Pages

▼

Friday, February 17, 2023

02/17 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Can the whole world be wrong?; BDS shares concentration camp photo, claims it's a massacre of Palestinians; Abu Dhabi’s new ‘Abrahamic Family House’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Can the whole world be wrong?
One of the mysteries of the war against Israel is the extent to which a monstrously twisted narrative about Israel and the Palestinian Arabs — casting the former as evil and the latter as sanctified victims — has been absorbed by so many people.

Still stranger, this narrative seems to be the driver of progressive politics. It’s not just that “intersectionality” demonises the Jews, but that it is driven by an obsession with Palestinianism.

As Corinne Blacker wrote in Tablet: “In queer and women’s studies programs, the topic of Palestine is regularly inserted into the most unlikely contexts, to the extent that one student in a class about queer history told me that they discussed nothing but Palestine.”

The astonishing story of Mohammed al-Durah illustrates just how perverse this is. On Sept. 30, 2000, the French TV station France 2 broadcast footage from Gaza that apparently showed the 12-year-old al-Durah being shot dead by Israeli fire as he clung to his father during a demonstration.

This iconic picture detonated the second intifada, the Palestinian terrorist war waged against Israeli civilians that murdered more than 1,130 of them and wounded more than 8,000 between 2000 and 2005. The footage incited hysteria across the Arab and Muslim world.

Eleven days later, when two Israeli reservists strayed into Ramallah, a mob beat them to death. They threw one body out of a window, mutilating it and parading it through the streets. A gloating Palestinian Arab was pictured waving his hands in the air covered in the Israelis’ blood while the mob screamed “revenge for the blood of Muhammad al-Durah!”

One year later, at the UN’s sickening anti-Jewish hate-fest in Durban, South Africa, Mohammad al-Durah’s body was paraded in effigy among thousands of demonstrators screaming hatred of Israel. Then Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded by al-Qaeda explicitly for the killing of the child.

The whole al-Durah killing, however, was a set-up and a grotesque lie. As I saw in a Paris courtroom in 2007, previously unseen French TV footage showed that the scenes of battle had been staged with cameras, producers and even make-up technicians visible in a carnival atmosphere.

Palestinian “demonstrators” were laid out on stretchers and carted off to ambulances. But there was no blood or evidence of injuries whatsoever, not even on Mohammad al-Durah, with the boy peeping through his fingers moments after a reporter announced he had been killed.
U.S.-Based NGO Claims Slain Palestinian Terrorists as ‘Theirs’
A U.S.-based nonprofit is holding rallies in major American cities to protest a recent Israeli Defense Forces counterterror operation, labeling it a “massacre.” The NGO, Al Awda has a long and troubling history of vocally supporting terrorist groups committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

On Jan. 26, 2023, the IDF carried out an operation in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) town of Jenin. The raid, an IDF statement said, was to foil an imminent attack being planned by a cell of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

According to the Times of Israel, a local wing of PIJ claimed that its operatives shot IDF forces and used explosives. Nine Palestinians were killed, seven of whom were linked to terrorist groups, including al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The other two were civilians, including a sixty-one-year-old woman named Magda Obaid. The shootout reportedly lasted three hours and left several IDF jeeps so damaged from explosives that tow trucks were required to remove them.

Within hours, the New York branch of Al Awda condemned the “massacre committed in the Jenin refugee camp.” The NGO’s Jan. 27, statement mourned “the nine martyrs” who were killed in the “Zionist massacre.” It was, Al Awda claimed, the latest “intensification of violence by the new, ultra-fascist Zionist regime.”

Al Awda omitted that the IDF was carrying out a counterterrorist operation to thwart an impending attack. Instead, the U.S.-based nonprofit proclaimed that it “honors the resistance fighters in Jenin.” Al Awda hailed what it referred to as “our fighters” and “our resistance people” who “used explosive devices, guided bombs and bullets leading to certain injuries among the occupation forces.”

“We, Al Awda NY, will not forget the role of President Biden, the U.S. Congress and all those who facilitate the endless flow of arms and financial support to the Zionist murder machine,” the group warned.
BDS shares concentration camp photo, claims it's a massacre of Palestinians
In a tweet shared on Twitter, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) claimed that they are displaying a photo where the so-called "Tantura Massacre" took place in 1948, but a Holocaust expert proved it was actually a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. The photo showed tens or possibly hundreds of corpses in a black and white photo, before being buried in a mass grave.

PACBI, a BDS-affiliated organization, tweeted that "the Palestinian Academy for Science & Technology calls on EMBO to relocate workshops from apartheid Israel, including the one at the site of the Tantura massacre." In the shared photo, it is claimed that a mass grave is underneath the parking lot next to the beach.

EMBO is an organization of more than 1,900 researchers "that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond," according to the organization's website.

"EMBO has a moral obligation to end its complicity in whitewashing Israel’s crimes," the PACBI tweet said.

Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli responded on Twitter to the matter "the racist BDS movement breaks a Guinness record, uses a picture from the German concentration camp of Nordhausen to lie about a fictional massacre during Israel's War of Independence. Holocaust distortion, appropriation and denial, further victimizing Jewish people. Pure evil."


Book Review: Deceit of an Ally, by Bruce Brill
Bruce Brill invested considerable time in writing this must-read book, Deceit of an Ally: A Memoir of Military Anti-Semitism, NSA’s Secret Jew Room and Yom Kippur War Treachery, but it was certainly worth the wait! I'm acquainted with Brill and must admit that I've been waiting decades for the full story. Deceit of an Ally is a combination memoir and exposé. It's the true background story of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in terms of the American involvement, and there definitely was American involvement. It's the story that powerful people have wanted to keep secret, but we need to know the truth.

Deceit of an Ally proves yet again that even paranoids have enemies.

I've been in Israel since 1970, and during the 1973 Yom Kippur War I suspected something very fishy in American policy. After reading Brill's book, it's confirmed that I'm a realist, not paranoid.

In 1973 Bruce Brill was working for the US National Security Agency (NSA), and he was told by his supervisor that Israel was going to be attacked. Brill did not contact the Israeli Embassy. He figured that he wouldn't be taken seriously, and it wasn't his job. I also think at the moment he wondered if the guy was really serious. Had he warned the Israelis, he would have been sitting in jail just like Jonathan Pollard about a decade later. Afterwards Brill no longer felt comfortable working there, and within a few years, made aliyah, (moved to Israel.)

The more than two thousand six hundred 2,600 tragic, unnecessary Israeli deaths due to Israel's being totally surprised and unprepared Yom Kippur 1973 has haunted Brill ever since.

Deceit of an Ally is the result of years of research, interviews, painstaking and frustrating search for the truth. How could Israel not have seen the signs that Egypt and Syria were planning to attack? There had even been a contingency plan to meet an Egyptian attack that would have saved many soldiers' lives and given Israel a better and quicker chance to defeat the Egyptians. Who were the high level Americans who had told the Head of Israeli Military Intelligence General Eli Zeira that Israel had nothing to worry about? Trusting Zeira's assessment, the plan wasn't implemented by the IDF.

This true story, Deceit of an Ally, is more suspenseful than the best mystery or detective story, but unlike a fictional book, we're still left with questions. It's real life and can't be neatly wrapped up.

I highly recommend Deceit of an Ally and wonder if Brill will get more information in order to write a sequel, maybe with the answers to our questions. Read Brill's story; I consider it required reading if you're not afraid of the truth.


US Supreme Court convenes on petitions against anti-BDS laws
The US Supreme court will convene to decide if boycotting is free speech on Friday over a case set off by anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) laws.

The court's decision on the case, Arkansas Times v Waldrip, will likely be published the following week.

In 2018, the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College, which usually runs ads with the Arkansas Times, demanded that the paper sign an agreement conforming with Act 710. The 2017 state law prevents state bodies from contracting or investing with those engaging in the boycott of Israel.

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Times in 2018. In 2019 the case was dismissed by the district court. The ACLU appealed this decision with the 8th district. After the three-judge appeals court rejected the petition, the full court rejected it nine-one. The ACLU pushed the appeal to the US Supreme Court.

The petition challenges "whether the First Amendment permits States to selectively penalize specific consumer boycotts because of the message they express."

The ACLU cites as proof a 40-year-old case, NAACP v Claiborne Hardware, in which black civil rights activists rallied and boycotted businesses to push them to comply with demands for racial equality. Business owners sued a principal organizer of the protests and boycott, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), for lost custom.

The petitioners argue that deciding in their favor would affirm NAACP v Claiborne Hardware, in which the court ruled against Claiborne Hardware. However, the state of Arkansas has noted that the case had focused on the conduct and protesting of those initiating the boycott.
Sarah Idan: Sarai Talk Show (Interview with Emily Schrader)
Emily Schrader is a journalist, lecturer, and award winning content creator. As an American-Israeli, her work focuses on sharing real stories from the Middle East, as well as fighting various forms of bigotry in the region.


BBC’s Hardtalk fails to challenge Ken Roth’s Livingstone Formulation claims
Sackur refrained from unpacking Roth’s disingenuous and false claim that “every critic” of Israel is silenced with claims of antisemitism. He also avoided informing audiences of statements made by Roth that include blaming Israel for antisemitic incidents in the UK and Germany.

Sackur then turned the conversation to the topic of Roth’s Harvard University fellowship, inaccurately claiming (also repeated elsewhere in the interview) that “that offer was briefly rescinded”. In fact, as explained by CAMERA’s Karen Bekker:
“Importantly, Elmendorf didn’t rescind any appointment – he refused to authorize it in the first place. So while Roth may have expected that his appointment would be finalized, in fact it never was. Roth’s (predictable) reaction was to blame Jewish and pro-Israel “donors” in the pages of the Guardian. (I once ran Human Rights Watch. Harvard blocked my fellowship over Israel,” January 10, 2023.)”

