Tuesday, July 05, 2022
Antisemitism envoy Lipstadt sees Jew-hatred declining in Mideast, rising in US
On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the newly sworn-in United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that “there is a change afoot in this region.”
She made her comments at the forum “New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism,” which was jointly held by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Diaspora Ministry.
“For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.
“I met with the heads and staffs of embassies focused on combating violent extremism, focused on interfaith dialogue, including the Muslim World League, whose secretary-general visited Auschwitz in 2020,” Lipstadt said. “We heard from a number of people who seemed willing to divide between the geopolitical crisis as it stands here in Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the fact that antisemitism is something separate and apart.
“These are important first steps. There was a clear willingness to continue this conversation. There is room to move things forward.”
Among the panelists at the forum were US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, and CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt. The forum was moderated by Hebrew University vice president and former Israeli ambassador Yossi Gal.
Lipstadt spoke about the qualities of antisemitism that set it apart from other forms of racism and prejudice. She cited antisemitism’s ubiquity, its appearance on both the right and the left, and the conspiracy theory that Jews are using their wealth and knowledge to control the world.
“In 2021, 84% of online antisemitism was anti-Israel.”@NoaTishby, Israel’s Special Envoy on Combating Antisemitism and Delegitmization, explains why it’s so important that the official title of her position recognizes these connected phenomena. https://t.co/lQI0Rg3eYC pic.twitter.com/mNrvWyibua
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 5, 2022
Anti-Israel Academics Attack the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in Hate-Filled Webinar
On May 8, 2022, the Institute for Holocaust Studies, Genocide and Remembrance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, posted a discussion on their official YouTube channel that contained unfounded allegations about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
Hosted and moderated by Alon Confino, chair of the Institute for Holocaust Studies and a history professor at Amherst, the webinar also featured Amos Goldberg and Raef Zreik, professors at Hebrew University and Ono Academic College, respectively. The three academics boasted about their anti-Zionist activism, and promoted their campaign against adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Professors Confino and Goldberg spent much of their time on the webinar denouncing the IHRA definition, and echoing the sentiment of an article where they jointly argue that, “The IHRA definition is nothing but a document used by Israeli propagandists to protect Israel against any harsh criticism regarding its attitude toward the Palestinians.”
In December 2020, Professor Zreik signed a petition that claimed: “The IHRA is used to delegitimize the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights,” a bald-faced lie that he reiterated throughout the webinar.
Zreik also complains about the semantics of the term “antisemitism,” but fails to acknowledge the history of the world’s oldest hatred.
Zreik’s attempt to redefine antisemitism is an age-old attempt to trivialize the Jewish experience. For thousands of years, Jews have remained the target of systemic discrimination and intense pressure to erase their culture, language, and identity. These experiences have come to be known as antisemitism. It is disrespectful and intellectually dishonest to appropriate this term to describe something completely unrelated.
Contrary to Confino, Golberg, and Zreik’s mischaracterization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is an intergovernmental organization that makes it clear in its working definition that criticism of Israel, in and of itself, is not antisemitic.
Stopping BDS Cold: Five Lessons to Be Learned From Ben & Jerry’s Attempt to Cream Israel
The agreement enabling Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to continue to be sold throughout Israel announced on June 29 was a sweet victory against the BDS movement.Emily Schrader: Lessons of Ben & Jerry's: Boycotting Israel isn't low-risk
This was a resounding win against the worldwide BDS movement, many of whose advocates openly support the destruction of the Jewish state. The agreement enabling Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was also a personal victory for the 160 people employed at the Negev factory who had been worrying about their jobs since the decision last July by Ben & Jerry’s to end its contract with its Israeli licensee Avi Zinger over his refusal to stop selling its ice cream over Israel’s pre-1967 border.
But parent company Unilever’s announcement last Wednesday that it had sold its Ben & Jerry’s ice cream business in Israel to Zinger has much farther reaching ramifications than their jobs or the packaging now being labeled in Hebrew and not English.
