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Friday, December 16, 2022

12/16 Links P2: Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel; Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower; US Congressman Slams FBI Hate Crimes Data As Bipartisan Criticism Grows

From Ian:

Liberals, Progressives, Wokeness and Israel
Putting all this together, what the JILV survey powerfully documents is a troubling phenomenon that has pervaded the larger American political system today: namely political sorting. In its most basic form, political sorting, which is often confused with polarization, is a fairly new phenomenon and is where ideological and attitudinal positions no longer vary but are expected to align to particular liberal or conservative attitudes. The result today is that Democrats are more uniformly left-leaning and Republicans are more uniformly right-leaning than they were decades ago. Both the left and the right promote packages of ideas and attitudes that must be adopted wholesale if one is not to fall into disfavor. Today, dissent and divergence become almost impossible if one is to avoid adverse social consequences and possibly real professional ramifications as well. And for macro-political development, as Democrats are more habitually liberal and Republicans become more conservative, compromise and bipartisanship becomes harder to achieve. This is exactly what is happening with respect to Israel and ideology and represents an existential threat to the Jewish community and American support for Israel as well.

The recent uproar at Berkeley Law School is a case in point. Nine student groups at the law school banded together to amend their bylaws so as to exclude any Zionist speaker from ever speaking at the law school. That Women of Berkeley Law, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the Law Students of African Descent felt compelled to join forces with the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association in this endeavor, illustrates how powerful this ideological sorting can be. Under the guise of intersectional solidarity, groups that have nothing to do with the Middle East conflict institute a litmus test that permanently excludes the vast majority of Jews who believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. To be part of the community of the good is to expel people with improper beliefs.

More specifically, to understand sorting what is critical to understand is that the electorate has not changed significantly in the aggregate as generations have aged in and out, but voters have sorted. Consider that in the 1990s there were many pro-choice and pro-immigration Republicans and pro-gun Democrats. These variations have disappeared with issues all lining up on the left or right such that if you are a Democrat, you have to believe and promote a particular agenda wholesale and thus one can predict an individual’s political positions based on partisanship alone. Thus, the United States is experiencing increased partisan polarization now even though Independents have grown as a share of the electorate while the number of partisans has shrunk

Turning to the JILV survey itself, support for Israel has become part of the larger political sort of the American public. Today, vast majorities of Republicans support Israel, while Democratic backing is much lower. To be on the left these days means that one cannot support Israel and be ideologically pure; backing Israel is a conservative value and that line cannot be crossed in the ideologically sorted world of today. Thus, it is also the case that those who score lower on the woke scale are appreciably more aligned with Israel than those who are highly woke. Attitudes toward Israel are now part of the liberal or conservative packages that partisans must uniformly adopt, constituting a new norm in American politics evident in the data here. As Abrams and Wertheimer pointed out, sorting has become so deep that it has influenced views and sharply divided Americans on ideas as varied as the nuclear family, the structure-enabling philanthropy and, of course, the police and justice systems.

Moreover, views toward religion, tradition and history have become part of the story now. To be liberal today means real disdain for people of faith and their rights to religious liberty including support for Israel, while conservatives take the exact opposite approach. As Zaid Jilani has written with respect to race, the vision of the now sorted left is one where, “America isn’t a land of opportunity. It’s barely changed since the days of Jim Crow. Whites, universally privileged, maintain an iron grip on American society, while nonwhites are little more than virtuous victims cast adrift on a plank in an ocean of white supremacy.” The emergent narrative and anti-racist policy positions are now stories, “where whites are the villains and minorities are the victims” making “honest discussion of why homicide is the leading cause of death for young Black men … off limits” for instance. The JILV data show the exact same trend with respect to Israel; support for Israel, even with its faults and complex narratives, is simply on the wrong side of the story and cannot be supported if you are on the liberal side of things.

Given the growth of woke culture and the inexorable sorting process in American political life, friends of Israel must ask themselves some tough questions: Should they continue to focus attention on progressives with deeply held woke commitments who seem to be sorting themselves out of support for Israel, or seek to strengthen support among those who don’t share those ideological commitments and are more inclined to support Israel? To what extent should friends of Israel continue to focus efforts on making Israel’s case in the public realm, and to what extent should they join forces with others in opposing the ideology that gives rise to the growing antipathy toward the Jewish state?