At the end of that conversation about his Harvard appointment Roth stated:
Roth: “Antisemitism is a very serious threat to Jews around the world and my concern is that if some of these parties and defenders of the Israeli government throw around the term antisemitism to try to silence criticism of Israel, people are gonna take the threat of antisemitism less seriously. They’re gonna think ‘oh this is just another censorship effort’ rather than the genuine problem and so this may be in the short term good for the State of Israel but it is terrible for Jews around the world who do face the serious problem of antisemitism.”

Sackur closed the interview at that point.

Roth’s repeated promotion of the Livingstone Formulation throughout this interview drew no response from Sackur whatsoever. While that may not be very surprising given the BBC’s dismal record of promotion of that canard, it clearly does not serve the interests of the corporation’s domestic and international audiences.

In the synopsis to both versions of this interview the BBC asked “Why is the fight for human rights being lost in so many places?”. While no definitive answer to that question was given, one contributing factor is certainly the politicisation of the issue of human rights by people such as Ken Roth, who was unfortunately given a worldwide platform by the BBC to promote his insufficiently challenged talking points.


Berkeley student senate sinks IHRA antisemitism measure
UC Berkeley’s student senate failed to pass a resolution early Thursday morning adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a widely used explanatory resource outlining the contours of anti-Jewish bias that treats certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

The motion was tabled “indefinitely” during a marathon session of the student senate that concluded after 3 a.m.

“It was a big longshot I think for our campus in general,” said Shay Cohen, a Jewish student senator from Los Angeles active in on-campus Jewish issues. She introduced the measure, acknowledging in a phone call with J. it was unlikely to pass considering the controversy surrounding the definition and the current climate on Israel and antisemitism at Berkeley.

Opponents of the resolution said it would impinge on freedom of speech, particularly for pro-Palestinian activists and Palestinian critics of Israel.

Supporters of the IHRA definition say it provides a useful consensus statement on a form of ethnic bigotry that is not always easy to spot, and allows Jews to define anti-Jewish hatred for themselves.

Despite the resolution’s failure, Cohen said, “I’m proud of my community and for the unity that this built. I think it brought a lot of attention to a deeper issue on what it means to be antisemitic at Berkeley.”

Cohen spoke at length in support of the resolution during the meeting, which began Wednesday evening just after 8 p.m.
Noa Tishby: Californians Must Speak Out About the Antisemitic Conference in Los Angeles
It’s time for Californians to speak out against the anti-Jewish hate fest coming to Los Angeles on February 17th-20th. The sponsor, the grandiosely titled Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has an articulated goal of gross injustice in what was once the British Palestine Mandate: ending the Jewish presence in our historic homeland, the Land of Israel, by dismantling the Jewish State. The mechanism by which it hopes to achieve this travesty is called Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), and entails refusing to engage with even the most moderate and pro-peace Israelis on the grounds that this “legitimizes” the State of Israel, which they intend to wipe off the map. This is the exact opposite of a peace movement – their avowed intent, war to the death, actually meets the definition of genocide.

But you don’t have to take it from me. Let’s consider the comments of SJP leaders themselves, and the people to whom they’ve given a platform before their conferences were suspended during the pandemic years. Attendees at the 2017 National SJP Conference included Samer Alhato of Saint Xavier University, who has tweeted “I support Hamas and I send then [sic] money every month[,]” called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a dirty Jew[,]” and asked former U.S. President Barack Obama to “shut up about gay marriage and go kill all the Jews.” One of the 2017 organizers was Mohammed Nabulsi, who urged activists to “support Palestinian resistance groups … such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad[,]” – all of which are on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations for perpetrating suicide bombings and other targetings of civilians. SJP founder Hatem Batezian, also chairman of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) — one of SJP’s leading backers — has shared images featuring Jewish caricatures alongside ethnic slurs such as “Ashke-Nazi.”

SJP pushes for more than boycotts, actively supporting violence against civilians. SJP has hosted convicted terrorists like Rasmeah Odeh, who participated in a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two college students. SJP has sold T-shirts honoring PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled, who hijacked and partially blew up Trans World Airlines Flight 840 in 1969. SJP activity on social media has celebrated convicted terrorists like Marwan Barghouti, who has been convicted of five murders including a drive-by shooting and a car bomb, and PFLP founder George Habash – known as “the godfather of Middle Eastern terrorism” – whose forces hijacked a 1968 El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv and held 21 passengers and 11 crew members hostage in Algeria for 39 days.

