Wednesday, August 31, 2022

08/31 Links Pt2: Zionism past and present: From Herzl to Herzog; What ‘CNN’ left out of its special on anti-Semitism; Sharansky: Gorbachev wouldn’t have released Soviet Jews if not for global pressure

From Ian:

Gil Troy: Zionism past and present: From Herzl to Herzog
The past and present danced together on Monday night in Basel, Switzerland. It wasn’t just due to the black-bearded, top-hatted Theodor Herzl impersonator, who gave stunningly relevant answers by quoting Herzl’s writings to questions about various contemporary issues today. It wasn’t just due to the moving appearance of the great-granddaughter of the falsely accused French army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, in the Stadt Casino where 208 delegates gathered 125 years ago in 1897 to launch the formal Zionist movement.

And it wasn’t just due to the brave speeches of various Swiss leaders who owned up to the ugly Swiss tradition of antisemitism – during Herzl’s and Hitler’s eras. The choreographer-in-chief that night, who harmonized the history of yesterday with the wonders of today before 1,400 people, was Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog.​Wisely speaking in Hebrew, even though much of the 125th anniversary of Herzl’s First Zionist Congress this week transpired in English, Herzog was at his best. The setting was sublime, oozing with Herzl’s essence, with the nervousness, excitement, and ultimately, the miraculous, epic transformations triggered by that one game-changing meeting decades ago in Basel. Using Herzl’s words, dreams and achievements as launching pads, Herzog challenged us all to reclaim Zionism. Zionism, he explained, was not an evolution but a revolution – a radical, brave, break from the past to save the Jewish people.

It was bold, modern and democratic, yet rooted in Jewish tradition. Ultimately, Herzog explained, Zionism’s greatest gift to the Jewish people was delivering independence after millennia of toxic dependence on others.

Today, when we are so used to Jewish independence, our challenge is to keep dreaming and keep building. Without being heavy-handed, without finger-pointing or guilt-tripping, and without being partisan, Herzog articulated a renewed liberal-democratic Herzlian vision of understanding that nationalism is the most effective vehicle for finding meaning in life individually and improving the world collectively. “Zionism,” Herzog explained, “is not just a shared fate, but a shared mission.”


Herzog: Gorbachev was one of the 20th century’s most extraordinary figures
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Yair Lapid joined international leaders on Wednesday in eulogizing former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91.

“Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the 20th century’s most extraordinary figures,” Herzog said in a statement. “He was a brave and visionary leader, who shaped our world in ways previously thought unimaginable. I was proud to meet him during his 1992 visit to Israel. Heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.”

Lapid issued a statement saying that “Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, passed away yesterday at the age of 91. He was a brave leader and great statesman, who contributed greatly to the rehabilitation of relations between his country and Israel, and opened the gates of the Soviet Union for the great wave of Jewish immigration to Israel in the 1990s.”

Russia’s Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said in a statement on Tuesday that “Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease.”

Gorbachev was instrumental in helping to end the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States without bloodshed but failed to prevent the Soviet Union from collapsing, Reuters noted in a report on Tuesday.

He secured armament reduction treaties with the U.S. and alliances with Western powers to lift the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War II and bring Germany back together, the report said.

However, his internal reforms contributed to the Soviet Union’s demise, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has described as the “biggest geopolitical calamity” of the twentieth century.
Sharansky: Gorbachev wouldn’t have released Soviet Jews if not for global pressure
Former refusenik and prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky said on Wednesday that the late leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev would never have released Soviet Jewry had it not been for the global pressure campaign to do so.

Sharansky’s comments came following the death of Gorbachev at 91 on Tuesday.

The former Israeli cabinet minister and chairman of the Jewish Agency said that for Gorbachev, the heavy cost the Soviet Union paid due to its political repression was what convinced him to relax policies toward Jewish practice and emigration, not any particular sympathy he had for Soviet Jews.

Sharansky, who spent almost nine years in a forced labor camp, was the first Soviet political prisoner to be released by Gorbachev after the latter assumed the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985.

“Gorbachev strongly believed in communism and believed that the ideas of Marx and Lenin were truly what was best, but also realized that the system wasn’t working for the Soviet Union,” Sharansky told The Times of Israel.

“He understood that there was a need to give some freedom to people,” such as greater civil rights and economic opportunity.

“What he didn’t understand was that if you give a little freedom, the people will demand a lot of freedom,” he said.


