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Tuesday, July 06, 2021

07/06 Links Pt2: Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir; Meet Orphaned Land, the Israeli Heavy Metal Band With Arab Fans; Tarantino praises his life in Israel, teases movie in Jerusalem

From Ian:

Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir
‘I swam in a sea of antisemitism for years and didn’t notice the water was filthy,’ writes Kathleen Hayes in a memoir of her life in the revolutionary left.

The beliefs that give our lives meaning are passed down to us by people we cherish. For those on the Left, these men and women are often dearer than family: comrades with whom we have worked and fought; shared jokes, drinks and beds; endured a third round of brain-numbing discussion on a glorious summer day while other people thoughtlessly picnic in the park. Our evolving sense of what is true is inextricably entwined with our respect and, most of all, our love for the person who teaches it to us. We think that the things they say and write and the ideas in the books they recommend must be true — because we know them to be honourable, intelligent people and we love them.

I was a devoted Trotskyist for 25 years. My initiation took place at a protest against Natan Sharansky. It was 1987. I was a callow nineteen-year-old Berkeley student and anti-apartheid activist; my soon-to-be comrades were the smartest, funniest, most good-hearted yet irreverent people I had ever known. There was, predictably, a guy in the picture — my genial bespectacled boyfriend who had introduced me to the party — and the uneasy suggestion that my sudden conversion to Marxism wasn’t a purely intellectual epiphany. I had almost certainly never heard of Sharansky (or Shcharansky, as he was at the time), but when an older comrade I particularly admired asked me, a glint of mischief in her eyes, whether I’d like to come to a ‘bright red demo’ against an anti-communist traitor who had spied on the Soviet workers state, I’d heard almost everything I needed. I joined their small picket line in front of the San Francisco hotel where Sharansky was speaking; and when it was over I soaked up my new comrades’ attention and praise like a parched little flower after a long drought.

‘I never saw any antisemitism,’ we so often hear today. And so I didn’t, or seldom did, in the decades of leftist political activity that followed. It was embedded in the fabric, a thread that ran unseen throughout an avowedly emancipating worldview and was inextricable from it. It stitched together a legacy that included Marx’s sometimes-troubling writings about Jews; subterranean beliefs about an association between Jews, trade and capitalism; longstanding hostility to Jewish ‘particularism’; a Marxist heritage that could claim some principled opponents of antisemitism in its ranks but also many who were ambivalent or complacent about it, sometimes with deadly consequences, some outright antisemites, and every shade between. I suspected none of this the day I joined that picket line: quite the contrary, despite all the fulminating against Zionism and the Anti-Defamation League. A prominent sign carried that day — ‘20 million Soviet citizens died smashing Third Reich!’— established beyond all doubt that the party was firmly on the side of good against evil. And, of course, staunchly against antisemitism.


Jews Should Not Echo the Claim of ‘Systemic Police Racism’
The fantasy that the key to public safety is being kinder to criminals—rather than kinder to the victims of crime—not only sacrifices the physical resources that police need to keep Jews safe. It’s coming back to bite them. The climate of lawlessness that reigns in many of America’s big cities following last summer’s protests against law enforcement appears to have fed the rise in hate crimes. And the increase in violent repeat offenders thanks to “progressive” reforms is feeding this trend. Last month, for example, Brandon Elliot brutally assaulted an Asian woman while hurling ethnic insults at her. Elliot, who was on lifetime parole for fatally stabbing his mother in front of his 5-year-old sister, typifies the violent profile of many of this past year’s hate crime perpetrators.

It is nonsensical to pretend that violent actors don’t often act violently, or that it is “racist” to arrest violent criminals if they belong to certain racial categories. Three back-to-back police shootings in April earned angry accusations of police racism from congresspeople, celebrities, and Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League. But from the evidence so far, it appears the shooting of Daunte Wright outside Minneapolis was a fatal act of negligence. The shooting of Adam Toledo in Chicago was a tragic but defensible life-or-death millisecond decision that an officer was forced to make while responding to shots fired in a dark alley at 2:30 a.m., in a city whose homicide rate is up 22% this year and has had over 1,000 shooting victims since January. The shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant was a heroic fast-action that saved the life of an innocent Black girl who was about to be stabbed. If we say a Black teenager who is about to stab a young girl may not be shot by police, even after refusing to drop her weapon, we are really saying that different rules apply to different races. We are saying that we judge not by actions but by the outcomes we wish to see and the demographic statistics we feel would be fair.

