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Wednesday, September 14, 2022

09/14 Links Pt2: The ADL’s Radical Boss Must Go; Antisemitic Adelaide University editor sacked; UAE Rabbi Gets Married in Abu Dhabi; Jewish Lord mourns Queen Elizabeth’s death with Kabbalah class

From Ian:

Daniel Greenfield: The ADL’s Radical Boss Must Go
In August, the ADL announced the fellows for its inaugural Center for Antisemitism Research Fellowship, to identify “new approaches to combating antisemitism in society.”

One of its fellows, Michael Zanger-Tishler, has called for protesting Birthright Israel to “change Israeli policy toward the Palestinians” and his work has accused Israel of “constructing Palestinian criminality”.

Another, Sara Yael Hirschhorn, tweeted that, “the Palestinian case shares some common features with South Africa—population transfer/ethnic cleansing”, and falsely claimed that Israel is guilty of “daily violations of human rights.”

Hirschhorn has cultivated a career of bashing Israel with New York Times op-eds like, “Israeli Terrorists, Born in the U.S.A.” Her book, “City on a Hilltop”, attacking Jews living in their historical homeland in Judea and Samaria, was featured, along with the author, at a Foundation for Middle East Peace event. FMEP, a part of the Arab Lobby, accuses Israel of “apartheid”.

Her new book, “New Day in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish Power, and Identity Politics”, already being promoted by the ADL, will discuss how “how the Six Day War and its aftermath transformed Zionism from a national liberation movement of the Jewish people to a colonialist enterprise in the Middle East in international eyes”.

Michael Boxer of Brandeis, has dismissed the reality of leftist campus antisemitism. “When I tell people the communal freak-out over antisemitism on campus is overblown, I’m usually told by people who haven’t set foot on any campus in decades that I don’t understand the climate today. Much Jewish communal discourse can be summarized by ‘ok boomer,’: he sneered.

He also argued that, “The American Jewish community’s fear that BDS permeates college campuses is almost entirely overblown.”

This is the level of contempt that the ADL has for the Jewish community and for its stated mission of fighting antisemitism. It’s a contempt that is a product of the Greenblatt era.

It can end when the Greenblatt era and everyone he hired are finally shown the door.

CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, an Obama administration veteran, has transformed the ADL, much as his counterparts have transformed the ACLU and other civil rights groups, from their original mission into another generic component of the national leftist network. And that network is venomously hostile toward Jews and aimed at the destruction of the Jewish State.

Under Greenblatt, the ADL has become a threat to Jews. Either he must go or it must go.
California school district partners with ethnic studies group once accused of anti-Semitism
The LESMCC has long been embroiled in anti-Semitic controversy. One leader of the organization, Theresa Montaño, characterized the ADL as “white supremacist, right-wing [and] conservative.”

In January, the LESMCC formed the National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition with groups such as Teach Palestine Project/Middle East Children’s Alliance and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, groups that accuse the “Israeli Apartheid Regime” of “systematic settler-colonial violence” and “strongly support the BDS movement.”

In its “Preparing to Teach Palestine: A Toolkit,” the coalition accuses the Museum of Tolerance, a Los Angeles museum devoted to Holocaust history, of “prevent[ing] teachers and students from making connections between the U.S. and Israel as white settler states.” The toolkit also pushes back on the “Zionist” argument that “any discussion of Palestine or critique of Israel creates an ‘unsafe climate’ for Jewish students.”

On May 12, Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles (CJPTLA), a group of Jewish and Zionist Los Angeles School District educators and parents, filed a federal lawsuit against the LESMCC. The Deborah Project, the organization providing legal assistance to CPTLA, told JNS it hopes to “prevent the infiltration of a discriminatory, anti-Semitic set of teaching materials and orientation into the LAUSD schools.”

According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, the LESMCC “ignores Jewish history in just about every particularity,” painting Israel as “the outsider who brutally ‘stole’ the land from the alleged original inhabitants.”