Not only did Unilever’s move prove that BDS can be defeated — it provided a new working model that can be employed in the future. Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Takeaway #1: Gain the Moral High Ground
Ben & Jerry’s cited the company’s liberal values when it decided to break the 34-year agreement with its Israeli licensee because he would not stop selling ice cream in what the company termed “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
But it quickly became apparent that the board of Ben & Jerry’s did not want its ice cream sold anywhere in the Jewish state, due to the extreme political views of the board members. Anuradha Mittal, the chair of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors, endorsed BDS on social media, posted an article defending Hezbollah and was accused in a watchdog complaint to the Internal Revenue Service of funneling tens of thousands of dollars from the company to her pro-Palestinian organization.
Company founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were offended by accusations of antisemitism. But when interviewed, they could not answer why the company had not stopped or conditioned sales in places like Georgia that also have policies they oppose.
Singling out the one Jewish state is part of the IHRA definition of antisemitism that has been adopted or endorsed by 865 entities worldwide, including 37 countries, and the US Departments of Education and State.
By contrast, whenever Zinger spoke, he was apolitical. He mentioned peace and coexistence and his opposition to discrimination.
“This is a significant victory for us and for all who believe in cooperation and coexistence, and it is a resounding defeat for those who call for discrimination and boycotts,” Zinger said in his June 29 victory tweet.
Takeaway #2: BDS Must Be Fought Both Publicly and Behind the Scenes
As part of the public relations battle, Zinger invited the press to visit the factory and speak to workers, including Muslim and Christian Arabs, Bedouin and Israeli Jews from across the political and religious spectrum. An Ethiopian immigrant with nine children who was afraid of losing his livelihood made a particularly strong impression on the international media.
In addition, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who is now Israel’s prime minister, spoke to governors whose states passed anti-BDS laws and urged them to take immediate action. Seven US states either restricted or sold Unilever stocks or bonds to protest Ben & Jerry’s decision, removing hundreds of millions in pension funds from Unilever.
And that is the most important lesson for companies considering taking similar steps to selectively target Israel: It is no longer low-risk to promote antisemitic ideologies in the name of social justice, nor should it be. The economic pressure on Unilever worked because it was forced to, literally, pay the price.Artists Under Fire: The BDS War Against Celebrities, Jews, and Israel
Unfortunately, this won’t be enough to stamp out the antisemitic sentiment behind the BDS movement and the attempts to sanitize and repackage Jew hatred by companies like Ben & Jerry’s. The ice cream manufacturer’s response to the entire ordeal demonstrates that it has learned nothing, and will continue to promote misleading ideas of what’s happening in Israel.
This is the toxic ideology we must continue to work against, because to be for social justice and human rights is to stand up to rising antisemitism, not whitewash it. To be liberal should mean you are morally consistent on all human rights issues – yes, China too, not just the ones you think won’t have economic consequences. Unilever and even more so Ben & Jerry’s have been exposed for the immoral sanctimonious hypocrites that they are.
THE ECONOMIC battle defeated BDS in this case, but to defeat the movement to boycott Israel, which at its core seeks to end Israel completely, is ultimately to win hearts and minds and expose the true nature of the movement as well as its motivations.
The fact that anti-BDS laws are on the books in over 30 US states is an example of how the shared values between the US and Israel have led to protections of the special relationship between the two countries, and is furthermore an example of how the people of the US ideologically stands with Israel.
Businesses should follow a similar model to ensure they aren’t hijacked by antisemitic actors such as what occurred with Ben & Jerry’s.
We must continue to push back against the double standards used by companies like Ben & Jerry’s to justify singling out Israel for criticism – in the economic sphere but also in the marketplace of ideas.
It was a scathing message. And throughout “Artists Under Fire,” Melman similarly tears the mask off the BDS movement, its organizers, and its adherents, exposing not just their hypocrisy, but their true intent: “BDS does not seek to educate,” she writes, “it seeks to intimidate.”
Yet that intimidation does more than just threaten the lives and well-being of artists, several of whom — including singer Lana del Rey — have backed out of performances in Israel for fear of their own safety. It represents a deeper political and cultural threat. “The threat to freedom of expression anywhere is a threat to that freedom everywhere,” Melman asserts. “BDS is creating a handbook for the repression of artistic expression in democratic societies. The world looks away at great peril.”
While Melman focuses on performing artists — particularly musicians such as anti-Israel activist Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Patti Smith — the censorship and anti-Israel boycott goes further. Other artists whose anti-Israel, pro-BDS stances have motivated their antisemitic activism include graffiti artist Banksy, actress Susan Sarandon, writers Alice Walker, Sally Rooney, and more.
