Friday, April 15, 2022
JPost Editorial: This Passover we remember that not all are free
At a time when Jews are focusing on the freedom we struggled to obtain, it is a time for us to remember the hardships and lack of freedoms that others are facing. Russia is depriving the Ukrainian people of their most basic right – the right to live.This Passover, Israel has much to be thankful for
Ukrainians aren’t the only people facing massive threats to their freedoms. At any given moment in 2016, an estimated 40.3 million people were held as slaves, according to the International Labor Organization, with “24.9 million people trapped in forced labour, 16 million people exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation; and four million persons in forced labor imposed by state authorities.”
Meanwhile, the people of North Korea are starving to death under one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. People there are forced into unpaid labor under threat of detention or execution. The dictatorial regime attempts to stop anyone from leaving the state, blocking their communication with the outside world.
Much like the Jews in Egypt, they are slaves to an oppressive ruler who does not care if they live or die.
In China, more than a million Uighurs have reportedly been detained in “reeducation camps,” as the state calls them. Those who have survived their imprisonment say they were tortured and sexually assaulted. Others are used as forced labor and some women are being forcibly sterilized.
When we gather with our families tonight, let us rejoice as we recount the Exodus from Egypt. But let us also remember and tell everyone at our Seder about those who are less fortunate than we are. And let’s hope that by next year, they will have also escaped the yoke of oppression.
Had the heavens gifted Israel with success, strength and self-assuredness that comes from faith, but not with a happy society with a high birth rate that enjoys a vibrant arts and culture scene, gourmet food and wine, verdant mountaintop getaway sites, and the most exciting intellectual institutions in the Jewish world – dayenu.Rabbi who fled Moscow: ‘Jewish life in Russia as I knew it was coming to an end’
Had the heavens gifted Israel with energy and enthusiasm, but not with multiple Jewish organizations in the Diaspora that work hard every day (the vast majority of them) to back Israel politically and support its cultural and educational institutions – dayenu.
Of course, dayenu does not mean that Israel is satisfied and sitting on its laurels. It aspires to more.
Israel still needs more triumphs, including victory over Iranian revolutionaries, various radical Islamic enemies and Palestinian rejectionists. Israel desires region-wide peace – with the Iranians and Palestinians, too. Also, Israel aims to better integrate its Arab and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish populations, bring down the very high cost of living, and narrow income gaps. And there is much to be done to help stem Diaspora Jewish assimilation and disaffiliation.
But in grand perspective, kama maalot tovot la-Makom aleinu – see how many benefits and blessings the heavens have showered upon Israel! It enjoys a strong economy, coronavirus and political stability (at least for the past year), diplomatic and security heft, renewed aliyah, national resilience that stems from faith, and global Jewish support.
Consider how far the people of Israel and the State of Israel have come in just 75 years, look at what has been achieved, and feel the Divine warmth. Dayenu! There is more than enough to give thanks for – and more than enough to inspire confidence about Israel’s future.
On the morning of February 24, 2022, Motl Gordon woke up to the news that Russia had invaded Ukraine.
“It dawned on me that it’s another epoch now,” Gordon told The Times of Israel in a recent interview in Jerusalem. Within two hours he, his wife, and their two kids had airline tickets, and within 10 hours they were on a plane to Warsaw.
Gordon had spent the last five years leading an independent Jewish community in Moscow, Sredi Svoih (Among Our Own). Just minutes after deciding to leave, Gordon went to the synagogue to lead a Torah lesson and morning prayers. He didn’t tell his congregants about his plans — it wasn’t clear to him yet that he would succeed in actually boarding the flight.
It wasn’t a simple journey in terms of official documents: The family was traveling through Warsaw and not all of them had visas, Israel hadn’t lifted coronavirus restrictions, and the children weren’t vaccinated. They applied for special permission to circumvent the restrictions and enter Israel, but as the war had started on a Thursday, the approval came too late to make it to Jerusalem before the Sabbath. They ended up staying in Warsaw until Saturday night, when they boarded a flight to Ben Gurion Airport. On Sunday morning they arrived in Israel.
“Sixty hours,” Gordon says, “in which I could think of nothing else but getting to Jerusalem.”
