Monday, February 21, 2022

02/21 Links Pt2: Jewish history is under attack; 59% of Israelis hide being Jewish when traveling abroad; Ultra-orthodox Jewish group funding escape for abused Afghan refugees

From Ian:

Jewish history is under attack
This was illustrated when in the same week as Whoopi’s comments, Amnesty International published a report claiming that Israel is an apartheid state. The report, which is chock full of lies, doesn’t once mention Palestinian terror or Israeli security considerations, nor does it recognize the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancient homeland. Amnesty made sure to omit these facts to ensure that the world perceives Israel as a colonialist, apartheid state so that it can legitimize BDS and attacks against Israel.

Even more disturbing, an increasing number of Jews have fallen prey to this false narrative. Jewish progressive organizations like IfNotNow, J Street, and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) promote a revisionist history that denies the Jewish people’s indigeneity to Israel and perceives Zionists as white colonialists. They don’t even recognize their own history.

In George Orwell’s dystopian fictional society of 1984, he says, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

Let’s be clear about the Jewish story - the Jewish people are not victims. We are a people that thrived despite the persecution and oppression we have faced. We are a resilient nation that loves life, a people rooted in faith and traditions. We cannot allow the haters to erase our history and take control of our heritage of nearly 4,000 years. We must learn about our remarkable story of who we are and where we come from so that we can ensure the world knows the truth.

Mark Twain famously asked in his essay ‘Concerning the Jews,’ “The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Our secret is and has always been our commitment to remembering our extraordinary past, treasuring our traditions, and passing them on to future generations. When we remember, we can ensure the world never forgets.
Israeli American and Israeli Arab couple go to YouTube to defend Israel
Yoseph Haddad, CEO of Together Vouch for Each Other, a nonprofit which seeks to unite Jewish and Arab Israelis, remembers the instantaneous connection he had with his fiancé, Emily Schrader, CEO and cofounder of the digital marketing firm, Social Lite Creative and former digital director of StandWithUs.

“When we met, we immediately clicked,” he said. As Israeli activists, they came up with the idea of hosting a YouTube series together where they discuss breaking news stories, events and politics directly affecting the Middle East.

They want to present the side of Israel to a Western audience that doesn’t always get accurate facts about what is really happening from mainstream news. The first episode debuted February 2.

Haddad, an Arab Israeli Christian, was born in Haifa and raised in Nazareth.

“I did grow up in Nazareth, but most of my family, grandparents and cousins, were in Haifa, and Haifa is the biggest mixed city in Israel. So you would see Jews, you would see Druze, you would see Arab Muslims, Arab Christians in this wonderful big city. I used to play football there with my friends. We grew up Jews and Arabs together. we didn’t care that this guy is an Arab and this guy is a Jew.”

On October 4, 2003, a female suicide bomber blew up Maxim, an Arab-Jewish-owned restaurant in Haifa that Haddad and his family used to frequent. Twenty-one civilians were killed.

“This could have been me,” Haddad stated. “So when a terrorist comes and attacks like this, there’s no discrimination between Arabs and Jews... an Arab from Israel, and a Jew from Israel, it really doesn’t matter, because if you’re an Israeli, you are a target for terrorism.

“This is our country. We’re born here. I hold an Israeli passport, I have an Israeli identity. We work in order to bridge gaps and live in partnership or we don’t have a brighter future for both people, Jews and Arabs.” Haddad was a commander when he served in the IDF from 2003-2006, and also participated in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.




Poll: 59% of Israelis hide being Jewish when traveling abroad
Most Israelis fear antisemitism and hide being Jewish when traveling abroad, while also feeling that Israel is not doing enough to fight antisemitism online, a study by the Ruderman Family Foundation has found.

The study's findings were presented Monday to the Knesset Lobby for Israel-American Jewry Relations.

According to the survey, 62% of Israelis think Israel should take action vis-à-vis antisemitic incidents around the world, including sending rescue teams when warranted.

Some 38% think that the state is failing to adequately fight online antisemitism online. At the same time, only 5% think that the international community is doing enough to eradicate antisemitism.

Also, 73% of Israelis identify to a large extent with other Jews worldwide in the event of an antisemitic incident. Only 1% of respondents said they did not identify with this plight at all.

The survey further found that 28% of Israelis ages 18-29 are "very concerned" for their safety abroad – a sensation shared by 16% of Israelis 60 and over. This 21% in this age group also reported that they or their acquaintances were exposed to antisemitic incidents, compared to 8% among the latter group.

