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Tuesday, February 08, 2022

02/08 Links Pt2: My father Elie Wiesel would have been ashamed of Beijing Olympics; Lyn Julius: The Nazi roots of Arab anti-Semitism must not be denied; LA as the Center of American Jewish Life

From Ian:

My father Elie Wiesel would have been ashamed of Beijing Olympics
I know now that we have failed my father in this regard. He did not fail us. He spoke of how he always felt he had to answer to the dead: Did he do enough? And yes. He did.

He was there to speak up against atrocities in Darfur, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda. He tried with everything he had to tell us. And all the words he spoke and wrote could not change the fact that five years after his death, 1 million people are reportedly in concentration camps, because of their race and religion, in the grip of a totalitarian regime — a regime honored to host the world’s nations, on a global television platform that packages sports with advertising.

Today’s culture of workplace activism is highly developed. In corporations and small businesses across the United States, Black Americans and their allies, for one, showed with emotion how cries against police brutality could be heard in board rooms and executive suites.

But are men and women of conscience reaching out to their managers at the corporations that sponsor the Olympics? Are voices inside corporate America respectfully but insistently calling for company conversations about their responsibility when they hear survivors’ reports of genocide on the part of the Chinese government? If they are, they are not making themselves heard.

There are brave leaders, like Steve Simon of the Women’s Tennis Association, who canceled a lucrative tournament in China when the WTA’s demands for player Peng Shuai’s safety and freedom went unanswered. Natan Sharansky and Bernard Henry-Levi, two leading Jewish intellectuals, took out an ad in the New York Times urging a protest of the Beijing Olympics; Jewish organizations across the denominational spectrum have spoken up for the Uyghurs; and Jewish World Watch is trying generate widespread action around the issue.

But they are still too few. I fear that China’s state-sponsored capitalism has silenced us through our greed.

My father believed passionately that speaking up mattered, especially to the victims.

Have I, blessed to live in this country which stands for freedom, done enough?

“Shame on Xi Jinping,” shouted the determined young people in Times Square on Thursday night.

And I think: Shame on me, if we can’t find some way to help. Shame on us.
Lyn Julius: The Nazi roots of Arab anti-Semitism must not be denied
The Mufti was, for various realpolitik reasons, never tried at Nuremberg. This meant that, unlike in Europe, Nazi-inspired anti-Semitism was never discredited in the Arab and Muslim world.

When the war was over, one by-product was the mass ethnic cleansing of almost a million Jews from Arab countries: Arab League states drafted anti-Semitic decrees eerily reminiscent of the Nuremberg laws, stripping Jews of their rights and stealing their property. The effect of Nazi incitement on an illiterate and easily swayed Arab population cannot be discounted. In 1945, pogroms erupted in Egypt and cost the lives of 130 Jews in Libya.

To assert that the Nazis and their Arab sympathizers had no connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is historically illiterate. The Mufti was, according to the scholar Matthias Kuentzel, the lynchpin between the Nazis’ great war against the Jews and the Arabs’ small war against Israel.

Nazism inspired paramilitary youth groups, such as Young Egypt. and Arab nationalist parties, such as the Ba’ath and the Syrian Socialist National parties, which still exist today. Nasser’s regime engaged fugitives from Goebbels’ propaganda office, Leopold von Mildenstein and Johann van Leers, among other Nazi war criminals, to spread vicious anti-Semitism in Egypt. One 1956 CIA report pronounced the Arabs “hypnotized” by their efforts.

Nazism and Stalinism both fueled anti-Semitic anti-Zionism. Arab intellectuals, such as Fiyaz Sayegh, who was once a member of the Nazi-inspired Syrian Socialist National Party, exported their anti-Semitic ideologies to the West. Sayegh linked the Palestinian struggle to the international left by pioneering the idea of Zionism as “settler colonialism.” He was the architect of the notorious 1975 ‘Zionism is racism” U.N. resolution.

The Mufti was far from the only pro-Nazi in the Arab world, as he is sometimes portrayed; the Nazis were hugely popular among Arabs. They called Hitler “Muallem” or “Hajji Hitler.” A major cog in the Arabic-speaking propaganda machine was Yunis Bahri, whose “Voice of the Arabs” became so popular that the BBC despaired of competing with his radio broadcasts when the war was over.