True, their freedom of expression has not been affected by their own choice not to participate in Israeli culture — refusing, for instance, to perform there or have their books translated into Hebrew, or in Banksy’s case, outright supporting militant Palestinian propaganda with antisemitic imagery. But as lawyer and Times of Israel columnist Craig Emanuel has written, “The actions taken by the BDS movement and similar organizations are not only a threat to the collaboration of international artists and entertainers. They also create roadblocks between people from different cultures who share something in common, and who want to be able to engage in open and honest discussions regarding cultural, political and even religious differences that can lead to the possibility of better understanding issues that are frequently misunderstood.”
And without such understanding, how can societies still flourish? “Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed that his children would one day be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” Melman writes. “Perhaps if he were alive now, he would dream of the day that Israeli artists would be judged not by the cover of their passport, but by their contributions to the world.”
Welcome to @Israel @50cent!! #BDSFail pic.twitter.com/nBgp8bQGWg
— Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) July 4, 2022
This Jewish Skateboarder Spoke Out About Women’s Rights. Social Justice Warriors Responded With Anti-Semitic Hate.
Taylor Silverman is grateful for all the anti-Semitic Instagram comments.Why CUNY Law School Is Heading Towards a New McCarthyism
The 27-year-old amateur skateboarder made waves earlier this year when she spoke out against biological men participating in women’s sports. A self-described Zionist who is rarely photographed without a Star of David necklace, Silverman wasn’t surprised that online backlash quickly turned anti-Semitic. But she’s a little surprised by how much of it came from her friends.
"If I hadn’t spoken up, I would still be friends with people who are blatantly, and proudly, anti-Semitic," Silverman tells the Washington Free Beacon. "I’m grateful I did, because it showed which of my old friends are anti-Semitic pieces of trash."
The friendly fire was only part of the backlash Silverman faced for speaking publicly about her experience competing against transgender athletes. It wasn't a political protest. Silverman had been skating for a decade, and only just began to feel that the skateboarding community was making space for women. But as soon as the community began to take shape, she felt it come under attack.
"The first time I lost to a trans man, I thought people would recognize it was unfair and speak out. The second time, I thought, ‘Someone has got to do something about this!’ The third time, I realized: I am somebody. And so, I spoke up."
My name is Lisa Y. Rubin, and I am completing my second year as an evening student at CUNY Law School. I am honored to attend the law school — whose goal is to be of public service — and the university, whose goals include equality of opportunity for all.Israel PR efforts on US campuses show surprising results
However, I am also deeply troubled that some recent developments at the school threaten these goals. These developments include the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolution against Israel — as sponsored by its student government and ratified by its Faculty Council. This resolution — if implemented — would harm more than just the many current and prospective members of the school’s Jewish and pro-Israel community. It would also set a harmful precedent that weakens the protection of the First Amendment and academic freedom on this, as well as on other, CUNY campuses.
This is especially true at our school, where members of the student government and Faculty Council also have seats on committees that make decisions on the school’s personnel, admissions, and other official matters.
Please note that I do not claim to speak for the entire Jewish community of the school. However, I will address how the BDS resolution has affected me.
As a Jewish student who believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, but also as a member of a family that fought against government suppression in the US, I was shaken when I realized the resolution’s incredibly broad sweep. Was this a nightmare, or was I seeing a form of creeping McCarthyism — albeit one wrapped in the cloth of what is now labeled anti-Zionism?
More Black and Latina college students support Israel that one might think, a survey by Vibe Israel, a non-profit dedicated to improving Israel's reputation worldwide, revealed this week.
Having polled 900 college students in Atlanta, San Francisco and Miami, the organization found that 50% expressed a positive opinion about Israel, 41% said they held no particular opinion on the matter, and only 9% said they held anti-Israel views.
The number of supporters increased even further when the students watched Vibe Israel's bilingual digital campus campaign, with 76% having said they supported Israel. The percentage of those who said they opposed Israel decreased to 4%, and those who held were not sure to 21%.
"Exposure to a targeted brand campaign dramatically shifted the perceptions of these college-aged students in just three weeks," the report said. "The majority of audiences reported favorable/very favorable perceptions of Israel, with a predominantly Black market scoring the highest.