Younger Israeli also expressed greater concern to reveal where they were from when traveling: about 13% of Israelis ages 18-29 said they won't say they are from Israel, compared to 8% Israelis 60 and over.
From normalizing antisemitism to denying it
Generations of scholars have tried to understand where antisemitism originated and how it continues to metastasize. Over the years, scholars have differed on exact definitions. French historian Leon Poliakov highlighted this uniqueness in his definition of antisemitism as “an effective sui generis attitude of the gentiles towards the Jews...”

The European and Middle Eastern historian Walter Laqueur observed that “The Nazi murder of the Jews was total—not selective—and it was carried out systematically, following industrial organization and techniques. It was not a series of pogroms and somewhat spontaneous massacres, nor was there an escape for the Jews. Jehovah’s

Witnesses or Communists could gain their freedom from the concentration camps if they abjured their faith and promised to collaborate with the Nazis. As far as the Jews were concerned, their religious or political beliefs were wholly unimportant to the Nazis. The Jews were killed not because of what they did or thought but because they were Jews. In this respect, the Holocaust was unique.”

The recent events in Colleyville, Texas, at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, where a shooter took Jewish hostages in the synagogue, unfortunately illustrate Laqueur’s point regarding why Jews are being targeted and the persistent incomprehension of how antisemitism is racism against Jews. In fact, we continue to see the opposite, a consistent push to disconnect overt antisemitism as the cause for these events.

From the beginning, there has been a top-down effort, starting with President Biden himself, expressing confusion about the motives: “I don’t think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue… why he was using antisemitic and anti-Israeli comments.” The President’s sentiments were later echoed by Matthew DeSarno, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas office, who reportedly stated that “we do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

The belated acknowledgment that the Colleyville incident was, in fact, an act of “terrorism” founded in antisemitism did nothing to clarify both the hostage-taker’s motives – the belief that Jews “control the world” - or the essential fact that this was a racist attack.

Though long accustomed to antisemitism from forces on the right, such as neo-Nazis, both culturally and politically, America has seen a steady normalization of antisemitism, particularly in progressive circles. One of the most pernicious effects of this normalization relates to the discourse on Israel and, by extension, Jews. All embrace a relentless misrepresentation of alleged Israeli human rights violations, slanderous talk of Israeli “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” and bitter attacks on Israelis, their international supporters, and the peace process itself. All have taken a massive toll on American civil discourse.


USC Asked to Expand Groups Protected Against Harassment to Include Zionist Students
After the University of Southern California (USC) recently announced publicly that it will be forming an Advisory Committee on Jewish Life after a number of antisemitic incidents on campus, a group of 1,446 individuals signed a petition urging the university to revise its policy on who it considers protected individuals.

The group, led by the AMCHA Initiative—a group that monitors antisemitism at colleges and universities throughout the United States—sent a letter to USC President Carol Folt, the board of trustees, and members of the newly formed committee advising them about a double standard the university has when addressing hateful rhetoric against Jewish and non-Jewish Zionist students and staff as opposed to rhetoric towards other groups.

The reason behind the double standard, the petition noted, is that USC’s Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation has a list of protected groups that many campus community members facing harassment for their Zionist views do not fall into.

“While the list of protected groups in USC’s policy is quite long, and many students will easily find their niche, Jewish students experiencing anti-Zionist motivated harassment do not naturally fit into a group that guarantees them protection. And non-Jewish pro-Israel students who fall victim to anti-Zionist harassment are never covered by the school’s policy,” the letter stated. “This distinction highlights a profound inequality not just for Jewish and non-Jewish pro-Israel students, but for many students on your campus, under USC’s policy the exact same harmful behavior will be either addressed or ignored by administrators, based solely on the identity of the student.”

The university, which affirms a strong commitment to freedom of expression on campus, has exceptions carved out for certain groups in its policies, according to the petition, and students who are not members of those groups find their right to be protected against verbal harassment outweighed by their harasser’s right to free speech.