Now is a good time to rethink the mainstream Jewish posture in American politics.
Ungrateful France’s ‘national narrative’ ignores the Jews
France has had Jews for over 2,000 years, and their contributions to the economy, politics, culture and science cannot be denied. But the journalist and blogger Veronique Chemla notes that Judaism and the Jews are virtually absent from the “national narrative” in school curricula and textbooks as well as in exhibitions in French museums. This post is an extract from a talk she gave about this blindspot to the Tsedek Lodge of B’nai B’rith France. She also discussed the issue in her interview with André Barmoha on Radio Chalom Nitsan on 13 December 2022.

Revolutionary, Republican, secular France fought the influence of Catholicism. The state remains embarrassed by the history of religions and by the Jews whom she nevertheless emancipated. France also feared fragmenting the nation by isolating the Jews, while not daring to seem to exclude them. The revolutionary Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre had affirmed: “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation, and grant everything to the Jews as individuals” – a phrase that still inspires French diplomacy. But even as individuals, the ungrateful homeland ignores them in its national narrative.

Other factors were a pro-European France which denied the “Jewish and Christian roots of Europe” (Jacques Chirac), choosing instead multiculturalism, cultural relativism, atonement. History was perceived through an anachronististic moral lens – the Rights of Man, “political correctness”, making France feel guilty for slavery or colonization. The Crémieux decree was hidden from view while Eurabia ( an European-Arab alliance – ed) was rejected. French Jews are caught between, on the one hand, “pedagogues’ who “deconstruct” history, and, on the other hand, “political correctness”, the disintegration of the nation, European political “elites”, the claims of the “racialized” – Eurabia in different guises.

Jewish historians – Jules Isaac, co-author of school textbooks during the first half of the 20th century, and Marc Bloch – may have felt awkward writing about their co-religionists.

Most important of all, generations of historians, whose studies have skirted around Jews and Judaism, have produced a vicious circle of ignorance, bias and misunderstandings of Jewishness, Judaism and Jews.
Smearing Israel from the Ivory Tower
Israel, a tiny country the size of New Jersey, is the only state in the Middle East that substantially recognizes individual rights, such as legal equality for men and women, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships. Compared to its neighbors—Islamic dictatorships that trample rights and violently oppress their populations—Israel is an oasis of enlightenment and liberty. Yet many American and European professors increasingly show support for anti-Israel movements and tyrannical regimes that aim to erase Israel from the map.

Iran is among the most brutal. According to the U.S. State Department, “The Islamic regime in Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” and the “regime elites squander the people’s resources and opportunities, while suppressing freedom and basic human rights.”1 As of this writing, for more than a month Iranian “security forces” have been violently cracking down on widespread protests, which sprang up after the regime’s so-called morality police reportedly killed a young woman for not wearing a hijab correctly.2

Iranian leaders call for “death to Israel,” “death to England,” and “death to America.”3 They fund terrorist groups that wreak havoc in countries neighboring Israel, forming a “ring of fire” around it with the goal of annihilating the tiny democratic republic.4

Yet according to the academic watchdog group Canary Mission, which documents people and groups promoting hatred of the United States and Israel, more than eight hundred professors on North American campuses participate, to varying degrees, in efforts to undermine Israel. So do many in Europe. Among the most vocal anti-Israel professors are David Miller, recently fired from the University of Bristol; Amin Husain at New York University (NYU); and Marc Lamont Hill at Temple University. They are working to erode Israel’s stability, credibility, and security. This despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that Israel is a vital partner and strategic ally of the West.

Miller, previously a tenured professor who served as chair of Bristol’s sociology department, has spent years maligning Israel by advancing conspiracy theories in the classroom and via articles, social media, a website, and a talk show. In his quest to delegitimize the country—which he calls “a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”—he has claimed, for instance, that British Jewish students are “being used as political pawns.”5 Without evidence, he accuses these students of being “constitutionally bound to promoting Israel and campaigns to silence critics of Zionism or the State of Israel on British campuses.”6 To achieve his goal, Miller advocates prohibiting pro-Israel groups from exercising their right to assemble, saying, for example, that Israel “depends for its lifeblood on the transnational Zionist movement. To dismantle the regime, every single Zionist organisation, the world over, needs to be ended. Every. Single. One.”7 (Zionism is the belief in and support of a Jewish homeland.)8


Understanding Israel-hatred: Follow the $$
Besides UNRWA and the terrorist warlords, we cannot forget the anti-Israeli propaganda industry. After all, someone has to maintain the West’s guilty conscience, or the money might stop flowing. This is where the BDS organizations come in—Palestinian organizations, Western organizations and even Israeli organizations.

