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Friday, February 04, 2022

02/04 Links Pt2: Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered 20 years ago, but the key lesson wasn’t learned; Encyclopedia Britannica: Arab, Semitic people can't be called antisemitic

From Ian:

Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered 20 years ago, but the key lesson wasn’t learned
Judah Pearl mentioned the Al-Dura case. The American media rushed to make that story a lead story in the mainstream media. It was a cause of the second intifada leading to the deaths of Israelis and Arab Palestinians. But the hatred went beyond the Middle East. Antisemitism rose across the Western World, leading to attacks and murders of Jews such as Daniel Pearl. The MSM kept showing the pictures of the boy hiding behind his father as they were supposedly shot by the IDF.

The media didn’t investigate the Al Dura story as they would do with other stories. Eventually, the whole tape was found. It showed that the entire incident was a set-up, a false slander of the Jewish nation using Israel as their excuse.

The UN recognizes that anti-Zionism is Antisemitism because they use the term interchangeably. The 2001 UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban quickly became a disgusting display of Antisemitism and anti-Israel Propaganda. It is there that the “Durban Strategy” was formulated, delegitimizing the Jewish State via branding it as a racist entity. Copies of the anti-Semitic work The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were sold on conference grounds; fliers depicting Hitler with the question, “What if I had won?” were circulated among conference attendees.

“Durban simultaneously hosted a UN conference of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). According to the UN, the NGO conference aimed to publicize the “voices of the victims.” In this forum, the Jewish Caucus proposed that Holocaust denial and anti-Jewish violence caused by Jewish support for Israel be labeled forms of Antisemitism. The proposal was almost unanimously defeated. Anne Bayefsky, an NGO participant and a representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, commented. “

“The only group that voted for it was the Jews. Of all the ‘voices of the victims’ put into the resolution, only one voice was deleted – the Jewish voice.”

Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) made statements displaying her belief that there was no difference between Antisemitism and hate of Israel. For example, before she was elected, she tweeted that Israel had “hypnotized” the world. That’s an age-old anti-Semitic claim that Jews had the power of mind control. She used it against Israel.

In 2019 Omar used another anti-Semitic canard that Jews were rich. But she didn’t use it about Jews, her words were slander against Zionism, the belief that the Jewish nation should have a state in its eternal homeland (Israel). Omar described the Congressional support of Israel by tweeting, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” Some Congressional Jews refused to believe that Omar’s statements about Israel were anti-Semitic. For example, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) blamed the GOP, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was silent as he usually is about anti-Semitic acts.

There are too many other examples to list here. But the key lesson which is still ignored is that most people don’t understand that haters of Israel are really expressing their Antisemitism.

May God continue to comfort Daniel Pearl’s bereaved family, and may his memory always be for a blessing.

And may people remember what God said to Abraham. The Jewish people are a nation. Israel is every Jew's land. The hatred of Israel or Zionism is Antisemitism
Mark Regev: Being a diplomatic team player, not just Israel's president
Herein lies the paradox: Israel’s president enjoys high visibility and much prestige, but has no serious decision-making responsibilities, not in determining government policy, not in allocating budgets, not in legislating laws. Moreover, the position, while supposedly above the day-to-day political fray, is usually held by a former politician who is free from the worries of reelection, the law limiting the president to one single seven-year term.

This fusion of high stature with the absence of any real authority can make for a challenging combination, the constraints and contradictions of the presidency at times overly burdensome for a relevancy-seeking public official.

An example: Israel’s eighth president, Moshe Katsav (later jailed for rape) represented the Jewish state at the Rome funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005, exactly the sort of task a ceremonial head of state should perform. Vatican protocol seated Katsav nearby Iranian president Mohammad Khatami who, like Katsav, was born in the Iranian province of Yazd. Katsav told the press afterwards that he shook Khatami’s hand and spoke with him in Farsi, though Khatami denied the exchange.

Needless to say, Katsav’s initiative was spontaneous, uncoordinated with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry. Officials with responsibility for Israel’s national security were critical of the president’s behavior, believing his actions overly motivated by a desire for headlines.