The form of Islamized anti-Semitism promoted by the Mufti became ever more influential after World War II. It was the central plank of the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, such as Hamas. Had there been Jews remaining in Syria and northern Iraq during the ISIS rampage in 2014, they would certainly have been massacred.

The Abraham Accords have been crucial in breaking down hostility towards Jews and Israelis, but there is still a deep current of anti-Semitism awash in the Arab world. To know the present, one needs to understand the past. But history is not hasbara, and it is ill-served by myopic and Eurocentric misconceptions.
Toxic generosity
The wisdom that democracy is not a suicide pact must be recalled, internalized and put into practice.

Several years ago, the Knesset passed legislation requiring organizations that receive the majority of their funding from foreign governments to report annually as to this state of affairs.

Now is the time to go further. Organizations that receive the majority of their funding from foreign governments, or entities related to them, should lose their tax-exempt status in Israel.

Of course, Israel respects free speech. However, there is absolutely no requirement that its government should, in effect, subsidize with taxpayer funds any speech that is designed to delegitimize the state. We are being self-destructive in the name of being an open and moral society.

Israel should also consider replicating the situation in the United States, where foreign government-funded organizations are required to register as foreign agents.

Finally, there should also be a closer connection between anti-BDS legislation and the delegitimizing efforts of these organizations, since their goals are very much the same.

We make a grave mistake thinking that, as a society, we are immune from the toxicity of that which European governments and their stooges here are seeking to accomplish.

Israel might be a strong country based on certain criteria, but we remain the “Jew among the nations,” and as such are vulnerable to demonization on a scale that is unique in the world.

We need to see the agenda of European cynicism for what it is, and not be complicit in our own delegitimization.


My Grandmother Survived Auschwitz; Here’s What Whoopi Goldberg Got Wrong
After surviving Auschwitz and Ravensbruk, my grandmother tried to go back to her hometown. She was the only Jewish survivor, and was still told that if she entered, she’d be killed.

My great uncle was shot in the streets of Poland after being liberated from concentration camps. My parents have had antisemitic words spray-painted on their mailbox in suburban New Jersey. Antisemitism didn’t end with the Holocaust, and you don’t need to be a Nazi to say antisemitic things.

Many adult Jews living in the United States personally know a relative that was either a Holocaust survivor, or a refugee from a country they were lucky to escape from before being killed. The fact that Jews have reached a level of perceived success doesn’t erase the legacy of persecution that many of us carry, or the threats we face today.

Assuming all Jews are just “white” also shows a total ignorance about the diversity of Jewish people, which includes Jews of all colors — both in America and around the world. In Israel, for example, more than half the Jewish population is not of “white” European heritage.

When it comes to America, antisemitism from the right is rooted in telling me that I’m not white. Antisemitism from the left says I’m a white colonizer. Neither fit my identity, and I know I’m only one of many American Jews who struggle with this.

Over the past 11 years, I have visited more than 60 school classrooms, through 3GNY’s WEDU program, to share my grandmother’s story. I make sure that students understand that my grandmother’s family led a rich Jewish life before the Holocaust, but that antisemitism was always present. I’ve received hundreds of letters from the students I’ve spoken with, and it’s uplifting to read that the students plan to share her story with others, to stand up against hate and bigotry, and to learn more about the Holocaust.

Goldberg’s misguided interpretation of history should be used as a teachable moment. My hope is that those who heard her words will also take the time to learn why those words were viewed so hurtfully by many. More people need to understand what actually led to the Holocaust, so that we can address antisemitism and other forms of bigotry today.
A Nuanced Response to the Whoopi Goldberg Saga
Today, there are Jews of almost every race. There are Black Ethiopian Jews, Jews from every country of Latin America, Indian Jews, Eastern European Jews and of course there are Jews from all across the Middle East—Israel, Yemen, Morocco, Syria, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere. In fact, in the modern State of Israel, the majority of Jews are not "white" (or Ashkenazi) at all; they are Mizrahi Jews—descendants from the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa.

But, still—what is a race? How is a race determined?

