Jonathan Tobin: How Ken Burns Misuses the Holocaust
Yet contrary to the film’s conclusion, the Holocaust tells us little or nothing about what to do about America’s contemporary immigration debates or the current American problem with Jew-hatred. Any attempt to frame the Holocaust as a representative moment in the history of human intolerance is a moral calamity. Burns demonstrated this in a CNN interview to promote the film. He spoke of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to ship illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard—whose affluent liberal residents advocate open borders but prefer to have border communities deal with the humanitarian crisis this has engendered—as if it deserved to be mentioned in the same conversation as the subject of his documentary.Jonathan Tobin: How Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Berkeley and Wellesley mainstream anti-Semitism
That Burns, a longtime supporter of the Democrats and liberal causes, would be guilty of playing along with such an inappropriate Holocaust analogy demonstrates that the filmmaker’s efforts to frame the question of American guilt in this context should be viewed with suspicion. The same is true of his attempt to claim that current political opponents of open borders—such as Trump, DeSantis, and their supporters—are figures who conjure up the threats that America and the Jews faced in the past.
Anti-Semitism isn’t merely a collection of hateful sentiments; it’s a political organizing principle that has attached itself to a variety of different ideologies, from Nazism to Communism to Islamism. The answer to such threats isn’t open borders for America, amnesty for illegal immigrants, or even ensuring that more people read The Diary of Anne Frank. The only way to deter another genocide of the Jews is Jewish empowerment and our ability to defend ourselves, something we would gain only after the war with the creation of the State of Israel.
Some who attempt to use the Holocaust as an exhibit in contemporary immigration-law debates are actually indifferent to the security of Israel and, indeed, support appeasement of an Iran that seeks nuclear weapons to possibly perpetrate another Holocaust. This makes it hard to take them seriously when they lecture Americans about the murder of 6 million Jews in the past century.
The Holocaust was a chapter of history marked by American failure. But whatever one may think about Franklin Roosevelt and his indifference to Hitler’s victims, the responsibility for the murder of 6 million Jews still belongs to the Nazis and their collaborators. It was a crime the United States may not have had the power to deter, but one this nation could have done more to stop had its political leadership been willing to do so. This is a disturbing fact for many who lionize Roosevelt. But Burns and others who clearly wish to apply the lessons from this failure to complicated 21st-century political debates, while ignoring real-time genocides or potent threats to the security of millions of living Jews, shouldn’t pretend they have learned anything from the past or have anything to teach us about it.
At what point does a rise in anti-Semitism stop being viewed merely as a series of isolated, troubling occurrences and start being treated like an emergency? When mass- media programs mainstream hatemongers who target and seek to delegitimize Jews? When elite academic institutions behave as though it’s acceptable conduct? When Jews are attacked in the streets?Roger Waters: Israeli policy is the mass murder of Palestinians
The ongoing epidemic of violence against Jews in New York City is mostly ignored, both by the media and much of the organized Jewish world. This is not only because the victims are Orthodox Jews who are easy to pick out. They’re also not the sort of people with whom opinion leaders, and even most American Jews, identify or associate.
But the mainstreaming of anti-Semitic attitudes on major campuses around the United States is harder to dismiss. Even more difficult to ignore are the widely disseminated programs that embrace open anti-Semites as legitimate voices worth considering.
Indeed, what is unfolding, inch by inch, is the normalization of anti-Semitism in the U.S. in a manner unprecedented in the post-Holocaust era. Nor is it confined to a specific segment of society or particular end of the political spectrum.
Indeed, as the events of the past week illustrate, Jew-hatred is thriving on both the left and the right. Individually, each of these instances—the legitimization of the BDS movement and targeting of Jewish institutions at Boston’s Wellesley College; the establishment of a Jew-free zone by student organizations at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law; the appearance of BDS advocate Roger Waters on the Joe Rogan podcast; and the featuring of the rapper formerly known as Kanye West on the Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight”—can be unpacked, denounced or rationalized and then forgotten, before the public’s attention is diverted to new controversies.
Taken together, they represent a trend that ought to set off alarms about the way insidious ideas that normalize hatred for Jews and Israel are gaining a foothold in mainstream forums. More than that, the growing tolerance for them and lack of consequences for those responsible bode ill not just for Jews, but for the future of civil society.