It should worry us to our marrow, as Jews, that false allegations of human evil are being used against people responsible for preventing actual criminality. Practically speaking, it is also stupid to promote an ideology that will be used to discriminate against us, while depriving us of the physical protection we continue to need against criminals and psychopaths of all religions, races, and political beliefs. We should worry that judging rectitude by race and not by behavior will boomerang on us.

And so it already has. No matter how many synagogues fly BLM banners, Jews are lumped together with police in this morality play. Jewish students on campuses have been ousted from BLM-aligned groups on the grounds that supporting Israel makes them intrinsically racist. And that was only a preamble to the nightmare of the last few weeks: Israel widely depicted in America as the racist cop, hated and condemned regardless of the law or the spuriousness of allegations of racism and brutality. The stage was set for the recent violent attacks on Jewish pedestrians in Manhattan and outdoor diners in Los Angeles—and for members of Congress to pile on.

More than ever, we need robust and empowered law enforcement that continues to make intelligent adaptations in order to check the rise in hate crimes and the environment of disorder that supports it. The police racism narrative is false, and Jews need to speak out against it—not only because it’s wrong, but because it’s uniquely dangerous to us.
Orphaned Land
If the heavy metal band Orphaned Land’s message to the world is one of peace and unity, it came through loud and clear at their 30th-anniversary show. The concert took place in June at Heichal HaTarbut (the Culture Palace), also known as the Charles Bronfman Auditorium—the largest concert hall in Tel Aviv, and the home of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. This wasn’t an ordinary heavy metal show—but no Orphaned Land concert is ever an ordinary heavy metal show. Backed by the 45-piece Israel Chamber Opera Orchestra, as well as by the metal a cappella band Hellscore (“If hell had a choir, it would sound like Hellscore,” their website tagline puts it), the veteran Israeli metal band celebrated their anniversary in highbrow style, with an audience of nearly 2,400 witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

This certainly isn’t the first time a famed metal band has collaborated with classical musicians: There was Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony and Cradle of Filth and the Budapest Film Orchestra, for instance. But Orphaned Land’s show was not just a mix of metal guitars, growl-style vocals, and classical musicians. Their lead singer, Kobi Farhi, is a dead ringer for Jesus, he frequently sings in a chantlike voice, and the music is rife with Jewish and Arabic influences and biblical overtones. All of this makes for a surreal experience: One minute felt like a bunch of headbanging metal dudes playing klezmer music took over a classical concert, and the next minute felt like the soundtrack to a sweeping biblical Hollywood epic played from the loudspeakers at Ozzfest.

A few days after the concert, I met Farhi and Uri Zelha, the bass player who is the only other founding member still in the band. I’d actually interviewed them before—30 years ago, over the phone, when we were all still in high school. I wrote a column about new upcoming bands for an Israeli teen magazine; they were a high school metal band with lofty aspirations. They were also the only band I interviewed for my column that eventually made it—on a global scale, no less.

During their impressive career, Orphaned Land mixed their progressive metal style with a variety of styles: a few death metal growls, piyyutim (Jewish liturgical poems), and Middle Eastern folk music, becoming pioneers of the subgenre known as Oriental Metal.


Terry McAuliffe Touts Endorsement From Anti-Israel Group
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe welcomed an endorsement from an activist group that staunchly defends the anti-Israel boycott movement, calling into question his past opposition to the campaign.

In a June tweet, McAuliffe said he was "tremendously grateful" to have "the support and endorsement" of Emgage Action, a Muslim-American advocacy group that has described Israel as an "apartheid" state and routinely lobbies in favor of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). According to the group's website, Emgage asks "every candidate" seeking an endorsement "questions related to Palestine, settlements, and the right to boycott," which make up a "key part" of its "endorsement process."

The endorsement could signal a flip-flop on Israel policy for McAuliffe. In 2017, the Democrat joined a "Governors United Against BDS" initiative, which condemned the boycott movement as "incompatible with the values of our states and our country." The Virginia General Assembly also passed a resolution condemning BDS during McAuliffe's tenure, and the Democrat in 2016 joined the Virginia-Israel Advisory Board on a trade mission to Tel Aviv in an attempt to attract Israeli companies to the state.

