the curriculum states: “School board members asked to vote on the resolution are not shown the original draft curriculum, and not informed about the enormous outpouring of criticism it engendered or that a CDE process is well underway for the curriculum’s redesign.”

The letter adds that school board members are “led to believe that in voting for the resolution they are showing support for AB-2016 and affirming the importance of ethnic studies classes in general, rather than endorsing the highly controversial draft curriculum that was condemned by dozens of state leaders and tens of thousands of Californians.”
Munther Isaac’s New Book More About Conflict than Peace
Since 2012, Lutheran Pastor and professor of theology Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac has been one of the chief organizers of Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) conferences that typically take place every even-numbered year in the West Bank. These so-called “peacemaking” conferences, which are sponsored by Bethlehem Bible College (BethBC), present Western Evangelicals with a one-sided view of conflict in the Holy Land. In the story told by CATC organizers and speakers, American Evangelicals need to dial back their support for Israel because of the way it mistreats the Palestinians in Israel and in areas under the control of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

At CATC conferences, the PA’s refusal to negotiate in good faith with Israel is not acknowledged. Palestinian Authority incitement is ignored, as is its corruption, praise for terrorism, and pay-to-slay program. Sometimes speakers will condemn Hamas and Islamic extremism in general, but criticism of the PA is off-limits, with good reason. It’s simply too risky for Palestinian Christians associated with BethBC and CATC to condemn the PA leaders who attend the conference. (They sit up front, to the left, just a few feet from the choir.)

Israel and its leaders are vilified, however. For example, Nicola Khamis, the mayor of Bethlehem, declared at the 2016 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, “Ladies and Gentlemen, it makes no sense to fight the Islamic State of Abu Bakr Baghdadi while supporting the Jewish state of Netanyahu.” Defamatory comments like this hinder the cause of peace, but they go unchallenged at CATC conferences.

At CATC conferences, Christian speakers deploy the norms of biblical conduct and international law to assess and condemn Israeli behavior but not Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim behavior. Words of forgiveness and reconciliation are bandied about at CATC conferences, which open with a rendition of the Palestinian national anthem, the lyrics of which include two references to a “vendetta.”

The overall effect of CATC conferences is to promote the cause of Palestinian self-determination while obscuring the Palestinian refusal to acknowledge the Jewish claim to the same right. These conferences also promote the notion that the proper Christian response to violence in the Holy Land is to condemn Israel while downplaying the role Palestinian leaders play in prolonging the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the suffering it causes.


Guardian jumps on the anti-Zionist bandwagon
Though he lays out the limited autonomy that these federal units (some majority Jewish and some majority Palestinian) will enjoy, Moor doesn’t explain who will protect Jews in who live in the Palestinian majority West Bank unit. Nor does he explain why he thinks Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza unit will lay down arms and decide to live peacefully with Jews who they’ve continually threatened to slaughter.

Interestingly, he touched on this issue in a 2010 Mondoweiss post, where he wrote that each federal unit will have it’s own militia. That’s right: so, Jews living in a Palestinian majority West Bank district will be ‘protected’ by a Palestinian militia, and Hamas – yes, Hamas – will be part of Gaza’s armed militia. But, of course, to assume that Hamas wouldn’t use their arms – and additional weaponry they’d likely import from Iran and other friendly states – against the Jewish majority federal districts is risible.

And, herein lies one of the many fatal flaws in the arguments of those, like Beinart and Moor, who argue for a one-state future: It doesn’t even minimally address why they think why even average Palestinians – 93% of whom according to polls are antisemitic – yet alone heavily armed terror groups, will lay aside their extreme animosity and live in peace and harmony with the Jewish minority.

Such thinking isn’t merely Utopian, but delusional: especially in it’s belief millions of Jews will voluntarily trade-in the prosperity and safety of a state that allows the Jewish expression and culture to flourish like it can nowhere else in the world for the faint hope that they’ll be a tolerated minority in a majority Palestinian state.

The fact that the Guardian – which always insisted it supported two states – is now promoting such lunacy is arguably an indication that, in their eyes, its endorsement by Beinart has rendered the anti-Zionist ‘solution’ more intellectually acceptable – the values and existential fears of the overwhelming majority of the world’s Jews be damned!
The Bell Tolls Vile Cartoonist Finally Dropped by The Guardian
Beyond the pale…even for The Guardian

Despite having a wretched reputation when it comes to Israel, even The Guardian found Bell’s work beyond the pale from time to time.

In June 2018, the paper refused to run a deeply problematic cartoon that editors said evoked “antisemitic tropes.” That cartoon featured prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Theresa May as Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar burns in the fireplace behind them. Najjar was killed by an Israeli soldier during violent clashes at the Gaza border.

