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Monday, September 06, 2021

09/06 Links Pt2: Jpost: 50 Most Influential Jews of 2021; Israel’s New Gulf Allies UAE and Bahrain Send New Year Wishes; Biden Invites Pro-Sarsour 'Rabbi' Who Defended BDS for Rosh Hashana

From Ian:

50 Most Influential Jews of 2021
The Jerusalem Post is proud to present its 2021 list of the 50 Most Influential Jews.

Many people influence the world we live in and impact our daily lives.

This year, we strived to create a list showcasing the diversity of the Jewish nation while highlighting people from all walks of life – government, art, medicine, literature and science.

1 Israel's Changemakers Naftali Bennett & Yair Lapid
2 The Diplomat Antony Blinken
3 America's COVID Warrior Rochelle P. Walensky
4 King of the Cure Albert Bourla
5 Intel Czar Avril Haines
6 Mr. President Isaac Herzog
7 Leading Global Jewry Ronald Lauder
8 Mrs. Unicorn Eynat Guez
9 Britain's Fighters for Justice Michael Ellis & Lucy Frazer
10 Prime Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu


Biden Invites Pro-Sarsour 'Rabbi' Who Defended BDS for Rosh Hashana
When Jews were being beaten in the streets of New York and Los Angeles by Muslim thugs, she signed a letter in support of the anti-Israel movement while insisting it wasn’t anti-semitic.

“We refuse to allow the continued and inaccurate conflation of antisemitism with speech critical of Israel,” the letter signed by Elyse Wechterman, the executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, huffed even while Jews who had been assaulted still lay in the hospital.

“Palestinian liberation and dismantling antisemitism are intertwined,” the letter claimed, which was a lot like insisting that Nazism and dismantling antisemitism were intertwined.

Its examples of the “Palestinian Freedom Movement” that it was defending against charges of anti-semitism included the BDS movement and a user name calling for the destruction of Israel.

"The Israeli government must be held accountable for its continued violations of Palestinian human rights," the letter ranted while insisting that the signers would support support the right of anti-Israel activists “to describe their lived experiences without being accused of antisemitism.”

Happy Rosh Hashanah!


Scottish government asked for urgent clarification over Greens’ ‘racist Zionism’ policy
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is being urged to clarify her government’s position on antisemitism after it emerged Holyrood’s power-sharing partners believe Zionism is a “racist ideology”.

In 2015 the Scottish Greens approved a motion that declared Hamas was not a terrorist organisation while branding Israel an “apartheid state”.

Antisemitism campaigners voiced concerns the party was now in power in Scotland while Scottish Conservatives called for the First Minister to condemn the “shameful stance”.

The Scottish government adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in full in 2018 but the policy of its new junior partner appears to be a clear breach of that definition.

Policy Motion 2, voted through by Scottish Greens in 2015, has never been rescinded. It was debated and voted on at conference on a Saturday, excluding participation by observant Jews.

It condemns Israel’s claim to be the “Jewish state” and brands Zionism a “racist ideology based on Jewish supremacy in Palestine”. It accuses Israel of being an “unacceptable” “apartheid” state.

It goes on to demand Israel repeal its law of return for Jews, while backing the right of return for all Palestinian Arabs and their descendants.

It declares that Hamas should no longer be designated as a terrorist organisation and offers its support for the anti-Israel BDS boycott movement.
Outrage over council leader’s refusal to act against fellow councillor’s anti-Israel rally that featured swastika placard and antisemitic chanting
The Leader of Calderdale Council has refused to act against a fellow councillor who organised an anti-Israel rally last month, where it was reported that antisemitic chanting and a sign bearing a swastika were present, causing outrage.

Labour Party Cllr Tim Swift was urged by members from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to take action against councillor and Cabinet member Jenny Lynn, who organised the event in Halifax, and who was allegedly filmed raising her fist in the air while the crowd chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state – and its replacement with a State of Palestine – and is thus an attempt to deny Jews, uniquely, the right to self-determination.

It was also said that a sign depicting swastikas alongside former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a wanted poster was present.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which Calderdale Council has adopted, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” are both examples of antisemitism.