What ‘CNN’ left out of its special on anti-Semitism
There were some good points in CNN’s recent special on anti-Semitism, such as a discussion of the importance of the Secure Community Network’s synagogue security training, a description of the harassment and death threats against a pro-Israel college student, and the general acknowledgment that anti-Semitism is a serious, growing problem.

Unfortunately, however, the special grossly downplayed left-wing and Islamist anti-Semitism, and didn’t even mention black nationalists and other major sources of Jew-hatred. This seems in large part due to CNN’s reliance on the left-wing Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its CEO, former Obama administration official Jonathan Greenblatt, as well as U.S. State Department anti-Semitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, who has compared pro-Jewish former President Donald Trump to the Nazis, and the far-left group T’ruah’s Jill Jacobs.

The ADL, for example, recently stated that boycotts of Israel alone do not count as anti-Semitic; praised anti-Semitic congresswoman Ilhan Omar as “committed to a more just world”; defended anti-Semitic NGOs like Amnesty International, along with the extremist anti-Israel philanthropist George Soros; and tried to defund and remove the tax exemption from three pro-Israel groups, including Christian Zionists; among numerous other dangerous positions.

T’ruah, which is unremittingly hostile to Israel, partners with the discredited anti-Israel NGO Breaking the Silence and has repeatedly tried to defund hundreds of humanitarian Jewish pro-Israel charities. Alarmingly, the CNN program publicized far-left T’ruah head Jill Jacobs’s extremely limited definition of anti-Semitism without giving the Zionist Organization of America or anyone else an opportunity to provide a broader definition.

Jacobs claimed that anti-Zionism is only anti-Semitism when an anti-Semitic “trope” (such as Jews wanting money) is involved. In fact, anti-Zionism denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the Jewish homeland, and is thus both discriminatory and anti-Semitic. Anti-Zionism is a major manifestation of anti-Semitism today. On college campuses and elsewhere, anti-Semites use the terms “Zionist” and “Jew” interchangeably.

In addition, Jacobs absurdly claims on the program that “Palestinian activism” is not primarily anti-Semitic. In fact, “Palestinian activism” on college campuses consists of harassing Jewish students, holding demonstrations calling for killing and evicting them, shouting down Jewish and pro-Israel speakers and trying to make Jewish and pro-Israel students fearful and miserable.
Norway’s Comeuppance
There’s more. In recent months, local Labor Party regimes in two Norwegian municipalities voted to ban Israeli imports. The Labor-run city council in Bergen, Norway’s second largest city, went further, making a sweeping call for Israel to be frozen out of all international contact - a proposal that, if implemented, would ban every imaginable kind of cultural, technological, educational, or athletic cooperation, from membership in the UN to participation in the Olympics. The implication here, needless to say, is that Israel is incomparably worse than, say, China, North Korea, Iran, or Cuba. As Michal Rachel Suissa of Norway’s Center against Anti-Semitism commented, none of these local bodies has ever voted “to boycott goods from East Timor, Tibet, Crimea, or northern Cyprus.” Then, in June, as if all that weren’t enough, the Norwegian government decided to put a Star of David armband, metaphorically speaking, on certain food products imported from Israel. Under this new policy, comestibles that originate in Israel’s settlements - “mainly wine, olive oil, and fruits and vegetables” - are conspicuously labeled so that consumers can effectively boycott them.

At some point during all this abuse, Israeli officials got sick of being kicked around by Norwegian counterparts who plainly consider themselves morally superior. So what happened next shouldn’t have surprised anybody. As it happens, at least a couple of times a year, the Norwegian Foreign Minister travels to Israel to meet with the leaders of shady Palestinian groups that receive huge, regular infusions of Norwegian cash. During these visits, it’s standard practice for the FM to meet with her Israeli counterpart, who at present (because he also holds the title of Foreign Minister) is Prime Minister Yair Lapid. Huitfeldt plans to be in Israel in September. But when Kåre Aas, Norway’s ambassador to Israel, put in a request for a meeting between Huitfeldt and Lapid, he was turned down by Aliza Ben Noon of the Israeli Foreign Ministry - who, by way of explanation, supplied him with a list of anti-Israeli measures implemented by the Norwegian government in the past few years. The response, not just on the part of Norwegian officials but on the part of the Oslo elite generally, was one of shock: it was as if the kid who was always being picked on in the schoolyard by the bully had finally fought back. This, then, is why the relationship between Norway and Israel has never been worse.