Consider also the antisemitism displayed on college campuses by SJP members and other BDS supporters. SJP chapters have engaged in antisemitic tropes like “the Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent” (by a New York University law student SJP member). At the University of Michigan, a recent rally called for the violent destruction of the Jewish state; at George Washington University, a professor described antisemitism as a form of psychosis. BDS forces have protested Hillels and other Jewish campus organizations while college students are attending social events and religious services. At Berkeley School of Law, BDS boosters hoodwinked nine affinity groups into pushing through a bylaw that could lead to the exclusion of Jewish members and speakers. Is it any wonder, then, that according to a Brandeis University study, one of the strongest predictors of hostility towards Israel and Jews on campuses is the presence of an SJP chapter? The AMCHA Initiative found that antisemitic activity was eight times more likely to occur on campuses where pro-BDS groups were present. SJP has played a dramatic role in the resurgence and mainstreaming of antisemitism in the United States.


Husam Zomlot lies on LBC
Husam Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, was on LBC on Jan. 30th and lied to presenter Iain Dale.

Note that at 20 seconds in, he says that, last year, 230 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed by the Israeli army.

As we’ve demonsrated repeatedly in response to BBC obfuscation of the casualty figures, the vast majority of the Palestinians killed during 2022 were affiliated with terrorist organisations and/or were males involved in violent activities at the time, whereas the majority of the Israelis killed last year were civilians. (Also the number killed was 154, not 230.)

It’s also important to note, in the context of Zomot’s subsequent criticism of the media’s putative effort to blame ‘both sides’ for the surge in violence, that, during an interview on Sky News this month, he flatly refused to condemn the Palestinian terrorist who murdered seven Israeli civilians near a Jerusalem Synagogue.

Unfortunately, as we’ve demonsrated repeatedly, Zomlot’s frequent lies about the conflict and and Palestinian terror rarely get called out by British media outlets.




How the UK's foremost expert on Jew-hate cheered me up
“That battle is won,” he says of the Corbyn years, and he trails off and adds, “in a way. What’s left is a dangerous residue in the broader left. That period taught a lot of people on the left how to be antisemitic who hadn’t really thought about it before because that was the battle line that was drawn to protect their leader. A lot of those people are no longer in the Labour Party, but they are in their trade unions, in academia, at their universities, and online”. But, he adds, “a lot of people now are aware of the problem and care about it and realise something needs to be done about it”.

It’s easy to forget how violently Corbyn was rejected, and this is heartening too. “Anecdotally,” he says, “a lot of a people who were involved on the doorsteps and doing focus groups in parts of the country where there are no Jews were coming back and saying, ‘people are bringing this up without any prompting and people who can’t even pronounce the word antisemitism are still managing to articulate that they are aware of it and they know it’s bad thing’.”

The sandwiches arrives. They are perfect, but the potato salad is not recognisable as potato salad, and Rich agrees.

“I do think the community should look back at that period with some pride,” he says. “As a community we found our voice. We found a lot of friends, we found a lot of unity, which is not a common thing for our community, and we found a way to articulate our concerns which reached people”. He mentions Jewish students in Bristol who saw off the appalling David Miller. “Having a political fight and winning can be exhilarating and very empowering. It can give you something long lasting — standing up for yourself”.

What Rich wants now is what is lacking: context. The story of antisemitism, he says, ought to be about antisemites: let them teach it in their own museums. There is no point in teaching the Holocaust if people don’t understand why Jews were singled out for it. There is no point in talking about antisemitism if you won’t talk about Israel: “Let’s at least face up to the fact that this wouldn’t be happening if Israel was not Jewish. It’s obvious.” Even Jews flee from the truth that the blood libel was invented in our own merrie England, and the expulsion of 1290 was the template for later expulsions. He quotes Anthony Julius, who says the English dealt with their Jewish problem in 1290. And I laugh, eating sandwiches in Selfridges, because Rich always cheers me up, and because it’s true.
Dutch war archive to name suspected Nazi collaborators online
The largest war archive in the Netherlands will become digitally accessible in 2025, project War in Court (Oorlog voor de Rechter) said on Thursday, worrying descendants of World War Two Nazi collaborators who fear the reopening of old wounds.

A Dutch law, making the archive only accessible conditionally and on request, will expire January 2025. And while the EU's General Data Protection Regulation privacy law protects personal data, it doesn't apply to people who have died - the majority of the people involved.

The archive, consisting of 32 million pages, includes 300,000 mostly Dutch people who The Netherlands investigated for collaboration with German occupiers. Only a fifth appeared before a court, while most concerned light cases like being a member of the nationalist socialist movement.

At least 15 people from War in Court will be working to digitalize the archive.

Some descendants fear making it easily accessible might reopen old hostilities and suspicions
"There is a fear, particularly among first generation descendants, that (it) will lead to new suspicions and accusations in communities that were torn apart in the past," said Jeroen Saris, chairman of the Recognition Working Group Foundation, a Dutch interest group.