It is important to emphasize that there is often a deep connection between these anti-Israel NGOs and various terrorist organizations. The organization Addameer, for example, is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Yet despite its terror connections, Addameer is well remunerated. It has received more than 20 million euros from the Dutch government over the past decade. Thankfully, after Dutch government officials were presented with evidence of Addameer’s involvement in terrorism, the aid funds were frozen.

Addameer is by no means alone. Between 2016-2020, the United Nations donated at least $40,000,000 to 19 Palestinian BDS organizations. Eight of these organizations have been linked to the PFLP, and six of them were declared terrorist organizations by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Aug. 2022. The cash payments to these groups were transferred through such rarified international institutions as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The art of money laundering is by no means confined to drug cartels.

Western BDS organizations that operate in international institutions and on scores of campuses also receive hundreds of millions of dollars a year from various sources and governments. One of the largest and most prosperous is the Open Society Foundations, bankrolled by the left-wing billionaire George Soros.

This organization received a staggering $18 billion from Soros in 2017 and supports a large number of prominent BDS organizations. Members of 20 of these groups are prohibited from entering Israel. In 2016, Open Society Foundations internal documents were published anonymously by the Russia-linked site DCLeaks. Among the documents were instructions to put pressure on the European Union to implement a policy of labeling Israeli products produced in Judea and Samaria, something that would dramatically strengthen the BDS movement.

This is a homegrown problem as well. Over the last decade, 70 Israeli organizations whose work is indistinguishable from that of foreign anti-Israel NGOs received no less than $260 million from foreign governments, the E.U. and the U.N. At the top of the donor countries were Germany, the U.S., the Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway.

Not everyone passionately hates Israel, but almost everyone wants to get rich. With this kind of money on offer, and the prospect of lucrative careers ahead of them, why would anyone want to risk missing out on all that filthy lucre by giving up their hatred of the Jewish state?
BDS Versus Modern Art
The toxic sledgehammer politics of BDS—the “with us or against us” choice proffered by Masharani and his ilk—mean that the route from urging Israel’s elimination to expressing hostility towards Jews, particularly when those Jews engage in support for a Jewish state where they do not themselves reside, is quite a straightforward one. The Documenta festival proved that, as does a new initiative in Finland that targets the main museum of contemporary art in Helsinki over its links with an Israeli philanthropist.

Last week, a group of 200 Finnish artists signed a statement pledging to “refuse to sell our labor and art” to the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki as long as it maintained links with the Zabludowicz Art Trust, an initiative of Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz, a London-based billionaire who hold dual Finnish and Israeli citizenship.

“Our stance is based on the fact that organizations Chaim ‘Poju’ Zabludowicz funds support the apartheid regime imposed on Palestine and the Palestinian people by the State of Israel,” the statement declared.

Zabludowicz, who made his fortune through the Israeli defense contractor Soltan Systems, has attracted controversy in the past, particularly in the UK, where his support of the pro-Israel advocacy group BICOM led to all sorts of lurid complaints against a shadowy “Israeli arms dealer.” His background and his wealth have rendered him as an ideal target for the BDS movement, which takes the basic, incomplete facts of his biography and filters them through the lens of anti-Zionist ideology. Of course, neither the Finnish artists statement nor the UK-based “BDZ” (Boycott Divest Zabludowicz) campaign mentions the fact that their bete noir is a Jew. We are in pure dog whistle territory here, leaving us nonetheless with the overwhelming impression of a shadowy Jewish businessman with outsize wealth who rinses both his own reputation and that of the State of Israel by manipulating contemporary artists.

As Teemu Laajasalo, the Lutheran Bishop of Helsinki, told the Helsingin Sanomat news outlet in response to the artists statement, “If an individual Jew is held responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, or if an individual Jew is prohibited from supporting Israel, or if Israel as a state is required to do something more than other democratic states, we are guilty of antisemitism.” Yet as sound as this argument is, the fact that we are hearing it yet again demonstrates just how bitterly polarized this debate is. Those who sign up to Masharani’s view that rejecting the boycott is “unthinkable” close themselves off from any consideration that the position they have taken might be antisemitic.

A cogent response will not ignore the importance of good arguments, therefore, but it should also be focused practically on measures to counter the boycott. Just as BDS advocates insist that artists should boycott Israeli exhibition spaces and benefactors, its opponents should press for a ban on state funding for any exhibition or festival—Documenta being a case in point—that endorses the BDS campaign or refuses Israeli artists on the grounds of their nationality. The fight against antisemitism and the integrity of artistic independence demand nothing less.