It is understood that one of the invited speakers at the event was the disgraced conspiracy theorist Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer who, in 2015, was ordered by the Church of England to stop using social media after he claimed that an Israeli conspiracy was behind 9/11, which the Church denounced as “clearly antisemitic”.
CAIR’s Hate Exposed as Leader Compares Israel to the Taliban and ISIS
The Taliban has returned to power in Afghanistan. Iran is racing toward a nuclear weapon. Lebanon is on the brink of collapse, as Hezbollah — the Iranian proxy — stands to gain even more power, ready to unleash 130,000 rockets and precision missiles on Israel.

Despite all these realities, anti-Israel activist Osama Abuirshaid stood outside the White House on August 26, protesting President Biden’s meeting with new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

“Israel,” Abuirshaid said, “is the real danger to stability and peace in the Middle East.”

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad argued at the same protest, that welcoming Bennett was as bad as welcoming the Taliban:
Imagine if [the] Taliban forms the government, [and] continues to do what it was doing to the people in Afghanistan before they were defeated in 2001,” Awad said. “And they became national and international leaders, and if the president of the United States, President Joe Biden, decides to host in the White House the leader of [the] Taliban, what would be the reaction of the US media? What would be the reaction from the public? What would be the reaction of politicians by the fact that Joe Biden would be hosting the leader of [the] Taliban? … Today it’s no different. President Joe Biden is hosting the leader of the Israeli Taliban. Joe Biden is hosting the leader of the settler colonial movement in Israel.

The White House meeting, Awad said, sent “a message to the world that Israel is an exception, Israel can abuse human rights because it has an agency on Capitol Hill that pours money in the pockets of candidates and congresspeople. And that’s what matters. What matters is not that people are being killed and maimed and bombed, and their houses are being destroyed on their heads by US-made weapon supplied to Israel.”

This won’t change, Awad, claimed, because “there’s money pouring in the pockets of people like Joe Biden to become candidates and to maintain the status quo.”

In other words, Jewish money is driving American policy.
Notorious Prof Miller implicates UK government in Manchester terror attack
Leaked lecture recordings reveal embattled Bristol professor David Miller labelling Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi “effectively an asset of the British state”.

While discussing counter-terror policy, Prof Miller said Mr Abedi was “taken to Libya by the British, the British allowed him to go to Libya,” and that this “illustrates blowback in the most extraordinary way for the government.”

Mr Abedi returned from Libya in 2014 after fighting for an Islamist group. Three years later he detonated a homemade bomb at the Manchester Arena, killing 23.

Prof Miller’s comments came during a lecture on ‘state terror’.

In reference to the Syrian Civil War, he said: “The government have supported the moderate armed opposition…

“In other countries Britain is supporting [Islamic terrorism] while opposing it here.”

The controversial professor of sociology also mentioned 2015 reports from Turkish pro-government media outlets that a British spy helped to smuggle British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, into Syria.

Women who wanted to join Isis were “escorted across the border by British intelligence,” said Prof Miller, “for who knows what purpose we can only guess.”

“Never believe what the government says without thinking it through,” he added.

Prof Miller may be set to face a hearing as early as next week after being under investigation since March.


Instagram users being ‘randomly’ fed Jew-hate
Instagram users may not necessarily be heading online in search of antisemitic content but many are finding it, a new report has warned.

Analysis published Monday by the Community Security Trust (CST) and the Antisemitism Policy Trust (APT) suggests online users may be accessing antisemitic content regardless of their “intentions and chosen search terms.”

“For antisemitic content, this would appear to represent supply rather than demand,” warns their report based on research carried out last year by data scientists at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge.

Dozens of hashtags containing antisemitism or links to Jew-hate were viewed tens of thousands of times on the platform over a seven-week period, the report found.

Experts combing the social media network for antisemitic material found it often appeared in hashtags attached to seemingly unrelated posts.

Hashtags containing or associated with antisemitism also featured alongside hashtags related to conspiracy theories concerning chemtrails, 5G and paedophilia.

“In this way, antisemitic terms and tropes appear to be, in some cases, deployed almost randomly by users alongside other forms of discriminatory, hateful or conspiratorial hashtags.

“These posts can, of course, also act as a resource or gateway to further racist content,” the report warns.

Researchers also found a “strong association” with antisemitism on the platform and anti-Israel attitudes.