In a recent op-ed in the Jewish Journal, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of AMCHA Initiative, said that this policy gives harassers of Zionists the license to continue verbally harassing them, diminishing the Zionist students’ own freedom of speech and academic freedom.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Debunking The Feeble Narrative On Which I’ve Constructed My National Identity Is Racist! Sexist? Transphobic? Help Me Out Here. By Hussein Abubakr, Palestinian activist (satire)
It’s tough to have one’s sense of self challenged. Most people’s reflexive reaction involves anger, perhaps a threat – or more than a threat – of violence, since a sense of self occupies psychological space on par with physical threats to one’s life. Sometimes, however, facts, those stubborn things, combine to chip away at the self – individual or group – that has taken shape over the course of time, and one must reach for tools to keep those facts at bay, tools that resonate so profoundly with emotion that the facts dare not penetrate. Thus our need, as Palestinians, to invoke the progressive trope of the day in enlisting solidarity from outsiders: our sense of self rests entirely on denying the peoplehood and national rights of Jews, requiring us to generate uncritical emotional support among credulous or antisemitic activists to bolster our crumbling self-conception – which we do by calling the use of facts to assail that untenable construct whichever epithet holds the most currency among progressives. Are we still on white supremacy? Transphobia? Anti-immigration?

When one’s identity grows not out of a distinct local culture, but out of a visceral drive to keep another in his or her traditional, second-class station, robust defenses of that identity prove elusive. Islamic society kept Jews as an underclass with varying levels of restrictions on their political and social status, in addition to the occasional massacre, forced conversions, or whatever abrogation of the Pact of Omar we Muslims felt like perpetrating at the time. But then the Jews came up with Zionism, a national liberation movement, and not only tried, but succeeded in, establishing, defending, and expanding a state of their own – a blow to the honor the Islamic world that had kept the Jews inferior and defenseless but now could not muster the might necessary to defeat a ragtag group of Holocaust refugees! The shame! But the very same honor-shame dynamic forces us to find an outside force to blame, and what better outside force than whichever bogeyman preoccupies the Zeitgeist of the wealthy western world, to coopt that outrage, and, hopefully, funding? That Zeitgeist will never really oppose antisemitism, but I can’t keep track of it. Police brutality? Income inequality? Diversity?
CAMERA Arabic Exposé Ex-DW Journalist Farah Maraqa Glorified Terror
CAMERA Arabic reveals here for the first time in English additional instances in which Maraqa glorified violence.

Concerning Gaza terrorists’ launching of rockets towards Tel Aviv, Maraqa wrote in July 2014: “The sound of the resistance’s rockets falling in the heart of Tel Aviv was once again music to our ears.”

Maraqa praised the November 2014 Har Nof synagogue attack in which killed a Palestinian terrorist slaughtered five worshippers and a police officer as an international media success:
We, as Palestinians of various citizenships and origins, must remember that true media efforts are being dedicated when two martyrs, like the ones who perpetrated the Jerusalem operation, are dedicating both of their souls to redeem that land, and when horror crawls into the settlers’ spirits. Then, the media has no other option but to speak about our [i.e. the Palestinian] cause, even if all the politicians have betrayed us.

On the killing of Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese terrorist guilty of the brutal murder of civilian Danny Haran and his two young daughters, including 4-year-old Einat, whose head he smashed on a rock, Maraqa opined in December 2015: “To state my position, I feel sorry for Kuntar, nobody can deny him of his Jihad against the Israelis and his 30 years of captivity.”

On the January 2016 Dizengoff Street terror attack in which three civilians were murdered, Maraqa said of the terrorist: “I certainly would not have any criticism towards Nashat Melhem and what he has done, as I feel I am too small to write a single letter against this hero.”

On Ahmad Daqamseh’s release from prison, Maraqa celebrated the Jordanian soldier for his 1997 slaughter of seven Israeli eighth grade girls in March 2017:
Jordanians are happy, and by all standards they are entitled to be. The conversation here is not only about revenge and the killing of Israeli women, which it is established in the Jordanians’ belief that they are an “enemy.” Rather, it is also because there is someone among them who bore the consequence of his “deed,” even if it was a murder and required him to pay 20 years of his life, he is indeed a man capable of paying the price for his deed in its entirety.

Even after moving to Berlin from Amman about four years ago, Maraqa remained unrepentant about her past glorifications of terror. To the contrary, following her initial suspension in December 2021, she decried any attempt to hold her accountable for them:
First, allow me to restate, digging into my old articles (more than seven years old), taking sentences out of their historical, geographical and content context, and using them to defame me and assassinate my character is not acceptable. I refuse to “defend myself” here, as I have nothing to defend but professional journalism.

All too often, journalists whitewash rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist and miscast glorification of terrorism as “criticism of Israel.” Deutsche Welle’s recognition of the bigotry and incitement as just that is noteworthy and commendable.