Award-winning black Jewish chef says he will not forgive Ye
These days, Black Jewish chef Michael W. Twitty is getting questions that bring the heat, but have nothing to do with the kitchen.

Michael W. Twitty on the cover of his book, “Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew.” Credit: Amistad.

Twitty—author of “Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew,” and the winner of two James Beard awards in 2018 for cookbook writing—tackled the antisemitism scandals surrounding the rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) and the basketball star Kyrie Irving in an interview with author Jane Ziegelman at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan on Sunday night. He affirmed that he will not forgive Ye.

“Kanye West is a jerk,” Twitty said. “The problem we have is that he has a very muddled understanding. He is not really an Israelite. I can deal with them. I’ve been dealing with them for 30-something years. I’ve been hollering at them for years. The pushback against people like me has been really disruptive. [People say] like, ‘Well, you’re not really Jewish…’cause you eat kosher food doesn’t make you a Jew.’ I beg your damn pardon? I’ve taught Hebrew school for 15 years…[wearing] tefillin doesn’t make me Jewish? [Having] white hairs on my head ’cause my kids drove me crazy getting ready for their bar and bat mitzvah makes me Jewish.”

The worst part about Ye’s tirades, he said, “was when he talked about scaring Jewish children.”

“That pissed me off. That made me really, really, really, really mad,” said Twitty, referring to Ye’s statement that he wanted Jewish children to ask their parents why the rapper was mad at them.

Twitty does not give Ye “a pass” for the “many issues” he is dealing with.


Unilever Resolves Litigation With Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board Over Israel Dispute
The Unilever corporation on Thursday announced that it had resolved its ongoing litigation with the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream over the sale of the ice cream’s distribution rights in Israel.

“Unilever is pleased to announce that the litigation with Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board has been resolved,” the company said in a one-sentence statement.

Reached for comment by The Algemeiner, a spokesperson for Unilever said that the terms of the settlement were confidential.

Ben & Jerry’s had been engaged in an unusual court battle with its own parent company, Unilever, since Unilever sold its business interests in Ben & Jerry’s in Israel to their Israeli licensee, businessman Avi Zinger, in June 2022.

In a statement, Zinger welcomed the settlement.

“I am pleased that the litigation between Unilever and the independent Board of Ben & Jerry’s has been resolved,” Zinger said. “There is no change to the agreement I made with Unilever earlier in the year. I look forward to continuing to produce and sell the great tasting Ben & Jerry’s ice cream under the Hebrew and Arabic trademarks throughout Israel and the West Bank long into the future.”


New York court says Yeshiva University must recognize LGBTQ club
Yeshiva University in New York City must formally recognize an LGBTQ student group, a New York court ruled Thursday, upholding a previous decision amid a lengthy and acrimonious legal battle in which the school has claimed doing so would violate its religious rights.

The university has steadfastly refused to recognize the undergraduate club and has taken measures including temporarily shutting down all student clubs and setting up its own “Torah-based” LGBTQ club to avoid recognizing the YU Pride Alliance.

The Manhattan appeals court on Thursday upheld a previous ruling that said the flagship Orthodox university does not qualify for a religious exemption to anti-discrimination laws that ban prejudice based on sexual orientation and other characteristics.

The court also rejected the university’s argument that it should not have to recognize the club due to First Amendment protections and noted that three of the university’s graduate schools already have recognized LGBTQ groups.

“We find that denial of recognition for the Pride Alliance is not ‘essential’ to Yeshiva’s ‘central mission,’” the ruling said.

Yeshiva University said it would continue to appeal the decision.

The US Supreme Court has signaled interest in the case after a request from the university, saying it may take it up if Yeshiva University exhausts its appeals at the state level. The university has at least one more avenue of appeal in New York and said it plans to turn to the nation’s highest court again.

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the case was made on procedural grounds, not the larger religious issues.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi finally expelled from Labour Party
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi has reportedly been expelled from the Labour Party.

Writing on Twitter, the controversial Labour activist said: “Confidential email to me says my ‘membership of the Party stands terminated’. An NEC panel concluded I had ‘in its opinion, demonstrated the type of support for REIST (sic), LIEN and LAW prohibited by Chapter 2, Clause I.5.B.v of the Rules.’

“I dispute this interpretation and will appeal my expulsion. It disenfranchises 1000s of members who voted to put me on the NEC.”

Ms Wimborne-Idrissi appears to have been referring in her tweet to the far-left “Resist Movement”, “Labour in Exile Network” and antisemitism denial group “Labour Against the Witchhunt”, all of which are factions that have been proscribed by the Labour Party, meaning that membership of them is sufficient grounds for expulsion from the Party.