Although in a very different league: At a White House ceremony in 2012, Barack Obama bestowed upon Shimon Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the time, Obama was running for reelection, and although having a testy relationship with the government of Netanyahu over differences on Iran and the Palestinians, the American president was eager to exhibit his pro-Israel credentials.

By honoring Israel’s president in a high-profile ceremony, Obama could display friendship for the Jewish state while avoiding contentious policy issues, with Peres in return receiving precious Oval Office access and a very prestigious decoration. While Peres undoubtedly believed his actions genuinely served Israel’s national interests, he was still ostensibly enabling a strategy to circumvent the elected government in Jerusalem.

So far, Isaac Herzog has demonstrated consummate presidential behavior. Instead of rushing to accept Erdogan’s invitation to visit Turkey, which would be the first of its kind since Peres visited in 2007 prior to the crisis in Jerusalem-Ankara relations, Herzog chose to coordinate his steps with the prime minister and foreign minister, understanding that the diplomatic delicacy of the matter demands such a visit – which appears likely – reflects the considered approach of the government. Unlike some of his predecessors, Herzog rightly appreciates that even Israel’s exalted First Citizen should not have his own independent foreign policy.
Itamar Marcus: The Palestinian Authority's child soldier strategy against Israel
The PA’s child recruitment was a great success. Many Palestinian teenagers participated, and sixteen 12th graders died in that terror wave. The PA’s response to their deaths was horrifying, as the official PA news agency, presented their deaths as a “great victory”:

“Sixteen [12th grade students] succeeded [achieving] the Martyrdom of the homeland… for death as a Martyr is the path to excellence and greatness and the path of those who know how to reach the great victory.” (WAFA, July 11, 2016)

Finally, after sending its children to die, the PA uses them for political profit. Internally, the deaths are used to create hatred of Israel, as the PA routinely presents child terrorists as innocent victims murdered by Israel.

Internationally, the PA publicizes the numbers of killed teenagers and calls on the world to punish Israel. As the frequency grows of members of parliaments and anti-Israel NGOs condemning Israel for the deaths of Palestinian children, increasing the number of dead Palestinian children has become a fundamental component of the PA propaganda strategy.

Years ago, the first time this writer presented this evidence at a hearing in the US Senate it drew outrage. Then-senator Hillary Clinton attacked the PA for its “horrific child abuse,” and former senator Arlen Specter denounced it as “civilization abuse.” But the American and other international condemnations have remained empty words because politicians come and go, while the PA’s use of child soldiers remains at the forefront of its strategy.

Years of PA indoctrination have been alarmingly effective. Palestinian children know they are expected to be child soldiers, and regularly another one seeks a moment of fulfillment and fame, hoping to kill and be killed. Palestinian children have already mastered what they are being taught. Perhaps it is the rest of us who need to stay after school.


The Caroline Glick Show Ep37: Assessing the Damage of Biden's Middle East Policies | Guest: Dr. Victoria Coates
In Episode 37 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline was joined by Dr. Victoria Coates, the Distinguished Fellow for Strategic Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. During the Trump administration, Victoria served as Deputy National Security Advisor and as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary’s Representative to the Middle East and North Africa.

Caroline and Victoria discussed the state of the Biden Administration’s Middle East policies and how they are endangering the U.S.’s regional allies as well as U.S. national security. Victoria served as Senator Ted Cruz’s senior foreign policy advisor before joining the Trump administration and she and Caroline discussed how a Republican majority in Congress could impact the administration’s moves towards the Middle East, beginning in 2023.

Finally, they moved to the Palestinian conflict with Israel, and how Republicans may look at the conflict and the issue of Palestinian statehood going forward into the midterm elections and the 2024 presidential race. It was an essential conversation with a woman who played an enormous role in crafting Trump’s Middle East policies which transformed the region for the better.