What makes this whole story especially repulsive is the following. In 2006, when Muslims governments expressed outrage over the publication of caricatures of Muhammed by a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, the prime minister of Denmark - in an admirable reminder of the courage with which the gentile Danes saved the Jewish Danes during the Nazi occupation - refused to meet their ambassadors and instead gave them a lesson in Free Speech 101. But when those same cartoons were reprinted by Magazinet, a small Christian periodical in Norway, the most powerful people in the Norwegian government took the side of the Muslims against Magazinet’s editor, Vebjørn Selbekk. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who is now Prime Minister, pronounced that freedom of expression requires sensitivity “to ethnic and religious values.” For weeks Selbekk resisted immense pressure to apologize; but he finally succumbed, begging for forgiveness from fourteen imams in the presence of several cabinet ministers at a government office. The dean of the Oslo cathedral, Olav Dag Hauge, then traveled to Qatar to beg Islam’s most famous theologian, nal-Qaradawi, to accept Selbekk’s apology. At every step, Norway displayed its shameful readiness to compromise its noblest values to placate tyrants.

After years of practicing such double standards - capitulating shamefully to Islamic totalitarianism while taking endless swipes at the democratic state of Israel - Norway richly deserves Israel’s snub. In fact it deserves a lot more. It’s about time that its leaders be forced to reflect on the fact that the soul of their “peace nation” is still severely poisoned by a deep-seated antisemitism. But will they? Of course not. Prejudices aside, their country is home to, at most, two thousand Jews. Meanwhile, the number of Muslims living in Norway is supposedly about 170,000, most of whom live in and around Oslo, a city of 600,000. Do the math. That, quite obviously, is what most Norwegian politicians are doing.
Edinburgh Council rejects twinning with Gaza
Edinburgh Council has rejected a twinning petition with Gaza following “legal advice”. The Edinburgh-Gaza twinning petition had been listed on the agenda for the Policy and Sustainability Committee meeting at 10am on Tuesday 30 August.

However, the Committee refused to allow allow Pete Gregson who was leading the twinning campaign to speak to the council meeting, or to hear any other deputations in favour of the twinning, including from The Mayor of Gaza and the Dundee Nablus twinning association. Councillor Cammy Day, Convener of the Policy and Sustainability Committee said “We have had legal advice that has given us some warnings and I propose we do not hear the deputations this morning”.

Instead SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems passed a motion asking for an officer’s report into how the Edinburgh Partnership (a group consisting of the police, the health service, the colleges, the voluntary sector and traders’ reps) might consider doing more to partner with other cities. The Greens, moved an amendment that Gaza be included specifically within the “other cities” but this was rejected. Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI commented: “I am pleased to see that Edinburgh counsellors have the good sense to follow legal advice”.

Earlier this year, on 29 March 2022, the petition calling for Edinburgh to be twinned with the Palestinian city of Gaza was pulled from the agenda of the city’s council’s policy and sustainability committee at short notice so legal advice could be taken.

This followed UKLFI’s letters to Edinburgh council’s head of legal services, warning that the councillors would probably commit criminal offences if they participated in twinning between Edinburgh and Gaza City.
Why do Jews who worship social justice support social injustice?
For most American Jews, the core of their Jewish identity revolves around ideas relating to social justice rather than thinking about Israel or observing Jewish religious laws and traditions. That has long been obvious to observers of a community, the majority of whose members have either discarded religion from their lives altogether or who affiliate or identify with liberal denominations of Judaism. This was confirmed again by the most recent definitive study of American Jewish life conducted by the Pew Research Institute and published in 2021.

That study revealed that when asked to define what being Jewish means to them the most popular answers were, in this order: remembering the Holocaust (76%), leading an ethical and moral life (72%), and working for justice and equality in society (59%). Far down the list were more ideas that are more particular to Jewish existence: caring about Israel (45%), being part of a Jewish community (32%), and dead last and falling below things like having a sense of humor (32%) and eating traditional foods (20%) was observing Jewish religious law (15%).

Given the demographic makeup of American Jewry is predominantly secular that makes sense. Those who identify in some way as being Jewish generally see themselves as part of a community that, while obliged to remember past tragedies affecting their relatives, are primarily interested in ideas that align with their liberal political beliefs.