Roger Waters, British rock musician and founding member of band Pink Floyd has expressed his strong opinions about the relationship between Israel and Hamas in a recent appearance on commentator Joe Rogan's popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
"The Israelis seem now to have a policy of ... murdering so many of them that they are absolutely trying to create another intifada. So they can make it an armed conflict...so they can just kill them all," he said, adding that Israel is provoking the Palestinians into an armed conflict in order to manufacture an excuse to destroy them.
Waters started out his statements by reminding Rogan that Hamas is actually "the democratically elected government of Gaza." He quickly added that "there is an armed wing and whatever..." and then began speaking about occupation and the Geneva convention.
Rogan pressed him, asking whether or not the elections in Gaza were corrupt. Waters responded saying, "I have no idea, I wasn't there...Has there been an election since then? I don't know. ...I can't really answer that question because I'm not there and I don't know."
Touching on the subject of rockets fired into Israel, Waters asserted that rockets fired from Gaza "almost never do any damage because they're very ineffectual."
JPost Editorial: Why Kanye West shouldn't be let off the hook for antisemitism
West’s posts can be written off as another manifestation of his erratic behavior. But that would be dangerous.Kanye West says he's happy he 'crossed that line' regarding his antisemitic tweets
Last year, antisemitic incidents reached an all-time high in the US in 2021. According to a report issued by the Anti-Defamation League, there were 2,717 incidents 2021, representing an increase of 34% over 2020 and the highest on record since the New York-based Jewish civil rights group started tracking such cases in 1979.
The incidents included the violent beatings of Jews in the streets of New York City and Los Angeles, home to the two largest Jewish communities in the US. “Jews were being attacked in the streets for no other reason than the fact that they were Jewish, and it seemed as if the working assumption was that if you were Jewish, you were blameworthy for what was happening half a world away,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO, said in a statement.
Letting Kanye West off the hook by calling his posts misguided or a misunderstanding is paving the way for more antisemitism to rear its ugly head. He needs to be called out and condemned, and not just by well-meaning Jews.
As the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles wrote after inviting West to visit, “Words matter and words have consequences Ye. The Holocaust started with only words that sadly begat stereotypes, racial and religious tropes and blaming others and led to the murder of six million Jews.”
West’s words must not be allowed to pass quietly. Simply ignoring them is not an option. As Curtis said: “If we aren’t reacting, who are we? What does it say about people who aren’t reacting?”
Kanye West is not retracting any of the antisemitic comments that he made, saying on Wednesday that he's happy that he crossed that line in an interview with Page Six magazine.
“Hey, if you call somebody out for bad business, that means you’re being antisemitic. So, I feel happy to have crossed the line of that idea so we can speak openly about things like getting canceled by a bank.”
The bank West was referring to was JP Morgan Chase, who severed ties with him since his social media rants, according to the report.
West, commonly also referred to as "Ye," gave the interview as he was leaving a screening of Candace Owens's new documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM, according to the report. Owens had come to West's defense a few days earlier regarding his controversial statements, saying that they were not antisemitic.
"If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic," she said on her Daily Wire-produced political talk show, Candace.
SHOT//CHASER pic.twitter.com/mcEJ8PcxR6
— Jordyn (@JordynTilchen) October 13, 2022
Eric Schmitt deletes pro-Kanye West tweet amid backlash over rapper's anti-Semitic remarks
A relatively uneventful race for Missouri's open seat in the U.S. Senate broke out with a viral moment on Twitter Tuesday night when Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine accused Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt of "openly embracing those who spew vile antisemitism."Jewish community won't 'get pass' on 'anti-blackness,' slavery - US politician
Valentine's post spread quickly online with more than 1,300 shares and retweets and nearly 4,000 likes. While she has said she's not personally on Twitter and doesn't publish tweets herself, her campaign's post could become one of the more visible moments of a campaign where the two candidates refuse to debate each other on the same stage.
Valentine went on the attack after Schmitt deleted a tweet promoting controversial rapper Kanye West. Schmitt's initial tweet was posted amid a furious backlash stemming from the rapper's anti-Semitic rants that were edited out of his recent interview with right wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Carlson initially invited West to appear on his program after he wore a shirt with the caption "White Lives Matter" on it. Twitter and Instagram also locked West out of his social media accounts after he tweeted that he was going to "go death con 3 on Jewish people," an apparent reference to the military term DEFCON 3.
All of these events were reported publicly and circulated widely in conservative circles after West's appearance on Carlson's program. Schmitt's tweet promoting the rapper came several hours after some of the most offensive comments to Carlson were unearthed in a Vice News report and shared widely in other media reports.
