Friday, February 05, 2021
The Flames of Anti-Semitism Are Growing Higher, Fueled by Both the Left and Right
The idea of “white privilege”—unfair, all-encompassing advantages inherent to white people at the expense of others—has been gaining currency for years in universities, media, and as part of the official curricula in government bureaucracies and corporate HR departments. But the notion of “white privilege” became even more prominent and widespread during the 2020 summer of protest—including among many liberal Jews, whose worldview is influenced by publications like The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and other elite institutions that have endorsed progressive dogmas of racial guilt. Branching off from the white privilege discourse, the hashtag #JewishPrivilege trended on social media in mid-June, attempting to cast Jews as the most powerful and oppressive of all peoples. The hashtag may have originated with far-right groups but it quickly insinuated itself into the far left, pointing to a cross-ideological obsession with Jews as all powerful agents of injustice and shadowy manipulators of global affairs.
Back Lives Matter-inspired protests also served as backdrop for the destruction of Jewish property and violent anti-Semitism. On May 30, rioters spray painted “fuck Israel” on Congregation Beth Israel in Los Angeles, where “protesters” targeted Jewish businesses with anti-Semitic graffiti and looting. It was too easy for groups with an anti-Jewish agenda—the hard left, Nation of Islam, and others—to make common cause with protesters, who accepted Israel and the Jews as another embodiment of the systemic subjugation they were trying to destroy.
Vivid examples were provided by the July anti-Israel “Day of Rage” protests across 35 cities, which rode on the powerful momentum of BLM. Ostensibly aimed at Israeli territorial policies, Day of Rage rally leaders, like the Harvard student who led one in Washington D.C., proclaimed the Palestinian movement to be “intrinsically tied to Black Lives Matter.” Hordes alternated chanting support for BLM and condemnation of Israel for child murder. At rallies in Brooklyn, chants of “Black lives matter” intertwined with “Death to Israel!” Building on the trendy anti-police sentiment, a protester with a microphone received wild cheers for: “When I saw that precinct burn, I felt closer to a free Palestine!”
The ideological fervor that mixed hostility to American law enforcement with vitriol toward Israel—as if they were two parts of a single system—was especially acute on American campuses. At the University of Southern California in June, students motivated by George Floyd’s death led a campaign of anti-Semitic abuse against the student council vice president, Rose Ritch, for her basic support of Israel. It started when the council was chided for insufficient diversity among its leadership. Its president immediately posted on Instagram that he recognized he was a “person of privilege,” inviting fellow students to educate him about race, and announcing greater outreach to diverse student groups. When Ritch did not individually respond, she was charged with being “outspoken on issues that alienate Palestinian Trojans.” This unexplained accusation was enough to incite a push for her impeachment and a barrage of abuse. Ritch feared for her own safety and ultimately resigned from the student council.
According to Yael Lerman, legal director for the pro-Israel group StandWithUs: “Since the protests started in the spring and summer, we’ve seen a one-third increase in reported instances of campus anti-Semitism.” The already alarming rise in online anti-Semitic attacks on high schoolers also appeared to increase this summer, said Lerman. The spike was largely driven by threats and hate comments on TikTok and Instagram, which Lerman tracks through reports sent to her organization by targeted students.
Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader and aging icon of American anti-Semitism, delivered a highly anticipated Independence Day speech—his “message to America”—in which he described Jews as “Satan” and the “enemy of God” and threatened Jews with their potential destruction.
Nick Cohen: Why Jews don’t count to the ‘anti-racists’
David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count is out this week; a piercing 28,000-word essay that throws you back to the age of pamphlet wars. His central and unanswerable contention is that, in a time of identity politics, when every persecuted minority is listened to, there is one ethnic minority large numbers of progressives do not want to hear from: Jews, one of the most persecuted minorities in history. Baddiel builds his argument by weaving in examples so skilfully all but the most bigoted reader has to accept he has a case. A few are familiar. The people on the UK left who stuck with Jeremy Corbyn after he defended a mural showing hook-nosed capitalists, that might have come straight out of Nazi Germany. But many are drawn from a world that is unfamiliar, to me at any rate. I never knew, for instance, that Alice Walker, author of the idolised novel, The Colour Purple, took the time and trouble in 2017 to sit down and write a poem bubbling with hate entitled ‘To Study The Talmud’.The Tamimi scandal on-air apology delivered to BBC Arabic's Trending viewers by the show's presenter
“Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not onlyIt was grotesque. But the idea that an African-American author could ever be cancelled for racism against Jews remains unthinkable to right-thinking people, even though Walker went on to endorse the works of David Icke, whose anti-vax lies could incidentally lead to the deaths of, among others, a disproportionately high number of black people suffering from Covid-19. In 2019, a musical version of the Colour Purple came to the UK. There was a hell of a fuss because Seyi Omooba, one of the cast, had once written an anti-gay post. The producers fired her, of course. Omooba’s prejudice was unforgivable, while Walker’s was, if not quite forgivable, then a matter of no consequence.