The Tikvah Podcast: Michael Doran on the Most Strategically Valuable Country You’ve Never Heard Of
The Republic of Azerbaijan scrambles the assumptions of even the most veteran foreign-policy hands. Sitting at the nexus of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan is the only nation that borders both Iran and Russia; it is at the center of global energy; and, despite being a Muslim-majority nation, it has had a formal relationship with Israel for almost 30 years. By looking at Azerbaijan, this week’s podcast guest suggests that one can reimagine America’s approach to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Michael Doran, the foreign-policy analyst and long-time Mosaic writer, argues in a recent essay that Azerbaijan is uniquely positioned to work with America in pursuit of geopolitical goals that serve both nations. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Doran explains what makes Azerbaijan such a unique country, how it relates to Russia, Israel, Iran, and Turkey, and how it can help the United States recover the geostrategic discipline it needs to strengthen its friends and counter its adversaries.
Melanie Phillips: Whoops, Whoopi: the Holocaust was all about race
Many diaspora Jews subscribe to universalist thinking. They also believe that their safety depends upon not claiming a unique record of suffering in order to avoid provoking yet more resentment at their supposed specialness.

As a result, Jews have been at the forefront of relativising and therefore diminishing the Holocaust. Seeking to conform to “anti-racist” orthodoxy, they claim that antisemitism is one of many different types of racism.

But antisemitism is not racism. The Nazis linked antisemitism to race on spurious scientific grounds drawn from social Darwinism, eugenics and pagan mythology.

In fact, they were merely channelling the malignant attitudes towards Jews that have existed since antiquity in many different genres, including theology, Marxist socio-economic theory and today’s anti-Zionism.

In National Affairs, Ruth Wisse, the former professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, has charted the dark side of Holocaust education. The main problem, she writes, has been teaching that the Holocaust applied equally to Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis, such as the Roma, disabled people, Slavs, Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and others.

Although these groups certainly were targeted by the Nazis, the categories are not compatible. Nazi antisemitism was “an ideology, a movement, and a strategy that organised politics explicitly against the Jews”.

As a result of this fundamental conceptual error, she writes, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, for example, “depoliticised, de-historicised and universalised a political and historical process to prevent teaching antisemitism or the war against the Jews”.

And as she notes, teaching about hate to prevent hate only results in the wish to direct blame and hate against “designated alien or undesirable groups”.

The result is the current epidemic of anti-Semitism. Attacks on Jews in the West have reached record levels, and far outstrip attacks on any other group.

In the New York area, there has been a string of antisemitic attacks. On a street in Brooklyn last month, two Jewish men, one wearing an IDF sweatshirt, were called dirty Jews and punched in the face. Last weekend, a truck driver shouted at Jews in Brooklyn, “Go back to your f*****g country, let Hitler kill you”.

In the ultra-Orthodox London area of Stamford Hill recently, there have been repeated attacks on Jews in the street. And a disproportionate number of all these attacks are being committed by people who are not white.

The mess Whoopi Goldberg has created is the outcome of a culture that now wants to cancel her along with the evidence of its own culpability.
JPost Editorial: Whoopi Goldberg is symptom of America gone wrong on race
Goldberg is famously wrong on several counts. First, the Holocaust was about race. Hitler viewed the Jews as an inferior race to the so-called pure German Aryan nation and sought to have them exterminated.

Nazi propaganda spoke of ways to identify Jews, using physical traits that a real German could supposedly use to single out a Jew.

Her other mistake was assuming that Jews are “white people.” As anyone who lives in Israel – a country of over seven million Jews – knows, the Jewish people have been born in a variety of colors. There are white Jews of Ashkenazi-European descent, there are Black Jews of Ethiopian and African descent and there are Mizrachi Jews of Sephardic-Middle Eastern descent.

Categorizing Jews as having a uniform color and ignoring the existence of other complexions among them is itself racism, but we can leave that issue for another time.

We don’t think that Goldberg is an antisemite like the Nazis in Germany, or the far-right groups that famously marched in Charlottesville. She is also not a Holocaust denier like ultra-nationalists in the US or Europe.

But like many people in America today, Goldberg is trying to fit Jews into convenient categories of race.

“It’s an ideology that tries to turn Jews into White people, that tries to erase Jewish vulnerability and oppression, to squeeze Jews who have light skin into modern American categories of race and ethnicity, and which also myopically categorizes the hatred against them into American considerations of what racism looks like,” Daniella Greenbaum, a former producer on The View, wrote eloquently in The Washington Post.