Guardian's crusade against IHRA antisemitism definition continues
For the fourth time in the past year, the Guardian has published an attack on the internationally accepted IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism. The latest is an op-ed by David Feldman, director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (“What we are getting wrong in the fight against antisemitism in Britain”, Feb. 18).

The attack on IHRA by Feldman, who was Vice Chair of the widely discredited 2016 Chakrabarti inquiry into Labour Party antisemitism, is largely unproblematic until the final three paragraphs, beginning with this:
the preoccupation of the government and Jewish communal bodies with the IHRA working definition is counter-productive. The working definition has become tainted by its repeated abuse. Too often it is used to tarnish opinions that are deeply unwelcome to most Israel-supporting Jews, but which are not antisemitic. It leads many to argue that the IHRA working definition is more a device to protect Israel from criticism than a device to protect Jews from antisemitism.

Here Feldman normalises what’s known as the Livingstone Formulation, a term coined by Professor David Hirsh to describe the smear that Jews level false charges of antisemitism in order to stifle criticism of Israel and “mobilize Jewish victim power against the Palestinians”. It’s a toxic trope that has continually been used and legitimised by both the BBC and the Guardian, despite the fact that the 2020 report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Labour antisemitism in effect concluded that it’s a racist line of attack.


BBC again uninterested in Hamas abuse of medical travel permits
As longtime readers will be aware, BBC portrayal of the topic of permits for Gaza Strip residents who need to enter Israel for medical care is completely one-sided and inevitably focuses on cases in which people have had difficulties obtaining medical travel permits.

BBC’S KNELL PAINTS A PARTIAL PICTURE OF GAZA WOES
‘NEWS AT TEN’ CONTINUES THE BBC’S ‘BLOCKADE’ CAMPAIGN
BBC R4’S ‘TODAY’ LISTENERS GET A DISTORTED VIEW OF MEDICAL PERMITS – PART ONE
BBC R4’S ‘TODAY’ LISTENERS GET DISTORTED VIEW OF MEDICAL PERMITS – PART TWO

However, as we have documented here in the past, the BBC concurrently avoids reporting stories which would explain to its audiences why those travel permits are a necessary part of Israel’s counter-terrorism measures.

BBC IGNORES ANOTHER STORY EXPLAINING THE NEED FOR GAZA BORDER RESTRICTIONS
BBC NEWS AGAIN IGNORES ABUSE OF ISRAELI HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA
BBC CHOOSES NOT TO REPORT HAMAS ABUSE OF MEDICAL PERMITS YET AGAIN
BBC AGAIN IGNORES A STORY THAT CONFLICTS ITS NARRATIVE ON MEDICAL PERMITS

Last week another such story emerged when the Israel Security Agency announced the arrest of a member of Hamas who had entered Israel on a medical travel permit.
FBI investigating antisemitic flyers in Colleyville
Antisemitic and white supremacist flyers found in the driveways of members of Congregation Beth Israel by Colleyville, Texas, police are being investigated by the FBI as a hate crime, according to FOX7 Austin.

One flyer claimed “every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish,” another made connections to Jewish members of the Biden administration, and a third flyer said, “Black lives murder white children.”

Congregation Beth Israel, where a terrorist took four of its members hostage last month, issued a statement saying that antisemitism is now a “reality” in the United States and the entire world.

“Following a harrowing ordeal at our congregation on January 15, where four congregants were held hostage, several of our members today received antisemitic flyers in their respective driveways” the statement said. “We understand that the Colleyville Police Department and the FBI are investigating, and their involvement brings comfort. We are hopeful that the individual(s) responsible will be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Circulating hate speech cannot be taken lightly. Unfortunately, antisemitism is a reality in the United States and around the world. Each of us has a responsibility to root out hate, and work toward building a community where all belong and all can thrive.”

FOX7 Austin quoted a local community member in Colleyville, Nathan Boone, as saying: “I think the right thing to do is just to pick them up [the flyers] and dispose of them properly.”