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
They tolerate the revival of medieval hatreds because they think all Jews are rich – itself a throwback to the Nazi and Communist stereotype of the Jew as banker and the medieval stereotype of the Jew as usurer. ‘Anti-Semitism, at this point in history, is primarily experienced as prejudice and hostility towards Jews as Jews, largely without aspects of material dispossession (such as structural unemployment) that manifest in other forms of racism,’ explained the communist writer Ash Sarkar, who had the grace to go on to criticise the 'left’s lack of literacy' on anti-Semitism.
Too many on the left think that Jews are rich and white therefore we should not worry overmuch about them. Except that not all Jews are rich or white. And even if they were, their richness and whiteness does not spare them from violence and murder.
For background, see yesterday's post: "04-Feb-21: The BBC is sorry they showcased a terrorist. But do they actually grasp the problem?"
The translation of the Arabic that follows (unedited, unchanged) was provided to us by BBC management. The speaker is BBC Arabic’s Rania ‘Attar; one of Trending’s regular presenters.
On 8 October, BBC Arabic’s Trending programme item on social media reactions to a phone call made by Ahlam Tamimi to a Jordanian radio station. Trending then broadcast a short clip recorded with Tamimi.
This item was in breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines. Tamimi was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to multiple life sentences in Israel for an attack that killed 15 civilians including eight children, she is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list and is a member of an organisation proscribed by the UK and several international governments.
Therefore, any contact with her should have been approved in advance by senior editors in the BBC, as per our editorial guidelines. That approval was not sought and would certainly not have been given.
This item should not have been shown. It was a clear breach of our editorial guidelines and we apologise for it.
The BBC video clip is published here with the express permission of BBC management.
Our additional comments will be posted here in the coming hours.
ICC has jurisdiction to probe Israel, Hamas for war crimes, pretrial judges rule
In a major decision released Friday, a pretrial chamber of the International Criminal Court determined that The Hague has jurisdiction to open criminal probes against Israel and the Palestinians for war crimes alleged to have taken place in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.PodCast: California’s Jesse Gabriel weighs in on the ethnic studies controversy
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the ruling: “Today the ICC proved once again that it is a political body and not a judicial institution,” he said. “The ICC ignores the real war crimes and instead pursues the State of Israel, a state with a strong democratic government that sanctifies the rule of law, and is not a member of the ICC.
“In this decision,” Netanyahu added, “the ICC violated the right of democracies to defend themselves against terrorism, and played into the hands of those who undermine efforts to expand the circle of peace. We will continue to protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution.”
The Palestinian Authority’s Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, by contrast, called the decision “a victory for truth, justice, freedom and moral values in the world.”
As for the US, State Department spokesman Ned Price said his office was still reviewing the decision. However, he clarified that the Biden administration has “serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personel.”
“We have always taken a position that the court’s jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to or that are referred to by the UN Security Council,” he added, hinting US opposition to the decision, given that Israel is not a member of the ICC.
ICC chief prosecutor Fatouh Bensouda indicated in 2019 that a criminal investigation, if approved, would focus on the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict (Operation Protective Edge), on Israeli settlement policy and on the Israeli response to protests at the Gaza border.
On this week’s episode of Jewish Insider’s Limited Liability Podcast, hosts Jarrod Bernstein and Rich Goldberg are joined by California State Assembly Majority Whip and Chair of the California Jewish Caucus Jesse Gabriel and JI’s Melissa Weiss to discuss the recent controversy around the California ethnic studies curriculum.
Making progress: “This is not a new issue for us here in California, this is something that first came to our attention, really in 2019,” said Gabriel of the controversial curriculum, which is now in its third draft. “The first draft had some really noxious and bigoted and inappropriate stuff in it… so it really caught our community off guard… and so our caucus pushed back really, really strongly,” he said. “And since then we’ve made a lot of progress, and things have gone in a much more positive direction… thanks to a lot of really good work by advocacy organizations in the Jewish community.”
Looking abroad: Gabriel also weighed in on the role that states, particularly large states like California, can have in foreign policy. “I do think states have a really important role to play here,” he said, referencing the state’s pension investments as well as an anti-BDS law passed in California in 2016. “A better way to do this is to just actually strengthen relations between California and Israel and do things that are positive… let’s focus on all the great things that Israel is doing and all the benefits to the people of the state of California and the United States of America from strengthened relations,” he said, pointing to a memorandum of understanding signed in 2014, as well as cooperation “on wildfires and water and clean tech and other things that are really important to both states.”
WATCH: Can You Criticize Jewish Billionaire George Soros Without Being Labeled an Antisemite?
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) February 4, 2021
With everything going on around @mtgreenee's indulgence in antisemitic conspiracy theories it pays to listen and learn how to criticize ANY billionaire without invoking their religion: pic.twitter.com/urUSnQnl5d
When Ilhan Omar continuously made anti-Semitic comments about Israel, Nancy Pelosi swept it under the rug and suggested that they “move forward.” Why wasn’t she removed from her role on a committee that helps set US policy toward Israel? pic.twitter.com/9fYoz6xa92
— Mario Diaz-Balart (@MarioDB) February 4, 2021
Baroness Tonge to step down from the House of Lords
Anti-Israel peer Baroness Jenny Tonge is to step down from the House of Lords on 19 February.Disgraced Baroness Tonge announces intention to step down from House of Lords
The politician who resigned from the Liberal Democrats after being suspended for comments deemed to be antisemitic, said she will however continue her activism for Palestinians.