As Greenbaum points out, what Goldberg suffers from is a warped view of race that is heavily influenced by the woke culture that has taken over normal discourse in the United States and other Western countries.
Ben Shapiro: Whoopi Goldberg Reportedly LIVID About Her Suspension

ADL changes definition of racism after Whoopi Goldberg incident
On Tuesday, The View's Goldberg said in a discussion about the Holocaust that it "isn’t about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man,” and described the Holocaust as a conflict between "two white groups of people.” "There's no question that the Holocaust was about race. That's how the Nazis saw it as they perpetrated the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people across continents, across countries," said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who was invited onto The View by Goldberg. He reminded her that the graphic novel of Maus opens with a quote that says that "'the Jews undoubtedly are a race, but they are not human.'"

Critics pointed out that under the ADL's 2020 definition of racism, Goldberg's comments had some legitimacy, as per that definition racism could only be performed against people of color by white people, and Goldberg perceived Jews as "white."

"To understand the implications of the ADL's redefinition of racism, just watch today's episode of The View," tweeted writer Bari Weiss.

"Well explained Jonathan, but unfortunately it is not surprising that Whoopi Goldberg is confused about racism & the Jewish people when the ADL just changed the definition," wrote Creative Community for Peace director Ari Ingel. "Your new definition causes tremendous confusion & damage to countering Jew hate."

"We are going to open ourselves to comments on our new definition of racism from the public," ADL wrote, according to the Washington Examiner Executive Editor Seth Mandel. The ADL changed its definition to the interim version, and opened itself up to feedback with a dedicated web page "developed specifically to take ideas beyond the mindless trolling on social media."

Prior to the late 2020 change, the ADL defined racism as "the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics."
Encyclopedia Britannica: Arab, Semitic people can't be called antisemitic
Antisemitism "is especially inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites," Encyclopedia Britannica says in its definition of antisemitism.

It is unclear from the article's edit history when this part of the definition was added. Encyclopedia Britannica's online entry does not offer an alternative term for prejudice by Arabs and Semitic people against Jews.

"Although the term [antisemitism] now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the targets of antisemitism as it is usually understood," asserts the online encyclopedia.

Excluding Arabs and Semitic people from being labeled antisemitic because of their "Semitism" is what is called a "etymological fallacy" -- When the archaic root words or original meaning of a term are used to make an argument about the current meaning or even the generally accepted definition.

It is a common argument made by some that their actions or beliefs are not antisemitic, because they themselves are Semitic.

The term "Semitic" can be used in a technical-linguistic sense or to refer to ethnic groups. Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic are all considered Semitic languages.

While Encyclopedia Britannica calls the term "antisemitism" a "misnomer," it has historically only implied a dislike and/or hatred of Jews because it was coined in the 19th century with this sole considered meaning. It was never intended to apply to all Semitic peoples.


“But I Love those Jewish Crackers!” Whoopi Goldberg clarifies her views on Race (satire)
First off, who among us does not Love Love Love the Feisty Ladies of The View? Guilty Pleasure Alert: We’ve been watching since the days of Barbara Wawa and Star Jones! But anyhoo, it appears that, and some of you may want to sit down for this, but sometimes the hosts of The View expound very confidently on things they have NO CLUE about. And this was one of these times. In conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ms. Goldberg noted that the Shoah was just a really big example of White-on-White Crime. You see, now that “Whiteness” is something that can get you in trouble, Jews are White. It’s a magic trick! We’re Commies! We’re Bankers! We keep to ourselves too much! We blend in too much! We’re a bunch of weaklings! We’re mean powerful bullies!

Anyway, things got crazy QUICK. The next day Whoopi (Real Name: Caryn!) gave a nice apology, but then she Doubled Down on Silly when she went on the Colbert Show. Then she went to the Woke Dorks at the Anti-Defamation League and Jonathan Greenblatt absolved her of any sins. In our opinion, if you’re going to try to get your sins washed away by beseeching a Jew, just go to Nazareth.