Although not against the digitalization, Saris stressed in a statement that it should lead to further research and that the privacy of those involved should be handled with care.

Project leader Edwin Klijn told Reuters having a public debate about the archive and giving descendants of both the victims and the offenders a voice were important.
French National Museum Ordered to Return Art by Renoir, Cézanne and Gauguin Stolen by Nazis During WWII
France’s national museums Musée du Louvre and Musée D’Orsay were court ordered last week to return four masterpieces to the heirs of a French art dealer that previously owned them before the artworks were stolen during the World War II and sold to the Nazis, The Art Newspaper reported.

A Paris administrative court said on Feb. 10 that the Paris museums must restitute to Ambroise Vollard’s family two Pierre Auguste Renoir pieces — the 1883 painting Marine: Guernsey and the drawing The Judgement of Paris from around 1908-1910— as well as the painting Still Life with Mandolin (1885) by Paul Gauguin and the watercolor Undergrowth (1890-1892) by Paul Cézanne.

A separate court confirmed in May 2022 that these works were owned by Vollard at the time of his death. The court ruling was upheld by France’s High Court in November 2022 and the administrative court has now backed the restitution. The French government, whose has authority over the Musée D’Orsay, said it will not appeal, according to The Art Newspaper.

François Honnorat, a lawyer representing one of Vollard’s descendants, told the publication that “although it seems normal for the State to check the history of the works before restitution,” he “regrets that the process took 10 years,” during which two of the heirs died.

Vollard, who was not Jewish, was an influential dealer of post-impressionist and modern art, known for working with 19th and 20th century icons such as Picasso, Bonnard, Renoir and Cézanne, according to The Art Newspaper. He died in 1939 at the age of 73 in a road accident and his collection of more than 6,000 artworks were handed over to his brothers and sisters. His brother Lucien Vollard was designated as his executor and, with his compliance, part of the collection was stolen by art dealers Étienne Bignou and Martin Fabiani. They sold the artworks to German museums, dealers or Nazi officers, The Art Newspaper reported.


Antisemitic slurs fuel violence during game between Miami-Dade religious private schools
There was violence on a soccer field Wednesday night during a 2023 Boys Soccer State Championship Tournament game between two religious private schools in Miami-Dade County.

The regional final game was between students from Scheck Hillel Community School, a Jewish school in Ojus, and Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School, a Roman Catholic school in The Hammocks.

A witness video shows a group of the Catholic school students in light blue shorts surrounding a boy who was wearing the opponents’ darker uniform. Tila Levi, a Scheck Hillel parent, told Local 10 her children who attended the game told her there were insults — including painful antisemitic slurs.

“What my kids told me they said, ‘Hitler was right,’” Levi said.

The chaos ensued after Scheck Hillel lost the home game 2-1. Archbishop Coleman Carroll students knew they were moving forward to the Feb. 18 semifinals for a chance to win the state championship.

“Words matter,” Levi said. “It’s offensive and can lead to violence.”

Witnesses said there were adults who displayed their middle fingers. Levi said several students were injured, including one who suffered a concussion.

“I believe he was kicked in the face with cleats and it was next to his eye,” Levi said.


German Jewish leader’s bodyguard sent Nazi messages on police whatsapp group
A German detective hired to protect the life of a high-profile Jewish figure has been demoted to a police officer for sending multiple antisemitic and pro-Nazi messages.

Growing threats from the far-right in Germany mean that Charlotte Knobloch, 90, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria and former chair of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, has often needed two bodyguards when attending events.

But one man hired to protect her in recent years, Munich detective, Michael R, whose name is protected under Germany’s privacy laws, sent antisemitic messages on an internal police WhatsApp group with seven other officers.

Last week, a judge at the Munich Administrative Court ordered his demotion, but the Munich Police Headquarters said it wants to remove the officer from service entirely.

“Trust has been irrevocably destroyed,” it said.

When he was her bodyguard, Michael R, 43, would sign off his messages “Seig Heil!”, and once said he would prefer to meet his boss at Dachau, not Auschwitz or Flossenbürg, as it meant he would be home sooner.

He also sent a message to his police colleagues saying: “I shi*t in front of her door, nice and brown, with flags.”
‘Swastika boards’ and ‘surf Nazis’: New documentary explores surfing’s history of antisemitism
When he was 13 years old, Josh Greene moved with his family to San Clemente, California, a city known as one of the best spots for surfing on the West Coast. Greene quickly fell in love with the sport, even holding his bar mitzvah party at a local museum dedicated to it.

As a “skinny, very unathletic” teen, Greene said he endured a significant amount of bullying, including some that “extended itself into antisemitism.” Students at his school would compare his physique to that of a Holocaust survivor.

Surfing provided refuge.