Neither McAuliffe nor Emgage responded to requests for comment on whether the Democrat made concessions regarding Israel and BDS to land the group's endorsement. Emgage touted the endorsement in a June tweet but did not release a candidate questionnaire. The group's 2020 endorsement survey asked respondents if they support "efforts to criminalize Americans who engage in political, social, and economic boycotts of foreign countries," increased foreign aid to the Palestinian territories, and "the Trump Administration's position equating criticism of the actions of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism."

Zionist Organization of America president Mort Klein called McAuliffe's "embrace" of Emgage "intolerable."

"At a time of a frightening increase in anti-Semitism and attacks on Jews, to accept the endorsement of and praise a group that promotes hatred and boycotts against the Jewish state is to legitimize hatred against [Israel]," Klein said. "Every Jewish leader must condemn McAuliffe for taking this stance."
Squad Members Say There Were ‘Very Fine People on Both Sides’ of Stabbing of Israeli Rabbi in Boston (satire)
Calling it a complicated and nuanced situation, members of the far-Left “Squad” insisted that there were “very fine people on both sides” of an anti-Semitic stabbing attack in Boston last week.

While noting that she did not condone 24-year-old Khaled Awad’s decision to stab Rabbi Shlomo Noginski outside a Jewish day school, Rep. Ilhan Omar urged her supporters not to take sides between the stabber and stabbing victim. “Not everyone who went to that school with a knife went there to stab a rabbi, believe me.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, another progressive Democrat, added. “And there were some terrible people who were stabbed too. I’ve even heard this Shlomo guy is a Jew.”

Rep. Cori Bush, meanwhile, said that the stabbing was simply a “peaceful protest” against colonialism. “Boston is occupied indigenous land,” Bush tweeted. “If this White colonizer didn’t want to get stabbed, he shouldn’t have tried to occupy the Chaubunagungamaug tribe’s territory.”

And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged the rabbi not to get too “hysterical” about his injuries, noting that most criminals are simply trying to feed their families. “Mr. Awad was probably forced to cut open Rabbi Nagasaki (sic) to see if there was food in his belly to feed his children,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “The real villain here isn’t this poor young parent, it is Capitalization (sic).”
South Florida Imam Council Embraces Member Linked to Terror and Anti-Semitism
The South Florida Council of Imams held a meeting, last month, to discuss collaboration and coordination of events. According to the South Florida Muslim Federation (SoFlo Muslims), the group that directs the council, another aim for the ‘Team Event’ was “for the council members… to know each other better.” A couple of things that are already known about one of the imams, Izhar Khan, is that he was previously charged by the US Justice Department for helping to fund the Taliban, and the mosque that he leads pushes violent and bigoted ideologies. By ignoring these evils, the council and its members show that they too endorse and embrace them.

In May 2011, Khan was arrested and spent 20 months in a Miami federal detention center for his alleged participation in a scheme to ship $50 thousand to the Taliban for the purpose of murdering American troops overseas. As stated in the indictment against him and his family: “Izhar is a Pakistani Taliban sympathizer who worked with [his father Hafiz] and others to collect and deliver money for the Pakistani Taliban… Izhar… provided and attempted to provide material support and resources… knowing and intending that they be used in preparation for and in carrying out… a conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim persons in a foreign country.”

Khan is imam of Masjid Jamaat Al-Mumineen (MJAM), a Margate, Florida mosque that features on its website a library filled with texts promoting female genital mutilation, death punishments for homosexuals, stoning of women, and hatred of Jews, Christians and Hindus. One MJAM text, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, states, “[B]eware of the Jews, your enemies, lest they distort the truth for you in what they convey to you… [D]o not be deceived by them, for they are liars, treacherous and disbelievers… Allah forbids His believing servants from having Jews and Christians as friends, because they are the enemies of Islam and its people, may Allah curse them.”


Honest Reporting: Expanding Reach and Impact: HonestReporting Making Waves, Producing Results
In the second quarter of 2021, HonestReporting’s reach and impact continued to grow significantly. Over the last three months, we published 51 news critiques, 25 videos, and 13 educational articles on this website and through other online channels. More broadly, between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, HonestReporting was mentioned by media outlets and on social media platforms almost eight times as often as during the preceding period.