The decision to leave was not easy since Seredi Svoih had flourished under Gordon’s leadership. But it wasn’t made in a vacuum. As he tells it, Russian Jews had begun leaving before February 24.
The first sign of things to come, he says, were the elections for the Duma — Russia’s lower parliamentary house — in 2021, during which Gordon saw the pre-election repression as too harsh to be reversed.
“It felt like a purge,” he says.
Mark Regev: Israel, South Africa: Relations stuck in a time warp - opinion
Indeed, the Palestinian cause has become the holy grail of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), the litmus test for commitment to the ideology of national liberation. Public figures who challenge the prevailing anti-Israel dogma can see their careers suffer.Anti-Israel Referendum at Princeton Marred by Fraudulent Instruction From Top Voting Official
One example: In 2021 South Africa’s chief justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, was forced to apologize for expressing support for Israel, having to resign from his position as chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, ultimately leaving his post as chief justice, as well. Mogoeng’s lapse: He had said in a webinar hosted by this newspaper that “I’m under an obligation as a Christian to love Israel, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
In a similar vein, last November the South African government publicly rebuked Miss South Africa, Lalela Mswane, over her decision to participate in the Miss Universe pageant in Eilat, releasing a statement that “the atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians are well documented and government, as the legitimate representative of the people of South Africa, cannot in good conscience associate itself with such.”
Earlier this year, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was himself chided for being photographed smiling during the ceremony where he received the credentials of Israel’s new ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky. As the criticism came from influential elements inside the African National Congress (ANC) and its tripartite alliance partners, the government immediately released a sharp anti-Israel statement reiterating devotion to the Palestinian cause. Apparently, the ANC orthodoxy demands the head of state frown when meeting Israelis.
All this is highly counterproductive. South Africa’s boycott of Israel prevents the sort of fruitful cooperation seen in Israel’s relations across Africa, which, according to AU Chair Faki, encompass “fields as varied and sensitive as: education/training, defense, security, intelligence, nuclear cooperation, agriculture, technological innovations, health, economy and finance.”
Of late, because of its professed commitment to an ethical foreign policy prioritizing freedom and human rights, South Africa’s government drew accusations of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy for repeatedly refusing to join the majority at the UN in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Critics charge that South Africa’s leadership is stuck in a time warp, that many in the ANC view the world as if it was still the Cold War of the 1980s when the Communist East wholeheartedly supported the anti-apartheid struggle, while the West (including Israel) was too cozy with the racist white minority regime.
If the current Ukraine crisis drives Pretoria to rethink some warn-out foreign policy axioms, one can only hope that any possible glasnost will also involve looking afresh at South Africa’s reigning self-defeating anti-Israel obsession.
Princeton University's student government manipulated its voting rules to ensure the success of a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions referendum that passed on Wednesday. The referendum, which demanded that Princeton boycott a construction company with ties to Israel, received a minority of votes but passed nonetheless after the school’s chief election administrator misled pro-Israel students about how the vote would be tallied.New report exposes SJP’s methods of intimidating Jewish students at Cornell
The tight vote took place at a university home to the "dirty bicker" of 1958 and which has been notoriously inhospitable to Jewish students. It followed a contentious campus debate that received attention from both the Israeli press and Jewish outlets in the United States, where anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise.
The controversy over the vote counting began on March 28, when Tigers for Israel president Jared Stone asked the student government's elections manager, Brian Li, whether abstentions would count in the final vote total. The referendum, held between April 11 and April 13, required a 50-percent-plus-1 majority to pass, according to the student government constitution; if the denominator included abstentions, those votes would effectively count against the referendum, giving pro-Israel students a procedural edge.
Li told Stone abstentions did count, so Tigers for Israel developed a campaign that encouraged students to abstain. Rather than persuade students to vote against the referendum, Stone explained, Tigers for Israel assured them it was OK to remain neutral about a complicated geopolitical issue.
"Opposition campaigners told student after student that it was better to abstain rather than not vote at all," Myles McKnight, a member of Tigers for Israel, said in an email to Princeton's student government.