Qatar and Al Jazeera’s Hypocrisy, Exposed
The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Thani, recently approved the first semi-democratic elections for the country’s parliament (the Shura Council), which are to be held in October 2021. In the past, the emir himself has appointed the 45 Council members. He is now ready to allow the popular election of 30 of them, though he is retaining the power to appoint the remaining 15.

Ostensibly, this is a positive step toward democracy in the autocratic emirate of Qatar. Yet many have argued that these reforms are intended for Western consumption ahead of the soccer World Cup, which is to be held in Qatar next year.

As a criterion for participation in the planned elections, it was determined that anyone whose original citizenship is Qatari and who has reached the age of 18 will have the right to vote. Those who have received Qatari citizenship, meaning individuals who have been naturalized and are not originally Qatari, will not be eligible to participate.

According to Article 1 of the Qatari Nationality Law, original Qataris are those who settled in the emirate before 1930. As such, it effectively divides Qataris into first- and second-class citizens. This provision is especially discriminatory against the Mora tribe, one of Qatar’s largest, which only recently regained its citizenship after it was stripped for having supported the current Emir’s grandfather when he was deposed by his son in 1995.

Small wonder, then, that the Nationality Law has infuriated the people, who have taken to the streets in protest. The demonstrations have resulted in many arrests. This is the first time such demonstrations have been seen in the Persian Gulf in many years.

During the “Arab Spring,” the Qatari cable news network Al Jazeera incited people across the Arab world to rise up against their regimes, from Egypt to Libya to Syria to Yemen. The network urged the Arab masses to take to the streets and unseat leaderships in the name of democracy, individual rights, and freedom.
Associated Press Apparently Nixes Using Word ‘Activist’ to Describe Gaza Rioters & Terrorists
The Associated Press last month faced criticism after HonestReporting highlighted how the wire service appeared to minimize the severity of arson balloon attacks on Israel by Gaza Strip-based rioters, some of whom have ties to or are members of US-designated terrorist groups.

In an August 23 article, AP described those who launched the incendiary devices as “activists” even though the attacks had sparked “at least three fires.” In the same piece, the Gazan who murdered border police officer Barel Shmueli was described as a “Palestinian activist.”

HonestReporting posted a screenshot of the offending article and drew attention to the Orwellian-like use of such language. Numerous users thereafter expressed shock that the AP would choose a word that so clearly misrepresents the reality of acts of violence against Israelis.

Hoping to get some clarity on why AP chose to frame its story in the way that it did, we reached out to Josef Federman, the outlet’s news director for Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. He explained that the issue we raised was one that his team was still grappling with and made clear that the use of the word “activists” in such a context is not editorial policy.

Furthermore, Federman argued that while incendiary balloons represent dangerous attacks, they are less potentially lethal than rockets or gunfire and the people that are launching them are, to AP’s knowledge, not trained terrorists.

This, despite the fact AP itself later acknowledged that this is indeed the case. While an AP article on August 25 only identified a Gazan killed during clashes as “a Palestinian man,” the text was later updated to read that “Hamas identified him as a member of its armed wing.”


Guardian obit for 'Zorba the Greek' composer omits his antisemitism
A nearly two-thousand word Sept. 2nd Guardian obituary for Mikis Theodorakis, written by Gail Holst-Warhaft, failed to note his record of explicit antisemitism.

Unlike the Guardian, an obituary in The Times devoted two paragraphs (in a much shorter piece) to Theodorakis’s anti-Jewish racism.

Though the Guardian obit for the Greek composer, best known writing the score to ‘Zorba the Greek‘, included great detail on his political activism, including his opposition to Greece’s military junta, it didn’t report that he was a self-proclaimed anti-Semite and – as the Guardian itself reported in 2003 – called Jews the “the root of all evil”. Additionally, he accused Jews of controlling “world music”, the banks, the media and the United States.

Theodorakis also alleged that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians were like that of the Nazis.

A 2014 survey of global antisemitic attitudes commissioned by Anti-Defamation League found that Greece had the highest percentage of antisemitic attitudes in the world outside of the Middle East.


'A ticking time bomb': Facebook refuses to ban group inciting terrorism online
The Lach Yerushalayim organization and right-wing watchdog group Im Tirzu have contacted Facebook upon learning a Palestinian media outlet with over one million followers has been using the social media platform to incites terrorism online.