With respect to citations by news outlets, specifically, over the last 12 months HonestReporting has been mentioned in articles 321 times, a major achievement outlined in the graph below.


With respect to Q2 2021, our successes included:
In April, we helped draw media attention to the acquittal by France’s highest appeals court of Kobili Traoré, who admitted to the antisemitic murder of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman in her sixties. According to the court’s decision, Traoré had smoked a considerable amount of marijuana and was therefore “too high” to be held criminally responsible for his actions. The absurd — if not antisemitic — ruling was largely ignored by media throughout the world.

HonestReporting sprung to action immediately, publishing a critique and launching a social media campaign that gained widespread traction. Amid a groundswell of anger, The New York Times and other outlets eventually covered the story.

During Q2, we also raised questions about the legality of US President Joe Biden’s plan to resume financial assistance to the Palestinians. Indeed, multiple US laws preclude the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, which both incentivize terrorism against Israelis. Our petition calling on the White House to ensure that the aid is not used to reward terrorism was signed thousands of times.

More recently, during the 11-day conflict between Israel and Gaza-based terrorist organizations, we constantly challenged journalists when they failed to report the facts accurately. From May 10 to May 21, we published 14 long-form news critiques and ten videos. Our content garnered hundreds of thousands of views and was shared by influential Twitter users.


Free Speech Writer’s Group PEN ‘Concerned’ About Departure of Children’s Book Org Officer After Antisemitism Statement
The leading US writer’s group advocating the freedom of expression voiced “serious concern” on Friday about the recent resignation of a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) diversity officer over a statement condemning antisemitism, and its aftermath.

On June 10, April Powers, SCBWI’s chief equity and inclusion officer, published a statement denouncing a rise in antisemitic incidents, affirming that Jews “have the right to life, safety, and freedom from scapegoating and fear.”

While many thanked SCBWI for the condemnation, the statement was also met with some protest over its lack of discussion of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bigotry, as well as backlash to the group’s blocking of one of its critics’ posts.

SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver later announced Powers’ resignation, and published an apology to “everyone in the Palestinian community who felt unrepresented, silenced, or marginalized.”

On Friday, PEN America — a group of more than 7,500 writing professionals that advocates for free expression and a free press — called on the SCBWI to “clarify” the circumstances of Powers’ departure and “make clear its unequivocal, unapologetic denunciation of anti-Semitism and of other forms of bigotry.”
CBC's Forked Tongue on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
On July 5, the CBC Radio program “Unforked” produced a segment on “gastronationalism” where Israel was accused of “appropriating” hummus as its own national dish, with CBC framing the chick pea delicacy as really being of Palestinian origin.

The show descended into a depiction of Israelis as “settler colonialists” and occupiers of indigenous Palestinian land, who were responsible for erasing so-called historical Palestinian communities.

Hosted by the CBC’s Samira Mohyeddin, Unforked is described as: “Picking apart the food that we eat to reveal the culture and politics baked into it.”

Naturally, CBC ignored Jewish indiginieity to Israel and how Jews returned to their ancestral homeland after over two millenia of forced exile. The implication drawn was that Arabs were native to the land and Jews were dispossessers. Israel was presented as if it had no culture of its own, so Jews “appropriated” the culture of the true indigenous people of the land, Palestinians.

The program featured Layla el-Haddad, a Palestinian social activist and author of the Gaza kitchen: A Palestinian culinary journey and Daphna Hirsch, a sociologist at Open University of Israel in Tel Aviv.

Layla el-Haddad described how she felt It was a “slap in the face” when hummus became Israel’s national dish.
Indy Arabia claims Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter got its name only after 1967
As we’ve previously demonsrated, Independent Arabia – The Independent’s Arabic (IA) edition – does not “conform to the world-renowned standards, code of conduct and established ethos” of its London-based English parallel.

Although the editorial board issued this promising quotation prior to launching the new edition’s website in early 2019, in practice nothing stopped Independent Arabia from publishing, for example, an article absurdly claiming that the modern Hebrew language is derived from Arabic; or a theatre critique praising the morally grotesque depiction of Anne Frank as a bloodthirsty Israeli who oppresses Palestinians.

Notably, both items are viewable under The Independent’s logo to this very day.