But hours after voting closed on April 13, Li abruptly changed course, telling pro-Israel student leaders that abstentions wouldn't be counted after all. The reversal changed the outcome of the vote: Including abstentions would have given the referendum only 44 percent support, according to preliminary results published by the Daily Princetonian. Excluding them gave it 52 percent support—just 1 point above the cutoff.
Canary Mission released a new report that documents and exposes Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell University (SJP Cornell) and its efforts to “create an environment hostile for Jews on campus.”
The 25-page report highlighted the activities of the group and its supporters, including students, graduates and professors, from 2014 to 2022. It provided examples of how SJP Cornell “intimidates supporters of Israel and has even waged a misinformation campaign to dismiss the rise in anti-Semitism,” according to Canary Mission.
It also documented the group’s “hostility and gaslighting,” and its strategy to place their activists on the student government to use their positions to demonize Israel and pass resolutions in support of the BDS movement.
The report additionally revealed that Cornell SJP has “a history of aggressive anti-Israel protests and disruptions on campus.”
During Israel’s 11-day conflict last May with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, SJP Cornell targeted Jewish supporters of Israel on campus and hosted a series of protests supporting Palestinian terrorism. The student group pushed anti-Israel statements in the Student Assembly and blamed Israel for the conflict. They accused Israel of “apartheid” and “provocations against Palestine—from the occupation of Sheikh Jarrah to the assault on Al-Aqsa mosque and the bombings of the Gaza Strip.”
Palestinian Apartheid Week | SSI Van Campaign 2022
If you would like to support this campaign to bring it to more campuses, click on the link!
This month, SSI introduced “Palestinian Apartheid Week,” traveling to various campuses across the country and setting up displays in order to bring attention to difficult topics never before raised by the pro-Israel and Zionist communities.
The truth is: Palestinian Apartheid EXISTS.
Teen Vogue Tries to Educate Readers About Passover, but Forgets Something Major
Teen Vogue, the fashion magazine, has published a 1200-word essay attempting to educate teen readers about Passover. (What Is Passover? Meaning and Traditions of the Spring Jewish Holiday, April 13, 2022.) The article commendably discusses foods that are prohibited on Passover, the length of the holiday, and the fact that Jews may have one or two seders.CAMERA Op-Ed The Desecration of Tombs and Truths A UN Inquiry Asks an Inciter About Root Causes of Conflict
But there’s a big omission.
Discussing the Haggadah, author Michael Pincus explains,
Jewish families follow a script called the Haggadah, which means “the telling.” A Haggadah is often chosen to fit a family’s interests, with themes including environmentalism and global justice, and many families opt to create their own.
Throughout the Seder, the Haggadah outlines readings, the ritualistic drinking of four cups of wine, the consumption of symbolic foods, and singing. One notable tradition observed in tandem with the Seder is to fill an extra cup of wine (and for some, to open the door) for Elijah, a prophet who — according to superstition — visits every Jewish home on Passover to witness each celebration. Think of Elijah as a Jewish Santa Claus, but instead of material gifts, he delivers a promise that the messiah will arrive one day to bring the world peace and justice.
Setting aside the issue of the appropriateness of the Elijah/Santa Claus comparison, what’s missing from this description ought to be obvious to anyone who’s ever sat painstakingly through a long seder, waiting for the end. For centuries, Jews around the world have concluded their seders by proclaiming, “L’Shana Haba B’Yerushalayim!” Next year in Jerusalem!
Teen Vogue has a long history of publishing biased articles against Israel, so it’s hard to see this omission as merely a well-intentioned mistake. By trying to strip the Jewish religion of its connection to Jerusalem and Zionism, Teen Vogue is miseducating its young readers, and does a disservice to its Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike.
All too often, the anti-Israel narratives at the United Nations run directly against the reality on the ground. Around the same time Palestinian rioters were attacking the Jewish holy site of Joseph’s Tomb, the UN’s latest anti-Israel inquiry was willingly lending its ear to someone who had just a week earlier used a pair of events to claim the Muslim holy site of al-Aqsa Mosque was in danger.YouTube Removes BBC Contributor’s Video Praising Palestinian Terror; British Broadcaster Still Promoting Violence Against Israel
On April 9, just a few days before Passover, Palestinian rioters attacked and severely damaged the Jewish holy site of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. This isn’t the only attack on Joseph’s Tomb. On September 26, 1996, a Palestinian mob attacked and firebombed the same site, killing six Israelis. Attacks in 2000 and 2011 each led to the death of an Israeli. Multiple firebombing attacks occurred in 2015, in 2016 a Molotov cocktail was thrown at Jewish worshippers at the site, and on August 31, 2016, another shooting attack wounded an Israeli.
