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Tuesday, April 04, 2023

04/04 Links Pt2: Dara Horn: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?; Howard Jacobson: Dayenu? Enough Already; A Celebration of Overlapping Faiths; The PA against FIFA

From Ian:

Dara Horn: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?
I was stunned. Rarely in my journey through American Holocaust education did I hear anyone mention a Jewish belief.

“The Jews worship one God, and that’s their moral structure. Egyptian society has multiple gods whose authority goes to the pharaoh. When things go wrong, you can see how Jews as outsiders were perceived by the pharaoh as the threat.”

This unexpected understanding of Jewish belief revealed a profound insight about Judaism: Its rejection of idolatry is identical to its rejection of tyranny. I could see how that might make people uncomfortable.

Decoster moved on to a snazzy infographic of a wheel divided in thirds, each explaining a component of anti-Semitism: “Racial Antisemitism = False belief that Jews are a race and a threat to other races,” then “Anti-Judaism = Hatred of Jews as a religious group,” and then “Anti-Jewish Conspiracy Theory = False belief that Jews want to control and overtake the world.” The third part, the conspiracy theory, was what distinguished anti-Semitism from other bigotries. It allowed closed-minded people to congratulate themselves for being open-minded—for “doing their own research,” for “punching up,” for “speaking truth to power,” while actually just spreading lies.

This, she announced, “aligns with the TEKS.”

The teachers wrote down the information.

The next day, the teachers listened in silence to J. E. Wolfson of the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission as he walked them through a history of anti-Semitism in excruciating detail, sharing medieval propaganda images of Jews eating pig feces and draining blood from Christian children. Wolfson clarified for his audience what this centuries-long demonization of Jews actually means, citing the scholar David Patterson, who has written: “In the end, the antisemite’s claim is not that all Jews are evil, but rather that all evil is Jewish.”

Wolfson told the teachers that it was important that “anti-Semitism should not be your students’ first introduction to Jews and Judaism.” He said this almost as an aside, just before presenting the pig-excrement image. “If you’re teaching about anti-Semitism before you teach about the content of Jewish identity, you’re doing it wrong.”

I thought about the caring, devoted educators in the room, all committed to stamping out bigotry, and knew from my conversations with them that this—introducing students to Judaism by way of anti-Semitism—was exactly what they were doing. The same could be said, I realized, for nearly all of American Holocaust education.

The Holocaust educators I met across America were all obsessed with building empathy, a quality that relies on finding commonalities between ourselves and others. But I wondered if a more effective way to address anti-Semitism might lie in cultivating a completely different quality, one that happens to be the key to education itself: curiosity. Why use Jews as a means to teach people that we’re all the same, when the demand that Jews be just like their neighbors is exactly what embedded the mental virus of anti-Semitism in the Western mind in the first place? Why not instead encourage inquiry about the diversity, to borrow a de rigueur word, of the human experience?

Back at home, I thought again about the Holocaust holograms and the Auschwitz VR, and realized what I wanted. I want a VR experience of the Strashun Library in Vilna, the now-destroyed research center full of Yiddish writers and historians documenting centuries of Jewish life. I want a VR of a night at the Yiddish theater in Warsaw—and a VR of a Yiddish theater in New York. I want holograms of the modern writers and scholars who revived the Hebrew language from the dead—and I definitely want an AI component, so I can ask them how they did it. I want a VR of the writing of a Torah scroll in 2023, and then of people chanting aloud from it through the year, until the year is out and it’s read all over again—because the book never changes, but its readers do. I want a VR about Jewish literacy: the letters, the languages, the paradoxical stories, the methods of education, the encouragement of questions. I want a VR tour of Jerusalem, and another of Tel Aviv. I want holograms of Hebrew poets and Ladino singers and Israeli artists and American Jewish chefs. I want a VR for the conclusion of Daf Yomi, the massive worldwide celebration for those who study a page a day of the Talmud and finally finish it after seven and a half years. I want a VR of Sabbath dinners. I want a VR of bar mitzvah kids in synagogues being showered with candy, and a VR of weddings with flying circles of dancers, and a VR of mourning rituals for Jews who died natural deaths—the washing and guarding of the dead, the requisite comforting of the living. I want a hologram of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks telling people about what he called “the dignity of difference.”