It is simply horrifying you would employ someone filled with this type of egregious and atrocious hatred @HelenDrinan @cabriniuniv pic.twitter.com/Qq04oRwyqg
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 4, 2022
Superficial BBC reporting on Hizballah's gas rig drone threats
Last month we noted on these pages that BBC audiences had heard nothing about threats from Lebanon and Hizballah after a floating gas production rig arrived on site at the Karish field earlier in June and that the last time they saw coverage of the maritime borders dispute between Lebanon and Israel was in October 2020.Canadian Media Ignore That Palestinian Killed By IDF Was A Terrorist
That meant that on the evening of July 2nd, the BBC had some catching up to do in reports it put out concerning an incident earlier in the day involving Hizballah drones headed for that gas field.
At around 22:40 local time the BBC News website published a short report by Matt Murphy on its ‘Middle East’ page which is now headlined ‘Israel shoots down Hezbollah drones heading for gas rig’. However, as can be seen in the Tweet promoting that report, the BBC was apparently not originally convinced that those drones belonged to the Lebanese terrorist organisation, despite – as reported by Israeli media outlets – Hizballah having claimed them some half an hour earlier.
Roughly an hour after its original appearance, that headline was amended to remove the superfluous qualifying punctuation and the report was updated to inform readers that “Hezbollah confirmed it had launched the drones in a short statement”.
The maritime borders dispute that BBC audiences have not heard about for twenty months is addressed in just two paragraphs:
On July 3, Israeli Defense Forces soldiers conducted security patrols in the town of Jaba in Judea and Samaria or in media parlance, the “West Bank” and came under attack by a Palestinian terrorist who threw a firebomb.DID ZIONISTS COLLABORATE WITH HITLER?
In response, soldiers fired at the suspect who allegedly threw the firebomb and who died of his wounds sustained from Israeli fire.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry identified the man as 19-year-old Kamel Abdallah Alwaneh, who resided near the city of Jenin, a hotbed of terrorist activity. Since March, 19 people in Israel have been killed in a deadly wave of terror, with many terrorists having originated from Jenin.
As the Palestinian Authority has failed to reign in terror activity, Israeli counter-terrorism operations like yesterday’s patrol are aimed at stopping terror attacks and protecting Israeli civilians.
In covering this incident, Canadian media outlets like the Toronto Star, National Post, and City News all published reports from the Associated Press which failed to mention that Alwaneh was reportedly a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Canadian-designated terror group.
Headlines from all 3 news outlets implied that the Palestinian was a presumably innocent civilian. The headline said only: “Palestinian dies from shot by Israeli troops in West Bank.”
This is the second of two articles. The first article deals with the assertion that present day Israel behaves the same way towards Palestinians as Nazis did towards Jews. In that article I outline why the notion is absurd and the toxic reasons why Jew-haters make the claim. It can be found here.
The article you’re reading now addresses the claim that Hitler and Jewish Zionists collaborated back in the 1930s. Once again the notion is entirely mischievous. The goal is to depict Israel and Jews as unremittingly evil and to therefore legitimise violence against them. If Zionism and Nazism are fraternal brothers - and if Nazism is a crime against civilisation - then Zionism must similarly be extinguished.
It’s elementary to even say this, but sane and decent people should know intellectually and instinctively that Zionism is not Nazism: it is a response and solution to Nazism. The goals of Nazis and Zionists never overlapped - despite attempts to misrepresent scattered evidence in order to reach perverted conclusions. The “evidence” in question is the Haavara Agreement. This agreement was reached in 1933 between Nazi Germany and some Zionist German Jews. It allowed German Jews - living under Nazism - to sell their assets in Germany. A Jew could transfer their money to the Haavara Company. Haavara then had to use this money to purchase goods manufactured in Nazi Germany. These German-made goods would then be sold in the British Mandate in Palestine. Any German Jew who managed to escape Nazi Germany and reach this destination would then receive their proceeds from the sale of these goods. Approximately 60,000 German Jews who sold their possessions did manage to escape Nazi Germany through this scheme in the years 1933–1939.