Speaking to Jewish News, she said: “I have always promised myself and my family that I would retire when I am 80 years old which is in mid- February. I informed the authorities some months ago.”
Indeed I think many of us should retire from the Chamber at my age—there are far too many people in the Lords.”
However, I shall continue to campaign for justice for the people of Palestine.”
Tonge faced criticism in March 2020 after saying politicians must “not allow our country to fall under the shadow of the United States of America and its puppet master, Israel”.
Shortly after the General Election in 2019, almost 90 peers urged her to apologise, after she claimed the Chief Rabbi “must be dancing in the street” after the General Election, which was won by “the pro-Israel lobby”.
Baroness Tonge has repeatedly courted controversy which has led to her being suspended by her former party, the Liberal Democrats, investigated by the Commissioner for Standards in the House of Lords, and forced to stand down as patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
She has been criticised for sharing an article about “Jewish power”, and for claiming that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was a “major cause” of jihadism and Islamic State. After 11 people were killed at The Tree of Life Congregation in the US, she appeared to blame Israel for a rise in antisemitism.
Baroness Tonge was suspended from the Liberal Democrats before eventually resigning, has a long history of Jew-baiting, denouncing Campaign Against Antisemitism, suggesting that the antisemitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue might be Israel’s fault, blaming Israel for a rise in antisemitism, and sharing a cartoon comparing Israel’s policies to those of the Nazis, which is a breach of the International Definition.Chair of Labour in Newham to be investigated over alleged antisemitism just days after his deputy is suspended over alleged antisemitic social media activity
In December 2019, Campaign Against Antisemitism joined 88 members of the House of Lords in condemning remarks on Facebook by Baroness Tonge following the general election, in which she commented: “The Chief Rabbi must be dancing in the street. The pro-Israel lobby won our General Election by lying about Jeremy Corbyn.”
In 2020, Lord Pickles called for reform in the House of Lords after Baroness Tonge called Israel America’s “puppet master” and received no sanction.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is shameful that Baroness Tonge has been permitted to remain in the legislature for so long and is now retiring of her own accord. She should have been stripped of her position and honours long ago. Every day she sat in the House of Lords was a stain on our democracy.”
The chair of Labour in Newham in London is reportedly to be investigated over alleged antisemitism, just days after his deputy was suspended over alleged antisemitic social media activity.Tory hopeful tweets 'keep the Aryan race going' on Jewish Cheshire MP's thread
Cllr Mushtaq Mughal, who chairs the Labour Group, is reportedly being investigated over social media posts. He reportedly posted on social media a video from the fringe and controversial Neturei Karta group with the caption: “Israel is govern by Zyonist not by Jews revealed by Jewish Rabbi [sic]”.
In another post he wrote: “Real Islam & real Judaism together can bring peace in the world. Israel is not Jewish state & it’s acts against God, Said jewel in USA [sic]”. The posts go back to 2016 and 2014.
The launch of the investigation comes shortly after the Deputy Chair of Labour in Newham was suspended over social media posts, including the same antisemitic post as that shared by Naz Shah MP several years ago. Cllr Nazir Ahmed shared a post in December 2017 with an image situating Israel in the middle of the United States and calling for the relocation of Israel to America. This was the same post for which Ms Shah apologised and was suspended from the Labour Party in 2016. Cllr Ahmed described the image as an “easy solution for Israel Palestine conflict!”
In another Facebook post, from 2014, Cllr Ahmed shared a video that asked whether “Israel have USA in the pocket [sic]”.
A Tory borough council candidate will no longer be standing for the party in the election after a ‘truly terrifying’ tweet to Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols.UCSB Passes IHRA Resolution
Labour’s Ms Nichols, who is Jewish, has posted a screenshot of the tweet from last year.
In a reply to a tweet from the MP, Sharon Thomason said: “Keep the Aryan race going…”
The Nazis believed Aryans were the master race and that other groups were inferior and a threat to the Aryan race.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust during the Nazi regime.
In a tweet, Ms Nichols said: “This far right troll is Sharon Thomason, who Warrington Conservatives have selected as their council candidate for Great Sankey North and Whittle Hall – if you wanted a feel for the calibre of candidates they’re selecting locally.”
UC Santa Barbara’s (UCSB) student senate unanimously passed a resolution on February 3 adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Students Supporting Israel (SSI) at UCSB announced the passage of the resolution in a Facebook post, noting that this makes UCSB the first UC school to pass such a resolution.
“It took long hours of writing and negotiations but in the end it worked out and the IHRA definition of antisemitism passed unanimously,” SSI at UCSB Co-President Harrison Kerdman said in a statement. “This gives our community such an important tool to protect ourselves from both classical as well as contemporary antisemitism.”