“Surfing was my way to really carve my own niche and find the confidence, courage and physical strength I needed,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

But years after his bar mitzvah, Greene learned that his parents had arranged for the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center to remove swastika-engraved boards that were on display, to avoid disturbing the partygoers. Wanting to learn more, he discovered that the sport’s history is full of Nazi imagery: Particularly in the 1960s, seeing surfboards with swastikas or surfers giving “Sieg heil” salutes was commonplace. Serious surfers called themselves “surf Nazis” as a way to signal their intense dedication to the sport.

An aspiring filmmaker — he received his first “real camera” as his bar mitzvah present — Greene decided to combine his two passions and delve into the dark history.

The result, completed before he graduated from the University of Southern California in May 2022, is a documentary called “Waves Apart,” which chronicles the history of antisemitism in surfing. Directed by Greene, the student-produced film was a finalist in the fall for a Student Academy Award, given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (h/t jzaik)


Barcelona's famous soccer team sends Israel a message of support
Spain's FC Barcelona soccer team sent a message of support for Israel on Thursday, after Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau ended its twin-city relationship with Tel Aviv earlier in February.

Colau cited claims that Israel is guilty of “apartheid,” as well as “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.” A soccer game and a gift exchange

FC Barcelona's president Joan Laporta invited representatives of the Israeli embassy in Spain to their soccer match against Manchester United on Thursday and gifted them with official merchandise. In a ceremony held before the game, Laporta emphasized that the club intended to honor its commitment to excellent relations with the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Israeli diplomats presented Laporta with an Israeli flag, recognizing FC Barcelona's years of support for and friendship with Israel.

Barcelona and Tel Aviv entered city twinship in 1998 — when both cities jointly signed a “twin city” agreement with Gaza City. Colau’s decision comes less than a year after Barcelona launched two linked campaigns — “Shalom Barcelona” and “Barcelona Connects Israel” to appeal to Jewish and Israeli tourists interested in exploring their heritage. Last summer, the city opened up the world’s first Michelin-starred kosher restaurant.

The decision also comes less than a year after Barcelona suspended a twinning relationship with St. Petersburg in protest of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
From Cooperative Restaurants to Google Dining Rooms
The term “workers’ restaurant” denotes, first and foremost, a socio-economic distinction: culinary institutions for those who live off hard physical labor. These workers rely on hearty and nutritious dishes at low prices to fuel their work. In Israel of today, most citizens belong to the middle class, and most of these workers are Palestinians (some of them Israeli citizens, and most of them residents of the occupied territories) and foreign workers (documented and undocumented). Only a small percentage of Jewish Israelis work in fields like construction and farming, but this was not always the case. Here, I trace an arc from the cooperative restaurants that fed early Zionists to the dining rooms of Google and restaurants next to Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station popular with asylum seekers from Africa. Workers’ Kitchens Before the Foundation of Israel

The modern Zionist movement was founded in Eastern Europe, and many of its members belonged to socialist movements which promoted physical labor in agriculture, construction and manufacturing as a crucial means of “fixing” the condition of Jews in the Diaspora. Mostly living off commerce and real estate, Jews in Eastern Europe were accused of being “parasites” exploiting the labor of others. Therefore, manual labor was perceived as a value, and the Hebrew worker, the ideal Zionist figure of the early 20th century, had clear characteristics: a strong, muscular body, simple clothes, a humble abode and belongings.

Workers’ kitchens or cooperative restaurants, operated and sponsored by ideological-political movements, were founded to feed these workers. Simple meals were served at a low price or for free to their members. The menu was simple, for a few reasons: members of the Zionist movement scorned (at least officially) bourgeois hedonism, most of the immigrants (“olim”) were young with no culinary training or knowledge of good food, and ingredients and resources were scarce. As most Zionist Jews came from Eastern Europe, the meals were Jewish-Ashkenazi both in content (chicken soup with noodles, casseroles etc.), and in structure (soup, first course, main course, and dessert). The simple and even dull menu, low-quality ingredients and lack of cooking skill are in part responsible for the perception of the Ashkenazi kitchen as bland. It is interesting to note that although the food itself changed in the coming years, the Eastern European structure of the meal was mostly maintained in the institutional, and still subsidized, versions of these restaurants (military canteens, hospitals, and educational institutions).

The immigrants of the fourth and fifth aliyot (in the 1920s and 1930s), and later Holocaust survivors who migrated to Mandatory Palestine, were less ideologically committed, if at all. They contributed to the creation of a bourgeois, urban, Ashkenazi middle class, with more sophisticated culinary preferences. Their initial social marginality, however, eliminated any possible challenge to the supremacy of the socialist ideology and its culinary expressions. The dining halls of the kibbutzim, which were another form of early workers’ restaurants, remained a model for eating in the young, developing society.