Though its the Arabic brand of the Independent, given that Independent Arabia is actually fully owned and operated by Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG) – often regarded as one of Riyadh’s “soft power” organs in the UK – its failure to meet proper journalistic standards is hardly surprising.

But, some contributors do take their freedom to engage in biased and false “reporting” more seriously than others. IA’s West Bank correspondent Khalil Mousa, for example, has been regularly amplifying Palestinian speakers who deny the historical connection between the Jewish people and the cities of Hebron and Jerusalem.

He’s also personally questioned such relations ever existed, writing in his own voice:
Ever since [they began residing there], the settlers have tried to consolidate their presence in Hebron, working to Judaize it and form historical connections to it, with the support of the Israeli government.

In two more recent articles, although Moussa finally conceded that some Jews were historically present between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea after all – he still returned to his habit of viewing any kind of contemporary Jewish presence as dangerous and alarming.
BBC WS mainstreams unchallenged anti-Israel smears as ‘The Real Story’
The July 2nd edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘The Real Story’ purported to discuss the topic of the recent protests against the Palestinian Authority following the death of Nizar Banat after his arrest by PA security forces.

“There is continuing anger in the West Bank over the death in custody of a vociferous critic of the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Nizar Banat, an anti-corruption campaigner, was picked up in a violent night-time raid at his home [sic] in Hebron. The Palestinian Authority has launched an investigation into the circumstances of Banat’s death and has promised action against anyone responsible. But that’s done little to placate protesters who allege that the Palestinian security forces use extra-judicial force against anyone who questions or criticises the leadership. They say this behaviour is emblematic of a wider break down of law and order and a thriving culture of corruption in the West Bank, where elections were last held over 15 years ago. So why is corruption such a problem and where is it happening? Is there scope for reforms with the current leadership in charge? And how dependent is any change on the overall relationship with Israel and rival administration in Gaza, run by Hamas? Ritula Shah is joined by a panel of Palestinian commentators.”

The ”Palestinian commentators” recruited to facilitate what Ritula Shah described as a “deep dive into a story that’s making news” were:
Listeners were not informed that two of those contributors – Mariam Barghouti and Dana el Kurd – are members of Al Shabaka. While Shah did mention in her introduction of Nour Odeh that she “was also planning to stand as a candidate in this year’s elections on the National Democratic Assembly list”, no explanation of that list’s political flavour was provided (including the fact that it merged at the last minute with the list of convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti) and listeners were not told that Odeh was previously the Palestinian government’s spokesperson. Neither were audiences informed that Mariam Barghouti has been on tour with the International Solidarity Movement in Holland, is a supporter of the anti-Israel BDS Campaign and has contributed to the ‘Mondoweiss’ website among other anti-Israel outlets.

Seeing as this 50-minute programme did not adhere only to its declared subject matter, such associations are relevant and should have been disclosed to listeners. Indeed, although Shah told audiences at the beginning that “the dispute with Israel is obviously a part of this story but it isn’t its main focus on this programme today”, Israel was repeatedly referenced in an inaccurate and partial manner, with no Israeli representative given the right of reply to the assorted falsehoods promoted by the contributors.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Miami News Has Gall To Still Give More Coverage To #Surfside Than Palestine (satire)
Journalism operations focused on South Florida and the state’s largest metro area have yet to refocus on the all-important issue of Palestinian grievances since the collapse of a local high-rise residential building back in June, industry watchdogs report.

Media observers decried today the failure of Miami-area reporters and news outlets to return even now to the default media attitude placing Palestine front and center, instead choosing to maintain daily coverage of the Champlain Towers South disaster that took the lives of at least several dozen people, with more than a hundred still missing and 11 injured. Media watchdog groups called the continuing coverage “out of proportion” and “a grave injustice to the people of Palestine and to victims of Zionist aggression.”

“It’s been almost two weeks at this point,” noted Electronic Intifada chief Ali Abunimah. “That’s quite enough time to get the picture: ok, a bunch of people died; some folks screwed up big-time on preventing the collapse; maybe a follow-up story in August on page eight, or a two-minute segment on the late-night local news. But this is seriously overwrought, especially since so many of the victims were just Jews, and probably Zionists, so there’s a serious travesty going on here. This is broadcast time and newspaper or website space that could have been devoted to the only genuinely important story of our time, but no – these so-called journalists have to pretend people need or want to know about some stupid condominium that was probably owned by Jews, too.”