The deadly September 1996 attack is particularly relevant. It had been incited by claims that a “tunnel” being dug at the Temple Mount was threatening al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. As Charles Krauthammer wrote in TIME Magazine a couple weeks later:
“[D]uring the ‘tunnel’ riots of two weeks ago, there were incidents of murder and sacrilege. One occurred in Nablus, an Arab town under P.L.O. control. There is in Nablus a Jewish religious site, Joseph’s Tomb. Under the P.L.O.-Israeli peace accords, it remained a tiny enclave peopled by devout Jews and, for protection, a few Israeli soldiers. On Sept. 26, it was attacked by a Palestinian mob throwing firebombs. Six Israelis were killed. Many prayer books were burned.”
Despite the fact that the “tunnel” was, in fact, just the opening of an additional entrance to an already existing archaeological excavation under the Western Wall (a Jewish holy site) that did not threaten any Islamic holy sites, actors such as the Arab League and the UN added fuel to the fire by legitimizing and broadcasting the “al-Aqsa is in danger” myth. Nary a word was spared for the deadly attack by Palestinians on the Jewish holy places of Nablus that did occur, and which was incited by the libel spewed by the Palestinians, Arab League, and the UN.
YouTube has long been criticized for its failure to adequately act against anti-Jewish hate posted on its platform (see here and here). According to a former moderator turned whistleblower, the video-sharing website has repeatedly ignored warnings about content with the potential to incite antisemitic violence.Guardian obfuscates Palestinian perpetrators of Joseph's Tomb vandalism
But on Tuesday, the company felt compelled to take action after BBC contributor Abdel Bari Atwan praised last week’s terror attack in Tel Aviv on his personal YouTube channel. In a now-removed video initially published on April 8, the British-Palestinian journalist called the terrorist that killed three Israelis a “hero.”
However, a different recording in which he expressed joy over an ISIS-claimed attack that took the lives of two Israeli police officers was not flagged by YouTube.
Furthermore, despite Atwan’s continued insistence that citizens of the Jewish state are all “settlers” and “military” — and, therefore, legitimate targets in his opinion — the BBC has not taken a stance against the pro-terror views espoused by their regular contributor.
“The administration of YouTube removed my latest video [dated April 8], which I dedicated to talk about the militant uprising in the occupied territories [sic],” Atwan wrote on April 12 in a Twitter post that received almost 3,500 likes.
He alleged that YouTube took down the clip, in addition to demonetizing his account, in response to “an Israeli complaint accusing me of encouraging terrorism and not condemning the four operations in Hadera, Beersheba, Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak, and not describing its perpetrators as terrorists.”
The removal came after the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated his words into English the day before. According to the transcript provided by MEMRI, Atwan had told his YouTube subscribers that “young perpetrator Raad Hazem, that hero, stormed Tel Aviv, the number-one [economic] capital of the occupation state.”
A Guardian article – via Agence France Presse – focused on Palestinians killed and injured in clashes with Israeli troops who’ve been engaged in anti-terror operations in West Bank cities in response to the four recent terror attacks that claimed 14 Israeli lives in the past three weeks.BBC Radio 4 presenter ‘contextualises’ Palestinian terrorism
The article (“Palestinian lawyer and teen killed as Israel raids West Bank amid escalating violence”, April 13) reported on two recent Palestinian fatalities, and opened thusly:
A Palestinian lawyer and a teenager have been killed on the fifth day of Israeli raids in the West Bank following deadly attacks in the Jewish state, amid heightened tensions after a religious site was vandalised.
Which religious site was vandalised, and who vandalised it?
Nine paragraphs down, we finally learn which “religious site” they’re referring to, but not who vandalised it.
Violent clashes had erupted earlier in the day in Nablus, where Israeli forces were escorting a work crew that came to repair Joseph’s Tomb.
