Friday, August 27, 2021
Melanie Phillips: The west's delusional fifth column
All those precious, preening, posturing personalities who cheered Biden on while demonising all who stood against the Democrats or their left-wing agenda bear responsibility for swelling the fetid cultural sea in which this administration swims.Caroline Glick: The roots of America's defeat
The point of saying all this is not to point fingers gratuitously and inappropriately in the wake of a tragic and still-unfolding catastrophe in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Islamic State are responsible for the savagery there. The Chinese Communist Party, Russia’s President Putin, the Islamic regime of Iran and their Sunni jihadi counterparts, not to mention Pakistan and North Korea, are the enemies of the west and the free world.
But along with swathes of the western left, the Democratic Party is currently a fifth column in the defence of America and the west against these enemies. The point of calling this out is to warn about the supreme danger of ever putting the left into power.
The Democrats have shown themselves to be institutionally unsuitable for high office. They currently constitute a menace to the cultural integrity and continued strength of the United States, are placing individual American lives at terrible risk and are presenting a mortal threat to the security of the free world. And if Biden were to be removed, he would merely be replaced by the Vice-President, Kamala Harris, who is an even worse proposition; and after her in the constitutional pecking order comes the ineffable Nancy Pelosi. Say no more.
Unlike other societies, the people who live in democracies have a choice about who rules them. What’s happened in Afghanistan should be a graphic warning to the west to snap out of its complacency about the left. Their track record, both in and out of office, shows that they are generally as delusional as they are incompetent.
And they will never change. The notion that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by a few extremists is itself delusional. Just look at what the universities and schools are teaching the young — to hate their country and western values, to internalise the Marxist trope that all relationships are defined by power, and to believe that lies are truth and truth is lies.
These ignorant, spoiled, viciously indoctrinated young people are the future of the Democratic Party. And this educational subversion has been going on for decades — with the mainstream media its most conspicuous and degraded advertisement.
Where have all those “centrist” Democrats been all this time? Either being sucked into the madness by telling themselves that their political tribe is virtue incarnate and so everything it does is right and good; or else covering their eyes and ears and pretending that this cultural meltdown, and their side’s role in it, isn’t happening. And exactly the same thing has happened to Britain’s Labour party and wider “progressive” circles.
Biden is merely the boil that has now burst on a diseased body politic. As soon as they are able to do so, decent Americans should use their votes to remove the Democrats from office and, unless the party repudiates what it has become, prevent it from gaining power in America ever again.
Even before the suicide bombings outside the Kabul airport on Thursday evening, the US media was acting with rare unanimity. For the first time in memory, US media organs across the ideological and political spectrum have been united in the view that US President Joe Biden fomented a strategic disaster for the US and its allies with his incompetent leadership of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some compare it to the 1961 Bay of Pigs; others to Saigon in 1975; others to the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. Whatever the analogy, the bottom line is the same: Biden's surrender to the Taliban has already entered the pantheon of American post-war defeats.
Biden is personally responsible for the humanitarian and strategic disaster unfolding before our eyes. He is the only American leader in history who has willfully abandoned Americans and American allies to their fate behind enemy lines. But while Biden is solely responsible for the decision to leave Afghanistan in the manner it is, it isn't Biden's fault that after 20 years of war, the Taliban was still around, stronger than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, and fully capable of seizing control of the country. The foundations of that failure were laid in the days, weeks and months that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, then-President George W. Bush and his national security team put together the guiding assumptions for what came to be known as the global war on terror. In the years since then, some of the assumptions were updated, adapted or replaced as conditions on the ground evolved. But three of the assumptions that stood at the foundation of America's military, intelligence and diplomatic planning and operations since then were not revisited, save for the final two years of the Trump administration. All three contributed significantly to America's defeat in Afghanistan and its failure to win the war against global terror as a whole. The first assumption related to Pakistan, the second to Iran, and the third to Israel.
By rights, Pakistan should have been the first domino to fall after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Taliban were the brainchild of Pakistan's jihad-addled ISI intelligence agency. Al-Qaida operatives also received ISI support. But aside from a few threats and temporary sanctions around the time of the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the US took no significant actions against Pakistan. The reason for America's inaction is easy to understand.