Finally, the Network Bosses decided to suspend her for a week from the View. (Editors Note: The Daily Freier does not support Ms. Goldberg’s suspension. If famous people were prevented from saying silly or dumb things in public, we would need to get real jobs.) It was at this point where the Daily Freier contacted Whoopi to kibbitz about how dreamy Captain Picard was back in the day in order to clear the air. Whoopi was adamant that she was a fan of the Jewish People, and talked about her specific love for Matzoh. Yet for some reason she kept calling it “Those Jewish Crackers“. Basically, we tried to find common ground, mostly because we were DYING to hear her say “Ditto“. But she didn’t.

Tonight we’re going to eat a special brownie and watch “Sister Act” and see if it makes any more sense this time.
Education Department Launches Investigation Into CUNY Anti-Semitism
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Thursday launched an investigation into allegations of "severe and persistent anti-Semitic harassment" against students at Brooklyn College.

The Department is set to begin its investigation a year after the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights filed a complaint on behalf of Jewish students in Brooklyn College’s master’s program for Mental Health Counseling. The complaint alleges that the school has ignored anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by professors and students in the program, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Jewish students were "maligned" in the classroom and subject to a "hostile environment" on campus, according to the complaint.

The investigation comes as the City University of New York (CUNY) system grapples with anti-Semitism across its schools, including Brooklyn College. Seven CUNY professors sued to sever ties with CUNY’s faculty union, which last year "condemned the massacre of Palestinians" at the hands of Israel in a statement. A February 2021 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report found that CUNY has fostered an anti-Semitic environment for years.

The complaint outlines how professors "have maligned Jews on the basis of race and ethnic identity" by claiming that Jews "contribute to the systemic oppression of people of color." Faculty, staff, and students disseminated "classical anti-Semitic trope that Jews possess disproportionate power and influence," the complaint reads. One professor slammed American Jews as "oppressors."

Denise Katz-Prober, the Brandeis Center’s Director of Legal Initiatives, told the Washington Free Beacon that the "negative impact" of the anti-Semitic climate in the master’s program on students’ mental health and ability to learn "can’t be overstated."
'My essay was failed for not blaming Israel' says Leeds uni student
A Jewish student has claimed that academics failed her essay on crimes by Hamas against Palestinians because she did not attribute enough blame to Israel.

Danielle Greyman, who had never failed an assignment before, is now considering suing Leeds University for breaches of the Equality Act and negligence.

She claimed the topic of the essay was agreed in advance with her tutor — but when the essay was returned, the feedback comments were peppered with references to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

UK Lawyers for Israel, which has taken up her case, suggested anti-Israel bias may have influenced the marking.

The fail forced Ms Greyman to re-sit the module, which she passed. She then launched an appeal against Leeds University, which in turn cost her a place at another university.

She said: “It should not be a controversial statement to say that Hamas commit crimes against Palestinians as these facts are supported and well known. The criminal nature of Hamas has led Hamas to be designated a terrorist organisation.”

In the essay, Ms Greyman discussed Hamas’s use of human shields, saying it was viewed as “a betrayal of the Palestinian people by their government”.

However, the moderator’s note next to that part of the essay stated: “This ignores the fact that the Israeli state commits acts of violence ….”


Jewish educator sues shul, saying she was fired for ‘anti-Zionist’ beliefs
A Jewish educator is suing a New York synagogue, claiming that she was fired from her job for espousing anti-Zionist beliefs online.

According to the lawsuit filed earlier this month in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Jessie Sander said she was fired from her position at the Westchester Reform Temple – a Reform congregation in Scarsdale – after less than three weeks. She believes her dismissal was a response to a blog post she wrote that expressed anti-Zionist beliefs during the Israeli-Gaza conflict in May 2021.

Sander, 26, had been hired as a full-time educator for the WRTeen Initiative, a program connected to the synagogue’s Jewish Learning Lab. Sander had written the blog post on May 20 – 10 days after she had been offered the position at Westchester Reform Temple, but before her start date on July 6. Nothing in the job description, the complaint says, required she should or should not have any particular viewpoint toward Israel and Zionism.

Among other things, she and a co-author asserted in her blog post that “[I]srael’s legalized apartheid regime has been brutalizing Palestinians for decades” and that she is part of an organization that “rejects the Zionist claim to the land of Palestine.”

“We reject the notion that Zionism is a value of Judaism,” she wrote.