Beyond denying Jewish history in the land of Israel, says Marcus, the LESMCC “teaches a fictionalized version of a history and civilization of those known as Palestinians.”

Another issue highlighted in the lawsuit is the LESMCC’s designation of Israelis as white. According to Marcus, doing so ignores “the reality that more than half of all Israelis are ‘people of color,’ according to their own ludicrous insistence on labeling people based on skin color, real or imagined.”


Adelaide University editor sacked
Habibah Jaghoori, the editor of Adelaide University’s On Dit magazine and the author of an article published in the magazine in August which called for “Death to Israel”, has been removed as the magazine’s editor by YouX, the University’s elected Student Union.

A source who was present at the meeting of YouX, which voted to remove Jaghoori as editor on Tuesday night, reported that the reasons for her removal related to her conduct at a student meeting following the publication of the article, during which Jaghoori reportedly taunted Jewish students who were present by repeating “Death to Israel” several times.

YouX also voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

ECAJ co-CEO, Peter Wertheim, welcomed both of the YouX decisions as “a decisive repudiation of the violent, hate-filled rhetoric against Israel and the Jewish people which masquerades as free speech”. Wertheim called on the University administration to “show leadership” by “adopting IHRA as a standard to be used in applying its existing rules of conduct when complaints of antisemitism are made to it”.

“There is something clearly wrong with a campus culture that produces the kind of discourse we saw published in On Dit, and the University bears ultimate responsibility for the culture it fosters on its campus. We look forward to the university itself taking action specifically to address antisemitism on campus”, Wertheim said.

Wertheim commended the Student Union for its decisions and praised AUJS representatives and the Jewish students on campus for their efforts in bringing about this result. “They have shown grit and determination, and it has paid off. We can all be proud of them” he concluded.


UAE Rabbi Gets Married in Abu Dhabi; Reportedly Largest Jewish Event in Country’s History
A total of 1,500 guests from around the world attended the wedding of Rabbi to the United Arab Emirates Levi Duchman on Wednesday in what is reportedly one of the largest Jewish events in the Arabian Gulf in recent history.

The Brooklyn-born rabbi, 29, married Lea Hadad, 27, from Brussels, Belgium, at the Hilton Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Their wedding guests included prominent rabbis, dignitaries, Emirati royals, and members of the local Jewish community.

Hadad, who is of Moroccan heritage, is the daughter of Brussels Chief Rabbi Menachem Hadad. Her grandfather set up the Chabad community in Milan, Italy. The couple will live in Abu Dhabi and together continue Rabbi Duchman’s efforts to develop the UAE’s Jewish community.

“As the child of Chabad emissaries, I grew up in an open home,” she said. “People would come at all times for a meal or just for support, and I plan to do the same in Abu Dhabi.” The newlywed, who said she plans on learning Arabic, added, “I’m excited to live in the UAE. I look forward to supporting new families coming in and expanding our educational and social programs for those already there.”

The wedding coincided with the second anniversary of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. The Hebrew date of the ceremony was also the same as the birthdate of the Baal Shemtov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, and the birthdate of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Since 2014, Rabbi Duchman has helped build the infrastructure of Jewish life in the UAE by establishing Jewish communities, institutions, schools and synagogues across Abu Dhabi and Dubai, including a mikvah and the government-licensed kosher agency. He brought other rabbis to the UAE to join him in leading the community and created a rabbinical training program for rabbinical interns. He also heads the Jewish Community Center of UAE in Dubai and serves as the rabbi of the Beit Tefilah Synagogue.
UAE foreign minister lands in Israel ahead of meeting with Lapid in Jerusalem
The United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan landed in Israel on Wednesday evening ahead of a Thursday meeting with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the official Emirati WAM news agency reported.

The visit marks the two-year anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the historic peace deal between the countries.

Lapid’s office released a schedule for the joint events late Wednesday. The premier will greet Bin Zayed at 3:30 p.m. in his office before they hold a short private meeting and broader work meeting with their aides. At 4:15 p.m., Lapid and Bin Zayed will give televised statements.