The morning after, Schmitt adopted a stance of plausible deniability, though his campaign said the Attorney General published the tweet himself.
"I wasn’t aware of the recent comments and was commenting on Kanye’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson where he called out left wing hypocrisy," Schmitt said in a text message through his campaign spokesman Rich Chrismer.
Local Jewish leaders are now calling on Schmitt to apologize and take a more active stance in condemning anti-Jewish bigotry.
"Anti-Semitism, as well as racism and homophobia, seem to be part of Republican politics today," Rabbi Susan Talve said.
"It's not enough to delete a tweet," the leader of the Central Reform synagogue said. "He needs to really do something now. It's not enough. His words have caused damage. You can't take them back now. He has to align himself with different communities that are working against hate. So he has to do more. He has to do something. He has to reach out. He has to have conversations. He has to go into those places where he knows there is hate speech, and he has to condemn it."
The Jewish community would be held responsible for its "long history of anti-blackness" and role in the transatlantic slave trade, US politician Gregg Marcel Dixon stated on Tuesday, joining other politicians in their support of Kanye West following a series of political and social controversies, including an antisemitic rant on Sunday.The Demise of Jewish Studies in America—and the Rise of Jewish Studies in Israel
"The Jewish community will not get a pass on their long history of anti-blackness, from their role in slavery to anti-Black American hate, to their hatred towards black Jews. Let me be very clear about that," said Dixon in a tweet.
In subsequent tweets, Dixon clarified his statement was made in relation to the backlash rapper Kanye West received over his remarks about Jewish people. Dixon went on to attack Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman, who had condemned West, as an "ugly s**t" who "thought she could condemn a black man for 'antisemitism' while wearing blackface."
Dixon challenged Twitter to suspend his account for his comments.
It is unclear if when Dixon referred to black Jews he was echoing West's sentiment that "black people are actually Jew [sic] also.
I have written about and studied the religious and national distinctiveness of East European Jewry in its various incarnations: from Diaspora nationalism and Yiddishism in my first book to rabbinic (counter) culture in the Soviet Union in my current research. Now, however, most Jewish-studies scholars in America are downplaying Jewish distinctiveness in their primary concern with acculturation—the adaptation to and adoption of the majority culture, in which they view Jews more as Russians and Poles and less as Jews.CUNY takes steps to contain anti-Semitism, but fails to adopt IHRA definition
In December 2020, I participated in a Zoom panel at the annual Association for Jewish Studies Conference that discussed the state of the field of Jewish historiography over the past two decades. One participant noted that the first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed a rise in studies of the history of anti-Jewish violence. In response, I offered what I considered an innocuous explanation. Over the past two decades, I suggested, Jews have experienced an alarming rise in violent attacks. Between 2000 and 2005, the second intifada targeted the Jewish civilian population of Israel, leaving nearly 1,000 dead. Here in America, we have witnessed synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway, as well as a steady stream of attacks, some deadly, on Jews who “look” like Jews—Orthodox men.
This explanation did not sit well with a senior scholar in the audience. “What you said was exceedingly Jewishly focused,” she lectured me. She then went on to “enlighten” me that those who attack Jews are not primarily targeting Jews. Rather, the true targets of their hatred are African Americans. These hatemongers simply are angry at American Jews for promoting African-American rights. She ended her disquisition with a challenge. If I were really serious about fighting anti-Semitism, she told me, I would openly ally myself with Black Lives Matter.
Try to explain to those attacked, beaten, and maimed that the attack was not directed at them, as Jews! Could it be that an award-winning historian resorted to this nonsensical argument because my position had struck a nerve? Earlier on in the conference, I had questioned whether the trend of focusing on Russified and Polonized Jews was leading to a general misrepresentation of the overall East European Jewish experience. In the czarist census of 1897, 97 percent of the 5 million Jews of Russia said Yiddish was their mother tongue. Similarly, during World War I, several informed observers estimated that religious traditionalists constituted 75 to 80 percent of Polish Jewry. And yet the most fashionable topic in my field is those who sought to assimilate or acculturate. While the stories of Russified, Polonized, and secularized East European Jews should be told, of course, these narratives should not lead us to neglect or forget about the 97 percent of Yiddish speakers, or about the overwhelming traditionalist (a.k.a. Orthodox) majority. We need to understand our subjects in their own thickly Jewish terms rather than remake them in our own acculturated image. In the American academy, Jewish studies has come to reflect the contemporary American Jewish reality of high intermarriage rates and overwhelming illiteracy in Hebrew and classical Jewish sources.