In 1998 Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. By Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan fielded a significant nuclear arsenal. Following the attacks, Pakistan made clear its view of nuclear war, and the connection between its position and its sponsorship of terror.
In October and December 2001, Kashmiri terrorists sponsored by Pakistan attacked the Jammu and Kashmir parliament and the Indian parliament. When India accused Pakistan of responsibility and threatened reprisals, then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf placed the Pakistani military on alert. India began deploying troops to the border and Pakistan followed suit.
Rather than side with India, the US pressured Delhi to stand down, which it did in April 2002. In June 2002, Pakistani-backed terrorists carried out suicide bombings against the wives and children of Indian soldiers. The countdown to war began again. In June 2002, again bowing to US pressure, India pledged it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the conflict. Musharraf refused to follow suit.
Andrew Pessin: Campus Cancel Culture, the Jewish Question, and Why I Wrote ‘Nevergreen’
As those who follow college campuses know, these are challenging times for the Jews — and, perhaps, for sane people in general.
The university has become almost unrecognizable. In place of reasoned deliberation, we find feverish activism; in place of a neutral forum for civil debate in the shared pursuit of truth, we find the enforcement of official orthodoxies. Disagreement, once the driving force of intellectual advancement, now is anathema. If you dare to differ from some particular orthodoxy, it’s because you enjoy privileges that blind you to the experiences of others. Or, worse, it’s because you, in fact, are actively defending those privileges. You are, in other words, a racist, or a homophobe, or a transphobe, or an Islamophobe, or — a Zionist.
In short, you are a hater — and hatred has no place on campus.
All of this culminates in “cancel culture”: those who disagree with the orthodoxies must be eliminated from the table of discourse, and in some cases, from the campus altogether. The National Association of Scholars currently documents some 180 cases of “cancellation” at North American universities going back to 2015, and that list does not include the increasingly frequent cancellation of Jews, especially Jews who support Israel.
Back in 2018, I co-edited a book called “Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS.” That book documented several dozen episodes where pro-Israel faculty and students were targeted for cancellation.
Today, just three short years later, those seem like the glory days.
Bulgaria opts out of Durban IV Conference citing antisemitism"My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." Daniel Pearl’s last words are true for me, too. I could not be prouder to be a Jew, and I am deeply honored to be receiving this year's Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism. https://t.co/2wk5WOXP6p
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) August 26, 2021
Bulgaria will not participate in the UN event marking 20 years since the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, bringing the number of countries boycotting the event over its antisemitic content to a dozen.Ron Lauder: A call to action in face of anti-Israel pandemic
“Bulgaria will not participate in the UNGA high-level meeting on the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action,” the country’s foreign ministry tweeted on Thursday. “Given the history of the process, there’s a risk that the forum could be misused for antisemitic propaganda. We stay committed to fighting racism in all its forms and manifestation.”
Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan thanked Bulgaria, tweeting: “The Jewish people appreciate your friendship.”
The event, which is known as Durban IV, is set to take place in late September, on the sidelines of the opening session of the 76th United Nations General Assembly. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett plans to take part in the General Debate, in which national leaders and foreign ministers give speeches.
Countries other than Bulgaria opting out of Durban IV are Israel, the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK, Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France.
I call upon Prime Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Minister Lapid to take action. Put right what went wrong during the Netanyahu era. As the precedent-setting decision by Ben&Jerry’s to stop selling its ice cream in the Jewish settlements of the West Bank reveals, the danger is close at hand.Did ADL really say BDS is not always antisemitic?
As the dinner party in Brooklyn shows, the situation has become toxic. Bennett's visit to the White House this week - and the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador to Washington - should be used to launch a Jewish, Israeli, Zionist counter-offensive. Israel must place public diplomacy at the top of its agenda. This requires marshaling prodigious resources, recruiting uniquely talented individuals and devising a comprehensive and creative strategy. The Foreign Ministry must conceive and implement a cogent multi-pronged hasbara campaign the likes of which was never pursued in the past.