This follows Ms Wimborne-Idrissi’s suspension in September, which was decided after she attended a meeting last year of the disgraced former Labour MP Chris Williamson’s Resist Movement, knowing that it is proscribed by the Party.

Ms Wimborne-Idrissi is the Media Officer of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), an antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation. She was reportedly suspended from the Labour Party two years ago but her suspension was inexplicably lifted. She was also previously the Vice-Chair of Chingford and Woodford Green Constituency Labour Party before reportedly being removed last year.

She was recently elected to serve on Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC), which was one of several results in that election that called into doubt Labour’s progress in dealing with its antisemitism scandal and the culture that created it.
Channel 4 News omits terror affiliation of 'martyred' teen
A Dec. 9th Channel 4 News report, “Swapping stones for guns: the teenage Palestinians drawn into an old conflict”, by foreign correspondent Secunder Kermani, focused on Hashah and his death.

However, as you can see, the reporter obfuscated both the circumstances of his death and his terror affiliation, despite the fact that both facts were widely reported. Kermani said nothing about the explosives he carried on him during the Palestinian attack on peaceful Jewish visitors to Joseph’s Tomb. Rather, he merely told viewers that Hashash was killed “during clashes”.

The only mention of the ‘martyr’s’ violence by the Channel 4 News reporter was one fleeting reference to the fact that he sometimes threw stones at soldiers.

Mahdi Hashash wasn’t merely a confused teen. He was an extremist who sore allegiance to a group committed to murdering Israelis, and wedded to the belief that death in the service of the anti-Zionist cause is the highest calling.
More uncritical BBC promotion of Al Jazeera lawfare
Iqbal did not bother to point out to listeners that the IDF probe was not a “criminal investigation” or that the Military Attorney General had explained why no criminal investigation was warranted in this case.

At no point in this item were listeners informed that the Abu Akleh family had already filed a complaint to the ICC in September based on the claims made by the PFLP linked NGO Al Haq. Neither were they told that even earlier – in May – the family had consented to the addition of her death to an existing petition already filed the previous month to the ICC by parties including the Fatah controlled Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. The absence of that information clearly hampers the ability of listeners to put Anton Abu Akleh’s framing of this Al Jazeera campaign at the ICC as the result of disappointment with the findings of the IDF investigation published on September 5th into appropriate perspective.

Iqbal: “How optimistic are you?”

Abu Akleh: “I’m very optimistic. I’m sure that there will be someone who has the strength and the power to bring forward whoever is responsible. This is something we cannot just cover our eyes. Nothing will bring Shireen back but at least this incident will not be repeated in the future to anyone, neither a Palestinian or a foreigner.”

Iqbal: “That was Anton Abu Akleh, brother of Shireen Abu Akleh.”

This latest lawfare campaign by Al Jazeera and the Abu Akleh family of course comes as no surprise. Unfortunately for BBC audiences, neither does the corporation’s continued partisan framing of this story by means of uncritical promotion of unevidenced allegations and baseless smears – as has been its policy ever since the story broke seven months ago.
BBC News continues to avoid the background to Palestinian fatalities
Once again the BBC refrains from adequately clarifying that (as recently acknowledged by a Fatah official) a high proportion of the Palestinians killed this year were terrorists and/or people engaged in violent rioting against Israeli forces whereas the majority of the Israelis killed over the same period of time were civilians.

As in previous reporting, this latest article once again made no effort to provide readers with an explanation of the factors behind the rise in the number of terror attacks this year such as the Palestinian Authority’s loss of control over parts of the territory, the participation of members of the PA security forces in terrorism and violence or foreign funding and weapons supplies for terrorist organisations.

Significantly, the BBC has to date made no effort whatsoever to inform its audiences that Israel’s counter-terrorism operations in Judea & Samaria in recent months have foiled around 500 potential terror attacks according to military officials.
US Congressman Slams FBI Hate Crimes Data As Bipartisan Criticism Grows
Congressman Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) Wednesday slammed the FBI’s recently issued hate crime statistics data, adding another voice to a bipartisan chorus of criticism of the annual reports’ methodology.

“The FBI hate crimes data and the briefing which presented them to Members of Congress were extremely disappointing — not just in the level of bias crimes they reported, but in the large number of departments that failed to report any data at all,” Beyer said in a press release.

Beyer is the author of the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, legislation which provides funds to improve reporting of hate crimes.