American Jewish studies, like American Jewry itself, is fast becoming de-Judaized.
The City University of New York, under heavy criticism for its handling of rising anti-Semitism on its campuses, has announced a series of initiatives intended to begin addressing the issue. However, critics say CUNY is still refusing to define what constitutes anti-Semitism, rendering other steps it takes moot."Striking Australian Higher Education Union Calls for Ban on Visits to Israel, Rejects IHRA Definition of Antisemitism"
According to a Sept. 23 press release by CUNY, it is introducing initiatives to improve the experience for Jewish students on its 25 campuses. The new programs include a partnership with Hillel International, a $750,000 funding pool to combat anti-Semitism and a formalization of the expansion of CUNY’s student exchange programs and academic partnerships in Israel.
“While we are far from celebrating victory, I am pleased to see that CUNY’s response reflects what can be a monumental shift in the right direction within the university system,” New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a critic of CUNY’s administration, said.
A New York Post report last week touted a stunning reversal and reported that the university system is adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Anti-Semitism.
But a closer look at the CUNY release shows that it will only use the IHRA definition as an “educational tool” to help train diversity, equity and inclusion staff, administrators and student leaders in “understand[ing] and recogniz[ing] the various forms of anti-Semitism.”
While engaged in a two-day strike over wages at Sydney University, Australia’s NTEU, the 27,000-member strong National Tertiary Education Union for all higher education and university employees––the only trade union working exclusively in the Australian university sector––on Thursday passed two fundamentally anti-Israel resolutions:"NYSED Says Williamsburg Yeshiva Curriculum Breaks Law"
1. It rejected the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis; 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; accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust; and applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
2. It called on its members to boycott visits to Israel hosted by “pro-Israel organizations.”
H/T to Jwire that cited the full resolution:
The NTEU will:
1. Seek to strengthen ties with Palestinian unions, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees.
2. Prohibit elected officials or staff of the NTEU from accepting expenses-paid tours to Israel that are sponsored by the Israeli state or pro-Israel lobby organizations
3. Oppose the adoption of policies that prohibit criticism of Israel by any Australian academic institution, including the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
4. Support the right of NTEU members to engage in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) actions that seek to end the occupation of Palestine
5. Contribute $2,000 to the organization of the next Black-Palestinian Solidarity Conference, to be held in late 2023.
6. Call upon members to participate in active solidarity with Palestinians.
According to the Australian Jewish News, the motion was proposed last week at the NTEU national council by Fahad Ali, a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) advocate.
The New York State Education Department has decided that a boys’ yeshiva in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is breaking the law by failing to provide a secular education to its students.Stanford Apologizes For Limiting the Admission of Jewish Students in the 1950s
The New York City Board of Education found otherwise, but it is the state that has ultimate authority over the issue.
The state decision, reported Wednesday by The New York Times, found that Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem, which serves some 500 students, does not provide a sufficient education in core subjects such as English language arts, math, history and science.
The decision came three years after a parent filed a complaint against the yeshiva, saying her son was not receiving an education in secular subjects.
Since nearly all yeshiva high schools (mesivtas) conduct interviews with prospective students and their parents prior to admission, it is not clear why this mother chose a school focused solely on limudei kodesh (religious subjects), rather than applying to a different yeshiva with a secular curriculum.
The ruling by State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa marks the first time the State of New York has actively interfered with the operation of a Hasidic school.
Rosa rejected contentions by New York City’s Education Department that the yeshiva was in compliance with the state law requiring an education curriculum equivalent to that in public schools, the New York Daily News reported.
The commissioner ordered the yeshiva and the city in 12 pages of instructions to jointly draft and submit a plan and timeline to reach “equivalency” within 60 days, showing how it will provide a basic secular education. That deadline, however, could be extended if the school officials show “good faith progress.”
Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne on Wednesday publicly apologized for the school’s actions that sought to limit the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s, a discriminatory policy that was revealed in a recently released report from a university task force.'Secret hate account' of key Al Jazeera documentary witness
Published last month, the report documents a notable drop in enrollment from two Southern California high schools with significant Jewish student populations in the aftermath of a 1953 university memo in which Stanford administrators expressed concern about the number of Jewish students who were admitted to the institution.