The Creation of the Israeli Working Class and the Rise of the Workers’ Restaurant
The mass immigration of the two first decades of Israel’s existence dramatically changed the ethnic and class make-up of Israeli society: it tripled its population, pushed many of the “veteran” immigrants up the occupational stratification ladder, and shaped some of the newcomers, mainly through external circumstances and pressures, into the young country’s working class. (h/t Yerushalimey)
The Hollywood stars who backed - and attacked - Israel
Hollywood’s relationship with the Jewish state is traced in a new book. Jenni Frazer asks its authors about the stars who backed — and attacked — Israel

It is early April 1978 and an impossibly young, shaggy-haired John Travolta, white evening scarf flying over his tuxedo, bounces down the stairs of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles to give out the first award of the 50th Oscars ceremony.

And on this glittering occasion, the statuette for best supporting actress in the film, Julia, goes to Vanessa Redgrave. She begins her speech of thanks conventionally enough, but then morphs into full political mode, complaining about fascism in Hollywood and beyond. With two words, “Zionist hoodlums” — Redgrave draws gasps from the starry audience. Legendary producer, Fred Zinnemann, records in his autobiography that “in 30 seconds, the temperature dropped to ice”.

Fast forward a month, and the stars come out again to the same venue, for a nationally televised spectacular salute to Israel to mark its 30th year of independence.

The Stars Salute Israel at 30, filmed live, features every Hollywood star you can think of, names that still resonate today, from Elizabeth Taylor to Paul Newman, a two-hour-long festival of songs, sketches and dance, including, among others, Barry Manilow, Henry Fonda, Henry Winkler (aka The Fonz, dressed as a sabra), Gene Kelly, Sammy Davis Jr, and even tennis player, Billie Jean King.

The evening is topped off by Barbra Streisand interviewing Israel’s former prime minister Golda Meir, and if that were not enough, concluding events by singing Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah.

In their hugely absorbing and entertaining book, Hollywood and Israel, A History, the academics Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman trace the relationship between America’s film industry and Israel, as it evolved from the pre-state years until almost the present day. The trajectory is by turns astonishing and hilarious, with the words “who knew?” rippling through the reader’s mind.
Centuries-old Book of Esther scrolls salvaged from Turkey earthquake rubble
When a delegation of ZAKA voluntary emergency response teams scoured the ruins of Antakya, Turkey after the country’s recent catastrophic earthquake, they discovered something they were neither looking for nor expecting to find — centuries-old Book of Esther scrolls.

Tearing up, an older local man approached Major Haim Otmazgin, commander of ZAKA’s search and rescue force, and handed him the scrolls, as per a Ynet report.

Scroll uncovered from ruins of Turkish Jewish community in Antakya
“The last head of our community has now tragically passed and with our proximity to Syria, I’d hate to see the scrolls fall in the wrong hands,” the man told Major Otmazgin. “Please guard them and make sure our community is remembered.”

A team of ZAKA volunteers, as well as IDF Home Front Command soldiers, located the body of Saul Cenudioglu, the head of Turkey's Antakya Jewish community, last week. Cenudioglu and his wife Fortuna were both found dead in the ruins of their home. Fortuna's body had been rescued and identified the evening before on Thursday night by the same group of volunteers and soldiers.

Major Otmazgin obliged, pledging to keep the scrolls safe and personally oversee their transport. He is consulting with a Chabad emissary in Istanbul with the focus of deciding whom he should entrust with the scrolls.

“In my capacity as a ZAKA volunteer of several decades, this is one of the most moving moments of my life,” said Major Otmazgin. “I’m truly honored to save such a significant historical document and to make sure the heritage of Antakya’s Jewish community remains intact, even after the quake reduced it to nearly nothing.”
Houda Nonoo: Abu Dhabi’s new ‘Abrahamic Family House’
On the occasion of the opening of the Abrahamic Family House, the following was my closing keynote address:
Your excellencies, distinguished religious leaders, ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honor to be invited to the inauguration of the Abrahamic Family House and to address you all at this prestigious forum. I am inspired by today’s presentations and panels and excited to see the impact of the Abrahamic Family House in the UAE and more broadly, in our region.

The Kingdom of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have always been at the forefront of coexistence in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). As a member of Bahrain’s indigenous Jewish community, I appreciate the impact of creating a society based on the value of coexistence. It is what has allowed my family and our community to be part of the fabric of Bahraini society. A society based on respecting and celebrating each other’s religions and beliefs benefit us all. While many societies talk about being focused on this core value, our leaderships and countries do not just talk the talk, they walk the walk. His Majesty King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa’s sincere belief that religious freedom is the key to not only peaceful coexistence, but to a harmonious and prosperous society where the “one family” spirit prevails is something that we all rally around in Bahrain.

It is something equally important to the UAE leadership. The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan shared, “The most valuable advice for my children is to keep away from arrogance. I believe that great and strong people cannot be degraded or weakened by treating people with modesty and tolerance. Tolerance among humans begets mercy. One should be merciful and peaceful towards his fellow human brothers.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, president of the United Arab Emirates said, “The UAE is a unique model that unites hearts and minds through its approach based on openness, tolerance and coexistence.” He added, “Through its policies and regional module, the UAE sends positive messages about the necessity of tolerance, co-existence, and joint development work to face many challenges that we encounter as part of the international community.”