While Judaism contains elements that are both sectarian and apply only to Jews, as well as universal values, most contemporary American Jewish discourse outside of the Orthodox world revolves around the pursuit of social justice. Liberals are entirely correct to label that quest as quintessentially Jewish though it has often led them to prioritize issues that are secular over those that are related to the security and survival of Jews in a hostile world.
The Scourge of Antisemitic Apparel: A Back to School Threat?
This year, back to school clothing may include a new form of hate attire — but without the baggage of public condemnation.

T-shirts and casual wear with graphics that erase the State of Israel from the map — and replace it with a single Palestinian-drawn state — are the new fashion statements of implicit Jewish genocide. A variety of merchandisers sell such fashions on numerous commercial platforms, including Amazon.

Thankfully, our society today considers KKK robes and Nazi uniforms as clearly evocative of evil, and not affirmations of any acceptable identity or ideology. Persons wearing such odious garbs are rightfully castigated for their glaring hate speech. Yet apparel that overtly promotes the eradication of the Jewish state is worn in public and sold with what seems to be societal impunity.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism includes: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

T-shirts that deem the Jewish state as non-existent fit that definition. These clothes are designed to make a statement — and it’s not about a two-state solution. This apparel is an attempt to promote the elimination of the Jewish state and the Jews in it.

Some shirts are emblazoned with the caption “from river to the sea,” a phrase that literally removes Israel from the map and calls for Israel’s destruction. In America, there should be little doubt that these fashion statements, especially among the young and impressionable, are designed to mainstream antisemitism and the elimination of Israel.


Jewish Google employee quits citing retaliation over BDS efforts against Project Nimbus
Koren is one of the leaders of the activist group Jewish Diaspora in Tech, which has been a major component of the Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change campaign #NoTechForApartheid against the $1.2 billion dollar Nimbus cloud computing project. On Tuesday she repeated allegations made in March that Google had relocated her position from the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, to its office in Sao Paulo, Brazil as a punishment for opposition to the deal.

According to a letter published by the labor board that aligned with the details of Koren's case, the evidence presented "failed to establish the necessary causal link" and "the investigation did not reveal evidence of animus towards the employee." Further, the dismissal letter found that the decision to relocate the position predated the employee's actions.

Koren blasted Google for continuing with the project, which would provide infrastructure to several government bodies, including the Israeli military. Coinciding with Koren's resignation, a series of protests were announced for September 8 in front of Google and Amazon offices in San Francisco, New York City and Seattle.

What is the #NoTechForApartheid campaign?
Previous #NoTechForApartied activist endeavors had failed to push Google to adopt Koren's preferred policies. On June 1, an Alphabet stockholders meeting proposal put forward by Jewish Diaspora for Tech activist Gabriel Schubiner to reassess involvement in Nimbus failed — 544,653,039 votes against and 55,301,799 for the proposal after the board of directors recommended to vote against it. Since a petition had started in October, 800 Google and Amazon employees and 37,500 others were said to have signed the petition to end Nimbus — but as Koren noted the tech giants have entirely ignored the campaign.

Koren asserted that the internal Jewish Google group "Jewglers" had created a toxic work environment by silencing anti-Israel content within the community's internal platforms.

Further, she accused Jewglers and Google of "weaponizing" diversity to silence Palestinians, Muslims as well as supporters of Palestinians. Koren cited an apology from Google to Jewglers over its concern over a donation to Movement for Black Lives, which had posted anti-Israel content.


Jewish groups raise concerns at Louis Farrakhan image on Black Lives Matter mural
Concerns have been raised that a mural in Westchester, New York, promoting Black Lives Matter (BLM), features the image of the antisemitic hate preacher, Louis Farrakhan.

The mural, located on Manhattan Avenue under the I-287 highway, includes a depiction of Mr Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaking with an accusatory raised finger.

Mr Farrakhan has referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion”, seemed to imply that Jews are “evil” and “satanic” and encourage paedophilia and “sexual perversion”, blamed Jews for slavery and racist Jim Crow laws in the United States, described Adolf Hitler as a “great man” and said that Jews financed their own destruction in the Holocaust, claimed that Jews have a “stranglehold” on the US Congress using their “tentacles”, and accused Israelis and Zionists of being behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City.

“I am not an antisemite,” Mr Farrakhan wrote in October 2018 in a tweet that he later deleted, “I’m anti-Termite”.

The Westchester Jewish Council released a statement saying that Mr Farrakhan is “one of the country’s most prominent antisemites. His long public history of anti-Jewish and other bigoted comments makes his inclusion in this project completely improper.”