According to Tessier-Lavigne, the “effort to suppress Jewish enrollments had long-lasting effects and dissuaded some Jewish students from applying to Stanford in later years,” while the university denied the existence of anti-Jewish bias in its admissions process.
“On behalf of Stanford University I wish to apologize to the Jewish community, and to our entire university community, both for the actions documented in this report to suppress the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s and for the university’s denials of those actions in the period that followed,” Tessier-Lavigne wrote on Wednesday. “These actions were wrong. They were damaging. And they were unacknowledged for too long. Today, we must work to do better, not only to atone for the wrongs of the past, but to ensure the supportive and bias-free experience for members of our Jewish community that we seek for all members of our Stanford community.”
A leading voice in the controversial Al Jazeera series The Labour Files allegedly set up a Twitter account that spread hatred against Jews, including calling the Chief Rabbi a “white supremacist”.
Disgraced former barrister Damian McCarthy, a Corbynite activist from Brighton, is one of the stars of the documentary, which attempts to prove that the Labour antisemitism scandal was concocted to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
In the programme, Mr McCarthy says his life was shattered by alleged threats against his family by enemies of the former Labour leader. He tells the producers he still fears for their safety.
But the Gnasher Jew online investigation unit claims that digital analysis suggests he was behind a Twitter account called Truth and Justice, which the social media platform has now closed.
Its posts included claims that “Zionists worked hand in hand with Nazis to send innocent Jews to their deaths… then worked to establish the racist state of Israel”; that “Jews are gassing people in Gaza”; and that the Board of Deputies “actively supports racists, fascists and antisemites”.
This is literally the opposite of the truth. Your antisemitism is disgusting. https://t.co/wqOKhvYZNa
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) October 12, 2022
To clarify:
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) October 12, 2022
Their statement does not condemn the target map that includes synagogues and Jewish high schools, it just condemns its use for anti-Semitism... ?? https://t.co/Fxrx9hRVxc
Explicit support for terrorism is mainstream in the anti-Israel movement.
— Jack Elbaum (@Jack_Elbaum) October 12, 2022
Jewish Voice for Peace, Within Our Lifetime, and many more, have all held rallies in support of “globalize the intifada.”
I wrote about this @newzionists:https://t.co/ksUWXvjvfQ
— Jack Elbaum (@Jack_Elbaum) October 12, 2022
and yet claims to be an authentic Jewish voice speaking on behalf of other Jews. Whilst simultaneously tweeting repulsive antisemitism. None of this helps the Palestinian people and only fuels division and hatred. pic.twitter.com/17oWnnEthy
— GnasherJew®????? #JusticeforMalkiRoth (@GnasherJew) October 13, 2022
PreOccupiedTerritory: If Not Now Misses By A Week, Holds Yom Kippur Feast In Middle Of Sukkot (satire)
A self-styled Jewish organization committed an error in planning its special Day of Atonement Solidarity with Palestinians Feast, an organization member acknowledged today, as the group realized only yesterday that it ended up holding the event not on the target day, but seven days later, three days into the eight-day Feast of Booths, known to moat Jews as Sukkot.BBC Takes Aim at Israel in Report on Beheading of Gay Palestinian Man in Hebron
Chris Murphy, an activist with If Not Now, disclosed today that Wednesday morning’s Yom Kippur event took place a full week after the actual Yom Kippur, which occurs on the tenth of the Jewish month of Tishrei – this year that occurred Wednesday, October 5. Murphy acknowledged that the Jewish calendar, which measures lunar months, shifts from year to year relative to the fixed solar calendar that most of the world uses as the standard measure, especially since this past Jewish year included an extra, confusing month to maintain alignment with the seasons.
“It’s so hard to keep track of the Jewish calendar,” he admitted. “I think that’s what messed us up. Someone looked at the tenth of October, assuming that the Jewish month lines up with the civil month. But the tenth of October this year was a Monday, and somebody had already looked it up and remembered that Yum Kipper is Wednesday this year. So we moved it to the closest Wednesday. How were we supposed to know there’s another holiday just a few days after, called Tar-barnacles or something? We’re not Biblical scholars.”