Those who claim Hitler’s desire for Jews to leave Germany, and Zionists wanting Jews to escape Germany means they collaborated in pursuit of a shared goal, have made a monstrous assault on history. It is an hateful attack on the memory of one of the most unfortunate, unempowered groups of the 20th century: Jews trapped between a rock and the Holocaust. It removes all intention and motivation from the equation. It removes all context. It removes the power dynamics at play. It removes the entire truth of the relationship: that Jews in Nazi Germany weren’t equal citizens - they were hostages. Jews weren’t voluntarily walking to freedom. They were being made to walk the plank.
On this day in 1946, Jewish Holocaust refugees in Kielce were attacked in the deadliest post-war pogrom in Poland since WWII.
— American Jewish Committee (@AJCGlobal) July 4, 2022
42 Jews were killed in the massacre.
It was a wake-up call to surviving Polish Jews that Poland was still not safe. pic.twitter.com/REBcuiPmEK
Uber Continues Global Expansion With Launch in Israel
Uber Technologies Inc. said it was launching its ride-hailing platform in Israel by connecting to a nationwide network of licensed taxis, as it continues to expand globally.‘Remember Baghdad’ film is now on Netflix
Thousands of taxi drivers — both independent and working for companies — have already joined up, with the service that also includes ride sharing mainly available to passengers in Israel’s two largest cities, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, it said.
Uber, which operates in more than 70 countries and 10,000 cities globally, will compete locally with services such as Gett and Yango.
A previous attempt by Uber to operate in Israel was halted by a court in 2017. Israel’s Transportation Ministry, Taxi Driver Union and a rival ride-hailing company had won the injunction after complaining that the US company used drivers who lacked the proper business licenses and insurance.
“We want to use technology to turn taxi services, working with other public transportation services, into the alternative to the private car they can be,” said Gony Noy, general manager of Uber Israel.
Since the film ‘ Remember Baghdad’ was made, the number of Jews in Iraq has gone down from five to three. The film, commissioned by David Dangoor, has been seen by thousands. Now it is likely to be seen by millions on Netflix. We republish a 2017 review by Lyn Julius in Jewish Renaissance:Egyptian Jews in Brazil mark seventy years since their exodus
On New Year’s Eve 1946, a young Jewish couple were among the guests at a Benefit Ball in the Iraqi Flying Club. A beauty pageant was taking place: the King of Iraq approached the 21-year old Renée Dangoor, and invited her to take part.
Renée won the contest. Her hand-coloured image of radiant beauty, complete with victory sash, is presently being referenced by 2,700 Arabic websites on Google.
Who would have believed, in the bomb-ravaged, sectarian Iraq of today, that a Jewess could have been crowned Miss Baghdad 1947? “Who is even going to believe,” says Edwin Shuker in the new documentary Remember Baghdad,” that there were Jews in Iraq?”
Edwin Shuker is one of the main characters in the film. The opening sequence shows him leaving his home in north London to catch a flight to Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, in a bid to show that Jews still have a stake in Iraq. Later, we see Edwin in a Baghdadi taxi excitedly giving directions to his driver to find the Shuker family house.
They had abandoned it in haste 46 years earlier.
In a region where the jihadists of Islamic State are just kilometres away, to return to Iraq is a brave, if foolhardy, thing for a Jew to do. Of 140,000 Jews in 1948, only five Jews remain in Iraq in an atmosphere of rampant antisemitism.
This community goes back to Babylonian times when captives from Judea were taken as slaves to the land of the two rivers and remained there for 2,600 years.
The Babylonian Jews had a seminal impact on Judaism as we know it. Yet in 2017, the community is to all intents and purposes extinct, its members driven into exile.
The very first Jews in Brazil were Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, They relocated from Recife to Dutch colonies in north America in the 17th century."KKL-JNF Releases Old Maccabiah Images to Celebrate the 2022 Games"
In modern times, 1,500 families emigrated to Brazil from Egypt. They are one of three Sephardi communities in Brazil. Jews arrived in the 19th century from northern Morocco to profit from the Amazonian rubber boom. Small communiies still exist in Belen and Manaus in the north of the country.
Almost the first thing visitors see at Sao Paulo airport is a branch of Safra bank, established by a lebanese-Jewish family from Beirut. In the 1950s and 60s, Jews resettled in Sao Paulo from Syria and the Lebanese town of Saida (Sidon).