These are questions often debated by academics. But academic squabbling aside, the issue with Whoopi's comments is that they perpetuate ahistorical lies about how the Nazis viewed the Jewish people, minimize the Holocaust by over-generalizing it to "inhumanity" and "white people fighting against white people," and highlight the lack of education in our country about the Holocaust. This gross lack of education, coupled with the rise of far-right extremism and far-left antisemitism, is a recipe for disaster.

To make matters worse, the new conversation about the Jewish people's identity and history is being led by a non-Jewish actress—who ironically chose a Jewish last name as her stage name—who is now attempting to squeeze the Jewish experience into her myopic, progressive view of the world.

To conclude, a word to Caryn Johnson (a.k.a. Whoopi Goldberg): To say the Holocaust was not about race shows your ignorance, and unfortunately the ignorance of many. You say that, instead, the Holocaust was about "inhumanity." To help you understand why you are mistaken, when the disgusting, hate-filled terrorist Dylann Roof killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, it was not merely an issue "inhumanity." Saying so would be offensive, and would remove the real reason as to what drove Roof to perpetrate such a heinous atrocity. Instead, for Roof, it was about pure, unadulterated racism: A racism that the Jewish people will stand up and fight against, by your side Whoopi, every single day.
'The View' Invited to Film At Museum of Tolerance After Whoopi Goldberg Suspension
Now here's an idea ... filming "The View" at the Museum of Tolerance to show support for the Jewish community and educate viewers about the Holocaust. Rabbi Abraham Cooper from the famed Simon Wiesenthal Center in L.A. tells TMZ ... he'd love to have the show air live at the Museum of Tolerance. He thinks a special week-long visit to the Museum -- which focuses on the Holocaust -- would be enlightening, and he thinks given what was said on the show, the network has to show some accountability.


Art Spiegelman blames ‘political headwinds’ for removal of ‘Maus’ from curriculum
Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the iconic Holocaust book “Maus,” on Monday blamed authoritarian political trends and petty parental grievances for the book’s removal from a Tennessee school’s curriculum last month.

The decision by the McMinn County school board set off a firestorm of criticism and sparked a national discussion about antisemitism and Jewish identity in the US.

Spiegelman spoke during a remote call Monday night with representatives of Jewish and Christian groups in Tennessee. Organizers said over 10,000 viewers tuned into the discussion.

He said he had pored over the minutes of the school board members’ meeting minutes to discern their motive for removing the book from the school’s curriculum. He said he believes they did so due to politics, an authoritarian bent and a desire to whitewash history, as well as petty grievances.

He pointed out that the school district had no problems with “Maus” until very recently.

“I’m distressed to find that’s changed in the midst of strong political headwinds that are burning books, literally,” he said. “They are trying to readjust our curricula to terrify librarians, book readers and teachers.”
Yale professor claims Hitler never saw Jews as an 'inferior race'
Last week amid Whoopi Goldberg's controversial remarks that the Holocaust was not about race, Yale University philosophy Professor Jason Stanley tweeted the claim that "According to Hitler, Jews weren’t an inferior race" because "Hitler didn’t even regard Jewish people as human persons."

Many responded to Stanley's tweet, accusing him of trying to make a distinction without a difference.

"Your distinction seems a bit semantical," one user responded.

"[T]he same could be said for black people in US history, where their deemed lack of humanity was used as justification for cruel, inhumane treatment. it can be seen in [N]ott’s “types of mankind” (1854) where he places the black race closer to apes than humans," another reply pointed out.

The comment also drew criticism from historian Tarik Cyril Amar.

Amar, a scholar at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, commented on Stanley's tweet suggesting he read the scientific edition of Mein Kampf, adding, "Sorry but you’re really wrong here... your overly neat distinction here flies in the face of serious scholarship."

Amar's comments echo Campus Reform Managing Editor Zachary Marschall's editorial yesterday.

Marschall argued that while "Jews existed outside and beneath humanity" according to the Nazi regime, it makes for problematic analysis to interpret "European events from 1933-1945" as if "cultural conditions across time and nations are always identical to American social unrest in 2022."
ADL Senior VP: 'Kudos To My Former Boss, George Soros'
Obama's career of political activism began in some ways when he met Eileen Hershenov. He graduated from Columbia University, and as David Remnick put it, "got it into his head to become a community organizer." After a brief stint actually working for a living, he answered an ad and joined Ralph Nader's left-wing New York Public Interest Research Group.