Rabbi Evan Goodman, executive director of Santa Barbara Hillel, said in a statement to the Journal, “We are thankful that the UC Santa Barbara Student Senate unanimously adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. I’m proud that our remarkable Hillel staff convened Jewish student leaders spanning many different organizations — encompassing varying perspectives, backgrounds, and interests — so our community could speak with a unified voice. We know that antisemitism has taken on pernicious new forms in recent years, and we believe this definition is a first step in addressing this issue.
“As always, Santa Barbara Hillel is proactive in standing up for our students, building bridges, and fostering a positive campus climate.”
1904 - Boycotting the Jews of Limerick, Ireland
— David Collier (@mishtal) February 5, 2021
'they are not boycotted because they are Jewish, but because they are usurers'
2021 - BDS
'we don't boycott them because they are Jewish, but because they are Zionists.'
There is nothing in today's #antisemitism that is new.
Northwestern scientist who wrote anti-Semitic, racist tweets dies by suicide
A Northwestern University neuroscientist who caused controversy with a series of racist, misogynist and anti-Semitic posts he wrote on social media has died by suicide.Record Number of Complaints Flood in Over Norwegian Radio Host’s Antisemitic Tirade Against COVID-19 Vaccine in Israel
Bart van Alphen, a postdoctoral fellow who studied sleep patterns, appears to have maintained multiple social media accounts under the name @The_Dr_Caveman that denigrated women, echoed far-right slurs and repeatedly called for the death and deportation of protesters, nonwhite immigrants and politicians whose views he opposed.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death Tuesday a suicide, according to the Daily Northwestern, which provided no further details.
Van Alphen also maintained a social media account under his own name that was seemingly devoid of explicitly racist content. That Twitter account has been deleted. So has the @The_Dr_Caveman Twitter account, though an account under the name @Dr_Caveman on the social media platform Gab, which is popular with the far right, remains active and is peppered with racist slurs and threats. The bio for that account reads “Neuroscientists for Trump!”
Van Alphen’s racist social media accounts were first exposed in October, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Northwestern was aware of van Alphen’s posts, but appears not to have taken action against him. A Twitter account called @BartVanCaveman dedicated itself to documenting the connections between van Alphen and his racist posts.
Multiple students at Northwestern told the media and said on social media that their complaints about van Alphen had gone unanswered by the school’s administration. In a tweet from December, one doctoral student wrote that he was told that the hate speech was “not credible” and that for further support, he should “reach out to Hillel,” the Jewish campus organization.
Norway’s Broadcasting Council has received a record number of complaints in the wake of a radio program host’s antisemitic tirade on Tuesday morning on the state-owned NRK network.BBC News muddies radical group’s anti-Israel agenda
“So far we have received 310 complaints, they have been flooding in,” Erik Skarrud — the secretary of the Broadcasting Council — told the NTB news agency on Wednesday evening.
Listeners tuning in to the morning show anchored by Shaun Erik Matheson were stunned to hear the host opining that the success of the Covid-19 vaccine in Israel — in his words, a “sh**ty country” ruled by “God’s chosen people” — made him “almost wish” that it had failed.
“So apparently, numbers from Israel show that among more than 1 million fully vaccinated persons, less than 1,000 were infected,” Matheson railed before a live audience. “No matter how you twist and turn it, this is good news. Only I wish it was from another country, if you get what I mean. It’s almost as though I wish the vaccine didn’t work. You cannot say that. I’m sorry, I do understand that. Damn it.”
Earlier in the day on Wednesday, Skarrud had already commented that the Broadcasting Council was receiving an unusually large number of complaints against Matheson.
“Over 200 complaints in 24 hours is very rare,” Skarrud told broadcaster Medier24, when the number of complaints stood at 229. “That happens only once or twice a year.”
In other words, the group is not interested in protesting “the arms trade” in general as claimed by the BBC. As its ‘constitution’ clearly states, ‘Palestine Action’ deals exclusively in the delegitimisation of one country alone.The New Yorker Repeats B’Tselem’s Claim that Israel Is “Judaizing” the Land of Israel
“Palestine Action seeks to bring together individuals and groups to use diverse tactics to end UK complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against the Palestinians. We demand real and dynamic action to end the complicity of organisations that support Israeli colonialism.
We demand all institutions end their links with Israeli apartheid until Israel stops its violations of Palestinian rights by:
1 Ending the occupation, the Siege of Gaza and dismantling the Wall
2 Ending systematic discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel
3 Recognising and implementing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes
We are tired of the UK profiting from the colonisation of Palestine. We are tired of arms companies operating in the same streets that we live in. We are tired of the lack of repercussions for their actions. And this is exactly what we plan to change. Our actions expose, disrupt and destroy the companies which profit off the death and destruction of the Palestinian people and other oppressed groups across the world.
We view the Israeli occupation of Palestine as starting in 1948, and coming out of a history of colonial oppression. The Israeli state is a colonial and apartheid state, and so we view the struggle for Palestinian liberation as an anti-colonial struggle.”