But first and foremost, Israel must embrace world Jewry and renew its alliance with the Jewish people. And Israel must resume the peace process with the Palestinians and work earnestly, diligently and bravely to bring about a two-state solution. Only thus will it be able to prevent the anti-Israel pandemic we are seeing today from escalating and spiraling out of control.
If Israel does not find its way into the hearts and minds of millennials, Americans and Jews, the crucial American-Israeli alliance will be severely damaged. And if this alliance is thus damaged, Israel will grow weaker and suffer. Bennett and Lapid must do everything within their power to turn this around: rebuild the American-Israeli alliance and the Israeli-Jewish alliance here and now.
It’s enormously frustrating when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – which should be working with us―instead undermines the pro-Israel community’s efforts to combat antisemitism. Too often, ADL gives a “free pass” to Islamist, BLM, and other left wing antisemitism. ADL now appears ready to hand out “free passes” to radical Islamist antisemites on college campuses, during ADL’s new partnership with Hillel.Australian Jewish Students Demand Answers Over Antisemitic Social Media User Employed by Education Dept
The partnership calls for ADL’s “experts” to determine what is antisemitic. Yet, absurdly, when describing how the ADL-Hillel partnership will operate, ADL’s “experts” announced that “a BDS resolution alone would not count as antisemitism,” but “might”―might (!)―count as antisemitism if Jewish students were excluded from the debate on the resolution.
It is deeply concerning that ADL’s “experts” are ignoring the fact that BDS resolutions are invariably antisemitic. These sinister BDS resolutions are propagated on college campuses by the antisemitic hate group Students for Justice in Palestine.
ZOA has been combatting BDS resolutions on college campuses for almost two decades―and we’ve never seen one that wasn’t antisemitic. BDS resolutions single out Jews to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) and Delegitimize. BDS targets and harms Jewish students, Jewish professors, Jewish-owned businesses, American businesses that trade with Jews, Jewish workers, Jewish farmers, Jewish academic institutions and academic exchanges, Jewish speakers, Jewish college clubs, Jewish artists, Jewish musicians, artists of any faith that wish to perform in the Jewish state, Jews whose “sin” consists of living their lives and raising their children in the Jewish homeland, and the Jewish state herself.
Singling out and targeting Jews for boycotts, divestment, sanctions and delegitimization, as BDS does, is the very essence of antisemitism. The Nazis’ campaign to annihilate the Jewish people began with the Nazi boycott of Jewish-owned businesses and Jewish professional offices on April 1, 1933. Nazi Brownshirts stood outside Jewish shops and offices holding signs saying “Don’t Buy from Jews,” and “the Jews are our Misfortune.” Back in 1896, Theodore Herzl wrote in his famous book, The Jewish State, that boycotts of Jewish businesses (“Don’t Buy from Jews!) were one of the types of anti-Jewish persecutions that required the existence of a Jewish State.
BDS also relies on falsehoods about Jews and the Jewish state that reek of classic antisemitic canards – such as outrageously and falsely accusing Jews and the Jewish state of perpetrating war crimes, human rights violations, and “genocide.”
The New South Wales Department of Education (NSW) said it would soon take “appropriate action” against a staffer who wrote antisemitic comments on a Facebook post belonging to the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), the Australian Jewish News reported Thursday.Alumni Group Condemns Anti-Israel Comments by Activist Groups Linked to Rutgers University
“It’s such a shame [Hitler] didn’t finish his job,” wrote the staffer, an unidentified woman from Sydney, in May, replying to a picture of the Nazi leader posted by another user.
Since then, NSW officials have been criticized for “shielding” her identity from the public and not firing her.
On Aug. 18, AUJS Political Affairs Director Gabrielle Stricker-Phelps told Australia’s Daily Telegraph that Jewish students had expected Australia’s Minister for Education and Youth Alan Tudge to “take action.” On Thursday, she urged him “to share the outcome of the investigation given the seriousness of the comment in the context of rising antisemitism.”