His supervisor at the time, Eileen Hershenov, describes having "some really engaged conversations about models of organizing". After a year, Hershenov pleaded with him to stay, "I asked him if it would help if I got on my knees and begged--and so I did," but Obama moved on.

So did Hershenov who went on to become the general counsel for the Open Society Foundations, serving "as chief legal officer for one of the nation’s largest private foundations and for the global network of 40 foreign affiliates founded by financier/philanthropist George Soros."

Hacked emails from the Open Society Foundations show that it bragged of its successes in “challenging Israel’s racist and anti-democratic policies” in international forums. By then Hershenov was no longer affiliated with the Soros network, but she appears to be unrepentant.

These days, she “oversees” the ADL’s “policy, program and civil rights work” as the former Jewish organization’s Senior Vice President for Democracy Initiatives. Hershenov was a recent hire who was brought on board during the Jonathan Greenblatt era. Greenblatt, the ADL’s new leader, was a veteran of the Obama administration who has been accused of jettisoning its focus on the Jewish community and Israel in favor of playing the identity politics of the Left.

No single executive may embody the new ADL better than Hershenov who mentored Obama when he was just starting out and proudly worked for George Soros.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Jew-Hater Can’t Decide Whether Israel Deprived Palestinians Of Vaccines Or Vaccines A Jewish Mind-Control Plot (satire)
Hebron, Palestinian Territories, February 8 – A conspiracy-minded local resident finds himself caught between two conflicting accusations of mendacity on the part of Jews, the man confessed today, as he faces the contradiction of arguing both that Israel caused development of various anti-COVID inoculations as a means to inject tracking mechanisms or deadly chemicals into non-Jewish bodies, and that Israel committed a crime by failing to provide the inoculations it purchased early on to Palestinians.

Hussein Kawasmeh, 26, acknowledged Tuesday that he must decide on one accusation and stick with it, lest the glaring logical incoherence and inconsistency undermine his efforts to marshal outrage against the Zionist enemy.

“Either the vaccine is a Zionist plot to poison us all, control us all, or just keep tabs on us at all times,” he began, “or the Jews deprived helpless Palestinians of crucial preventive medical treatment last year when they prioritized their own citizens over us for rolling out the immunization campaign. I can’t have it both ways, and I’m having a hard time picking which one offers more in terms of attention and emotional valence.”

Early 2021 saw Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu negotiate an agreement with Pfizer, Inc. to obtain swift delivery of its new vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, in exchange for a premium price and robust aggregate data on population-level efficacy. Israel immediately faced criticism for reserving its supply of the serum for its own citizens, even though Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas specifically rejected offers for such assistance in favor of the Palestinian Authority purchasing its own supply at a later date and from a different source. The accusation nevertheless gained some traction in anti-Israel circles, including those of Kawasmeh, who works at a bicycle-repair shop.
Reuters Confused About Own Ties to Journalism Institution That Awarded Fellowship to Terrorist-glorifying Palestinian Writer
Here are a handful of examples of journalistic blunders that Reuters has made in its reportage on Israel and, more generally, about Jews over just the last two months:
Inexplicably rebranding as “protests” a series of violent Palestinian riots in the West Bank; “contextualizing” the stabbing of an Israeli by tacitly offering a rationale for the attack in the headline; quoting an Islamic charity that has been dogged by accusations of antisemitism about the recent Texas synagogue attack; and uncritically parroting a palpably untrue narrative about an alleged Israeli campaign to force Palestinians out of a Jerusalem neighborhood.

These are all the more egregious given that Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world, with more than 2,000 clients spread across 128 countries.

Just last week, HonestReporting questioned whether Reuters has a habit of associating with individuals who have casually disseminated disinformation about the Jewish state, including the agency’s Henriette Chacar.

Chacar has, among other slanderous remarks, accused Israel of “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “Jewish supremacy.”

We also pointed to how the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), which receives its core funding from the charitable arm of the wire service, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, had awarded Palestinian writer Haya Abushkhaidem a place in its 2022 Journalist Fellow Programme, which is based at the UK’s prestigious Oxford University.

Like Chacar, Abushkhaidem has promoted the demonstrably false claim that Israel is upholding a system of apartheid, as well as “lynching” Palestinians.
German broadcaster DW fires 5 staffers after probe on workplace antisemitism
Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has fired five employees, four of them from its Arabic desk, following a damning audit on antisemitism in the workplace.