Bin Zayed will also attend an evening reception hosted by UAE envoy Mohamed Al Khajah in honor of the anniversary of the accords, The Times of Israel has learned. President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog will also be in attendance.

Israel’s Channel 12 initially reported the visit last week, indicating that the Emirates’ top diplomat would also meet with President Isaac Herzog, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who continues to deal with issues related to Iran.

Bin Zayed met with Bennett in Abu Dhabi during a snap visit by the then-Israeli premier in June, with the Iran nuclear talks at the top of the agenda.
'In 2 to 3 years, the UAE will be among Israel's 10 most important trading partners'
On September 15, 2020, Israel and the United Arab Emirates wrote history by signing the Abraham Accords and formalizing the birth of fruitful diplomatic relations.

Two years after the White House ceremony and there has been a multitude of bilateral agreements in all areas: trade, tourism, technology and innovation.

"I arrived here ten and a half months ago as Israel's first ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and since then we have had two visits from our president, two visits from our prime minister, about 20 visits from our ministers and we have signed 20 agreements, including the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)," Amir Hayek in an interview with the Emirates News Agency (WAM).

Two years after the Abraham Accords, the enthusiasm is still just as great and the two countries have continued to deepen their ties.

It is with this in mind that an official delegation from Abu Dhabi arrived in Tel Aviv in early September to present its Emirati delegates to the main Israeli companies listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

For two days, the delegation took part in a joint business forum co-organized by TASE and the Abu Dhabi Global Market in collaboration with the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Israel.

The event was successful and resulted in several memorandums of understanding aimed at strengthening the economic cooperation between the nations and enabling various business opportunities related to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, blockchain and the protection of data and privacy.

Hayek recalled that trade between Israel and the UAE exploded by 117 percent in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, and estimated that the UAE will be among Israel's top ten trading partners in the next few years.
Israel confirms talks to open temporary office in Qatar for World Cup
Israel and Qatar, which have no diplomatic relations, have discussed opening a temporary Israeli office in the Gulf state during the World Cup, an Israeli official told AFP Wednesday.

Israel has not qualified for the tournament, which begins in November, but has announced a deal that will allow its citizens, like other foreigners, to obtain a Qatari entry visa with proof of ticket purchase.

“There was contact between Israeli and Qatari officials,” an Israeli diplomatic official said, confirming the discussions had centered on opening a “temporary” office for Israeli fans attending the World Cup.

“They shouldn’t be classified as diplomatic talks. As of now, no agreement has been reached,” added the official, who requested anonymity.

Qatar does not recognize Israel and supports Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist terror group that controls Gaza and has fought four wars with Israel since 2008.

Israel, which along with Egypt maintains a blockade on Gaza aimed at preventing Hamas from smuggling in weapons, engages with Doha to grant permissions for the distribution of Qatari aid in the Palestinian coastal enclave, but details on such contacts are rarely publicly confirmed.

Israel has since September 2020 normalized relations with three Arab nations — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.


Prince of Peace? Royal Heir to Throne William’s ‘Lifelong Project’ is Ending Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Despite the generally favorable responses to Prince William’s visit, there was some ire regarding the official itinerary referring to Jerusalem’s Old City as “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” When asked to comment on this controversial wording, a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office bluntly stated: “East Jerusalem is not Israeli territory.” This marked the first foray into thorny political issues on what was meant to be an apolitical trip.

The UK government’s assertion is made on the basis that during the 1967 Six-Day War, the area of eastern Jerusalem where the Old City was reclaimed by Israel, which forms the basis of the flimsy argument that the Old City belongs to the Palestinians.

However, Palestinians have never actually had control of the area, which after being passed from the Ottoman empire to the British Mandate, was eventually given to Jordan. Anti-Israel media outlets gloss over this reality by referring to East Jerusalem as former “Arab” territory to avoid stating that it was never Palestinian land.