The NSW, however, has complained about inquiries into its investigation and recently rejected a freedom of information request by Walt Secord, of the opposition Labor party.
Argued the NSW to Secord, “There is an overriding public interest against disclosure of the information,” and “the public interest in protecting the [employee’s] privacy considerably outweighs the public interest in releasing their personal information to you.”
An organization representing more than 10,000 alumni around the United States has denounced a recent antisemitic and anti-Israel statement by Rutgers University’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the group Rutgers Mutual Aid, a group of Rutgers students and alumni.Canadian Jewish Org Demands Oversight of Antisemitism Course Taught by Controversial Academic
Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF) sent a letter to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway via email on Tuesday denouncing the statement and SJP’s “history of making Jewish and pro-Israel students feel unsafe through intimidation, violence and veiled antisemitism.”
“We see the purpose of this recent statement is to isolate Rutgers Hillel for embracing Zionism as a central part of Jewish identity,” ACF wrote in the letter. “While SJP brands itself as a progressive human-rights organization, its actual impact is to undermine any hope for peace, justice and human rights in the Middle East by delegitimizing, demonizing and applying double standards to Israel.”
SJP and Rutgers Mutual Aid released a statement on July 26 that called Zionism one of the “real threats to Jewish safety today,” attacked Rutgers’ support of “apartheid Israel” and criticized Hillel’s support of Israel. The statement also argued that Zionism “purposely ties all Jews to the Israeli regime and, by extension, its crimes.”
The groups concluded their statement by calling on the university to condemn “all attempts to falsely conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.”
On Tuesday, B’nai Brith Canada wrote to the University of Victoria (UVic) calling for more details about a planned course on the history of antisemitism taught by a professor it accused of expressing “hostility” toward North American Jews.
Dr. Shamma Boyarin — who the group charged with calling former Anti-Defamation League CEO Abraham Foxman a “zionist pig,” and accusing Jews at large of being complicit in genocide — will teach “Introduction to Antisemitism: A Historical Survey of Key Texts from Augustine to Luther” when the fall term begins on September 8th.
“To state the obvious, this is unacceptable,” wrote B’nai Brith Canada to administrators at the public university in British Columbia.
“Neither UVic nor any reputable university would ever allow someone who called a Black community leader a ‘racist pig,’ accused Black Canadians of complicity in genocide, or gave notice that he intended to mock a victim of anti-Black racism to teach a course on anti-Black racism,” the group said.
“Moreover,” it continued, “there is no evidence online that Dr. Boyarin has prior experience teaching or writing academically about antisemitism.”
A UVic spokesperson told The Algemeiner that Boyarin’s views had not been made on behalf of the university or in the context of his work, and that it was not the university’s role to “judge or censor its employees’ exercise of free speech in their private lives.”
Anuradha Mittal, Chair of the @benandjerrys Board, hasn't said a word about the Islamist terror attack in Kabul that killed 170 people.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 27, 2021
Instead she thanks the Guardian for an article—from 7 years ago—blaming US.
And she's retweeting Omar Shakir & others on "Israeli apartheid." https://t.co/hjTBHNRFFV pic.twitter.com/stPamHiyUc
#Manchester, #Leeds, #Liverpool and #Scotland editions' front page (27.08.21):
— Jewish Telegraph | e-edition.jewishtelegraph.com (@JewishTelegraph) August 26, 2021
The National Trust for Scotland (@N_T_S) has been forced to remove a one-sided exhibition about ‘Palestine’ which claimed that #Israel had “pushed out Arabic communities from their homes by force”. pic.twitter.com/VQofOAZRZV
Who's teaching a Fall 2021 class on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at @UNC?
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) August 26, 2021
Antisemite Kylie Broderick who's tweeted out the following -
"Zionist scumbags"
"All of Israel is Occupied Territory"
"Start following BDS"
Chancellor @KevinGuskiewicz defended Broderick's comments. pic.twitter.com/474A0hthed
Is Zionism settler colonialism? ??
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) August 26, 2021
A heated, but civil, debate between Joseph and @AbdullaAndalusi.