The audit, based on a two-month investigation, found isolated cases of antisemitism but no systemic problem. Several freelancers were dropped as well; another eight cases are still under investigation, according to news reports.

At issue were virulent antisemitic statements made by staff on and off the job, as well as failures in recruiting staff and inviting a variety of guest speakers.

Deutsche Welle is a public, state-owned broadcaster funded by federal taxes. It provides programming worldwide in 30 languages.

Peter Limbourg, DW director general, apologized Monday and announced that a ten-point “code of ethics” would be established to prevent such problems in the future. It reportedly will include explanations of antisemitism and the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and calls for destruction of the Jewish state.

DW’s actions were welcomed by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country’s main Jewish umbrella group.

“There must not be taxpayer-financed Israel-hatred and antisemitism in the media,” Council President Josef Schuster said.
Mahallati Not Playing it Straight With Oberlin About Family History
For the past several months, Oberlin College has been rocked by controversy surrounding one of its professors, Mohammad Jaffar Mahallati, a former diplomat for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He stands accused of covering up a mass killing in Iran while serving as a diplomat for that country in the 1980s. People at Oberlin argue that his alleged role in the coverup disqualifies him from serving as a professor at the school.

Oberlin administrators have stood by Mahallati. While there has been relative silence about the controversy in recent weeks, it is not going away because the narrative Mahallati has offered to the school’s administrators has two major problems.

First, he has told two contradictory stories about his alleged role in the coverup of a mass killing that took place in Iran in 1988. At first, he said he didn’t know about it, and then he said he was only doing his job at the UN when he denied the mass killing took place.

Second, Mahallati has offered an oversimplified narrative that portrays his family as an unambiguous force for religious tolerance in Iran, protecting both Jews and Bahai’s from oppression in that country.

In fact, Professor Mahallati’s grandfather played an important role in the oppression of Baha’is in Iran before his death in 1981. The record indicates that while Professor Mahallati’s grandfather, Ayatollah Bahaoddin Mahallati, who taught Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did issue some ambiguous statements against anti-Baha’i violence in the late 1970s, they did little to reduce mob violence against this community.

In context, it looks more like he was trying to protect the reputation of the Iranian Revolution as it was taking place than he was actually trying to stop, as a matter of principle, the oppression and murder of Baha’is in Fars province where he served as a preeminent religious leader.
US response to antisemitism is reactive, uncoordinated, report claims
The US effort to combat antisemitism is hampered by the lack of a coordinated policy across a range of federal agencies, according to a report released Tuesday.

“The US does not have a unified, whole-of-government approach to combating antisemitism but rather a patchwork of responses — policies and legal frameworks largely focused on responding to violence and vandalism, countering harassment, and combating antisemitism globally,” argued Scott Lasensky, author of the Institute for National Security Studies report “Washington and the New Battle Against Antisemitism: The Executive Branch, Congress, and the Role of National Authorities.”

Part of an ongoing INSS series on antisemitism in the US, the report was released hours ahead of Deborah Lipstadt’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on her nomination as the State Department’s special envoy on antisemitism.

The response of federal authorities in the US “remains predominantly reactive,” wrote Lasensky, a senior policy adviser on Israel, the Middle East and Jewish affairs in the Obama administration.

Though law enforcement in the US is decentralized, the report said, “a coherent national policy is critical for shaping public discourse, gathering intelligence and providing early warning, securing funding, and establishing best practices in the security sphere, as well as monitoring and public reporting.”
Honduras’ new vice president, wife have history of antisemitic remarks
Honduras’ newly sworn-in vice president and his wife have a history of making antisemitic remarks, but Jewish leaders in the region have not sounded an alarm.

Salvador Nasralla, who is of Palestinian descent and was sworn in on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, said in a 2019 debate that Jews oversee the global money supply and previously accused the conservative outgoing president Juan Orlando Hernandez of being controlled by Israel.

Nasralla’s wife Iroshka Elvir, who was named Miss Honduras in 2015, had to apologize to the Latin American Jewish Congress for saying “Hitler was a great leader” during an interview with the El Heraldo newspaper in 2017.