Another instance where certain details of an overall well-balanced trip were framed in a way that advanced an anti-Israeli agenda was when Prince William was quoted as saying Palestinians “have not been forgotten.” This was contrasted against Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by moving the US embassy there in 2018.

Finally, media wrangling erupted when William referred to the Palestinian Authority as a “country” during a conversation with Mahmoud Abbas. Variously described as a “semantic slip” and “a break with diplomatic protocol,” the press battled to draw conclusions about William’s unknown views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an attempt to downplay the significance of William’s visit, Haaretz skeptically labeled the trip “diplomatically meaningless,” questioning whether both Israeli and British Jews care for royalty that has facilitated “hostility” towards them over the centuries.

But by all accounts, the visit was important as it showed the younger generation of frontline royals will not shy away from political issues. While the Royal Family is required to uphold the constitutional convention of political neutrality, King Charles and Prince William are expected to begin a process of modernization to ensure the royals remain relevant in a rapidly-changing world.

Eventually, this could involve a greater allowance for Prince William to push for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
British-Jewish group admit ‘member of team’ helped disgraced Holocaust revisionist
British Jewish organisation Na’amod have admitted a “member of our team” was responsible for an email sent to the disgraced antisemite Pete Gregson offering to help himfind venues for a speaking tour.

Investigator David Collier had accused the group of responding to an email sent by Gregson on 7 July 2022 asking for help finding venues for a speaking tour featuring individuals deeply hostile to Israel such as Dr Azam Tamimi and the leader of Neturie Karta.

Gregson wrote: “Would you be able to give me some support? …ideally organising suitable venues. We would like to visit evert city where there is a sizable Muslim population…. would Na’amod be able to help in any way?”

Na’amod initially said they had looked into claims and found not evidence they had responded by sending a “master doc for venues” to Gregson, an expelled formerGMB shop steward who accused Israel of “exaggerating” the Nazis’ murder of six million Jews.

Collier’s investigation suggested their response, sent the following day, read: “Hi Pete. That all sounds really good. We actually have a master doc for venues that we use when organising events I’ve attached to this email.”

But in a new statement Na’amod now admit:” We have now completed a thorough investigation into the email sent from the Na’amod account to Pete Gregson, and have concluded that the email was sent by a member of our team, who is no longer in their position.

“We offer our unreserved and sincere apologies that this happened.


Rules aimed at regulating ultra-Orthodox schools unanimously passed in New York
New York’s Board of Regents voted unanimously Tuesday to pass new rules aimed at addressing longstanding allegations that scores of ultra-Orthodox private schools are flouting state law by failing to provide a basic education.

The regulations, which lay out a process for interpreting and enforcing a state law requiring private schools to provide an education that’s “substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools, have been in the works for years and got the approval of the Regents’ Preschool to twelfth-grade committee Monday.

Naftuli Moster, the director of Yaffed, a group that’s been fighting for reform in Hasidic yeshivas, called the passage of the regulations “a giant step forward in ensuring that all children attending non-public schools receive the education to which they are entitled.”

“This widespread violation of the law and the resulting egregious educational neglect was known to officials at every level for decades,” Moster added.

The passage of the regulations marks a major milestone in the years-long debate over the appropriate role of state and municipal officials in regulating private schools accused of neglecting students’ basic academic needs.

That debate took on increased urgency after a New York Times story detailing the widespread educational failures and allegations of corporal punishment in Hasidic yeshivas serving roughly 50,000 students.

It remains to be seen how effective the new regulations — which offer private schools several “pathways” to prove they’re complying with state law — will be in cracking down on problematic schools.


Phyllis Chesler: Insidious Propaganda at ‘The New York Times’
Mishan also wrote, “It’s worth noting that the term ‘Israeli cuisine’ is of fairly recent vintage … and appears to have more currency outside Israel. … The Israeli journalist Ronit Vered, who writes for the newspaper Haaretz, suggested that because the country is so young, ‘we don’t know yet what is Israeli and what is just part of the region’s diet’—but there is a willful refusal by some Israelis, she said, to acknowledge Arab influences.”