Check out the Israel Advocacy Movement for the full uncensored debate! ?? pic.twitter.com/0DzzERjmqp
Quora Writers Say ‘Unchecked Jew-Hatred,’ Holocaust Denial Persist on Popular Q&A Site
As social media companies increasingly face public scrutiny over their moderation of hateful content, a group of Jewish writers on the question-and-answer platform Quora are calling on the company to stamp out the spread of antisemitic misinformation and harassment, often disseminated by pseudonymous users.BBC regular highlights partial framing of Oslo peace process
A California-based Q&A website founded in 2009, Quora prides itself as “a place to share knowledge and better understand the world.” Having since added blogging and social features to its offerings, several hundred million users come to the platform every month to ask and answer questions on nearly every conceivable topic — in the hopes of conducting the kinds of productive discussions not always seen on other Internet forums.
To help make them happen, the platform also has a content policy requiring users to be “civil, respectful, and considerate to other posters,” and a system for content moderation. But as on many other social networks, some users say those procedures have not succeeded in preventing bad behavior, virulent hate speech, and harassment from percolating on the site.
“Quora earned a reputation as a platform for serious and informative discussion and advice,” Josh Korn, a longtime and active Quora user, told The Algemeiner. “But over the past four years, it has become a den of unchecked hatred, notably Jew-hatred, not just Israel-bashing.”
“It seems obvious is that the system has several fundamental flaws,” he argued.
Notably the BBC’s “permanent public record” does not include statements made by Arafat and other Palestinian officials during those Oslo years which blatantly contradict the corporation’s across the board framing of Palestinian renunciation of violence and commitment to “mutual recognition” and peace.
However, this week – courtesy of MEMRI – it emerged that the BBC has a regular contributor who can fill that information gap.
“British-Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan said that Israelis know that the scenes from Kabul Airport will be repeated at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. He made his remarks in an interview that aired on Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) on August 19, 2021. Atwan said that the Israelis will then find that there are no planes leaving Ben Gurion Airport, and they will be forced to escape to the Mediterranean Sea. He further said that in 1995, PLO leader Yasser Arafat promised him that he would live to see the day that the Israelis will flee Palestine “like rats fleeing a sinking ship.” Atwan added: “Today, I believe that this prophecy will come true.””
“In July 1995, I met with President Yasser Arafat in Tunisia. […]
Arafat offered me to take a walk outside. It was at night, around 1 AM. So, we went out to take a walk and he told me: ‘By Allah, you will see the Israelis fleeing Palestine, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.’ He told me: ‘You will get to see this in your time. I will not live to see that day, but you are much younger than me, and you will get to see this.’ Today I believe that this prophecy will come true.”
Arafat left Tunisia for the Gaza Strip in July 1994 so it is not clear whether Atwan’s recollection of the date of that conversation is inaccurate or whether the PLO leader was on a visit to what was at the time still the formal headquarters of that organisation.
What is apparent from Atwan’s account is that even at the height of the Oslo process, Arafat was in fact committed to an entirely different scenario than the one the BBC continues to promote to its audiences years later.
More lies, incitement and racial hatred from @4noura! https://t.co/WW7pRI9e3I
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 27, 2021
Village of Great Neck Adopts IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism
The Village of Great Neck, NY, unanimously adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antiSemitism.Supreme Court rules Morocco’s Jews can’t be compensated as Holocaust victims
The Long Island community made the decision during its board of trustees meeting on Aug. 17. The village joins other area municipalities in adopting the definition of antisemitism, including Hempstead, North Hempstead, Nassau County, Oyster Bay and Glen Cove.
Village of Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral explained that it is crucial to have a unified front against any kind of antisemitism, bigotry and racism.
“Obviously, there has been a significant rise in antisemitism with all of the discussions and writings that people make on social media as well as different channels,” he said. “I think it’s important to really speak in a unified voice against antisemitism or any other racism.”