In an email sent to all journalists at the paper, Bell declared he felt “unfairly traduced and censored” and accused Guardian editor Kath Viner of “not really having an argument” for refusing to publish the cartoon. It’s worth noting how uncomfortably close this cartoon came to visually conflating the mass murder of European Jews during the Holocaust and the current situation in Gaza.

And another scrapped cartoon in July 2019 characterized Labour deputy leader Tom Watson as an “antisemite finder general” for criticizing Jew-hatred in the party. Context is critical here: Bell’s cartoon was inked at a time when the UK Labour party was repeatedly found to be hosting individuals who spewed antisemitic vitriol and an obsessive hatred of Israel.

With a record of repeatedly straying into antisemitic territory and fueling hatred of Israel, the only real question is: Why did the bell for Bell not toll long, long ago?
Suspect in Yom Kippur shooting could serve life in prison
A man suspected of attacking a synagogue in Halle, Germany and killing two people during a shooting rampage outside the house of worship last Yom Kippur faces life in prison, prosecutors said on Monday.

The suspect, identified as Stephan B., is accused of murder on two counts and attempted murder in nine cases, prosecutors told reporters ahead of the trial, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday.

The prosecutors added that the suspect had confessed to the crimes during their investigations.

After failing to enter the synagogue, the suspect fatally shot a woman passing by and a man inside a nearby kebab shop. The attacker live-streamed his attack.

Interior Minster Horst Seehofer said in May that the number of anti-Semitic crimes committed in Germany rose by 13% last year, laying the blame on right-wing radicals.
French far-left leader accuses Jews of responsibility for Jesus’s death
A far-left French politician accused Jews of deicide, or being responsible for the death of Jesus, during a television interview.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the founder of the democratic socialist La France Insoumise, or Unsubmissive France party, and a member of the National Assembly, made the remarks on Thursday in an interview on the French BFM-RTL TV news channel.

Asked if the French police were supposed to stand back in the face of violent protest, Melenchon responded that they needed to “stay put like Jesus on the cross without reacting.” He added that “I don’t know if Jesus was on a cross, but he was apparently put there by his own people,” he said, meaning Jews.

The Wiesenthal Center director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, said that “the repeated accusation of deicide — throughout the Middle Ages — resulted in pogroms, torture and execution of Jewish communities. Its imagery fueled violence across Europe, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust.”

He noted that the accusations were condemned by the papal encyclical Nostra Aetate in 1965.

“Apparently, Melenchon didn’t get the memo,” Samuels said.
Neo-Nazi Thugs Parade Through Pennsylvania City Waving Swastikas and Yelling Expletives
Screaming anti-gay, antisemitic and anti-black invective, about two dozen members of an American neo-Nazi organization marched through the streets of a central Pennsylvania city last weekend.

According to local media reports, the neo-Nazi thugs were largely unchallenged as they paraded through Williamsport.

Under the banner of an organization calling itself the “National Socialist Movement” (NSM), the marchers wore swastika armbands and carried flags bearing the Nazi symbol.

Photographs of the demonstration showed the marchers clad in ill-fitting black uniforms, in a clumsy attempt to approximate the image of the SS in Nazi Germany. Several of them wielded semi-automatic rifles as well.

At a rally in the city’s Brandon Park, speakers engaged in a stream of racist, antisemitic and homophobic rhetoric.

Derek Slaughter, the African American mayor of Williamsport, was denounced with the use of the N-word by one megaphone-wielding marcher, while residents of the city were denigrated as “N… lovers” by other speakers.
Argentine MP suggests a 'day of remembrance' for victims of the Holocaust
Argentine-Jewish MP Waldo Wolff, in collaboration with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, drafted a bill that would declare July 15 a "Day of Remembrance Against Impunity for War Criminals, Crimes Against Humanity and Remembrance of their Victims."

The day would be accompanied by events and memorials all across Argentina, honoring the victims of the Holocaust, according to the center.

After the events of World War II, many Nazi war criminals took refuge in Argentina under the rule of Juan Perón.

Wolff noted that Argentina gave asylum to at least 180 war criminals who were “suspected, accused, tried and/or sentenced" after World War II, according to the Jewish Chronicle.

The safe haven became home to Adolf Eichmann, who helped orchestrate the mass extermination of European Jewry during the Holocaust, as well as Auschwitz doctors Josef Mengele and Eduard Roschmann.

Eichmann was abducted and captured by the Israeli Mossad in May 1960 while taking refuge in Argentina. He later became the only person in Israel's history to be executed by the state.
Chevron purchase of Noble makes it 1st major oil company to enter Israel
Chevron Corporation said on Monday it would buy oil and gas producer Noble Energy for about $5 billion in stock, the first big energy deal since the coronavirus crisis crushed global fuel demand and sent crude prices to historic lows.