The network, by the name of Jerusalem Square, operates from the city, issuing daily reports on terrorist operatives killed or wounded while working against "operation forces."

In one such post on Aug. 12, the network commemorated the 27th anniversary of the "martyrdom" of terrorists who abducted Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman, a dual US-Israeli citizen, in 1994 and then murdered him when IDF forces attempted to rescue him.

On its Facebook page, the organization expresses support for these activists, glorifying them and campaigning for their release. The network also expresses support for imprisoned Sheik Raed Salah, head of the outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and the man believed to be behind the Facebook page.
Israeli tourist victim of antisemitic assault in Italy
An Israeli tourist was the victim of an antisemitic assault while vacationing in Italy.

Elad Forgash was shopping in the city of Pisa in Italy's Tuscan region on Aug. 31 when he entered a store to purchase a few sculptures as souvenirs from his trip.

"I started talking to the salesman while he wrapped up the sculptures. He told me he was from Bangladesh and asked where I was from, and I replied 'Israel.' He told me he hated Israel and the Jews because they are killers. I didn't get worked up about it. I just returned the bag with the sculptures and said I would rather not buy from him.

"When I turned around, he hit me in the head with the sculptures. Luckily, there were tourists who filmed him and he ran away, and the police and an ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital."

Elad said he suffered a fracture in his eye socket and his nose and would need to have surgery when he returned to Israel.

Police in Pisa are investigating the circumstances of the incident.


Montreal anti-vax leader drops yellow star, stands by Holocaust comparison
Last month, Francois Amalega Bitondo was standing on a Montreal street, megaphone and cellphone in hand, protesting against COVID-19 vaccines. A bright yellow six-pointed star stood out against his black T-shirt.

The star, which read “unvaccinated,” was an explicit reference to the yellow Stars of David that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Others in the crowd were wearing them, too. Their implication: Those who refuse to be vaccinated are facing the same oppression as Jews did in the 1940s.

The message and badge put Bitondo and his fellow protesters into the company of a growing cadre of COVID-19 vaccine skeptics around the world who have invoked the Holocaust as they rail against regulations that increasingly marginalize those who choose not to be vaccinated against the virus.

In the days following the Montreal protest, Bitondo told a French journalist that his yellow star was “here to stay” and Quebec’s anti-racism minister criticized anti-vaxxers who don the symbol.

Then Bitondo called the local Holocaust museum — and changed his mind.
Why on earth is this auction house selling Nazi medals, weapons, books, uniforms, badges, cutlery and other memorabilia?
Campaign Against Antisemitism will be writing to Tennants auctioneers over its sale of a trove of Nazi memorabilia, including medals, weapons, books, uniforms, badges and cutlery.

Tennants describes itself as “the UK’s largest family-owned fine art auctioneers, and a market leader with offices in North Yorkshire and London.”

As the company claims that it “has the knowledge and experience clients can trust,” it cannot rely on ignorance to explain how it has come to be selling numerous Third Reich artefacts, including a tin of Third Reich machine gun magazines for £120-£180, a Third Reich SS Officer’s visor cap for £800-£900, a collection of Nazi medals for £100-£150, two Nazi Party badges for £100-£150, a “small quantity of German Third Reich related books” for £60-£80, various articles of Waffen-SS uniforms and a lot more.

Recently, a BBC Bargain Hunt expert apologised after it was revealed that Nazi memorabilia was due to be sold at his auction house.
18th-century porcelain seized by Nazis to be auctioned in restitution effort
A collection of 18th-century porcelain hidden from the Nazis, acquired by Hitler and then stashed away in a salt mine before being recovered by Allied forces, will go up for sale at the Sotheby’s auction house in New York next week.

The proceeds of the sale will benefit the heirs of the family that purchased the collection before the Holocaust and fled Europe in the late 1930s with few to none of their worldly belongings.

A public exhibition of the porcelain will open at the auction house on September 7, a week before the auction, which is scheduled for September 14.