I want to mandate this for every student in this fractured and siloed America, even if it makes them much, much more uncomfortable than seeing piles of dead Jews does. There is no empathy without curiosity, no respect without knowledge, no other way to learn what Jews first taught the world: love your neighbor. Until then, we will remain trapped in our sealed virtual boxcars, following unseen tracks into the future.
Howard Jacobson: Dayenu? Enough Already
One of the most enjoyable parts of the Passover ceremony is the singing, invariably full-throated in my experience, of all 15 verses of “Dayenu”:

Had he brought us out from Egypt, and not carried out judgments against them—Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! Had he carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols—Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! Had he destroyed their idols, and not smitten their first born, Dayenu …

… Enough already!

That, of course, though we thought our comical uncles blasphemous when they said it at the Seder table—“Enough already, when do we eat?”—is what the word Dayenu means. “It would have sufficed”; “it would have been enough”; “we can imagine a point at which we would have been satisfied”—except that as a people we are never satisfied.

In the midst of gratitude there is always a little something else we feel we have to ask for. Isn’t this what the Dayenu means? Hence the number of rogue, shopping-list Dayenus that spring up every day: feminist Dayenus, gay Dayenus, Zionist and anti-Zionist Dayenus, even, I recall reading, a Dayenu praising the invasion of Iraq—“If He had destroyed the Ba’ath party idols, and not smitten Uday and Qusay—Dayenu, it would have been enough for us.” The Dayenu is a please masquerading as a thank-you. We give thanks in order to ask for more.

We sing Dayenu at a solemn moment in the Seder service, soon after we have spilled a drop of wine from our glasses, one drop for each plague. It is a song of praise to the Almighty, thanking Him for our deliverance from slavery in Egypt and for the many gifts, including the Sabbath and the Torah, He bestowed upon us thereafter. As such, it is a spiritual high point of the service. Yet we sing it with immense gusto and, at many a Seder I’ve attended, mirth. A mirth that is over and above the pleasure we take in the inordinacy of God’s munificence. Why? Because we know that we are making a great joke at our own expense.

Without doubt it is owing to God’s bounty and protection that we are in a position to be making jokes at all. But, as with all good jokes, there is a whiff of terror in this one, too. How funny would it have been had God left the job half-done—and each verse pivots around a job half-done—how funny will it be when the things He doesn’t do outweigh the things He does?

Could we say that this dread is no less psychological than historical? We fear abandonment. What happens when the giving stops?
A Celebration of Overlapping Faiths
We have done the best we can to make this world not only bearable, but beautiful for our children, with Jewishness and Muslimness not only familiar, but an unwavering home for them and also, with them, an unwavering home—built by Noah and Yusuf, so many other prophets, so many surviving texts—for ourselves. Their both-ness has given us a shelter from the questions, the audacity of those who call my children, who are my everything, nothing, those small and painful daily storms.

And they, our children, have already made me, as a Jew, far more whole: connecting with my traditions, from the baking of hamantaschen to the recitation of Torah, in order to pass them on. They are the reasons that I joined a synagogue for the first time, and why I have crafted a life in Germany centered on the redemption of Jewish life.

On Passover, we conclude with the words “next year, in Jerusalem,” to describe longing for the Jewish homeland. Today’s Jerusalem is a place of conflict, but also one imbued with the cultures, the heritage, and the hopes of all three Abrahamic religions, together and apart. This year in Italy, we will celebrate Passover with an iftar on Easter, with the Four Questions of the youngest child, who will now be Sami, reading the Haggadah for the first time. My husband will break his fast not with bread but with matzo.

This day will be one of the only days on which we are not asked to choose: a day on which I, a Jewish mother, can celebrate with my Muslim husband, while remembering my Christian father. And if I hold this moment close, perhaps it will give me strength, so that the next time someone asks what we have chosen for our children, I can confront their uncertainty with stories of this Passover, this iftar on Easter in Italy. I may tell them that our Jewish-Muslim children are living, breathing proof that we are not all the same, but that we spring from the very same source. But I will also warn them that this does not make them nothing. Nor are we, my family, everything. We are simply at home in the intersections and overlaps of our traditions, not in-between, but knee-deep in the plurality that makes our world beautiful and also whole.

There is so much that we, in this simple togetherness, have and can overcome.


Liel Leibovitz: Aliens: Jews of all types are turning away from their institutions
I’m probably not the guy you’d expect to write the cri de coeur on behalf of alienated Jews. I send my children to a Jewish day school and Jewish summer camps, and neither, as you may imagine, are free. I wake up early each morning and slump over to a little shtiebel, or place of prayer, to daven with my neighbors, and I often return for the afternoon and evening prayers as well. I host a Talmud podcast and spend a few hours each day studying. And for about a decade now, I’ve left my beloved hogs and mollusks behind, committing myself to a life of keeping kosher. I’m not afraid of commitment to Judaism—I relish it. I want nothing more than to affiliate myself with individuals and institutions seriously dedicated to leading robust, curious, and passionate Jewish lives.