Mexican teacher that dressed as Hitler fired after backlash
A Mexican teacher that was revealed to have dressed as Adolf Hitler during class and engaged in other Nazi-themed school activities in 2016 was fired from her position at Tecnologico de Monterrey on January 24, according to the NGO StopAntisemitism.org.

A spokesperson for the university and preparatory school told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that Ana Luisa Nevárez was “no longer part of our institution."

The former student of Nevárez's that revealed her conduct explained to The Jerusalem Post how Nevárez had dressed as Hitler and divided her high school class into Jews and Nazis as an educational activity to teach about the Holocaust.

"She came into class, dressed up as Hitler, and everyone was just so excited. Because she had guns, she had four [toy] guns," which Nevárez gave to the students she selected to be Nazis. Other students were assigned to be Jews. "And they was just so excited, like they all wanted to have the guns, but no one wanted to, obviously, be the Jews."

Nevárez had the students as her "soldiers and -- she would act like a totalitarian, like she would act like if she were Hitler -- and have us shot at random." Some students were put on their knees to await execution.
BBC NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL – JANUARY 2022
The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks (Hebrew) during January 2022 shows that throughout the month a total of 141 incidents took place: 116 in Judea & Samaria and 25 in Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’.

The report does not document any attacks in the Gaza Strip sector but it does note the launch of two rockets (which landed in the sea near central Israel) from that territory on January 1st which was not reported by the BBC in English but did get coverage in Arabic.

In Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ the agency recorded 101 attacks with petrol bombs, seventeen attacks using pipe bombs, one stabbing attack, six shooting attacks, one vehicular attack and 11 arson attacks.

One civilian and one member of the security forces were wounded in attacks throughout January. The vehicular attack on January 11th in which a soldier was injured was briefly mentioned at the end of a report on a different topic published the next day. The wounding of a civilian in an assault/arson attack near Tel Sheva on January 13th did not receive any coverage.


Success! Ombudsman Upholds Complaints About Problematic CBC Coverage of Israel-Hamas War
HonestReporting Canada is pleased to share that subsequent to a number of problematic reports broadcast on various CBC News programs last Spring during Hamas’ war against Israel, and thanks to direct action taken by HRC, our subscribers, and the public at large, our public broadcaster’s ombudsman has upheld our concerns in a number of areas.

In a review dated January 28, 2022, CBC Ombudsman Jack Nagler responded to a complaint about a May 11, 2021 broadcast on The National (watch by clicking below), where reporter Saša Petricic described the Hamas-Israel rocket exchange by suggesting that it was Israel who fired first, whereas in truth, it was the Islamist terrorist group. This misrepresentation was pointed out at the time by HonestReporting Canada who filed a complaint directly with CBC News and mobilized our subscribers and Canadians from coast to coast to take action.

In his report, Nagler denied there was any bias on the part of Petricic, but acknowledged that viewers would have been given a false impression of the chronology of events.

Nagler wrote (emphasis added) “It would have been wiser to choose between reporting explicitly on the chronology, or avoiding it altogether. Instead, there was only the passing reference, which left a sliver of ambiguity – just enough that its meaning could be misinterpreted. In that sense, the report failed to live up to the JSP (Journalistic Standards and Practices); the language used was not precise enough to ensure that the report was faithful and easy to understand… There was a violation of policy.”

In his second review covering complaints related to the 2021 Hamas-Israel war, Nagler discussed the May 18 edition of the CBC Radio program “As It Happens” hosted by Carol Off.

In response to an HonestReporting Canada alert, our subscribers wrote to CBC complaining about the aggressiveness and confrontational approach of Carol Off in her interview with Michael Freeman, a policy advisor to Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, particularly in contrast to her less combative interview with Hamas representative, Basem Naim.
Germany may ban Telegram to silence anti-vax Jew hate
German authorities are considering banning the messaging app Telegram to stop antisemitic anti-vax conspiracy theorists spreading their hate.

The most notorious figure is Attila Hildmann, who has attracted a large following, spewing out poisonous bile.

He claims that Jewish figures including financier George Soros and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg are “planning eugenics and genocide”.

The 40-year-old former celebrity chef uses the encrypted messaging app to share his pernicious ideas with an online audience of far-right and anti-vax followers across Germany.