A 44-year-old British Pakistani armed with a pistol took four people hostage during a Shabbat prayer service at Beth Israel in Colleyville on January 15.
‘I Was Touching Something Gross’: Disgust and Anger Greet Latest Antisemitic Propaganda Blitz by US Neo-Nazi Group
Just one month after an Islamist gunman seized four hostages at a local synagogue, the city of Colleyville in Texas was one of several locations around the US to be hit over the weekend with antisemitic flyers blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Police in Colleyville are investigating the leafleting blitz as a hate crime and have contacted the FBI, local news channel Fox 4 reported on Monday. Residents of the city were targeted with propaganda apparently produced and distributed by the so-called “Goyim Defense League (GDL),” a neo-Nazi group that has carried out several similar stunts over the last year in several cities, pushing antisemitic COVID-19 conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. The words “goy” and “goyim” are pejorative terms in Hebrew and Yiddish for non-Jews.

Flyers distributed in Colleyville and neighboring Garland claimed that “every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish” along with another one claiming “Black lives murder white children.”

Colleyville resident Skyler Ray told Fox 4 of his shock at waking up to see the driveways in his neighborhood infested with the flyers, which were placed in transparent bags weighed down with rocks to prevent them from blowing away.

“Like, every single driveway,” he recalled. “Nobody should have to wake up and see something like that on their front lawn.”

Ray added that he had family members who were Jewish. “I’m a little scared for them,” he said. “It’s just hateful.”
Children's game Roblox features Nazi death camps and Holocaust imagery
German flags fly alongside an iron cross above chambers labelled “gas room” and a blazing pyre of dead bodies.

However, this is not historical footage from a Nazi death camp but Roblox, a computer game hugely popular with schoolchildren worldwide.

Some users have created a virtual concentration camp experience - including a room in which players can click “execute” to release deadly gas from showerheads, the Mail on Sunday has revealed.

It said a reporter was able to access cell blocks and lock themselves in to “experience” the plight of prisoners in the German camps.

A section of railway appears to mimic the approach to Auschwitz-Birkenau, while avatars dressed in “Nazi uniforms” stand watch.

Roblox is an online platform that allows users to create their own games and play those created by others.

Its interactive nature has made it hugely popular. As of August 2020, it had over 164 million monthly active users.

It’s also one of the most popular children’s games in the world.

But the platform has recently come under fire for hosting explicit content.

“Condo” parties featuring strippers, bondage costumes, and avatars having sex have also been found in the game, according to the BBC.


How God, Martin Luther King brought a ‘Bishop of Israel’ to the Holy Land
Glenn Plummer is the “Bishop of Israel” for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), one of the largest Evangelical churches in the world.

The congregation is 115 years old and predominantly Black. Until 2020, it operated in 112 countries. But when Plummer and his wife moved to Israel in between COVID-19 lockdowns, the latest branch opened up in the Holy Land.

How does a Black bishop end up in Israel?

“I have been a Christian Zionist for years,” Plummer told The Jerusalem Post.

His love for Israel began when he became a Christian at the age of 19.

“I started reading the Bible,” he recalled. “Everything I read was about Israel and the Jewish people.”

He started learning about Israel from his studies.

“All I knew about Israel is what I read in the Bible,” he explained.

Plummer visited Israel for the first time in 1996 with a delegation of Black church leaders from the US and Africa. The trip was led by Dr. Myles Monroe, a well-known Evangelical teacher and minister from the Bahamas.

After landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, the delegation went straight to Jerusalem. On their bus ride south, Plummer recalled that their tour guide quoted a passage from Psalm 121.

A song for ascents. I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come? Psalm 121:1

“When he said that, tears began to flow. From that moment, it was so emotional for me,” Plummer recalled.
Hebron hosts Jon Voight, who is filming a show aimed at Evangelicals
The Jewish community of Hebron hosted actor Jon Voight, 83, on Sunday - the most recent stop on his 10-day mission to Israel, where he is gathering material for a biblical film series.

Voight is an Academy Award winning actor and the father of Angelina Jolie. He is known for his outspoken support for the State of Israel.

Sources in the Ministry of Tourism told ALL ISRAEL NEWS that Voight’s series will focus on Israel and stories of the Bible and is aimed at Evangelicals. The first episode is dedicated to the journeys of Abraham in the Holy Land. The actor is both the narrator and host.

At the end of his visit to Hebron, the actor received “Abraham and Sarah” medals from the city.

“We were all moved by the visit and the things that were said, including deep insights into the essence of the fathers and mothers as spiritual sources and the foundations of morality and human values,” Voight said in a video filmed with Hebron spokesperson Yishai Fleisher.

He explained to Fleisher that he is working on a “little show” about the land of Israel.

“We are calling it ‘The Land of Israel: God’s Story,’ because it is God’s story,” Voight said. “What we want to do is trace the beginnings of [the story] and come here and show people the places where these events happened and [give them] insight into the personalities of the patriarchs and all of the chosen people that have brought us to this time.”