While the BBC correctly observes that gay individuals in Israel can “freely lead their lives,” it is a mystery that the outlet thought there was some kind of editorial justification for connecting “religiously conservative” attitudes in the Jewish state and Abu Murkhiyeh’s death.German extremist ‘dances’ on Holocaust memorial
Indeed, as Brett Stephens pointed out in a stinging New York Times editorial, the claim from Palestinians that the crime was unique in Palestinian society is simply not true.
The fact is, violence and discrimination against members of the LGBT community by the Palestinian authorities are commonplace and rights charities have highlighted numerous cases of gay people being harassed, abused and detained by PA security officers.
In 2019, for example, activists in the Palestinian LGBT rights group al-Qaws were threatened with arrest by PA police officers, who warned against holding any local activities on the grounds they are against the “values of Palestinian society.”
Israel, on the other hand, is a beacon of tolerance in a region that is characterized by repressive anti-gay laws and hosts numerous LGBT Pride events every summer, including in Tel Aviv, which is the largest such event in continental Asia.
Palestinian news reports and commentators on social media have also glossed over the role that Abu Murkhiyeh’s sexuality may have had in motivating his killer.
The BBC’s coverage of Abu Murkhiyeh’s death is part of a pattern of media outlets and commentators ignoring less savory aspects of Palestinian society — a tendency toward “whitewashing” — said Stephens in the NYT:
In recent years, it’s become the fashion of many of Israel’s vehement critics to accuse Israel’s supporters of ‘pinkwashing’ — that is, of using the Jewish state’s pathbreaking record of promoting and protecting gay rights over many years as a cloak to obscure its various purported sins.
But there’s another word to describe the reluctance, bordering on willful blindness, of too many advocates of Palestinian statehood to call attention to the prejudice and brutality that confront gay Palestinians. It’s called whitewashing. Whitewashing is also the word that goes for the broad indifference in pro-Palestinian circles to Hamas’s tyrannical rule in Gaza, or to the Palestinian Authority’s murder of its domestic political critics like Nizar Banat, or to the elimination of any semblance of democracy under the petty despotism of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
Hear, hear.
The murder of Abu Murkhiyeh should have seen the BBC draw attention to the reality of life for LGBT individuals and other minorities under the repressive Palestinian regime.
Instead, the BBC uses his death as a chance to subtly take aim at the Jewish state.
A photo uploaded on social media shows far-right politician Holger Winterstein posing with his arms spread on one of the stone slabs that make up Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial for the more than six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their helpers.State-Funded Professorships for Artists Involved in Art Show Plagued by Antisemitism Invokes Ire from German Jews
The photograph was taken following a protest organized by Winterstein’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Saturday.
AfD said it would take action against Winterstein, a county representative in Thuringia state, for his “extremely disrespectful behavior.”
The Israeli ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, condemned Winterstein for appearing to dance on the country’s Holocaust Memorial, whose full name is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
The politician “brought shame upon himself and his party,” the ambassador said in a tweet.
Germany’s Jewish community has reacted angrily to the announcement that two members of the Indonesian artists collective responsible for curating this year’s Documenta art festival — widely criticized for the display of antisemitic images in several works shown — have been appointed as visiting professors at one of the country’s leading art schools.Outcry over Austrian soldier wearing self-made Nazi uniform, but no dismissal
Reza Afisina, a cinematographer, and Iswanto Hartono, an architect, were introduced on Wednesday as guest members of the faculty at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HfbK). Both artists, whose work is heavily political, have long been involved with ruangrupa, a group of Indonesian artists selected to curate the fifteenth edition of the Documenta festival, one of the world’s main showcases for contemporary art, in the city of Kassel.
Both positions are being financed by the DAAD, Germany’s state-funded institution for academic exchanges.
The show was plagued by scandals related to antisemitism six months before it opened, as revelations emerged of ruangrupa’s support for the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) campaign which seeks the total economic and cultural isolation of the State of Israel as the first step towards its eventual elimination.
After the show opened at the beginning of the summer, visitors discovered works that featured a mural containing classic antisemitic caricatures, a triptych featuring a man wearing a kipah proffering large bags of money and a brochure containing antisemitic drawings of Israeli soldiers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled a visit to the festival in protest at the presence of antisemitic works, while the festival’s director, Sabine Schormann, tendered her resignation in July amid condemnation from German politicians and Jewish leaders over the festival’s apparent indifference to the presence of antisemitic imagery.