Honduras has in recent years been “one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the region, in part due to Evangelical support,” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of The Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Hernandez moved his country’s embassy to Jerusalem last year, becoming one of a few world leaders to take the step after former US president Donald Trump.

While few Jewish organizations have made statements regarding the change in leadership, Siegel Vann told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Nasralla’s “anti-Israel stances and comments have so far not impacted the current state of excellent bilateral ties.”

“In addition, US support is a critical piece for President Xiomara Castro’s government program to succeed, so she will bend backward to avoid a confrontation including on the issue of Israel,” Siegel Vann added in an email. “We don’t expect immediate changes in the relationship but how Honduras votes in multilateral forums, where in the last years it has sided with the US and with Israel, will give us some idea if real changes are on the horizon.”

Honduras is home to approximately 200 Jews in a population of 8.5 million.


‘Jew’ Is Not a ‘Discriminatory’ Word: Jewish Leader Criticizes German Dictionary Entry
The head of the Jewish community in Germany criticized a suggestion by the country’s leading dictionary to use alternative expressions for the word “Jude,” or Jew, because the term can be regarded as “discriminatory.”

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, commented on a special reference note added to the definition of the word Jew, which can be found in the online edition of “Duden,” the standard reference book of the German language.

A supplementary note added to the definition cautions: “Occasionally, the term Jew is perceived as discriminatory because of the memory of its use during the Nazi era. In these cases, formulations such as Jewish people, Jewish fellow citizens, or people of Jewish faith are usually chosen.”

“For me, the word ‘Jew’ is neither a swear word nor discriminatory,” Schuster told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, noting that the association he heads is deliberately called the Central Council of Jews, not of the “Jewish fellow citizens.”

“Even if ‘Jew’ is used in a derogatory manner in schoolyards or only hesitantly by some people, and the Duden editorial staff certainly meant well by referring to this context, everything should be done to avoid solidifying the term as discriminatory,” he maintained.

Schuster’s comments come as the German dictionary entry triggered a heated debate on social media platforms about the definition of the German words “Jude” and “Jüdin” — the masculine and feminine forms of “Jew.”
Chickpea Seeds Headed to International Space Station for Use in Mini-Greenhouse
Israeli chickpea seeds will be among the supplies and equipment sent to the International Space Station (ISS) later this month for a series of experiments aimed at controlling the growth of crops via technology.

Contained for optimal growth in a small device called a “miniature greenhouse,” they will be delivered on Feb. 19 as part of Northrop Grumman’s 17th commercial resupply services mission to the ISS, aboard its Cygnus spacecraft.

The special greenhouses are well-suited for travel to the moon, which will be the next step of the mission.

The seeds are part of a project called “Space Hummus,” which will test hydroponic techniques for plant growth in zero gravity. A superfood with high nutrition, chickpeas grow quickly and easily, making them ideal for space cultivation.

NASA said it is looking at ways to provide astronauts with nutrients in a long-lasting, easily absorbed form, such as through freshly grown fruits and vegetables; the challenge is how to do that in a closed environment without sunlight or Earth’s gravity.

Scientists will conduct experiments on the ISS using special LEDs to see how well plant growth can be controlled, remotely observing and controlling root growth through video and still images. The goal is to maximize productivity and allow efficient management of resources on future space colonies on the moon and Mars.
Made the cut: 6 Israeli chefs featured on '50 best in the Middle East'
Six Israeli restaurants made the cut to be included in the prestigious "50 best in the Middle East" ranking, published on Monday – a first for eateries based in the Jewish state.

The "50 Best" ranking has been published by the San Pellegrino water brand for over 20 years. Many consider it to be the less conservative version of the Michelin ranking, whose starts are the "holy grail" of the culinary world.

"50 best in the Middle East" reviews outstanding food destinations from 19 countries in the Middle East and Africa, spanning from Morocco in the west to Iran and Oman in the east. As of Monday, over 10% of the list is dominated by Israeli eateries, five of which are in Tel Aviv and the sixth is in Ashdod.

Chef Raz Rahav's "OCD" ranked the highest among the Israeli restaurants featured on the list, snagging the third place.