PreOccupiedTerritory by Jeremy Pine, BBC Middle East correspondent: Please Don’t Confuse My Racism Of Low Expectations For Arabs With My Outright Hate For Jews (satire)
One could infer, based on a cursory viewing of my journalistic oeuvre, that when I assign implicit responsibility to Jewish Israelis for violence from Palestinians, I do so only because my racism toward Arabs prevents me from expecting them to eschew violence, as any civilized, moral person strives to do, and thus, by default, the only party to the interactions that has the capacity to make genuine moral choices becomes the Israelis – and of course they have made the wrong choices. This could, under that erroneous inference, serve as adequate explanation for waiting until Israel retaliates for Gaza rockets, for example, to report on such incidents, framing it as Israel attacking Palestinians who simply cannot help but try to kill people with indiscriminate rocket fire.

However, that simplicity stumbles into simplistic reasoning, because indeed, I hate Jews regardless of Arab moral capacity, or lack thereof. Civilized mores prevent me and my colleagues from explicit invocation of our antisemitism, but that does not mean I cannot color the entire context of my reporting with antisemitic overtones perfectly at home in Tsarist Russia or Nazi Germany. Please do not take my treating Arabs as moral children, or as NPCs, as any indication that I do not sincerely despise Jews. Both hold true. Hence, when I discuss IDF actions against Palestinians in the West Bank, I divorce it from the larger context of Arab violence toward Jews that the IDF actions seek to neutralize. Granted, the absence of Palestinian capacity for volition translates into not mentioning the context, but it’s the underlying antisemitism in my – and my organization’s – ethos that transforms a simple tale of mere Israeli overreaction into one of Jewish moral turpitude that requires universal censure, perhaps even bloodshed.

The “soft” bigotry of low expectations has long characterized British attitudes toward non-European peoples (and quite a few Europeans). But never let that fact obscure the even-more-profound reality of my antisemitism, some of it naturally British and the remainder a proud product of my independent cultivation. Please keep that straight. Thank you.
MSNBC’s Ayman Moyheldin Corrects Misfired Islamic Jihad Rockets Killed Many Gazans
Contrary to Mohyeldin’s’s assertion that Israeli airstrikes killed 49 in Gaza, including 17 children, a significant figure were killed by rockets which Islamic Jihad directed at Israeli communities but which fell short, killing Gazans instead. As The Associated Press recently reported (“Misfired rockets may have killed over a dozen in Gaza battle“): “Close to one-third of the Palestinians who died in the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Gaza militants may have been killed by errant rockets fired by the Palestinian side, according to an Israeli military assessment that appears consistent with independent reporting by The Associated Press.”

Other sources give slightly different figures for the percentage of the 49 Gazans killed by Islamic Jihad’s failed rockets. For instance, Haaretz‘s Amira Hass, a veteran critic of Israel, reported: “Botched launches of Palestinian rockets killed 14 non-combatants, including seven children.” She provides a detailed account of each fatality: their name, date, place and circumstances of death.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center identifies 11 Gazans were killed by Palestinian rockets. The Israeli military believes that 12 children in Gaza were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets.

Thus, while there is uncertainty about the precise number of Palestinians killed by misfired Islamic Jihad rockets, there is no uncertainty that the failed attacks against Israel ended up taking a number of Palestinian lives.

As Agence France Presse reported, some Gaza residents admit to the misfired rockets, though they are afraid to disclose their names (“Islamic Jihad faces tough questions after Israeli strikes”).

In response to communication from CAMERA, Mohyeldin yesterday tweeted the following correction:
In this segment, we reported 49 Palestinians were killed during Israel’s bombing offensive; while Israel takes responsibility for some of those deaths, we should have also noted AP reported evidence that 14 of those were killed by errant rockets fired from the Palestinian side.

CAMERA commends MSNBC for acknowledging the falsehood.

Meanwhile, ABC has yet to correct its two separate broadcasts in which Ines de la Cuetara and Reena Roy made the identical error.
US politicians across political spectrum criticised for inflammatory social media comments about Jews
It has been reported that a number of political figures in the United States have come under fire for making inflammatory comments about Jews.

In Arizona, three Republican candidates have been criticised for their endorsement of an Oklahoma-based candidate who has made a number of remarks about Jews.

The endorsements of the Arizona Republicans, Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, and Wendy Rogers appear on the website of the Oklahoma State Senate candidate, Jarrin Jackson, who has reportedly said that he is not “beholden to Jews”, that he “ain’t owned by the Jews”, that “all Jews will go to hell if they don’t believe the gospel of Jesus Christ”, and that “I love Jews because Christ told me to, not because they deserve it.”