Born in Berlin of Turkish descent, Hildmann was adopted by German parents. After his father died of a heart attack, he became an outspoken vegan and then a bestselling cookbook writer.

In 2015 he began to voice alarming views regarding immigrants. But he was still seen as a celebrity, and competed in a German TV dance show in 2016 on which Motsi Mabuse was a judge before she joined the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

In 2020 at a rally for anti-vaxxers, Hildmann declared himself a “German nationalist”, dubbing opponents “parasites” and “sub-humans” guilty of “high treason against the German people”.

Using monstrously twisted rhetoric, he said Jews helped finance the Holocaust, and Zionists tried to “wipe out the German race”.


Stamford Hill leaders accuse police of failing to protect strictly-Orthodox Jews after week of hate
Charedi leaders in Stamford Hill have accused the police of failing their community after a wave of vicious hate attacks over the past week.

Two strictly-Orthodox men were punched to the ground and had to be treated in hospital on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day – an assault that was caught on camera in chilling CCTV footage.

But this was just one of a string of horrific incidents in recent days. The north London Jewish community has been left reeling after another Charedi man was assaulted, an Orthodox boy was spat at, and a mob screamed at shul-goers: “Yiddos go home.”

In other shocking offcences, a family’s windows were reportedly smashed and thugs driving past a shul were said to have shouted “Free Palestine”.

Community security staff and religious leaders have told the JC that their pleas for more street patrols and better response times are going unanswered.

In a furious broadside written exclusively for the JC, Home Secretary Priti Patel attacked London Mayor Sadiq Khan for failing to draw up an action plan to tackle antisemitic violence, six months after the London Assembly voted for a new strategy on Jew-hate.
Australian Rabbi Harassed as ‘Captain Apartheid, Jewish Scumbag’ in Anonymous Phone Calls
A rabbi in Melbourne, Australia, was targeted this week by viciously antisemitic anonymous phone calls accusing him of “apartheid,” echoing rhetoric used in a controversial report on Israel recently published by Amnesty International.

The rabbi, who is the descendant of Holocaust survivors, was cold-called on Tuesday by the harasser, who said, “Hello Jewish scumbag, I’d just like to congratulate you on your new label, Captain Apartheid, because that’s how Jewish people are going to get named.”

The “new label” phrase appears to be a direct reference to the Amnesty report, which accuses Israel of subjecting Palestinian Arabs to racially-motivated discrimination — a charge that has drawn strong criticism from Israeli and American politicians, the German government, and Jewish groups.

In a second call a few minutes later, the harasser told the rabbi to “dump that stupid religion that got made up a million years ago by pedophiles … You are going to die with it … Piss on you.”

The rabbi expressed deep shock at the incident, saying, “These voicemails spewed with hate were frightening to say the least, and my wife and I are concerned about our personal safety.”

“I would never have imagined that people in Australia hate Jews so deeply. As a senior rabbi of the community, I found this very unsettling and distressing and hope that others aren’t exposed to this too,” he added.
Polish Priest Who Faced Disciplinary Action After Denouncing Antisemitic Blood Libel Is Acquitted
A Polish Catholic priest and professor of theology has been acquitted by his university from disciplinary proceedings launched against him after he criticized a colleague who promoted the infamous antisemitic “blood libel.”

Fr. Alfred Wierzbicki was exonerated on Thursday by the disciplinary committee of the Catholic University of Lublin, where he teaches philosophy and theology. The disciplinary proceedings against Wierzbicki were announced last November, when he was accused of having “violated the duties of a teacher in the church faculty of a Catholic university” by vociferously condemning antisemitism, homophobia and racism in a series of interviews with the Polish media.

One of the six charges brought against Wierzbicki concerned his trenchant criticisms of his colleague Fr. Tadeusz Guz, a professor of philosophy who endorsed the antisemitic “blood libel” in a 2018 public lecture. Guz is also known for comparing mass vaccination programs to counter the COVID-19 pandemic with the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity.

Commenting on the Catholic University’s decision not to pursue disciplinary action against Guz for his antisemitic incitement, Wierzbicki declared it “scandalous” that the calumny underlying the medieval “blood libel” — that Jews use the blood of Christian victims in their religious rituals — had been deemed worthy of “scientific discussion.”