972 Magazine contributor Mairav Zonshine complained that it fell to her and her colleagues in the online anti-Israel world to bring to the public the stories of Palestinian suffering and Jewish brutality or perfidy that coverage of the Surfside collapse overshadowed. “Some of us worked our tails off, but at the end of the day we just don’t have the exposure that the mainstream outlets do,” she acknowledged. “Because even national or international operations such as CNN and the BBC, companies that normally jump at any hint of a story that makes Israel look bad, have for some unfathomable reason decided their audiences care or should know about some dead Floridians, no one has heard about the latest accusation from a Gaza Palestinian that Israel has tortured him to death for like the fifth time.”
Amid rising US antisemitism, Jewish groups plan July 11 solidarity rally in DC
Alarmed by rising antisemitism at home and abroad, a coalition of Jewish organizations is planning to converge on Washington, DC, for a solidarity rally on July 11.

Set to take place next to the United States Capitol Building, “NO FEAR: A Rally in Solidarity with the Jewish People” will feature the voices of “victims of antisemitism and elected officials across the denominational and political spectrum,” according to publicity.

Confirmed rally speakers include actress Noa Tishby, activist Blake Flayton, and Alma Hernandez, member of the Arizona House of Representatives since 2019.

In an interview with The Times of Israel, rally co-organizer Elisha Wiesel — the son of late Holocaust survivor and human rights icon Elie Wiesel — said that “Jews are fed up with feeling like nobody is showing up to stand with them.”

According to Wiesel, next Sunday’s rally was initially proposed by Melissa Landa, founder of the group Alliance for Israel. Both activists are driven by the goal of creating “as big a tent as possible” in responding to antisemitism, said Wiesel.

“I wanted to be part of a larger effort to take a stand against antisemitism,” Landa told The Times of Israel.

The lead sponsors of the rally are Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish Committee (AJC), and B’nai B’rith International. Illustrating the cause’s diverse appeal, said Wiesel, the Orthodox Union and the Union of Reform Judaism both joined the growing list of supporting organizations.
NYPD Says Hate Crimes Skyrocket in New York City, Including 69% Rise in Attacks on Jews
Hate crimes have skyrocketed in New York City over the past year, including a 69% rise in attacks on Jews, NYPD figures reveal.

Through June 27 of this year, antisemitic assaults rose from to 113 from 67 in the same period of 2020, according to statistics cited by the New York Post.

One unnamed woman — who in June was pelted with eggs while walking near Central Park with a group of visibly Jewish friends — told the paper, “There’s no law and order anymore.”

“There’s been just a severe rise in antisemitism incidents,” she said. “Yes, they only threw eggs, but it’s the stepping stone for them to do something greater.”

In a trend that has been attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, attacks on Asians rose even more sharply than those against Jews, shooting up a stunning 400%, — with 105 cases so far this year, compared to last.
200-year-old Rothschild antisemitic conspiracy theory used in British Bitcoin firm’s advertising
A 200-year-old antisemitic conspiracy theory about the Rothschilds has been used in a customer email sent out by a British Bitcoin company.

Fintech firm Crypterium sent out a circular e-mail under the subject: “All you need to know about Bitcoin for now.”

It started with a variation on a quotation attributed to 18th Century banker Baron Rothschild, which stated: “The best time to buy bitcoin is whenever blood is on the street, everyone is panicking and no one’s talking about it.”

But the quotation and the story that surrounds it have been long debunked as a traditional anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

The libel dates back to a pamphlet circulated across Europe more than 200 years ago that was signed by ‘Satan’ and purported to tell the story of how Nathan Mayer Rothschild made his wealth in the wake of the Battle of Waterloo.

In the story, it was claimed Baron Rothschild witnessed Napoleon's defeat and made it back to England before news of Wellington’s victory, allowing him to accrue a fortune in the panic-selling of stock at low prices.

The quotation, falsely attributed to Rothschild and popularised by the Nazis, states: “The time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets, even if the blood is your own.”
I didn’t feel like I had back-up, says victim of ‘throat slit for Palestine’ abuse
A visibly Jewish man who was threatened to have his throat slit “for Palestine” has told the JC the incident left him feeling “humiliated and abused”.