Along the way, Mishan denigrated Jewish dishes in Israel that have European origins. But why?

Finally, Mishan cited some demographics: “Around 1.9 million Palestinians live within the borders of Israel, 2.8 million in the West Bank and 1.8 million in the breathlessly crowded 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip. Six million, nearly half the total population, make up the diaspora. They are a people who have no country to call their own, like the Basques in Spain, the Rohingya in Myanmar, the Roma in eastern Europe and, for millenniums, the Jews.”

What is such propaganda doing in a piece written by a food critic? Is this now typical of all food writing—or is it specific to attempts to bolster a narrative that a country that has never existed is really first among nations and has always existed?

In March of 2022, Mishan continued her politicized food column vis-à-vis the Palestinians in the Times. She featured the very creative food artist Mirna Bamieh, who “stages dinner performances.” Bamieh accused Israel of stealing or “appropriating” Palestinian cuisine: “hummus, falafel, couscous, etc. We are not allowed to collect wild herbs.”

Enough. Mishan and Bamieh were writing about a lentil dish. I have noted that lentils were “one of the first farmed crops in the entire Middle East region.”

My God! Lentils are used in recipes by Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Saudis, etc. and by Jews in Israel and the diaspora of all these countries.

But, more importantly, a reader does not have her guard up when she is reading a food column or a recipe. This means that dropping propaganda, drip by drip, like honey into a recipe, is more likely to enter one’s bloodstream. This is what makes the small info-bits quite insidious.
AFP Improves Captions Slain Abu Jelda Was Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Fighter
Following communication from CAMERA’s Israel office earlier this week, Agence France Presse amended captions which had initially omitted that Palestinian Hamad Mustafa Hussein Abu Jelda, who died this week after being fatally in Sept. 6 clashes with Israeli troops in Jenin, belonged to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a designated terror organization. The incomplete captions about Abu Jelda, who was fatally injured by Israeli gunfire during a home demolition, had also ignored the fact that he was participating in a gun battle when he was shot.

Thus, the captions about Hamad Mustafa Hussein Abu Jelda had noted his age (24) and that “he succumbed to his wounds, five days after reportedly being shot by the Israeli army during a home demolition in the occupied West Bank. Security sources in Jenin told AFP that Abu Jelda had been shot during an Israeli army raid on Jenin camp on September 6, to destroy the home of Raad Hazem, who killed three Israelis in a deadly shooting attack in Tel Aviv.”

A sampling of the captions as they originally appeared, without mention of Abu Jelda’s command position in al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and omitting the gun battle, follow:
BBC, Deutsche Welle and i24News Correct Arabic Reports Falsely Citing ‘Settlements’
Following a series of communications with CAMERA Arabic, three Arabic media outlets have corrected false references misidentifying Jewish communities inside Israel’s internationally recognized territory as “settlements.” Applying this inaccurate terminology to Jewish communities inside the pre-1967 Green Line reflects rejection of Jewish sovereignty within any borders as a form of illegitimate “settler colonialism.”

On Aug. 5, Deutsche Welle Arabic wrote: “It has been four days since the Israeli military announced it is mobilizing forces to the ‘Gaza front’ and raised the level of alert all across the border and near the adjacent settlements as a precaution against attack that the [Islamic] Jihad movement may carry out.”

On Aug. 9, Deutsche Welle commendably corrected, replacing “settlements” with “areas.” On the other hand, the publicly-funded German media outlet failed to correct a second erroneous reference to “settlements” which had appeared the same day.

I24 News, for its part, on Aug. 18 commendably corrected an Aug. 4 reference to “Israeli settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip,” changing the erroneous characterization to “towns.”

On Sept. 2, BBC Arabic corrected three separate references. The most recent report, Aug. 3, had erroneously reported: “Israel announced a situation of high alert and took several measures on its southern border with the Strip, including road closures in what is known as ‘the Gaza envelope settlements.” Editors commendably deleted the inaccurate reference to the “Gaza envelope settlements.”