70 Years On, Mystery of Man Behind Knesset Menorah Solved
One of Israel’s most curious mysteries was solved on Sunday when the identity of the artist who created the small bronze menorah that stands on the Knesset grounds was finally revealed.

The Knesset Menorah is one of the most recognized and revered state symbols in Israel’s history. Israel’s parliament is home to more than one menorah statue. Most famously, a seven-branched menorah stands just outside the Knesset plaza. It towers 4.30 meters high, 3.5 meters wide (14 feet by 11.5 feet) and weighs 4 tons.

While it is known that the great menorah was designed by Benno Elkan (1877–1960) and modeled after the golden candelabrum that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem, the identity of the man who created the statue that borders the Knesset’s Rose Garden has always been a mystery. Until now.

The Knesset Press Office said on Sunday that, following a lead provided by an old newspaper clipping about the arrival of a sculpture from Argentina to Haifa, curators of the future Knesset Museum have been able to name the man behind the menorah as Argentinian artist David Sabi.

Dr. Moshe Foxman Shaal told Israel Hayom that following then-Knesset Speaker Yosef Sprinzak’s visit to Argentina in the 1950s, the local Jewish community decided to raise funds to create a statue in the likeness of the ancient Temple menorah, with the aim of gifting it to the Israeli parliament.
Ultra-orthodox Jewish group funding escape for abused Afghan refugees
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan this past August, Maryam, a 27-year-old event manager, knew it was dangerous to walk alone on the streets of her home province, located north of Kabul. Sharia law forbids women being unescorted. But, this past November, she decided to take a chance and taxi to a market.

It would turn out to be one of the worst days of her life.

Outside the market, a car pulled up alongside her and doors swung open. “I felt myself being pushed,” she told The Post. “Suddenly I was in a car with Taliban men. They took me to a house and began touching my body.”

Maryam, who was wearing a hijab and completely covered in fabric except for her eyes, thought she was about to be raped as retribution for being solo. But then one of her attackers said, “I have better punishment for this girl. Don’t touch her.”

He reached for a bowl. “It contained boiling hot water,” said Maryam. “He threw the water on me and it burned my skin. They said that if I tell anyone about this, they will kill me and my entire family. Then they pushed me out of the house and said, ‘We don’t want to see you again.’”

Maryam’s clothing clung to the second- and third-degree burns forming on the lower half of her body. Once her garments were removed, her skin ripped away and the pain intensified.

“Maryam could not see a doctor because of where the burns were,” said her sister Ramina, 26. “They were on her legs and so close to her private area. There are no female burn specialists in Afghanistan.”

If she stayed in her home province, Maryam now believes, she would have died from festering infections or at the hands of the Taliban. Fortunately, Ramina had worked as a prosecutor and dealt with members of an organization called Team Themis. Dedicated to getting endangered and abused people out of Afghanistan, Themis helped arrange passage to Spain for Ramina and Maryam.
New synagogue planned as UAE's Jewish community grows



Ronn Torossian: What I Miss About Israel
This week (finally!) the Israeli government is expected to announce an end to restrictions on tourism to Israel. I haven’t been to Israel in over two years, the longest period in my adult life. I cant wait to visit Israel very soon.

At the essence of my being is the fact that I am Jewish, and a Zionist. Not being in Israel feels like a part of me is missing. I simply cannot wait for the special feeling of being in Israel.

In no particular order, here are the many reasons I miss Israel:

I simply miss being in a Jewish country; all of it — hearing Hebrew, seeing the Israeli flag — the blue and white Jewish star which is omnipresent.

I miss scharma with humus on lafa bread, with those great pickles. I miss all those little dishes they bring you before the main meal. I miss the hot, crunchy bread. I miss the pictures of Sephardic rabbis in those stores with blasting music.

I miss Fridays on Shenkin Street in Tel Aviv, watching people. I miss walking the shuk with vendors screaming out prices for freshly squeezed juices. I miss the amusing street performers on stilts, or clowns with street theatre.

I miss driving to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and ascending those hills.

I miss praying at the Western Wall, and seeing the lions of Judah, and those elderly women who give out red strings for charity as you descend down the steps and see the Kotel. I miss kissing the wall and praying for good things, and thanking G-d for all we have. I miss putting on tefillin, with Chabad there, and then walking away from the Kotel looking at it.






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