Mr Jackson also appears to have been prompted by a documentary he watched to have said that Jews are an example that “evil exists”.

Ms Lake has since retracted her endorsement of Mr Jackson, but neither Mr Finchem nor Ms Rogers apparently responded to journalists’ requests for a comment.

It has been reported that Ms Rogers had at one point posted a meme of a dead rhino – possibly in reference to the liberal wing of her Party, known pejoratively as RINOs – with a Star of David on the animal.
Stopping Antisemitism in Its Tracks: HonestReporting Work Results in Dismissal of 3 NYT Freelancers
In the past three weeks, HonestReporting exposed three New York Times freelancers in the Gaza Strip who praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and celebrated deadly Palestinian terror attacks targeting Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Israel.

Fady Hanona, Soliman Hijjy, and Hosam Salem all reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict for The New York Times -- they wrote articles, selected potential interview subjects, and worked on one-sided photo and video productions.

Needless to say, antisemitism and anti-Israel propaganda should have no place in what is supposed to be America's newspaper of record.

We succeeded in getting The New York Times to stop working with Hanona, Hijjy, and Salem, directly impacting the media's coverage of the Jewish state.

But our forensic work continues. When antisemitism seeps into the mainstream media, we will make sure people know.


French Jewish man killed in suspected antisemitic attack to be buried in Israel
A Jewish man killed in France in a suspected antisemitic attack was to be buried Wednesday evening in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai said, urging Paris to punish the perpetrator severely.

Eyal Haddad, 34, was killed in Longperrier, just northeast of Paris, on August 20. His neighbor, a Muslim man identified as Mohamed Dridi, confessed to killing him with an axe and attempting to burn and bury the body, according to a statement this week by the National Bureau of Vigilance against Antisemitism (BNVCA).

The BNVCA said the suspect turned himself in to the police and told officers that Haddad, who lived next door to him, owed him 100 euros and had not returned them. He later also confessed that he had killed Haddad because he was Jewish.

Though Haddad was originally from Djerba, he has family in Beersheba. Haddad also had Israeli citizenship.

Despite Dridi’s confession to killing Haddad because he was Jewish, investigators were reportedly also looking into the possibility that the attack was not fundamentally antisemitic in nature but the result of an argument between the two men, who apparently knew each other well.

Diaspora Minister Shai, in a tweet Wednesday, called on France to take strong action against mounting antisemitism following the “shocking” murder.
German Jewish Leader Warns of Potential ‘Antisemitic Scandal’ at World Council of Churches Assembly
As the World Council of Churches prepares for the opening of its General Assembly in the German city of Karlsruhe on Wednesday, a local Jewish leader has warned of the risk of antisemitic rhetoric at the event as delegates debate resolutions that are harshly critical of Israel.

“An antisemitic scandal cannot be ruled out,” Rami Suliman — chair of the Jewish community in the Baden region — told the Juedische Allgemeine news outlet on Monday.

Suliman added that while the Jewish community enjoyed good relations with local Christian groups, “unfortunately, there are also other voices in the world churches, not so obvious, but if you listen carefully, then the Jews are held responsible for suffering and injustice, and the state of Israel — the only democracy in the region — is denied its right to exist.”

Draft resolutions have been tabled at the General Assembly — the 11th held by the WCC — condemning the persecution of Christians in the Palestinian territories and blaming Israel for their plight, as well as a statement condemning Israel as an “apartheid state.”

A July 1 statement issued by the WCC accused Israel of “overtly and systematically discriminating [against] Palestinians.” It called on the Israeli government to “ensure equal human rights for all people living under their responsibility, and to ensure accountability for attacks and violations against Palestinians, against the holy places, churches, Christian communities, Muslims and other groups.”
NYPD to increase patrols in Williamsburg due to rise in antisemitic hate crimes
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a press conference on Monday evening that the police will increase patrols near synagogues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, due to an increase in antisemitic attacks happening throughout the neighborhood.

“In the wake of these senseless attacks, we deployed round-the-clock house of worship cars to routinely visit synagogues,” Sewell said at the press conference on Lynch Street in Brooklyn — the same location where a suspect allegedly slapped a 27-year-old man dressed in traditional Orthodox clothing on Aug. 22.

“We increased patrols to visit sensitive locations,” she said.