The BBC, however, had nothing to tell its audiences about the antisemitic agenda of ‘Palestine Action’ which negates Israel’s existence. Neither did the corporation provide any explanation to readers as to why a group it has previously profiled as an “environmental campaign group” – ‘Extinction Rebellion’ – partnered the specifically anti-Israel ‘Palestine Action’ in this latest act of vandalism against an Israeli company’s operations in the UK.
And so, just as the BBC has in the past refrained from providing relevant background concerning the aims of the BDS campaign and the agenda of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), it once again hinders audience understanding of a story by failing to provide the full range of information about the real agenda of a group whose political stunts it chooses to report.
Gessen further complains that, “the five million disenfranchised Palestinians cannot vote in Israeli elections,” and repeats B’Tselem’s misnomer that there are “Palestinian citizens of Israel.” All of this is designed to collapse the West Bank and Israel into one unit, again, ignoring the many, many times that Israel has offered independence to the Palestinians.Foreign Policy Magazine Whitewashes ‘Pay to Slay’
Gessen goes on to complain, “only a minority of Palestinians—about 1.6 million, out of seven million—who live on land controlled by Israel are citizens of Israel, and even then their rights are limited compared with their nearly seven million Jewish counterparts.” But as Ini pointed out, “B’tselem does not point to a single provision of any law that, apartheid-like, denies individual rights to Israel’s Arab citizens.” Of course, that’s because there are none. Israel’s Arab minority has full, equal rights under the law.
And of course, Gessen also ignores the intifadas and numerous terror attacks that necessitate some of the security measures about which Gessen and B’Tselem complain.
Gessen’s parenthetical note that, “most of them [i.e., Palestinians] can potentially vote in P.A. elections, but the P.A.’s influence over their lives is relatively minor—they are governed by Israelis,” is of course absurd. Only about 400,000 Palestinians live under Israeli control in Area C of the West Bank. The remainder – millions – live under Palestinian Authority law in Areas A and B.
Gessen also refers to B’Tselem as a “leading Israeli human rights organization,” another claim CAMERA has already debunked. Other than quoting the title of B’Tselem’s report, Gessen, thankfully, does not repeat B’Tselem’s “supremacy” language, but does repeat the absurd claim that Israel is “Judaizing” the land, a term that also carries disturbing baggage from the Nazi era.
Gessen writes that, “there comes a time to say that a line has been crossed, even if the breach occurred long ago.” Indeed, a line has been crossed – but it was crossed by B’Tselem.
The Palestinian Authority, the entity that rules the West Bank, offers salaries to those who murder and maim Jews. And, regrettably, some in the media do their best to hide this inconvenient fact. Take, for example, a Jan. 25, 2021 Foreign Policy article by reporter Joshua Mitnick (“Among the Unanticipated Outcomes of the U.S. Election: A Palestinian One”).How I uncovered a cesspit of hatred on Spotify
Mitnick claims “since Joe Biden’s election victory in November,” PA President Mahmoud Abbas “has signaled a desire to mend fences with Washington.” Accordingly, Abbas has “resumed coordination with the Israeli army, and one of his deputies pledged to overhaul a controversial welfare policy for militants convicted of violence against Israelis.”
The latter is an odd—and purposefully obtuse—way of describing paying terrorists to murder Jews. Presumably, Mitnick means to say “financial incentives for murdering Jews”—blood money—but, for some reason, can’t bring himself to do so. Yet, there is nothing ambiguous about the PA’s “pay to slay” policy.
As CAMERA noted in a Jan. 21, 2021 Newsweek op-ed, in 2004 the PA passed laws guaranteeing salaries for convicted terrorists and their families. In 2010, the PA passed a series of resolutions stipulating that every Palestinian inmate in an Israeli prison who is convicted of a “terrorism-related offense” is to receive a monthly payment. In 2013, the PA’s prime minister at the time, Rami Hamdallah, amended the law, offering additional benefits to prisoners upon their release. Among those benefits: many of those convicted of terrorism related offenses are guaranteed jobs with the Authority.
A cynic could suggest that Spotify’s processes and policies are intentionally more relaxed than those of Facebook, as there are severe financial implications when Spotify removes content. The more songs its definition of hate content includes, the more it hurts the bottom line. Spotify depends on its listeners for subscription and ad revenue. Each time it categorises and removes a track for policy violations, it risks losing its audience to alternative providers where the song is still available.Lawmakers Urge Biden to Swiftly Appoint Ambassador on Antisemitism
Most of the antisemitism I found didn’t “principally” incite hatred, but it can still be considered dangerous. In fact, of all the genres I researched, there appeared to be more antisemitism in hip-hop than any other. I discovered lots of rappers boasting they were so rich they’d achieved “Jewish Money”. This stereotype draws on a centuries-old depiction of Jews as collectively wealthy, greedy and powerful. An example of this would be Offset’s song, Underrated, which includes the lyric “Tryna get more richer than the Jews”. Offset has 10 million monthly Spotify listeners.