The case of a junior Austrian army officer who has remained in service despite wearing a self-made Nazi uniform and making Hitler salutes provoked an outcry on Thursday, with the president among those expressing their shock.Man suspected of killing 2 in Slovakia found dead; authored antisemitic manifesto
According to a report by the Austrian daily Kurier, the soldier from Carinthia province had ordered a uniform, swastika insignia and flags over the internet to put together his own “SS uniform.”
Photos of the junior officer wearing his self-made uniform “at least five times — partly outdoors and partly wearing a helmet with a visible swastika,” surfaced on social media, the report said.
He was also reportedly witnessed making Hitler salutes on different occasions: in the canteen of a sports club, on the soccer field and in front of his comrades in the barracks.
Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner denounced the behavior of the soldier as “incredible misconduct” while stopping short of dismissing him, a statement on Thursday from her ministry said.
“The person concerned was immediately relieved of his duties and is employed in a non-military function,” the statement added.
Slovakia’s police said Thursday they found the body of a suspect who allegedly fatally shot two people the previous day in the capital in what some officials are suggesting was a hate crime.WaPo: Israel's Economy Is Thriving
According to Slovak media, the suspect posted a racist document on Twitter full of hatred for Jews and LGBTQ people and posts about the shooting. The account was blocked Thursday.
Two men were killed and a woman was wounded on Wednesday evening near or at a bar, which is a popular spot for the local LGBTQ community in downtown Bratislava.
Comenius University in Bratislava said one of the two victims was a student.
Police said they were investigating but haven’t provided details about the motive of the shooting. They also said that authorities found the suspect’s body, but didn’t immediately give any further details.
Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova and Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger condemned the slayings and suggested it might have been a hate crime.
Israel, a nation of nine million, is an economic juggernaut. It has one of the fastest growth rates and one of the lowest rates of inflation (4.3%) and joblessness (3.5%).Israel's Smart Shooter Wins U.S. Army Contract for Anti-Drone Optics
On top of that, the shekel is the only currency among the 31 that trade actively that has strengthened against the dollar in the past decade.
Israel is poised to achieve 5.2% gross domestic product growth in 2022, according to more than a dozen forecasts.
Technology has emerged as the No. 1 industry. From auto parts to medical equipment solutions to food, water and climate change, technology made in Israel is transforming the world's biggest industries.
This hub of innovation includes Mobileye Global Inc., the creator of vision-based driver assistance systems for 50 car makers, or 70% of the global market.
There's also Nanox Imaging Ltd., serving governments, hospitals and clinics with cloud-based image analysis, online diagnosis and billing services while developing a 3D medical imaging device.
Smart Shooter, an Israeli company that makes weapon control systems, has won a contract to supply the U.S. Army with its Smash 2000L optics for rifles as part of a counter-drone program.Maccabi Haifa Taste European Soccer Glory With 2-0 Victory Over Juventus
The system enables a user to lock onto a target, and then control the fire of the rifle to be more precise and accurate.
The system uses artificial intelligence, assisted vision and advanced algorithms to ensure that each round finds its target in both day and night conditions, without being affected by target movement or by human fatigue and stress.
Smart Shooter is developing an additional capability that enables magnification up to 8 times what the eye sees.
Maccabi Haifa made Israeli soccer history on Tuesday night with a 2-0 victory over Italian giants Juventus in their UEFA Champions League clash before a crowd of 30,000 at the Sammy Ofer stadium.Im Tirtzu: Zionist Salon Interview with Michael Oren
Maccabi forward Omer Atzili opened the scoring after only seven minutes when a cross from Pierre Cornud deflected off his back, bouncing into the goal. Atzili then added a second in the dying minutes of the first half as Juventus midfielder Juan Cuadrado was dispossessed of the ball in the center of the park. A fine run from Maccabi’s Haitian international Frantzi Pierrot found Atzili on the edge of the Juventus penalty area, from where he curled a left-footed shot over the outstretched Juventus goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny.
The victory marked Maccabi Haifa’s first in the Champion’s League in 20 years, following their sensational 3-0 victory over English champions Manchester United in 2002.
The Israelis are unlikely to qualify for the competition’s group stage, having lost their previous three games before Tuesday night’s match, but the win over Juventus, a side that has chalked up a record 36 Italian championship titles, has certainly motivated the team. “Sometimes when you go to bed and close your eyes you think of moments like this,” Atzili said after the match. “Now we have to think about the next match.”
The loss for Juventus has piled the pressure on coach Massimiliano Allegri, whose side are languishing in eighth place in the domestic league following a 2-0 loss to AC Milan on Saturday.