Numbering 8,000 people in a mainly Ashkenazi community of 100,000, the Jews from Egypt barely warranted a paragraph of explanation at Sao Paulo’s Jewish Museum. And so they decided to tell their own story.
The exhibition marks 70 years since the Free Officers’ coup deposed King Farouk. The writing was on the wall for the Jewish community: 25,000 were expelled after the Suez crisis.
In the 1950s Brazil was seeking to attract immigrants. Jewish employees of US multinational companies were able transfer their jobs to Sao Paulo, the commercial capital. Others were assisted by the refugee agency HIAS which never demanded repayment of financial support. Some children were offered free places at Jewish schools.
About half the Egyptian Jews arrived stateless in Brazil. Some acquired Iranian nationality. One moved from France in the 1950s but threw his French passport in the Seine when he was called up to the army to fight in the Algerian war. He bought an Iranian passport and left for Brazil.
The 2022 Maccabiah Games, a.k.a. the 21st Maccabiah Games, are scheduled to start on July 12 and continue through July 26, in Israel. The Maccabiah Games are open to Jewish athletes from around the world, and to all Israeli citizens regardless of their religion (bet you didn’t know that – DI). 10,000 athletes from 80 countries are expected to compete in 42 sports categories.
In celebration of the 2022 Maccabiah, KKL-JNF released historical photos from the first years of the Jewish Olympic tournaments, among them a unique photo from the first Maccabiah in 1932.
Lea Fadida, KKL-JNF Director of Public Relations Division, said: ” KKL-JNF is proud to be part of the Maccabiah. The importance of the Maccabiah is not only in the fields of competitions and sports but also in the connection of the Jewish people to the State of Israel. We invite the public to enjoy sports games, activities, and competitions all over the country.”
The name Maccabiah was chosen as an homage to Judah Maccabee, the fierce Jewish leader who defended the faithful Jews of his country against the Hellenized Jews and the Greco-Syrian armies of King Antiochus. Modi’in, Judah’s birthplace, is also the starting location of the torch that lights the flames at the opening ceremony, a tradition that started at the 4th Maccabiah.
The Maccabiah Games were proposed by Yosef Yekutieli in 1929 at the Maccabi World Congress. Yekutieli (1897 – 1982), who was inspired by the Stockholm Olympics and wanted to establish a similar event in Eretz Yisrael. The new British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, gave the go-ahead to the Maccabiah. Incidentally, Yekutieli was also the founder of the Israel Football Association, and the Israel Olympic Committee.
Earliest known depictions of Deborah, Yael revealed at 5th-century Galilee synagogue
Archeologists working at a dig in the Galilean town of Huqoq recently uncovered the earliest known depictions of the biblical heroines Deborah and Yael, in mosaics that are thought to be nearly 1,600 years old.
The find, announced by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Prof. Jodi Magness on Tuesday, joins a growing collection of ancient mosaics discovered over the past decade at the site of a former synagogue in the Lower Galilee.
Magness, a professor of religious studies at the university, has overseen a team of students and archeologists excavating the area for more than 10 years. Excavations at the site restarted earlier this year after they were halted for close to three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The mosaics depict the biblical story in the Book of Judges when the prophetess Deborah told the Israelite military leader Barak to mobilize the troops of Naftali and Zevulun to fight against Canaan, whose forces were led by Sisera. Barak said he would only go to battle if Deborah joined him, and Deborah in turn prophesied that a woman would defeat Sisera’s army. Sisera, fleeing flooding, sought refuge in the tent of Yael, who drove a tent peg through his head, killing him.
“This is the first depiction of this episode and the first time we’ve seen a depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Yael in ancient Jewish art,” Magness said in a statement from the university. “Looking at the book of Joshua, chapter 19, we can see how the story might have had special resonance for the Jewish community at Huqoq, as it is described as taking place in the same geographical region — the territory of the tribes of Naftali and Zevulun.”
According to the university, the three-part mosaic shows Deborah looking at Barak in the first portion; Sisera seated in the middle section, of which only a small portion is preserved; and Sisera lying dead on the ground after Yael killed him in the bottom section. UNC-Chapel Hill only released photos showing Barak depicted in the mosaic; it is unclear how well preserved the images of the two women are.
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