An unexpected trope that kept appearing was the stereotype of the “Jewish Lawyer”. This typically depicts Jews as litigious, smart, greedy, exploitative and dishonest. There were dozens of artists on Spotify boasting about their Jewish lawyers. Even stars like Cardi B have rapped “Lawyer is a Jew, he gon’ chew up all the charges” to her 37 million monthly listeners.
These artists may not harbour any malice towards Jewish people. However, by repeating these antisemitic tropes, they’re contributing to a culture of antisemitism that could ultimately lead to someone inflicting harm upon Jews.
Whichever way you look at it, Spotify is profiting from hate content. A quick search turns up numerous tracks and artists that appear to violate its policy. This is on top of the many antisemitic references that haven’t necessarily breached its definition of hate content.
Spotify needs to do more to enforce its current policy. It should also make it easier to report hate content that violates its terms. Finally, its relaxed definition of hate content has led to their platform hosting antisemitism, racism, homophobia and misogyny. They need to do much more to tackle this serious problem.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging US President Joe Biden to swiftly nominate an Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, citing the growing threat of antisemitism at home and abroad.Ex-US Envoy Elan Carr joins Combat Anti-Semitism Movement Advisory Board
The letter, signed by 53 members of Congress and spearheaded by Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), states that “violence inspired by antisemitism is an everyday concern for Jewish families, who must weigh the decision to freely practice their Judaism against the risk of violence that these rituals can invite. With threats of antisemitism increasing every year, strong American leadership is required to address them.”
In December, Congress passed the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Act, which upgrades the status of the special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, a position at the US State Department, to an ambassadorship, thereby requiring US Senate confirmation. Former President Donald Trump signed the bill into law before leaving office.
Former US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Elan S. Carr has joined the Advisory Board of Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM), the global grassroots movement announced on Thursday.Paris adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism
Carr was appointed by former president Donald Trump and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo as the country’s senior diplomatic representative on the subject of antisemitism.
The former special envoy is the latest addition the list of advisors who recently joined the movement, among them Senior Advisor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, André Azoulay, Ambassador of Guatemala to Mexico Mario Bucaro and Danny Danon former ambassador of Israel to the UN, among others.
“It is truly a privilege for me to join CAM’s Advisory Board and be part of this remarkably effective movement. I am working with CAM because I know firsthand that the stakes are very high in our fight against the scourge of Jew-hatred," said Carr.
Adding, "Antisemitism threatens the future of every decent society and of civilization itself. Sadly, we have much to do for this cause. I look forward to working with CAM’s distinguished lay and professional leaders as we fight to make our world a better place.”
Under Trump's administration, Carr spent two years in office as the senior advisor to Secretary Pompeo on antisemitism.
The city of Paris adopted the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism during a session of the Council of Paris on Thursday, joining a growing number of cities around the world, including London and more recently the French city of Nice, to make the move.Ex-intel officer jailed in 1st conviction under Romania’s Holocaust denial law
The decision was taken by the Council of Paris, headed by Paris' Mayor Anne Hidalgo, which consists of 163 councillors and that is responsible for governing the French capital.
The IHRA definition is an internationally agreed classification of antisemitism, which also provides contemporary examples of how antisemitism too often plays out in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere.
"The ability to criticize Israel's policies on many subjects is something that comes under political opinion, and the exercise of political opinion. Criticizing Israel in its essence and existence falls under the definition of antisemitism, it is a new form of antisemitism," Hidalgo said during the vote in the Assembly.
"The State of Israel was also created because there was the Shoah. In order to carry our values of freedom, we must be very clear with the words we use. This definition adopted by our assembly we will give each word its precise meaning and live up to the history of our city.
A former Romanian intelligence officer was sentenced to one year and one month in prison for Holocaust denial in the first conviction under a 2002 law, a court in Bucharest confirmed to AFP Thursday.Germany names Dutch SS veterans still receiving pensions for serving Hitler
Vasile Zarnescu, 74, who worked for eleven years for Romania’s Intelligence Service (SRI), was convicted by a court in Bucharest for writing several online articles in which he described the Holocaust as a “fraud”.
In 2016, he also published a book entitled: “The Holocaust, A Diabolical Hoax.”
Contacted by AFP, Zarnescu said he would appeal the sentence.
“It’s the first conviction for denying the Holocaust and it’s a strong message from the justice system, one that shows important progress,” Alexandru Muraru, the government’s special representative for fighting anti-Semitism and xenophobia, told AFP.
“The case is interesting because we’re not talking about just anybody, but a former member of SRI,” Muraru added.
Germany has handed over to the Netherlands a list of 34 Dutch citizens who are receiving army stipends from Berlin for serving in the military under the Nazis, including some suspected war criminals and possibly former guards at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.Cops in Poland Question Editor of Jewish Website Over Article on Polish Complicity With Nazi Persecution
Most of the beneficiaries are SS veterans or their relatives, the NOS broadcaster reported last week. Dozens of Dutchmen served alongside Germans at Auschwitz, the report noted.
The information, which Germany divulged last week, followed multiple requests in recent years for Germany to identify the Dutch recipients of “Kriegsbeschädigtenrente” — German for war invalids stipend.