Wierzbicki then charged that the university’s disciplinary committee had similarly promoted “outrageous antisemitic slurs, as if its members really believed that ritual murders had taken place at one time.”


World of Wordle inspires a new game: Jewdle
In yet another addition to the world of Wordle offshoots, an Australia-based Jewish community organization has created Jewdle — a distinctly Jewish version of the wildly popular online word game.

While versions of Wordle exist in other languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish, Jewdle offers words from English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic and is different in a few key ways. Unlike Wordle, which asks players to guess a five-letter word using codebreaker’s logic, Jewdle players have to guess six-letter Jewish words, increasing the game’s difficulty.

Jewdle also throws in a Jewish educational component, adding explanations and context once a player gets a word right.

“This seemed like a really perfect way to create Jewish relevance within a very popular, secular context that so many people around the world are accessing right now,” Alon Meltzer, Director of Programs at the organization Shalom and the game’s creator, told J-Wire.

After joining the more than 2 million people who have started playing Wordle, Meltzer decided to make a Jewish-themed version, which came with a set of unique challenges.

“We decided to do six letters instead of five because of the phonetic differences in writing out many Hebrew and Yiddish words,” Meltzer explained. “You often need to use a ‘ch’ or ‘sch’ combination or an ‘ah’ suffix. Five letters was a bit too limiting.”

Jewdle can be played at https://www.jewdle.app
Chicago residents seek to rededicate park to Jewish writer killed in Holocaust
Kolmar Park in Chicago, a small green space with a playground on the city’s Far Northwest Side, is named after the street it’s on.

The street, which only stretches for a couple of blocks, is named after the small French city of Colmar, near the country’s border with Germany, according to the Chicago Park District. It’s unclear why the names are spelled differently.

But a group of locals now wants to rename the park after a German-Jewish poet named Gertrud Kolmar, who died in Auschwitz, to increase awareness of and education on the Holocaust. Kolmar has no connection to the French city of Colmar.

Merry Marwig created a four-person committee and submitted the idea with letters of support and a petition to Chicago’s Park District in October, Book Club Chicago reported. Commissioners from the Park District board voted to open a 45-day notice and comment period last Wednesday, one day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Kolmar was actually an adopted pseudonym for Gertrud Käthe Chodziesner, born in Berlin in 1894. Kolmar is the German name for the Polish town of Chodziez, where her family originated, according to the Jewish Women’s Archive. Her cousin was the influential German-Jewish philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin.

She went on to write more than 450 poems and two short novels. Three collections of her works, “Dark Soliloquy: the Selected Poems of Gertrud Kolmar,” “A Jewish Mother from Berlin: A Novel” and “My Gaze Is Turned Inward: Letters 1934–1943” have been translated to English.

She was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, and the exact date of her death is unknown.
Remembering Elgen Long, aviator who brought Yemenites to Israel
Late last month, American aviation legend, pilot and author, Capt. Ret. Elgen Marion Long passed away. Elgen was the last surviving crew member of the Alaska Airlines’ Iron Men, who brought thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel during the first days of the newly reborn Jewish state.

Israeli music icon, Shlomo Artzi, asks in his famous song:

“Where else can be found one such as he, who was as the weeping willows?”

One sultry 2017 afternoon, I received a phone call from a good friend, Dr. Andy David, then Israel’s consul general in San Francisco. Andy shared his joy of a recent visit to Anchorage, Alaska. During the visit, Andy got to see the wonderful Alaska Jewish Museum and its main exhibit at the time, showcasing the arrival of Yemenite Jews to the newly reestablished State of Israel.

A few months later, I visited the museum as part of the pro-Israel education organization StandWithUs, where the fabulous curator Leslie Fried showed me a book. On the Wings of Eagles, announced its cover, after the name of the operation which brought so many members of the Yemenite Jewish community to Israel. The author’s name was Elgen Long.

That was the first I ever heard of this one-of-a-kind modern hero, and that’s when I decided to reach out to Elgen. I immediately felt a deep sense of gratitude to this man, who – along with his friends – risked their own lives to save people they did not know.







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