The increased police presence comes amid a continued rise in hate crimes across the city. In July 2022, NYPD reported a 50% increase in hate crimes over July 2021, with antisemitic hate crimes up 114%.

On Aug. 21, in two separate incidents, a 72-year-old and a 64-year-old Jewish man were sprayed in the face with a fire extinguisher in Williamsburg. All three victims of these attacks are recovering, according to police.

“It is believed these victims were targeted because they are Jewish,” Sewell said. “No one deserves to be the victim of such senseless hateful violence.”
Tennis Star Novak Djokovic to Headline Tel Aviv Tournament
Novak Djokovic’s team confirmed that the tennis legend will take part in the Watergen Open 2022 in Tel Aviv, Israel after he was forced to withdraw from the US Open last week because he is not vaccinated against COVID.

Foreign citizens who are not vaccinated against COVID cannot currently enter the United States or Canada, and Djokovic said he would not get vaccinated, even if it prevented him from participating in some tournaments.

The American Tennis Association stressed from the start that it will follow government rules regarding vaccination status for this year’s Open. There is no vaccination requirement for players or their coaching staff – meaning an unvaccinated American would be allowed to play in the tournament – and spectators will not be required to wear masks.

“Novak is a great champion and it is very unfortunate that he cannot participate in the US Open 2022, due to the federal government’s vaccination policy for non-US citizens,” said Stacey Allaster, tournament director at the US Open.

“We look forward to welcoming Novak back to the 2023 US Open,” she added.
Prehistoric elephant tusk found in kibbutz in southern Israel
An ancient elephant tusk dating to around half a million years ago was uncovered, completely unscathed, by archaeologists in kibbutz Revadim in Israel's South, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Wednesday.

The two-and-a-half meter tusk, discovered by archaeologists and paleontologists from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Tel Aviv University, the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory and the IAA, belonged to the straight-tusked elephant, an extinct species that roamed modern-day Israel during the Middle and Late Pleistocene period.

It was discovered during a two-week excavation project near the southern kibbutz aptly to find fossil remains of the elephants that lived in prehistoric Israel, aptly named "Operation Elephant."

The tusk was "exceptionally well-preserved," the antiquities authority noted. It was first uncovered by Jerusalem biologist Dr. Eitan Mor.

According to Mor, he visited the excavated area out of curiosity after reading about ancient species of elephants.

"To my surprise, I spotted something that looked like a large animal bone peeping out of the ground," the biologist recalled. "I realized that it was the real thing, so I rushed to report it to the authority."
Israel Starts Campaign to Bring American Christians on Excavation Trips
Israel is embarking on a joint campaign with Washington DC’s Museum of the Bible to lure American Christians into taking part in archeological excavations throughout the country next year.

“Our wonderful history in this land attracts many tourists, people who love Israel, who want to discover with their own hands the hidden treasures we have here,” said Yoel Razvozov, Israel’s Tourism Minister. “In addition, a visit of Christians that combines archeology, conservation and assistance in uncovering findings related to the biblical legacy of the State of Israel will improve Israel’s image overseas and spread the legacy of the People of the Book to the Christian world.”

The initiative dubbed, “Unearth the Land of the Bible,” is a joint partnership between Israel’s Tourism Ministry, the Museum of the Bible, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The program aims to take 30 American Christians on a 10-day tour in mid-April next year to go on archaeological digs, historical heritage trips and visit nature sites around Israel. The excavations will be led by archaeologists and expert lectures to follow the historical story of the Jewish people and the conservation of their culture.

“The nature and heritage sites throughout Israel tell the compelling stories of the land of the Bible, and they are of great importance to Christian believers,” said Raya Shourky, Director at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. “The active participation in excavating and conserving the biblical heritage, through the hands-on work of archeological digging and conserving, with guidance by the professionals and experts of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, will deepen the connection between Bible enthusiasts and heritage sites and the historical story of the Jewish people in their land.”
1,000-year-old antisemitic violence victims revealed in archaeological discovery
Genetic analysis of human skeletal remains in Norwich, England, found by construction workers preparing the site for a shopping center has provided serious evidence that the bones are those of at least 17 Ashkenazi Jews who were murdered during a proven historic episode of antisemitic violence on February 6, 1190.

The genomes from a medieval mass burial show that Ashkenazi-associated hereditary diseases pre-date the 12th century. The findings resulted from a revised radiocarbon analysis of the bones carried out by experts at London’s Natural History Museum, University College and Francis Crick Institute; the Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution in Mainz, Germany; the University of Cambridge; and the Archive Center in Norwich.