The site is sacred to Jews and was smashed in an act of vandalism last weekend.
Fourteen paragraphs down from that sentence, we’re told the following:
The holy site, where Jews say the Biblical patriarch Joseph is buried, is a frequent flashpoint between Israelis and Palestinians. It was partially destroyed in 2000 during a Palestinian uprising and also torched in 2015.
Remarkably, the article never gets around to mentioning that – like the 2015 torching and 2000 destruction they allude to – the recent attack(s) on Joseph’s Tomb were committed by Palestinians. In fact, there were two separate Palestinian attacks on the Jewish holy site earlier in the week, as well as a shooting of two Jews who entered the site after the first act of vandalism.
Jenin has of course been under Palestinian Authority rule for twenty-six years.CBS’ Gayle King Under Fire for Not Addressing Anti-Semitic Views Held by Celebrated Author, Alice Walker
Minister Yoaz Hendel spoke about two issues the BBC generally avoids: Palestinian incitement “hailing the terrorist as a hero”, including on social media, and the celebrations of the attack seen in places such as Gaza and Jenin. He described Israel as trying to “fight extreme voices in the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Arab society” while also trying to “encourage moderates”.
Dymond’s reply to those statements included a facile and almost caricatural portrayal of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
Dymond: “Every person with a shred of humanity will feel the pain of the friends and family of those who have been killed over the past few weeks. People are also aware that there is little or nothing in the way of a peace process. You say you are trying to encourage the moderates but there is enormous frustration – desperation even – amongst the Palestinians. How are you trying to encourage them when all they see is oppression and occupation?”
Hendel responded by stating that any such frustration does not excuse terror, going on to say:
Hendel: “By the way, it’s not about the territories; it’s not about Judea and Samaria. It’s about all over Israel and you see the outcomes, the comments that come from those people who praise the terrorism against Tel Aviv, against the north and against also Judea and Samaria.”
Dymond closed the interview at that point with the words “OK, we’ll leave it there”.
In line with BBC editorial guidelines, Dymond avoided using the words terror, terrorism or terrorist throughout the item, leaving that up to his Israeli interviewee.
Apparently though BBC editorial guidelines do not preclude the promotion of trite and context-free ‘explanations’ for terrorism that absolve Palestinians of all agency and responsibility while whitewashing events such as the Palestinian terror attacks intended to derail the Oslo Accords stage of the ‘peace process’.
n a statement sent to the Jewish Voice, Dr. Phyllis Chesler, the author of 20 books including the pioneering “The New Anti-Semitism” published in 2003 said this:Kosher, halal slaughter unites France's Jewish, Muslim voters
“Alice Walker is a great writer and Gayle King has the right to conduct an interview in any way she sees fit. I, too, have crossed swords with Alice over the years over the issue of Jews, Judaism, and Israel—however, I know that her marriage to a Jewish civil rights worker with whom she had a daughter soured, and that their daughter chose her Jewish father and his second Jewish wife over her black biological mother. All this is in the public record. How could this not have embittered Alice and caused an otherwise fine mind to scapegoat the Jews and Israel for her own personal heartbreak? Do we judge our artists only on the basis of their worst prejudices—or on the basis of their best work? You decide. On the other hand, normalizing, popularizing, Jew haters is always dangerous, but especially now.”
The Daily Mail also reported that Yair Rosenberg, who describes himself as a ‘writer of DEEP SHTELT at The Atlantic,’ and a ‘troller of Nazis’ appeared outraged by King’s omission in her interview with Walker.
‘Alice Walker is an unrepentant anti-Semite. She has a new book out. If media outlets want to platform her to discuss it, that’s fine. But if they don’t ask about her history of bigotry at the outset, they’re not doing their job of informing the public,’ Rosenberg tweeted.
Former Wall Street Journal and New York Times journalist, Bari Weiss echoed similar sentiments on her Twitter posting the CBS News article that ran of the interview.
‘Alice Walker an unapologetic anti-Semite who believes in lizard Illuminati. But because Jews don’t count, she gets this kind of fawning, uncritical treatment by the mainstream press,’ she said, according to the Daily Mail report.