The Abrahamic Family House perfectly embodies his words. A campus built so that Muslims, Christians, and Jews can pray in houses of worship next to each other and learn about one another’s religions. By learning and educating ourselves, we will help propel our region forward. Coexistence and tolerance are the greatest gifts we can give our children. By inculcating this value within them, they will grow up only knowing harmony.
Chief Rabbi opens first purpose-built synagogue in Arab world in 100 years
The first purpose-built synagogue in the Arab world in nearly a century was officially inaugurated on Thursday, in a ceremony attended by the UK’s Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis.

The Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi is a religious complex consisting of a mosque, a church, and a synagogue, and will, according to its website, “serve as a community for inter-religious dialogue and exchange, nurturing the values of peaceful co-existence and acceptance among different beliefs, nationalities and cultures.”

The complex’s synagogue, the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue will hold its first Shabbat service on Friday and will open to the public on March 1. الفناء الخارجي لكنيسة قداسة البابا فرنسيس درر بالدنجر

Chief Rabbi Mirvis was among those invited to take part in the inauguration ceremony, attaching the building’s very first mezuzah to the wall.

On Twitter, The UAE’s President His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said: “Building bridges of communication, coexistence, and cooperation among all is the UAE’s consistent approach.

“The UAE has a proud history of people from diverse communities working together to create new possibilities. As the Abrahamic Family House is inaugurated, we remain committed to harnessing the power of mutual respect, understanding and diversity to achieve shared progress.”
BBC series tells the story of Tyneside’s Holocaust refugee house for girls
A BBC Sounds series narrated by Desert Island Discs presenter Lauren Laverne tells the remarkable and previously unknown story of how more than 20 young girls were rescued from Nazi persecution and brought to the small town of Tynemouth, east of Newcastle, and supported by the small local Jewish community.

In a nondescript terraced house overlooking the sea, the girls lived together for about a year in 1938. Once war was declared, they were collectively relocated from 55 Percy Park to Windermere in the Lake District for the next six years.

Speaking to the JC, series co-creator Joanna Lonsdale said: “The story of Tynemouth’s Kindertransport girls is a remarkable one and one that we just couldn’t believe had been forgotten. Everyone knows the story of the Windermere boys — there’s even a movie about it. But nobody knows that there was also a community of girls there that escaped the Holocaust.

“Between 20 and 24 girls were forced to leave their families behind and make the long journey to London — and then hours and hours up to Tynemouth.

“They had never heard of Newcastle. Many had never seen the sea before.”

Led by jeweller David Summerfield and his wife Annie, a committee was formed in Tyneside to open a hostel for the girls, who they considered more vulnerable than the boys.

“This all was arranged by Tynemouth’s small Jewish community, which couldn’t have been very well off and yet undertook the extraordinary responsibility to put together a huge amount of money and care for them for so long,” said Ms Lonsdale, a Northumberland reporter for BBC Radio Newcastle.

“To feed 24 girls for seven years and to pay for a hostel, clothes and necessities, and the wages of two matrons, would’ve cost them in today’s money hundreds of thousands of pounds. I can’t tell you what an extraordinary and long-lasting act of altruism that was.”
New Limited Series About Dutch Woman Who Hid Anne Frank’s Family Gets Release Date on Her Birthday
A new limited series about the true story of Miep Gies, a Dutch secretary who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the Holocaust, will premiere on May 1, it was announced on Wednesday.

National Geographic made the announcement on would be Gies’ 114th birthday that A Small Light, produced by ABC Signature and Keshet Studios, will air on its channel with two back-to-back episodes. New episodes will debut every Monday on National Geographic and will available for streaming on Disney+ the next day.

Gies was asked by her boss Otto Frank, Anne’s father, to help hide his family during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam and she agreed without hesitation. For two years, she and her husband, with several others who assisted them, kept watch over the Frank, van Pels and Pfeffer families as they hid in a secret annex during World War II.

The miniseries stars BAFTA-nominated Bel Powley as Gies, Joe Cole as her husband and Emmy-nominated actor Liev Schreiber as Otto. The series title comes from something Gies said late in life: “I don’t like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.”

“A life once filled with parties and pints, the series details how Miep’s life changed the moment she said ‘yes,'” National Geographic and Disney+ said in a press release about A Small Light. “From daily food runs to scrounging for ration coupons to selling beloved heirlooms, it took countless selfless sacrifices.”

Gies was also the person who found Anne’s diary, kept it hidden from the Nazis and preserved it until she was able to give it to Otto after the war. He later shared his daughter’s diary with the world and it became an international best-seller.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 

at