They have just been published in the journal Current Biology under the title “Genomes from a medieval mass burial show Ashkenazi-associated hereditary diseases pre-date the 12th century.”

In 2004, construction workers excavating land in central Norwich – about 160 kilometers northeast of London – as part of the Chapelfield shopping center development uncovered the bones.

The position of the remains, their completeness and their conversion by archaeologists into a cleaned and articulated skeleton suggested that they had all been buried in a single event shortly after their death.

The mass grave in a dry well, less than half a meter deep and one meter in diameter, contained the highly compacted remains of at least 17 people. The overrepresentation of youngsters and the unusual location of the burial outside of consecrated ground suggested that they may have been victims of a mass fatality event such as mass murder, the archaeologists wrote.

Ancient DNA from 25 bones was screened, and six individuals were selected for sequencing. “They represent the present-day population that we would expect to be genetically most similar to Jews in medieval England,” they wrote.

The researchers found that four of these individuals were closely related and six had strong genetic affinities with modern Ashkenazi Jews. Some had genes for red hair.
One of Auschwitz’s Youngest Survivors Recounts Her Childhood During The Holocaust in New Memoir
A memoir written by one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp will be released in September and will tell her story of survival and perseverance while growing up during the Holocaust.

Tova Friedman, now 83, was born Tola Grossman in Gdynia, Poland, in 1938, a year before the start of World War II. She was six years old when Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945.

In “The Daughter of Auschwitz” — co-written with former war reporter Malcolm Brabant— Friedman recounts her harrowing experiences living in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz, where she escaped death numerous times, including improbably surviving a Nazi gas chamber. Friedman and her mother hid from Nazi firing squads right before the liberation of Auschwitz by hiding among corpses.

In the book’s prologue, Friedman writes that the purpose of her telling such her story was to try and “immortalize what happened, to ensure that those who died are not forgotten. Nor the methods that were used to exterminate them.”

“To forget is to repeat,” she told The Algemeiner. “I think it’s true of everything in every situation. If you forget this is dangerous than you’ll repeat it, you’ll do it again.”

“I did not wake up one day in Auschwitz,” she continued. “It doesn’t happen like that. It happened very slowly. The process is slow. The books were burned and then other rights are taken away. Hitler could have been stopped along the whole process. I always think of it as cancer. If you get a tiny bit of cancer in your body and you don’t take care of it, within no time the whole body becomes cancerous.”

Friedman has shared her Holocaust survival story at schools, colleges, places of worship and prisons. She also has a TikTok account, started by her grandson, in which she shares memories about the Holocaust and answers questions about the Nazi genocide. Her TikTok page has more than 450,000 followers and her posts have garnered more than 7 million “likes.” But this is the first time that she’s putting her memories down in a hard-copy book, which also has a foreword by Sir Ben Kingsley, who called Friedman a “heroine of truth and memory.”

Friedman admitted that recounting her memories of the Holocaust for the book was psychologically difficult, particularly as she discussed her mother, who also survived Auschwitz, while her father survived the Dachau concentration camp.
Food was a comfort for Auschwitz survivors. A new cookbook showcases their recipes — and resilience.
Eugene Ginter was 12 days shy of his sixth birthday when he was liberated from Auschwitz in January 1945. Emaciated and alone, Ginter landed first in a hospital and then in an orphanage in Krakow, the Polish city where he was born. Several months later, miraculously, he was reunited with his mother.

Her first order of business was to help him regain weight and health, but he had no interest in food after being deprived of it for so long. So she created a rich sandwich made of things she knew he liked: black bread thickly coated with butter and finished with grated dark chocolate.

Eight decades later, that “Chocolate Sandwich” is the first recipe in “Honey Cake & Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors,” a new cookbook that showcases recipes that connected survivors to the worlds they lost and gave them comfort as they built new lives after the Holocaust.

“She connected food and feeding to life and survival,” said Joe Finkelstein about his mother Goldie, who was famous for serving overabundant quantities of food and whose recipes appear 11 times in the book. “Food was her way to give security and it also gave her some control.”

Like the “Holocaust Survivor Cookbook,” released by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust authority in 2007, “Honey Cake & Latkes” is more than a collection of recipes. It also contains inspiring stories from the survivors as well as archival and contemporary photographs showing their resilience.




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