Previously, on July 19, BBC Arabic referred to “Firing a bombshell on an Israeli settlement … the settlement of Netiv Ha’asara.” The corrected copy now refers to a town, as opposed to settlement.
BBC News still avoiding the issue of lack of PA governance
Despite the fact that the BBC obviously knows that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is part of the Fatah faction which dominates the Palestinian Authority and the PLO and which is headed by the Palestinian president, audiences have seen remarkably little coverage of that terror group’s recent activities.

Recent incidents such as a shooting attack on a bus on September 4th which was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the fatal involvement of an AAMB commander in a gunfight in Jenin or the arrest in Jaffa of a would-be Palestinian terrorist who was carrying a banner with the logo of a group called ‘The Lion’s Den’, which is apparently connected to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, have not received any BBC coverage.

The corporation has also been muted on the topic of growing number of members of the Palestinian Authority security forces who have taken part in armed clashes with the IDF or terror attacks. As noted by the FDD’s Joe Truzman:
“The evidence suggests the PA is ostensibly losing control of its security services. While the number of PSS members launching attacks against IDF troops has not reached the level of the second intifada, the upward trend should be noted.”

When the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Tom Bateman published a report from Jenin in July of this year we noted that BBC audiences had at that point seen no serious coverage of the relevant topic of the Palestinian Authority’s loss of control over that part of Area A, where it is responsible for both civil affairs and security.

Bateman’s report did nothing to compensate for that chronic omission beyond veiled references to the Jenin refugee camp as “a place where the official Western-backed Palestinian security forces are not welcome” and “ungoverned spaces”. No substantial reporting on that topic has been seen since, despite its growing importance, not least in light of calls by terrorist organisations to step up the violence.


Jewish Headstones Desecrated in Prague Turned Into Public Monument
A new memorial unveiled in Prague pays tribute to the desecrated Jewish headstones that were used to pave roads in the Czech Republic’s capital when the city was under a Communist regime.

“The Return of the Stones” monument, which is made up of more than 15,000 pounds of broken Jewish tombstones, was unveiled on Sept. 7 in Prague’s Jewish cemetery, reported The Guardian. The cobblestones were excavated in Prague’s Wenceslas Square in May 2020.

The headstones were originally taken from Jewish cemeteries in the northern Bohemia region during Prague’s Communist period, which ended in 1989, and laid in Wenceslas Square. The project took place ahead of then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to Prague in 1987, wrote the paper.

František Bányai, chairman of Prague’s Jewish community, called the paving stones a “symbol of barbarism, rudeness and archaic ruthlessness.”

The new monument was commissioned by the local Jewish community and funded by private donors, along with a public fundraising campaign. It was created by Czech sculptor Jaroslav Róna and his wife, Lucie, an architect.
German Art Festival Dogged by Antisemitism Allegations Refuses to Remove Pro-Palestinian Installation ‘Glorifying Terrorism’
The series of scandals concerning the display of antisemitic works of art at the flagship Documenta festival in Germany continued to fester this week, as its curators pointedly refused to remove a video installation ostensibly declaring support for the Palestinian cause that caused outrage among some visitors.

In an angry statement published on Saturday, ruangrupa — the Indonesian artists collective selected to curate the 15th edition of the festival in the city of Kassel — rejected the criticism of an independent experts panel that the work in question, titled the “Tokyo Reels” and highlighting “the largely overlooked and undocumented anti-imperialist solidarity between Japan and Palestine,” was antisemitic.

“We are committed to art’s role in resisting these broader societal injustices,” the statement declared. “In the context of Documenta fifteen and the specificities of the German context, we see that the targeting of Palestinian artists is the point at which our anti-colonial struggles meet, and have become a focal point for attack.”