The deal makes Chevron the first major oil company to enter Israel. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth told Reuters: "We certainly are mindful of the fact that there are political differences and tensions" between Israel and neighbors where Chevron also has business, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the Kurdish region of Iraq.

He said Chevron was "apolitical" and "a commercial actor" in the region. "We engage with all of our different stakeholders as we go through something like this," Wirth said, declining to detail the timing of discussions with partner governments.

Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz called the deal "a tremendous expression of confidence in the Israeli energy market."

The Israeli assets "will rebalance the portfolio towards gas and provide a springboard" in the region, said Tom Ellacott, senior vice president at Wood Mackenzie.

The purchase boosts Chevron's investments in US oil shale and gives it Noble's flagship Leviathan field off the shore of Israel, the largest natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean.

Oil companies are under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. Gas is seen as a cleaner-burning fuel.
Startup gets 2.5 million euro EU grant for nanotech-based respiratory device
Israel medical startup NanoVation has received a 2.5 million euro grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator program to help develop a new nano-material-based sensor that can warn of worsening respiratory conditions.

The Haifa based company is developing the new respiratory monitoring device, based on the nano-sensor technology developed by Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology.

The device seeks to monitor and manage patients with various respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a lung disease characterized by long-term breathing problems and poor airflow. The disease is the third leading cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization.

The grant will allow NanoVation to further develop and commercialize its “SenseGuard” product, to monitor patients at hospitals and at home, in real time and non-invasively, the company said.

SenseGuard is a wireless wearable medical device for continuous monitoring of patients’ breathing, based on information collected by the sensor, which detects various respiratory parameters like respiratory rate, apnea and breath volume, and translates these into clinical information and raises the alarm before the patient reaches a critical point.
Czech-Israel Cooperation Saving Lives and Making Money
The Czech Republic may not be Israel’s largest trade partner in Europe, not to mention the world. But with trade volume consistently on the rise over the past decade, crossing the $1 billion mark in imports to Israel in 2017, and history of friendly relations, it is clear it can not and should not be ignored.

This year marked 30 years since the renewal of diplomatic relations between the countries following the fall of the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia. The Czech political leadership is one of the friendliest towards Israel within the EU and cooperation is active in various fields including culture, education, research, medicine, defense, and of course trade. According to the data recorded by the Czech Statistical Office, for the past six years Israel is one of the Czech Republic’s top-5 most important non-European export destinations measured by trade volumes.

“Since more than 80% of the Czech annual export goes to the EU market, we appreciate this opportunity for a territorial diversification of our exports,” Nela Brádleová, Foreign Trade Specialist at the Czech Embassy in Tel Aviv told CTech. “In this sense, we perceive Israel, a leading economy in the region, as a market of strategic importance and our embassy provides support for Czech businesses aiming to expand their activities in the local market.”

Brádleová believes that due to the Czech Republic’s favorable location in the middle of Europe and the friendly attitude of the political leadership towards Israel, the country can serve as a gateway to the “Old Continent.” But its geography isn’t its only advantage.
Memoir unveils double lives of Jews living incognito in fanatical Islamic Iran
When Esther Amini was a girl, her father would intercept her mail before it hit the ground as the postman dropped it through the slot. It was only one of many examples of her father’s infuriating, extreme overprotectiveness.

It took decades for Amini to fully understand that the origins of her father’s odd behavior were not rooted in her native New York, but in the soil of faraway Mashhad, Iran. In Mashhad, her parents’ families had survived for centuries by hiding their true identity — and being suspicious of anyone outside the Jewish community.

Amini, a writer, painter, and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, confronts her problematic family history and its consequences in a new memoir titled “Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America.” The book is the poignant tale of a mid-20th century modern, Western child of immigrant parents who can’t escape the trauma of their Middle Eastern past.

The painful saga of the Mashhadi Jews, who were forced to practice Judaism in secret, is less documented than the well-known history of conversos, or crypto-Jews, who outwardly converted to Christianity to avoid death or expulsion during the Spanish Inquisition.

Mashhad is Iran’s second most populous city and the home of many of the country’s most sacred sites. Because of the fanatical brand of Islam dictated by the local imams and mullahs, for centuries, Jews living there had to go underground.

In Mashhad, Jews dressed and and acted as Muslims in public while privately practicing the Jewish religion. Although the Jewish community — which lived in a ghetto — was an open secret, they were still under constant threat of violence, which would suddenly break out in pogrom-like fashion from time to time.

The intergenerational transmission of the social and psychological impact of this dual identity is the crux of Amini’s memoir. Although her parents escaped Iran (via Afghanistan and India) and arrived in the US shortly after World War II, they never really left Mashhad behind. The grueling life circumstances of that city shaped the way they lived and how they raised their two Iranian-born sons and Amini, their only American-born child.

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