Yochai, who has asked to have his surname kept private, was the victim of two antisemitic disturbances that took place on public transport on Saturday evening.

The researcher, who is aged in his 20s and lives in North London, was “exhausted” and on his way home from volunteering at a Chabad House Jewish community centre, when the occurences took place.

The first incident happened on a 113 bus headed for Oxford Circus, where Yochai was accosted by an individual who yelled, “I will slit your throat for Palestine”.

The individual, who had been seated on the upper deck of the bus, approached Yochai who was downstairs, and allegedly threatened to hit him and kicked his suitcase while other passengers on the sat by and watched.

“They looked quite shocked and upset… but they did not step forward,” Yochai said.

“I felt scared and helpless. As much as I felt that I could handle the situation myself, I didn’t feel like I had a backup in case something goes wrong.”

Less than 20 minutes later, after exiting the bus to take the tube from Oxford Circus station, a separate individual on an escalator saw Yochai and proceeded to sing “I f***ing hate the Jews… we’ve got a Jew here”.

The disturbance left him feeling “humiliated and abused” and “victimised just once again”.
Touted as a lifesaver for millions, Israeli nano-patch smells skin to detect TB
A new Israeli tuberculosis-detecting skin patch will reduce the huge number of people who die from the disease due to a lack of diagnosis, and could help the world eradicate it altogether, scientists say.

Tuberculosis is responsible for 1.4 million deaths a year, almost exclusively in poor countries. It is easily transmitted by sneezing, spitting and coughing, and each infected person passes it to more than 10 people on average.

Treatment is available, but cases are often missed due to poor provision of tests, which require lab processing.

The World Health Organization has considered tuberculosis a “global health emergency” since 1993, and highlights the power of testing, reporting that an estimated 60 million lives were saved through diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2019. But testing infrastructure is poor, and around 3 million cases are missed annually.

A research team from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has revealed, in a peer-reviewed journal article, that it has produced and tested a patch that gives a diagnosis an hour after it is attached to the skin.

“The patch contains sensors made from nanoparticles, and what we’re doing is sensing changes in the smell pattern of the person, which can tell us with high accuracy whether or not they have tuberculosis,” Dr. Rotem Vishinkin told The Times of Israel.
Tarantino praises his life in Israel, teases movie in Jerusalem
In an interview with Bill Maher, famed American film director Quentin Tarantino positively described his life in Israel. Tarantino initially moved to Tel Aviv for three months, but has been forced to stay due to the coronavirus. The director moved here with his wife, Israeli singer and model Daniella Pick.

In his interview on Real Time with Bill Maher, Tarantino described life in Tel Aviv as being similar to life in Los Angeles. He said both have "magnificent restaurants, cool bars, cool clubs," although Tel Aviv is smaller.

He also discussed what it was like for him living in Tel Aviv during the conflict with Gaza in May.

"There was a city-wide siren going on and that's letting you know that the Hamas missiles are on their way. And then I take my fifteen month old son and my wife and we go down into a bomb shelter," Tarantino said.

Tarantino also teased that he plans to make only one more movie. and that he is considering making Israel his backdrop: “If you make a movie in Jerusalem, there’s nowhere you can point the camera where you’re not capturing something fantastic."

In a separate interview last month with Jimmy Kimmel, Tarantino praised Israel's response to the coronavirus.
On this day: Anne Frank and family went into hiding
Anne Frank and her family went into hiding on July 6, 1942: 79 years ago today.

As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis began to take power, the Frank family moved from their home in Germany to live in Amsterdam, which was soon occupied by German forces.

On July 5, they received a letter that Anne's older sister would be deported and possibly sent to a labor camp, like many Jews during the Holocaust. The next day, they went into hiding.

The family — father Otto, mother Edith, older sister Margot and Anne — hid in an attic apartment behind Otto Frank's business, where he produced a gelling substance used to make jam. Anne called this the "Secret Annex."

They were soon joined by the van Pels family, the father a business associate of Otto. They were aided by several non-Jewish friends who brought food and supplies, including Miep Gies.

Their hiding spot was found by the Gestapo on August 4, 1944, after two years of hiding, due to an anonymous tip. The family was separated and taken to concentration camps.







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