Im Tirtzu Chairman of the Board Douglas Altabef in conversation with Michael Oren who is an Israeli historian, author, politician, former ambassador to the United States, as well as former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party and a former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office.
Historic, first-ever Sukkot celebration at Blair House @WhiteHouse.
— Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt (@StateSEAS) October 12, 2022
Thrilled to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a festival of joy, with Ambassadors and diplomats from the Middle East and South & Central Asia, together with @SecondGentleman, @IRF_Ambassador, @US_Protocol pic.twitter.com/r7fpwxfCQ6
Peace with Israel, Jewish agricultural law have Morocco’s etrog industry blossoming
A bumper crop of etrogs is taking a more direct route to Israel this year, thanks to a historic confluence of geopolitics and religious observance.Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Wedding Canopy in Abu Dhabi
Once home to the largest Jewish community in the Arab world, Morocco has a long history of producing the citrus fruit used by millions of Jews every Sukkot — in fact, tradition holds that etrog trees were first planted in the Atlas mountains nearly 2,000 years ago by Jews who found shelter amongst the Berber tribes there after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
Jewish communities around the world import hundreds of thousands of Moroccan etrogs every year: They’re more affordable than the Calabrian variety, the Diamante Citron, prized by some Hasidic groups, which can command hundreds of dollars for an unblemished specimen.
But the Israeli market, where the majority of the world’s Orthodox Jews live, has a robust etrog industry of its own and strict controls on agricultural imports.
The one time Moroccan etrogs are welcome in Israel is after the shmita year, the seventh year in the Jewish agricultural cycle, where working the soil in the land of Israel is forbidden under Jewish law. While not all Israeli farmers follow the agricultural cycle prescribed by Jewish law, those who produce ritual products such as etrogs must — or else their products would be forbidden to a religious customer base.
The past Jewish year that ended with Rosh Hashanah was a shmita year, meaning that no etrogs were cultivated in Israel for this year’s Sukkot festival, which began Sunday night. Instead, huge numbers of etrogs traveled from Morocco to Israel, as they did seven years ago.
It is therefore difficult to think of a better symbol of the Abraham Accords than this wedding: a tent of Abraham built by a Jewish groom embracing his Abrahamic cousins, with the embrace warmly reciprocated. And it is not only strategic concerns but also the spirit of Abrahamic faith that has helped further these remarkable developments in the Gulf.
This can be seen in the sheikh chosen by Saudi Arabia to deliver the central sermon in this years Mecca hajj pilgrimage: Mohammed al-Issa, who is known for his 2020 trip to Auschwitz, the first senior Muslim cleric to journey there.
Several weeks before the sermon, I was part of a group of Jewish visitors that met with the sheikh in Saudi Arabia. In a moving and unforgettable conversation, he described the concern that led him to journey to the concentration camp, how inspired he had been by an encounter with the president and students of Yeshiva University, his adulation of the writings of Maimonides, and what Judaism and Islam have in common. If even more progress is made, it will be with the help of spiritual leaders like him. Don't let events take you by Tweetstorm. Follow @Commentary (blue button above)
It is impossible to predict what will happen next, and when. But awe is the only appropriate reaction to the Abraham Accords anniversary wedding in Dubai, and all that it reflects. And a bit of history will only add to the wonder. Several articles noted that while Rabbi Duchman ministers to Jews in the Emirates today, his great-grandfather lived a very different life: He had been sent by the Soviets to Siberia, imprisoned for his faith activities. It was in Siberia, following four years in the Gulag, that he was married. The ceremony involved a makeshift wedding ring fashioned from a spoon, given by groom to bride under the chuppah.
The miraculous nature of Jewish history is suddenly and transcendently realized. Standing in Siberia, in a frozen wasteland, a Jewish couple erected a chuppah in memory of their ancestor Abraham, joining themselves to his faith and his family. They could not have imagined—though I think they would have believed—that one day their descendant would erect another wedding tent of Abraham in the Middle Eastern desert, in a place where not long ago no Jewish life existed, and would mark the moment by rejoicing with other descendants of Abraham, Arabs embracing Jews at the moment that is the very epitome of Jewish joy.
Only a truly stultified or cynical soul could resist awe at a Jewish Abu Dhabi wedding such as this. And only a student of history insufficiently humbled by what has occurred could resist wondering at all that has happened, as well as what is yet to be.
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