The requests followed reports in 2014 of minimal enforcement of a 1998 amendment to the German pensions law blocking payments to suspected war criminals. Hundreds of thousands of former soldiers for the Third Reich, including in the Netherlands, Belgium and beyond, or their widows were still receiving monthly stipends of hundreds of euros, the reports revealed. (h/t Arie)
The editor of a website devoted to Jewish life in Poland was questioned by Polish police on Thursday, following an anonymous complaint concerning an article she wrote about Polish complicity with the Nazi persecution of the country’s 3 million Jews during World War II.In rare case against a woman, Berlin charges Nazi camp aide with role in murders
Katarzyna Markusz — a journalist and academic who runs the website Jewish.pl — was questioned by officers at the police station in Sokołów Podlaski where she lives, the news outlet Oko.press reported on Friday.
The anonymous complaint against Markusz, filed with the public prosecutor in the Ochota district of Warsaw, accused her of violating Article 133 of the Polish constitution: “Whoever publicly insults the Nation or the Republic of Poland shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years.”
Last October, Markusz wrote an article for the journal Krytyka Polityczna in which she asked: “Will we live to see the day when the Polish authorities also admit that hostility toward Jews was widespread among Poles, and that Polish complicity in the Holocaust is a historical fact?”
In the same piece, she argued that Polish politicians and diplomats preferred “a comfortable life in an imaginary world of values and attributes attributed to their own nation to telling the truth.”
She continued: “The steadfastness, hospitality, bravery and nobility of Poles and, of course, the allegedly enormous help given to Jews during and immediately after the war, is one of those fictions that have been fed to us by Polish politicians for many decades.”
Interviewed about her encounter with the authorities, Markusz said that the police officer who questioned her asked whether she had “wanted to offend the Polish nation” with her article.
“Of course not,” she told the outlet.
German prosecutors said Friday they have charged a former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp with complicity in the murders of 10,000 people, in the first such case in recent years against a woman.Holocaust survivors 'profoundly disappointed' by US Supreme Court ruling on looted Nazi art
The 95-year-old accused had worked at the Stutthof camp near what was Danzig, now Gdansk, in then Nazi-occupied Poland.
Prosecutors did not name the woman, but regional broadcaster NDR identified her as Irmgard F., who now lives in an elderly care home in the north of Hamburg.
The suspect “is accused of having assisted those responsible at the camp in the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war in her function as a stenographer and secretary to the camp commander” between June 1943 and April 1945, the prosecutors said in a statement.
The woman, who was a minor at the time of the alleged crimes, is charged with “aiding and abetting murder in more than 10,000 cases” as well as complicity in attempted murder, added prosecutors from the northern city of Itzehoe.
“Given that some inmates survived their stay in the camp despite the hostile conditions, some of the acts has to be assessed judicially as attempted murder,” they added.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a setback to a bid by the heirs of Jewish art dealers to win restitution from Germany in American courts for what they called a coerced sale forced by the former Nazi government in 1935 of a collection of precious medieval religious art.Israel’s Payoneer to Go Public on Nasdaq at $3.3 Billion Valuation
The justices in a 9-0 ruling decided that the lawsuit cannot proceed under a US law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that limits the jurisdiction of American courts in claims against foreign governments. They threw out a lower court's decision that had let the lawsuit move forward in federal court in Washington.
But while the justices decided that this law barred the claims that the heirs brought against a German agency that administers state museums, they directed lower courts to re-examine other arguments made in the case, meaning the lawsuit potentially could still proceed.
The justices on Wednesday also threw out a separate lower court ruling that had allowed a similar lawsuit to proceed against Hungary that sought restitution for Jewish people whose property was forcibly taken as part of that nation's collaboration with its Nazi allies during World War II.
In a statement, Wednesday, the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA said, "As Holocaust survivors, we are profoundly disappointed."
Israeli fintech powerhouse Payoneer Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Nasdaq listed SPAC FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp (FTOC). Once the reorganization is complete, the merged company will begin trading at an implied estimated enterprise value of approximately $3.3 billion. Payoneer currently holds $100 million in its balance and FTOC has raised $750 million for the merger, including commitments for $300 million in PIPE from an investor group. An estimated $450 million will be used to purchase secondary options from existing shareholders, managers, and employees. Roughly $100 million will be used by the company for various expenses and the rest, roughly $500 million, will be invested in its operations.Israeli Charity Inspires Start of Medical Equipment-Lending Outlet in Connecticut
Among the investors expected to pour money into the company are existing backers Wellington Management and additional investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, Franklin Templeton, certain funds managed by Millennium Management, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and Winslow Capital Management, LLC.
Speaking to Calcalist, Keren Levi, Payoneer’s COO and GM of its Israeli center, said the company had not attempted to go public in the past and throughout the years had sought the proper timing to do so. “2020 was a year of expedited activities and we processed more than $44 billion in volume. Following the merger, we will have $500 million available for investment in our business development.”