The IHRA working definition of antisemitism states that: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Israel’s top court ruled Thursday that while Morroco’s Jews may have suffered antisemitism during World War II, they are not eligible for compensation as Holocaust survivors.New York Man Sentenced to Three Years for ‘Hate-Fueled’ Death Threats Against Jewish Woman
Israel’s Nazi persecution law stipulates that those who suffered health issues as a result of Nazi persecution during the Holocaust will be entitled to benefits and compensation.
The plaintiffs had appealed a ruling of the Haifa District Court, which rejected their claim of Nazi persecution in Morocco.
The Supreme Court ruled that the deprivation of liberties and restrictions imposed on Moroccan Jews during the war did not meet the conditions set out in the law.
The justices said that the harm to Moroccan Jews was mainly economic and largely limited to their ability to integrate into the labor market, acquire education outside the Jewish community and choose their place of residence.
Justices Neal Hendel, David Mintz and Yosef Elron said in their ruling that the suffering caused to Morocco’s Jews during World War II was a result of the Vichy French regime pressuring the Moroccan government to implement antisemitic laws.
The US Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut, announced Wednesday that a New York man had been sentenced to three years in prison for making a series of violent antisemitic threats against a Jewish woman.Mikvahs unearthed at Vilnius synagogue destroyed by Nazis
A Department of Justice statement said that Christopher Rascoll, 39, began his campaign of harassment in Nov. 2019, repeatedly threatening the Stratford, Connecticut resident via antisemitic text messages, voicemails and Facebook posts.
Among the messages was one sent on Hanukkah that said, “Suns about to go down. It would be a shame if your house were used to light the menorah. Or turned in a gas chamber.”
Another came on the first day of Passover, telling the woman not to be home on Easter because “I’m going to stick you in an oven. Or I’m going to shoot you. … I should send you to a concentration camp.”
“The police are not going to help you. The courts are not going to help you. … I will kill you,” he wrote on the day of his arrest.
Rascoll was tracked down and arrested by the FBI on June 26, 2020. Following the arrest, he was found to have threatened several other people in a similar manner.
Rascoll pled guilty in April to the hate crime of interference with the right to fair housing, as well as to sending threatening communications.
Archaeologists have unearthed parts of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, a 17th-century building, that were presumed to have been destroyed by the Nazis and Soviets.American couple seeking help to restore Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust
One of the main findings from that section of the synagogue, whose ruins have been catalogued and mapped for several years in the current dig, are two mikvahs, or ritual baths, in its compound, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement Thursday.
Additionally, the diggers have found a yad, a small metal object shaped like the palm of a hand with the index finger extended. The yad is moved along a Torah scroll to indicate which portion of the page is being read or sung.
The discovery this week follows the 2019 unearthing of the Tuscan baroque-style bimah, the synagogue’s central prayer platform, in the same dig by a team of international scholars headed by Jon Seligman, director of the antiquities authority’s Excavations, Surveys and Research Department.
While there is much documentation of the synagogue’s central parts, relatively little information is available on the so-called schulhof — the complex of facilities around the former synagogue that comprised the two mikvahs, Seligman told the Israel Hayom daily.
The city of Vilnius intends to build a memorial to the historic synagogue on the site that will display its artifacts in time for the 700th birthday of the Lithuanian capital in 2023.
A 190-year old Torah scroll that found its home in Israel in 2017 is in need of restoration. It was brought to the Jewish state by Asher and Sandy Berlinger, who made aliyah to Israel with the help of Nefesh B'Nefesh. The couple, both in their 80s, moved to Jerusalem from Paramus, New Jersey.Tarantino gets standing ovation at Jerusalem film fest Cannon Group tribute
The Torah scroll was written in 1833 and was passed down from generation to generation in Asher's family, who is a descendant of a German rabbinical family.
Berlinger inherited the item from his grandfather, Naphtali Berlinger, who was the rabbi of the Bodenhausen Jewish community during the Nazi period.
When Asher was three years old, his family fled to the United States. His father, Menachem Berlinger, was arrested on Kristallnacht and event sent to prison, but, thankfully, was released because he, and the rest of the family, had visas. The family settled in New York, and the Torah school was used at a synagogue in Brooklyn.