The 117 items in the auction — which range in estimated sale prices from $300 to $400,000 apiece — are all rare Meissen porcelain, dating back to the early 18th century. The collection was first curated in the late 1920s by Franz and Margarethe Oppenheimer, a Jewish couple living in Berlin, said Sotheby’s. The entire collection today is said to be worth approximately £2 million ($2.75 million).

According to the auction house, the Oppenheimers fled Nazi persecution in Berlin around December 1936, heading first to Vienna and then to Budapest. The collection ended up in the hands of Fritz Mannheimer, although “it is not known precisely when” he acquired them, said Sotheby’s. Mannheimer died in 1939, and the collection was acquired for Adolf Hitler in 1941.

In order to protect Hitler’s art collection from Allied bombing, the porcelain was “moved for safe keeping first to Vyšší Brod Monastery in Bohemia and later to the salt mines in Bad Aussee,” said the auction house.
Pre-Holocaust Jewish communal records saved from the auction block
Seven rare ledgers from the 19th and 20th centuries containing records of pre-Holocaust Jewish communal life in what is now Hungary have been removed from public auction and jointly purchased by the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives (HJMA), along with the National Library of Israel (NLI).

Among the documents are thousands of birth, death, marriage and other communal records from six different Jewish communities, many of them from the Holocaust era, which have not yet been digitized.

Included in the registers are marriage records going back to the 1850s in the eastern Hungarian city of Miskolc and burial society logs dating between 1942 and 1946 in the town of Satoraljaujhely, around 50 miles east of Miskolc. At the turn of the 20th century, Satoraljaujhely contained some 4,500 Jews — one-third of the town’s 13,000 residents — but the Jewish population was decimated in the Holocaust.

The ledgers will be kept in Jerusalem at the NLI, and will be available for exhibit at the HJMA, housed in Budapest’s Dohany Street Synagogue complex, upon request, said Dr. Yoel Finkelman, curator of the NLI’s Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection.

The items were set to be auctioned off by the Kedem auction house in Jerusalem on behalf of an anonymous seller on August 24, but were removed from the block after protests by activists and organizations dedicated to the preservation of Jewish heritage, who maintain that such records should not be held by private collectors.
Israeli company unveils electric vehicle battery that can recharge in 10 minutes
StoreDot, an Israeli developer of extreme fast-charging (XFC) battery technology for electric vehicles, unveiled this month what it called the “world’s first” silicon-dominant battery prototype capable of recharging in just 10 minutes.

The company’s cylindrical cells use a 4680 format — 46 millimeters wide by 80 millimeters long — that is favored by global carmakers, specifically electric vehicle giant Tesla.

The battery tech has been in development for three years and includes five patents in cell design, StoreDot said in a statement last week. The design “increases throughput and addresses safety and performance issues typically associated with the hard case structure of cylindrical cells,” the company said.

StoreDot said it was now working on setting up a production line with Eve Energy, the company’s manufacturing partner in China.

“Achieving the goal of extreme fast charging a cylindrical cell in only 10 minutes has been on StoreDot’s technology roadmap from day one,” said StoreDot CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf. “It’s highly significant that we can offer Electric Vehicle manufacturers the choice of cell formats, utilizing our XFC technology that will overcome the current barriers to EV [electric vehicle] ownership: range and charging anxiety.” This refers to the fear of a battery running out mid-journey and the driver getting stranded at a charging station.

Myersdorf revealed that the company was now in “advanced discussions” with a number of global automotive manufacturers with plans “to supply them with various XFC cells, enabling a rapid transition to a zero-emissions electrified future.”
Israel’s New Gulf Allies UAE and Bahrain Send New Year Wishes to Israel and World Jewry
Israel’s new allies in the Gulf sent Rosh Hashanah best wishes to Israel and the Jewish people as a whole on Sunday in both English and Hebrew.

The United Arab Emirates’ embassy in Israel tweeted, “On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the UAE Embassy in Tel Aviv wishes you and your loved ones its best wishes for a Happy New Year.”

“May it be a wonderful new year filled with abundance, joy, and treasured moments,” they said.

Khaled Al Jalahma, Bahrain’s first ambassador to Israel, tweeted, “I would like to wish the Bahraini, Israeli and world Jewry a very happy #Rosh_Hashanah.”

“May this new year bring peace and prosperity to our peoples. #Shana_Tova,” he said.

Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain normalized relations in November 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.







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