The Daily Mail reported that in 2018, Walker penned a column for the Times Book Review praising David Icke, a known anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist, and author of the book, ‘And The Truth Shall Set You Free.’
When the story ran, The Times stood by their decision in running the piece. (h/t jzaik)
As she cooks lunch and talks politics, Jewish voter Sarah Gutmann has a nasty feeling – of would-be French president Marine Le Pen invading the privacy of her home, reaching directly into her life and the plates of chicken and kosher sausages that she is frying for her husband and their eldest son.Israel has welcomed 13,391 Ukrainian olim since outset of Russian invasion
That's because the far-right candidate wants to outlaw ritual slaughter if elected next Sunday. And that could directly impact how Gutmann feeds her family and exercises her religious freedom. She and her husband, Benjamin, say they would have to think about leaving France if a far-right government interfered with observant Jews' kosher diets. Their fear is that under Le Pen, targeting ritually slaughtered meats could be just the start of steps to make French Jews and Muslims feel unwelcome.
"Attacking the way we eat impinges on our privacy and that is very serious," Gutmann said as she busied herself in the kitchen of their Paris home.
"The intention is to target minority populations that bother her and send a message to voters who are against these minorities: 'Vote for me, because I will attack them and perhaps, with time, make them leave.'"
Muslim shopper Hayat Ettabet said her family might be forced to illegally slaughter at home to stay within their religious rules, bleeding out animals "in the bathroom, back to the way it was."
Le Pen says all animals should be stunned before slaughter, and frames the issue as one of animal welfare. That's unacceptable to observant Jews and Muslims who believe stunning causes unnecessary animal suffering and that their ritual slaughters for kosher and halal meats are more humane.
With the largest populations of Muslims and Jews in western Europe, the issue has major potential repercussions for France and could hit communities elsewhere that buy French meat exports. The issue is one of the many fault lines between Le Pen and incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and the starkly different visions of France they are presenting for next Sunday's election runoff vote. It is expected to be far closer than in 2017, when the centrist Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.
"We have never been so close to having an extreme-right regime," Gutmann said. "The alarm bell is ringing."
Israel has welcomed 13,391 new immigrants from Ukraine since the outset of the Russian invasion on February 10, among them 427 who have arrived in the past 24 hours.Jewish Celebrities Gather to Discuss Antisemitism, Jewish Identity in YouTube Special
Their arrival is part of "Operation Coming Home" – through which all those who are entitled to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel) based on the Law of Return can receive emergency acceptance into the country.
To be eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, one must either have at least one Jewish grandparent or be married to a Jew, whether or not they are considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law.
Meanwhile, at least 390 new immigrants from Ukraine are expected to arrive on flights from Kishinev, the capital of Moldova; Budapest, the capital of Hungary; and Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, over the next 24 hours.
It should be noted that while around 200,000 potential immigrants from Ukraine meet the criteria for aliya according to the Law of Return (some 43,000 of them identify as Jewish or with no other religion), the potential for immigration from Russia is at least three times as much (some 200,000 potential immigrants who identify as Jewish or with no other religion).
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Israel's relative passivity in terms of absorbing immigrants and refugees, compared to European countries, has often highlighted its relative "unattractiveness" in the eyes of potential immigrants – which is particularly illustrated in the gap between those who have expressed an interest in moving to Israel and those who have actually done so.
MK Yom Tov Kalfon (Yamina), the chairman of the Knesset Constitution Committee's Subcommittee on People Eligible for Citizenship Under the Law of Return and Relations with the Diaspora, said: "The efforts to bring Ukrainian Jews to Israel are insufficient. Against the 'competition' from countries such as Germany, which have a type of law of return for Jews, it is imperative to be proactive and physically reach all those who are eligible for [aliyah] and are leaving Ukraine, to convince them to come here."
A group of Jewish celebrities come together to talk about antisemitism, acts of hatred directed at the Jewish community, and their religious backgrounds in a YouTube special that premiered on Thursday.
In “Recipe for Change: Standing Up to Antisemitism,” the personalities assemble at three Shabbat dinners, opening scrolls placed on their tables with questions like, “how would you define what being Jewish means to you?” “have you ever experienced antisemitism?” and “could the Holocaust happen again?”