On Monday, the FBI released its Hate Crime in the United States Incident Analysis for 2021, which is accused of containing incomplete data purporting to show that antisemitic hate crimes decreased in 2021, when, according to organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), they had in fact increased by 59 percent.

The discrepancy in data collected by local governments was caused because several states, including California, Florida, and New York, did not report their data on antisemitic hate crimes to the bureau’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), resulting in, for example, 198 incidents in New York from that year to go uncounted.

Beyer explained that the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act — named after Khalid Jabara, an Arab-American killed by a neighbor in 2016, and Heather Heyer, killed in 2017 when a car drove into counter-protesters after a white supremacist rally in Virginia — is purposed for “coordinating a better, data-driven response to prevent hate crimes” and called for progress on its “larger goals.”

“Every law enforcement division at the local, state, and federal levels should be reporting hate crimes through NIBRS,” he continued. “Congress clearly spelled this out in a bipartisan law, and provided money to help departments transition to using the system. If Congress continues to see woefully insufficient reporting of hate crimes data, we should revisit the issue with additional legislation to again strengthen the national response to crimes of bias.”
Fury as pupils at elite public school perform Hitler salutes during play
One of Britain’s most prestigious public schools is facing questions after it staged a play about Adolf Hitler during which pupils were photographed doing Sieg Heil salutes.

Images obtained by the JC show teenagers at £45,000-a-year Millfield School in Somerset smiling as they raised their arms for the Nazi gesture, facing a large swastika flag and an actor dressed as Hitler on stage. Blurred nazi salute

Alumni of the school include footballer Tyrone Mings, model Sophie Dahl, singer Lily Allen, Formula 1 Racing Driver Lando Norris, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and David and Victoria Beckham’s son Romeo.

The father of a Jewish pupil said he and other parents were horrified when they saw pictures taken at the performance showing teenage children — believed to be sixth-formers — laughing while performing the offensive Nazi salutes.

He complained to the school, highlighting that the play had been staged hours before Yom Kippur.

“It made me feel sick,” he told the JC. “What on earth were the teachers thinking? It would not be appropriate to give this kind of play the green light for school children at any time, least of all on the eve of Yom Kippur.

"The school must have known of the content and if not, it should have. There is no excuse for this disgraceful error of judgment.”


‘Kanye 2024:’ Elderly Man Hospitalized After Antisemitic Assault in Central Park
A 63-year-old man has been treated for injuries received during an antisemitic attack in New York City’s Central Park in which his assailant allegedly invoked Kanye West, the antisemitic hip hip mogul who has stepped up his rhetorical attacks against Jews in recent weeks.

The assault took place at approximately 6.30 on Wednesday evening. The victim was walking along the intersection of Terrace Drive and East Drive when his assailant struck him from behind, causing him to fall, chipping a tooth and breaking his hand in the process.

The assailant is then alleged to have uttered a string of antisemitic insults, including the words “Kanye 2024,” according to the New York Post. West has said that he intends to run for the US Presidency in 2024. The attacker then fled west along 72nd Street on a bicycle with a trailer that displayed various signs, including “Hungry Disabled.”

The victim was subsequently taken to hospital and is reported to be in stable condition,

A representative of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) told ABC News that the attack demonstrated the real-world consequences of West’s invective targeting Jews.

“Cases like celebrities and sports figures who make statements, this is something that’s being carried out by someone with a huge following and when that happens people copy it,” Scott Richman — regional director of the ADL’s office in New York and New Jersey — commented. “People begin to think that is normal.”

The attack, which took place four days before the start of the


Adam Sandler to receive 2023 Mark Twain comedy prize
Over the years, The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor has gone to such luminaries as Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal and Ellen DeGeneres. Next year, it’s going to the guy who made us crack up as Happy Gilmore.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said Tuesday that Adam Sandler would receive the prestigious award at a gala on March 19.

“Adam Sandler has entertained audiences for over three decades with his films, music, and his tenure as a fan favorite cast member on ‘SNL,’” said Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter in a statement. “Adam has created characters that have made us laugh, cry, and cry from laughing.”

The 56-year-old Jewish actor-comedian, who this year starred in the well-received Netflix basketball drama-comedy “Hustle,” has created a list of funny films, like “Happy Gilmore,” “Billy Madison,” “Grown Ups,” “Big Daddy,” “The Longest Yard” and “The Waterboy.”

His role as Howard Ratner in “Uncut Gems” garnered Sandler several nominations and awards, including winning the National Board of Review and the Independent Spirit Award.
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to Make Historic Abu Dhabi Debut
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) will perform in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, marking its historic United Arab Emirates (UAE) debut.