Yad Sarah announces the benefit of Wheel It Forward, a Connecticut-based not-for-profit organization that offers a convenient destination for anyone to easily borrow or donate durable medical equipment. Like Yad Sarah’s lending centers, Wheel It Forward is a volunteer-run community library that provides equipment for anyone in need free of charge.Korean group adopts breakthrough Israeli language-learning technology
Wheel It Forward founder Elliot Sloyer was inspired to build a team and start the American-based organization when he visited Yad Sarah in Israel back in 2018.
Sloyer was chaperoning a month-long eighth-grade trip from the Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy to Israel when he was introduced to the organization. “When I saw the world-class presentation, I said to myself, ‘Wow. This is just an incredible idea, an incredible concept,’” he said.
When one of the students was injured during the trip, the school borrowed a wheelchair from Yad Sarah for the remainder of their visit. Sloyer spoke highly of Yad Sarah’s assistance, adding “that was my exposure to Yad Sarah, and it was an inspiration to me to come back to America to see what’s going on in our blessed country.”
“A true act of kindness always prompts another; that’s what happened when Elliot visited Yad Sarah in Israel,” said Friends of Yad Sarah executive director Adele Goldberg.
The Korean private school network The Education Company has partnered with Israeli education technology firm MagniLearn to adopt MagniLearn's artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience-based language learning platform for schools throughout Korea, the companies announced Thursday.What Louis Armstrong Said About African-Americans and Jews in Music
MagniLearn was founded by world-renowned leaders in the fields of AI, NeuroScience, and Cognition from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Its solution offers a customized, personalized online English-teaching platform.
In Korea, a parent spends an average of $4,500 per year on private education per child. Private education expenditures on English language instruction are increasing 10% each year. But despite this investment, few students will gain even a moderate level of fluency, and only a tiny fraction will master English.
MagniLearn says it has changed that.
"In just five weeks, students using MagniLearn's platform have covered more than 50% of the full year's curriculum," MagniLearn CEO Lana Tockus said. "They are learning about three times faster with 97% of students, demonstrating dramatic increases in proficiency."
"MagniLearn knows exactly what to teach, at exactly the right pace-including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation," one parent said.
Mutual indebtedness — and reciprocal “gift giving” — are at the core of the relationships between African-Americans and Jews. In the realm of popular music, Jewish composers and performers who were profoundly influenced by ragtime and then jazz included Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, and Fanny Brice.
But exchange and borrowing were two-way streets. Paul Robeson embraced Yiddish songs — including “ Zog nit keynmol,” the Warsaw Ghetto resistance song, and “The Kaddish of Rebbe Levi-Yitzhok of Berditchev.” Louis Armstrong privately told Cab Calloway that his signature scat singing style was inspired by Jewish ritual davening, but did not want to create religious controversy by publicizing it.
Indeed, there were similarities between African-American and Jewish music. This was true of the affinity of Jewish liturgical music (songs that Paul Robeson called “the Jewish sigh and tear”) with Black music (which a critic in the Forvertz newspaper argued was endowed with “the minor key of Jewish music, the wail of the Chazan, the cry of anguish of a people who had suffered”).
Black Sabbath: The Secret History of Black-Jewish Relations (2010) offers a musical feast of celebrated African-American artists singing classic Jewish melodies in Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Yiddish.
A massive fire destroyed a Long Island synagogue early this morning.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 5, 2021
Police Arson/Bomb Squad detectives are investigating.
Kudos to the firefighter pictured who managed to save a Torah scroll!https://t.co/tGrRH6NXr9 pic.twitter.com/TixP0F59rH
Ruth Dayan, storied social activist and 1st wife of Moshe Dayan, dead at 103
Ruth Dayan, a social activist and peace proponent and the first wife of famed Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan, died Thursday night at the age of 103.
Dayan was the mother of late Israeli actor and director Assi Dayan, late sculptor Udi Dayan and publicist and author Yael Dayan.
She was born in 1917 in Haifa and spent many years in the agricultural community of Nahalal, where she met her future husband Moshe Dayan. The two were wed in 1935. The couple was married for 37 years, divorcing in 1972.
She was a peace and coexistence activist for decades and led numerous projects to benefit minorities, including immigrants and Arabs. She also helped found Variety Israel, an organization helping special needs children, in the 1960s.
But she was perhaps best known for founding Maskit, a fashion house once celebrated for its intricate ethnic embroidery.
In the late 1950s, Israel’s fledgling government asked Dayan to come up with work opportunities for new immigrants to Israel who came from Yemen and Morocco and other eastern lands. The initial idea was to train them in farming. But when Dayan visited the immigrants’ homes she found that many were skilled in embroidery and weaving, and she started thinking in different directions.
The Unique Phenomenon of the IDF's Lone Soldier? (h/t MohammedTheTeddy熊 )
The lone soldier, or chayal boded in Hebrew, is unique to the IDF and to Israel. What motivates young men and women from all over the world to volunteer for military service so far from their homes? And why are some local Israeli recruits also Lone Soldiers? Explore the connection that draws young Jews from around the world to Israel every year to voluntarily join the IDF and find out how Israelis have been supporting these soldiers dating back to Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
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