Chef Tomer Tal's "George and John" was ranked ninth, followed by chef Elon Amir's "HaBasta" (14), chef Hillel Tavakuli's "Animar" (17), chef Yachi Geno's "Pescado" (24), and chef Motti Titman's "Milgo & Milbar," which rounded up the top 40.

The best restaurant in the Middle East according to San Pellegrino's ranking is the UAE's "Fils," by chef Freddy Kazadi. Rounding up the top 50 is the Riyadh-based "Tokyo."

Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov congratulated the chefs, saying, "Israel is full of quality restaurants and world-renowned chefs. Having six restaurants on this prestigious list puts Israel on the map in the culinary world as well."
Netflix, ViacomCBS team up with Jerusalem film school to foster local talent
Following the success of its popular film lab, Jerusalem's Sam Spiegel Film and Television School is now branching out into television with a new Series Lab aimed at helping Israel-based writers, producers, and creators connect with leaders in the field.

With the involvement of streaming giant Netflix, which will cover participants' fees, and ViacomCBS International Studios' production division VIS Social Impact, the program will see Netflix award one Series Lab project a development grant.

Series Lab workshops will be led by Jill Condon, a writer and producer who previously worked on the hit sitcom "Friends." Cordon will also mentor Series Lab participants.

Sam Spiegel Film and Television School Executive Director Dana Blankstein Cohen called the launch "a natural offshoot of our far-reaching and in-depth educational process."

She said that "as the leading film school in Israel, we are proud to continue creating opportunities for young Israeli creators making their way in the film and television industry."

Producer Aurit Zamir, the director of the school's film lab said the Series Lab was "developed with the aim of supporting promising, wide-ranging voices from Israel in the belief that local stories have an appeal despite differences of language and culture."


Los Angeles as the Center of American Jewish Life
Jews may have created Hollywood, Howard said, but now it belongs to the world. He reminded me of another aspect of Jewish culture when we were younger. Back when only Jews ate bagels, the only place Rodman could buy good lox was a storefront called Dave’s Cut Rite on Fairfax. Dave sold salmon out of a cooler that was flown in each week from Brooklyn. The transaction felt more like a drug deal than shopping for Sunday brunch.

But now everyone in LA eats bagels. And you can get smoked salmon anywhere. That was Howard’s point.

Has less power and influence translated into fewer Jews or Jews being less Jewish? Just the opposite. LA today feels more Jewish, not less. And it’s not just the bagels. Growing Orthodox communities have their new shuls and yeshivas, while liberal and reform neighbors have been revitalizing old institutions and exploring progressive alternatives to traditional synagogues with organizations like IKAR, led by Rabbi Sharon Brous, and the Pico-Union Project founded by Craig Taubman.

Rising antisemitism is a factor too. The original deed to the first house I bought in the Hollywood Hills, built in the 1940s, still had a restrictive covenant prohibiting renting or selling to nonwhites or Jews, a reminder of an earlier era. Courts had long ago rendered those covenants void and unenforceable. But antisemitism and anti-Zionism are on the rise again, in LA as elsewhere. There were recent attacks on diners at a kosher sushi restaurant on Beverly Blvd. and threats at local shuls. “People are arming,” my Orthodox friend told me. “A lot of people carry guns now.”

A more hostile environment also strengthens the impulse to develop communal resources. “Things are not going in the right direction, so we need to get more insular,” my friend said. “You can see it with the younger shuls cropping up that are going even more religious.”

Liberal Jews wrestle with antisemitism clothed in BDS and anti-Zionist rhetoric within their shared progressive circles. Leaders like IKAR’s Brous and Rabbi Kenneth Chasen at Leo Baeck Temple in the Sepulveda Pass are defending liberal Zionism, but the space is narrowing just as much in LA as it is in New York and elsewhere.

New Yorkers have seen their illusions breached by events yet seem unsure of how to adjust or even to acknowledge a new reality. Maybe it’s just something about earthquake faults, wild fires, urban riots and mudslides, but Los Angeles Jews just seem better prepared for adversity. Like London Jews, Paris Jews, Argentine Jews, and Miami Jews, Jewish Angelenos are still capable of saying to themselves, “So what else is new?” They don’t have a chip on their shoulders, because no one’s illusions have been shattered. LA’s Jewish community, in all its diversity and tension, looks more like the rest of the Jewish world than ever before. Just get out of your car and look around.







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