This will be the celebrated ensemble’s first concert in an Arab state, 85 years after a tour of Egypt that took place before the founding of the State of Israel. Following several highly successful decades under the baton of legendary maestro Zubin Mehta, the orchestra named homegrown star Lahav Shani, formerly the principal conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Rotterdam, as its artistic director.

Michal Herzog, the spouse of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, was instrumental in setting up the four-day visit, during which the orchestra will play a single concert. The IPO will perform Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony and Mozart’s final Piano Concerto, No.27 in B-flat Major. Shani will conduct both works, the latter from the keyboard.

The UAE’s ties with Israel have been flourishing since the historic U.S.-backed Abraham Accords in 2020 to normalize diplomatic relations.
Star-studded online event to honor Holocaust survivors and share their stories
A virtual celebration featuring Holocaust survivors, including those recently evacuated from Ukraine, as well as celebrities will take place Dec. 20. The event is organized by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). Henry Winkler will be among the celebrities to speak at the Claims Conference virtual celebration of Holocaust survivors. Credit: Courtesy Claims Conference.

Celebrating the resilience of Holocaust survivors and their bravery in rebuilding their lives afterward, the event is the sixth of its kind, according to Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference.

“We wanted a day dedicated to celebrating liberated survivors—the triumph of good over evil … acknowledgment of heroism and bravery during the war and of Holocaust survivors’ tenacity after the war,” he said.

Olaf Scholz, chancellor of Germany, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog will speak, as will numerous survivors recently evacuated from Ukraine, and celebrities including Henry Winkler of “Happy Days” fame, Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld,” Barbra Streisand and Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

“The underlying theme this year is that with the rising tide of antisemitism, it is impossible to turn on the TV and not hear voices of Holocaust denial. The voices of survivors should be louder than that of deniers,” said Schneider. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Jan. 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, acknowledged by the United Nations, and Yom Hashoah in the spring is Israel’s Day of Remembrance for the millions of Jews murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.

This event, which has taken place for the past six years during Hanukkah, celebrates the lives and wisdom of living survivors, according to Schneider. Its purpose is to hear survivors’ stories while they are still alive, to honor them and to pledge to tell those stories.
Pre-Holocaust Menorah to be Featured at Turkish Consulate Hanukah Party in New York
A 19th century synagogue menorah from Prague will be the centerpiece next week at the first-ever Hanukah menorah lighting ceremony to be held in a Muslim embassy.

This 19th century menorah from pre-Holocaust Prague is now owned by Judaica collector Thomas Gelb.

The Consulate General of Turkey in New York, and the Embassy of Turkey in Washington DC are set to host the Hanukah celebration on the evening of the fourth candle, December 21, at “Turkish House” in New York City.

But how did a 19th century menorah from Prague end up being the star of a Hanukah party hosted by Turkey?

It started with a man named Ron “from Chabad” who is president of the Turkish Jewish Society in New York and New Jersey, and his friend named Thomas Gelb, owner of an extensive Judaica collection, who purchased the menorah decades ago.

“I was invited by my friend Ron to a special Hanukah party being held of all places, and to my amazement, at the Turkish Consulate in New York,” Gelb told JewishPress.com in a series of email interviews this past week.

“The party was all ready to go, but the Turkish Consulate does not own a menorah, and reached out to Ron for help. Ron knows about my extensive Judaica collection and asked me to help him,” Gelb explained.

“This candelabra was rescued along with Sefer Torahs and other pieces from a Czech shul shortly before it was set ablaze and destroyed during Kristallnacht by the Nazi occupiers,” he went on.

Gelb’s specialty, however, is not menorahs; it’s Havdalah spice boxes (“Besamim”). The collector owns several hundred of the sacred objects from the 17th century on up to modern and contemporary pieces, and it was this collection that prompted his friend Ron to ask about a menorah. Some of the magnificent Havdalah Besamim spice boxes owned by Judaica collector Thomas Gelb.

The menorah has been kept in a safe deposit box and taken out only for Hanukah, but not lit — but for the first time, Gelb said he agreed to light the menorah “at [his] Chabad” on Sunday, the first night of Hanukah. It will then be lit on Wednesday, the fourth night of Hanukah, at the Turkish Consulate.
Pre-Hanukkah Guide to the Perplexed
1. NBC news, December 13, 2022: "An ancient treasure trove of silver coins dating back 2,200 years, found in a desert cave in Israel, could add crucial new evidence to support a story of Jewish rebellion…. The 15 silver coins were hidden [during] the Maccabean revolt from 167-160 B.C., when Jewish warriors rebelled against the Seleucid [Syrian] Empire…."