Participants include Zac Posen, Rachel Bloom, Bryan Greenberg, Michael Twitty, Alex Edelman, Ruth Reichl, Rachel Sumekh, Tommy Dorfman, Josh Peck, Hannah Einbinder, Hari Nef, Michael Zegen, and Skylas Astin (who insisted, “my mom’s matzah ball soup is better than yours.)
The Shabbat dinners were hosted by Ilana Glazer, Moshe Kasher and Idina Menzel, who partnered with chefs Nancy Silverton and Einat Admony to create three-course meals. Rachel Dratch, of “Saturday Night Live” fame, is featured as a reporter speaking with Jews and supporters of the Jewish community in New York City. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also joined one meal to share statistics about the rise in antisemitism in the US.
London Exhibit Spotlights Nazi Holocaust Photos Alongside Perspective of Victims
A new multimedia exhibit opening this month at the Jewish Museum London examines historical Nazi-propaganda images from World War II, contrasting them with the point of view of Holocaust victims.Cincinnati Holocaust Museum receives $18 million anonymous donation
“The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust” highlights images taken by the Nazis of victims in ghettos and concentration camps, while visitors are “led to reconsider the images as persecuted and dignified humans living ‘everyday’ lives only days before the Nazis came to power,” the museum said.
The interactive exhibit aims to make visitors “question the motives behind the recording of historical events and to encourage critical thinking on racism, hatred and ‘fake news’ today.”
“The Eye as Witness” offers a virtual reality experience, allowing visitors to feel like they are stepping into a photograph taken in the Warsaw Ghetto. The exhibit also spotlights rare images taken in secret by Jews and members of the anti-Nazi resistance, who recorded what they saw as history unfolded around them.
“The Eye As Witness,” which runs April 24-September 18, is supported by the Arts Council England and co-produced by the National Holocaust Centre and Museum.
What can a Holocaust museum accomplish with $18 million? Cincinnati’s is about to find out.Hollywood actor Liev Schreiber to star in Keshet, Disney's Holocaust series
The anonymous gift, the largest ever for the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, comes as the museum’s administrators warn about the waning numbers of living Holocaust survivors as well as “divisive concepts” legislation that could put a chill on how the Holocaust is taught in schools.
The museum’s CEO, Sarah Weiss, said the gift will enable the museum to add digital exhibits that are increasingly seen as a frontier for Holocaust education.
Weiss pointed to the Dimensions in Testimony exhibit, which uses artificial intelligence to simulate conversations with Holocaust survivors, as an example of the kind of experience she aims to offer museum visitors in the future.
She said that with few living Holocaust survivors, the youngest of whom are now nearing 80, digital conversations would necessarily have to replace real-life ones. “We are really the last generation who will be living with the survivors and World War II veterans,” Weiss said.
The anonymous donation, which Weiss said had been in the works for some time and comes from donors with a preexisting relationship with the museum, comes at a fraught moment in Ohio and nationally.
Hollywood star Liev Schreiber has been cast in a limited Holocaust series that Israel's Keshet Studios will produce for Disney+, as were British actors Joe Cole ("Peaky Blinders") and Bel Powley ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl").
The eight-part series is based on the story of Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who sheltered Anne Frank and her family during World War II.
"A Small Light" will be told from Gies' perspective, who was also the one who found Anne's diary after the family was arrested by the Nazis, and guarded it until Otto Frank – Anne's father and the only family member to survive the war – shared it with the world.
Gies, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 100, famously said, "I don't like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can, within their own small ways, turn on a small light in a dark room."
Keshet Studios – the Israeli production studio's Los Angeles branch – will create the series in cooperation with ABC Signature with "Grey's Anatomy" writers Joan Rater and Tony Phelan. The shooting is scheduled to start in the summer in Prague and Amsterdam.
These post-war photographs of Holocaust #survivors celebrating #Passover in DP camps and children's homes are poignant testimonials to Jewish resilience and continuity.
— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) April 15, 2022
Explore more in our Passover exhibition "And You Shall Tell Your Children" https://t.co/RAVpVeMwMt pic.twitter.com/0vFyrqM7c7
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