The statement condemned the creation of the experts panel in August, following frequent revelations of works on display that contained antisemitic images, among them a mural that contained the depiction of an Israeli soldier as a pig wearing a helmet emblazoned with the word “Mossad,” for the Israeli intelligence agency, and a caricature of an Orthodox Jew with a hooked nose and traditional hat embossed with the letters “SS”, for the Nazi paramilitary organization.

Ruangrupa’s statement also condemned the widely-accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which includes examples of anti-Zionist discourse, arguing that it conflates “criticism of the State of Israel and criticism of Zionism with antisemitism.”
Berlin Police Investigating Antisemitic Attack Against Rabbi
The Rabbi of the Jewish community in the German city of Potsdam faced antisemitic abuse in Berlin on Tuesday, according to German media outlets and local police reports.

Rabbi Ariel Kirzon, 43, who was on his way to the doctor together with his 13-year-old son, was standing on the sidewalk in front of a subway train station speaking on the phone in Hebrew, when a man walked towards him, purposely bumped into his shoulder and insulted him in an antisemitic manner, Berlin police said in a statement.

Speaking to German media outlets, Kirzon recounted that the attacker shouted: “you filthy Jew.”

The Rabbi told German daily Bild that at the time of the incident he was wearing tzizit, a Jewish ritual fringed garment worn by Orthodox Jewish men.

“I was clearly recognizable as a Jew when suddenly an Arab-looking man insulted and attacked me,” Kirzon said. “He shouted and raised his hands, grabbed me, as if to hit me,” Kirzon recalled.

Following the incident, Kirzon filed a criminal complaint for bodily harm and insult with Berlin police authorities.


OneRepublic Lead Singer Says They’re ‘Pumped’ to Return to Israel for Concert in November
OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder recalled the American pop rock band’s “crazy” performance in Israel seven years ago ahead of their upcoming concert on Nov. 8 at the Live Park amphitheater in Rishon LeZion.

“We are so excited to be coming back to Israel,” the “Counting Stars” singer said in a clip shared Monday on Instagram by Live Nation Israel. He also said, “We had the absolute best time the last time we were there. I will never forget that show – 22,000 people – it was crazy. We’re so pumped to do it again. Can’t wait to see you there.”

OneRepublic last performed in Israel in May 2015 in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. According to their website, the Grammy-nominated band’s November concert in Israel is their only stop in the Middle East as part of their world tour, though it was originally announced in June that they would also perform in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The band will also make stops in Switzerland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

OneRepublic’s 2015 show in Yarkon Park was condemned by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, but the criticism did not deter the band from performing for their Israeli fans. Tedder said during the concert in Yarkon Park, “we don’t take sides. We’re here for the people. We just love people and you’re great people,” Ynet reported.
96 lessons: UK Jewish lawmaker mourns Queen Elizabeth’s death with Kabbalah class
Queen Elizabeth has been eulogized by countless politicians and other leading figures across the globe. But in his tribute to the late monarch in the House of Lords, Baron David Wolfson used a new method of talking about the significance of her death: explaining a pillar of Jewish mysticism.

In a six-minute speech on Friday, Wolfson, a Conservative who served as a justice minister under Boris Johnson, walked his peers through several aspects of Jewish tradition — including gematria, the Jewish practice of finding meaning through the numerical value of words.

First he discussed the term “mitzvah,” or good deed, explaining that it is not simply a good deed one does at will — it is a duty whose roots are the Hebrew letters tzaddi and vav, or “tzav.”

“Her late majesty spent her whole life doing the right thing, and not just because she felt like it, or because the mood took her,” he said “She spent her 96 years doing the right thing day in and day out, out of a sense of duty.”

Wolfson then slid into the magical realm of gematria, which was developed by Kabbalah practitioners, noting that the sum of the Hebrew letters that make up the word mitzvah add up to 96.

“In one of those coincidences, which perhaps are not, the value, the numerical value of the Hebrew word tzav, the root of the word mitzvah is 96 — 96 years of tzav, of duty, and also of mitzvah of doing the right thing, because that is your duty,” Wolfson said.




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