2. The US relevance. In 1777, Hanukkah was celebrated during the most critical battle at Valley Forge, which solidified the victory of George Washington's Continental Army over the British monarchy.

Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a player in the ratification of the US Constitution, paved the road to the Boston Tea Party, 1773: “What shining examples of patriotism do we behold in Joshua, Samuel, the Maccabees and the illustrious princes and prophets among the Jews…”

Hanukkah according to US Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, December 1915: “Hanukkah, the Feast of the Maccabees…celebrates a victory of the spirit over things material… a victory also over [external, but also] more dangerous internal enemies, the Sadducees [the upper social and economic echelon]; a victory over the ease-loving, safety-playing, privileged, powerful few, who in their pliancy would have betrayed the best interests of the people; a victory of democracy over aristocracy…. The struggle of the Maccabees is of eternal worldwide interest…. It is a struggle in which all Americans, non-Jews as well as Jews… are vitally affected...”

3. Jewish national liberation holiday. Hanukkah (evening of December 18 – December 26, 2022) is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike the national liberation holidays - Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles, and Shavou'ot/Pentecost - which commemorate the Exodus from slavery in Egypt to liberation in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.

4. Historical context Hanukkah is narrated in the four Books of the Maccabees, The Scroll of Antiochus and The Wars of the Jews.

In 323 BCE, the Greek Empire was split into three independent and rival mini-empires (Greece, Seleucid/Syria, Ptolemaic/Egypt), following the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III) who held Judaism in high esteem.

In 175 BCE, the Seleucid/Syrian Emperor Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes claimed the Land of Israel, and suspected that the Jews were allies of his Ptolemaic/Egyptian enemy. The Seleucid emperor was known for eccentric behavior, hence his name, Epiphanes, which means "divine manifestation." He aimed to exterminate Judaism and convert Jews to Hellenism. In 169 BCE, he devastated Jerusalem, attempted to massacre the Jewish population, and outlawed the practice of Judaism.

In 166/7 BCE, a Jewish rebellion was led by members of the non-establishment Hasmonean (Maccabee) family – from the rural town of Modi'in, half way between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean - headed by Mattityahu, the priest, and his five sons: Yochanan, Judah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar. They fought the Seleucid occupier and established Jewish independence.

When ordered by Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid region to end the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Akron, Shimon the Maccabee responded: "We have not occupied a foreign land…. We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation (Book of Maccabees A: 15:33)."

The success of the Maccabees on the battlefield was consistent with the reputation of Jews as superb warriors, who were frequently hired as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Carthage, Rome and other global and regional powers.

The Hasmonean dynasty was replete with external and internal wars and lasted until 37 BCE, when Herod the Great (a proxy of Rome) defeated Antigonus II Mattathias.
Light up Hanukkah with wintry pride, a record-breaking LEGO menorah and more
Hanukkah, the festival of lights — along with latkes, jelly doughnuts and gifts (for some) — is fast approaching, the first since pandemic restrictions ended. Israel is celebrating with festive candle-lighting ceremonies, performances and some parties, too, to get you moving and burn off those fried-food calories.

Break a brick record
Gaze in awe at the Dizengoff Center LEGO store’s official attempt to break the Guinness world record for the largest Hanukkah menorah made from LEGO blocks. The four-meter-high, four-meter-wide candelabra, known in Israel as a hanukkiya, was planned over the course of several weeks and built in a two-day marathon of Lego experts with 130,000 pieces and not a single drop of glue, according to the LEGO store staff.
The LEGO menorah will be used for candle-lighting on every night of Hanukkah, and the public is invited to build their own Lego menorahs and dreidels at home and bring them to the Dizengoff store on December 20 at 4 p.m. for a competition with prizes.

Bet on Black
Don’t feel like leaving the house? Party at home with Orthodox Jewish gangsta rapper Nissim Black and his latest video, “Victory.” The music video features Black training for a boxing match, meant to embody the fighting spirit of the Maccabees.

“With ‘Victory,’ I tried to pull the miracle of Chanukah closer to the individual,” said Black, whose video was sponsored by American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic, with plans to eventually perform the song live with the Philharmonic and record it.

“A lot of times Jewish holidays seem to be remembering something that happened in the past and to our ancestors. Calling the Chanukah miracle ‘Victory’ brings it closer to home, which it should be.”




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