The grandfather, Naphtali, decided to stay behind to support his congregants. In a letter he sent to loved ones, he wrote: "Do not worry about me. God is with me." He died in the Theresienstadt ghetto.
The Torah scroll is currently located in the Berliner home in Jerusalem. Almost 200 years of challenges and hardships did not leave it unscathed: part of it has been torn and some of the writing has faded, making it ineligible for use in religious worship.
Master film director Quentin Tarantino, the director of such modern classics as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, and his wife, singer/model Daniella Pick, were guests of honor at a tribute to the films of the Cannon Group at the Jerusalem Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque on Thursday night and Israel’s favorite film geek and was welcomed by an audience filled with his fellow geeks by a standing ovation.Tarantino: Hollywood snubbed ’80s Israeli directors ‘in an antisemitic way’
The tribute includes eight films and will last for several days during the festival, which continues until September 4, and the first program kicked off with a panel featuring Tarantino, long known to be a connoisseur of low-budget cinema from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and Israeli director Navot Papushado, whose violent thriller, Big Bad Wolves, which he directed with Aharon Keshales, was championed by Tarantino. They were joined by Hilla Medalia, an acclaimed documentary director/producer, whose film, The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films, told the story of the Cannon Group. The panel also featured a surprise appearance via Zoom by Yoram Globus, the surviving member of the two Israeli cousins who founded the Cannon Group. His partner, Menahem Golan, passed away several years ago.
After producing some of the most popular Israeli films of the ‘60s and ‘70s, such as the Eskimo Limon series and Operation Thunderbolt, the Cannon Group made blockbuster action movies with such stars as Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone. They jumped at every trend and ran with it, making movies about the Breakdance craze, the occult, martial arts and much more, sometimes selling movies based on a story idea and a poster. While some dismissed them as schlockmeisters presiding over an empire of cheap exploitation movies, others — such as Tarantino — feel their movies are classic crowd-pleasers. Some of these 35-millimeter prints were from Tarantino’s own collection, while others are from the cinematheque’s archive.
Dr. Noa Regev, the CEO of the cinematheque and director of the festival, thanked Pick for helping to put together the tribute.
Globus recalled meeting Tarantino when the director came to Israel in 2009 to promote Inglourious Basterds and thanked the filmmaker for coming. “Quentin raised his hand and stood on his chair and said, ‘I should thank you, not you should thank me’ . . .He knew all the Cannon Group movies by heart.”
Award-winning director Quentin Tarantino spoke about his long-time admiration for Israeli directors Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus and their fast-paced, action “exploitation” flicks of the 1980s, saying that Hollywood had snubbed them “in an antisemitic way,” in a Jerusalem Film Festival panel held on Thursday.
“I loved Cannon Films in the ’80s,” said Tarantino. “I was really enamored with that company. We thought if we could meet Menahem and Yoram, they would give us a chance.”
The evening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque was dedicated to Cannon Films, the failing film company bought by cousins and film producers Golan and Globus for $500,000 in 1979.
Globus was present on Zoom, along with Tarantino, Israeli director Navot Papushado and screenwriter Hilla Medalia.
Tarantino, married to Israeli Daniella Pik and now an “abba” (Hebrew for father) to their toddler son, has spent long stretches of time in Israel, including a lengthy one last year due to the coronavirus.
Tarantino spoke about his years prior to making it in Hollywood, when he and Roger Avary, who worked with him in a video store and then collaborated with him on “Pulp Fiction,” would spend hours watching the movies made by Golan and Globus.
“The American press and trade papers would make fun of them, the Hollywood community would make fun of them and not take them seriously and frankly, in an antisemitic way,” said Tarantino. “What me and Roger saw were two guys trying to take on the industry, trying to take on Hollywood and make the movies they wanted to make.”
GOLD FOR #ISRAEL! ????
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) August 27, 2021
Israeli swimmer Mark Malyar wins gold and a new world record at the #Tokyo #Paralympics for Israel’s second ?? pic.twitter.com/Xex5FAv2a3