And yet. I feel lost—homeless—in the landscape of American Jewish institutional life.

A few years back, my wife and I finally found a synagogue whose spirit of prayer we enjoyed. But we were soon pushed out by community members who informed us—by interrupting its own rabbi during a sermon, no less—that viewpoint diversity would not be tolerated, and that, from that point on, all facets of communal life would be dedicated to promoting the latest progressive pieties. It wasn’t even that we minded politics so much; it’s that we came for God, not the Democratic Party, and God was nowhere to be found.

Onward to another shul it was, where no succor arrived. When Israelis elected a right-wing government, the shul announced that, in response, the congregation will no longer recite the prayer for the State of Israel. A few of us suggested, privately and respectfully, that anyone who truly cared about Israel should always pray for it, especially when it struggles to overcome very real and very troubling domestic challenges. Eager for some guidance, we wrote the rabbi and asked for a meeting. An appointment was scheduled, then postponed, then put off for two years; we await it still. Our voices were neither heard nor acknowledged; we learned about the liturgical decision from a promotional interview in a liberal newspaper.
PodCast: Why Hatred of Jews Isn’t Like All Other Hatreds
Anti-Semitism, according to David Rich, is “the belief that Jews are always up to no good,” usually by “deploying their mysterious power and enormous wealth to achieve some particular Jewish goal . . . that is harmful to everyone else.” Such ideas, Rich argues, are deep-seated in British (and European) society, to the extent that many people who consider themselves immune from prejudice believe them. More disturbingly still, younger Britons tend to be less racist than their older compatriots, but are more likely to be anti-Semitic. In this speech, recently delivered to Parliament, Rich explains why this is so.




PMW: The PA against FIFA
Never missing an opportunity to be on the wrong side of history and morality, even in sports, the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization’s Palestine Higher Council of Youth and Sports, headed by Jibril Rajoub, have expressed support for the Indonesian boycott of Israel and “regret” over the decision of the Fédération internationale de football association’s (FIFA) decision to remove Indonesia as the host of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2023™.

The bienniel U-20 World Cup tournament was originally scheduled for late 2021, but was postponed till 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Indonessia retaining the hosting rights it had been granted in 2019. The competition was to run from May to June 2023 in six locations across Indonesia, including Bali. Last week, Bali governor Wayan Koster called for a ban on the Israeli team playing there, citing Indonesia’s support for the Palestinian cause.

With the date of the competition quickly approaching, FIFA left no room for the Indonesian boycott of Israel:
“Following today’s meeting between FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President of the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) Erick Thohir, FIFA has decided, due to the current circumstances, to remove Indonesia as the host of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2023™.”

[FIFA website, Mar. 29, 2023]

Supporting Indonesia, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted that it “welcomes Indonesia’s principled position”


[Official Twitter account of the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mar. 21, 2023]

A press statement of the Palestine Higher Council of Youth and Sports was less diplomatic and while feigning to adopt the principle of separating politics and sports, charged FIFA with double standards.

“Though we believe sports and politics need to be separated [it’s] sad to see the double standards employed by the civilized world in response to similar scenarios when performed by different actors."

[Official PA news agency, Wafa (in English), Mar. 30, 2023]

For over a decade, the PA, the Palestine Higher Council of Youth and Sports,and Jibril Rajoub have been trying to embroil FIFA in its conflict against Israel.
Noa Tishby, Bill Maher and Mizrahi invisibility
Bill Maher’s recent show fed into a popular (and false) narrative that Israel is a country filled with “white” Jews.

The March 17th program, featuring Noa Tishby, Israel’s First Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization, went maddeningly awry.

In discussing a recent poll revealing how Democrats today “sympathize” with Palestinians more than Israelis, that Israel lost the PR war, “...and they (Palestinians) are “browner.”

This “browner” comment is probably just Bill Maher being provocative, using American racial references to poke at politically correct progressives. The comparison is seriously incorrect when talking about Israeli society.

Maher inadvertently amplified a dangerously false narrative. And Tishby failed to catch and correct – The moment flew by.

She is human. He is a friend of Israel. I imagine it was inadvertent. But whoosh, like a ton of feathers, words let loose into the air, out there, unexamined, done. The show has millions of viewers.

I imagine most viewers have not been to Israel to see for themselves. It is impossible to tell who is a Mizrahi Jew (the majority of the Jewish population in Israel), and who is a Palestinian or Israeli Arab by color alone.

In fact, since Ashkenazi Jews originate from the region most Jews, including Ashkenazim, look alike and tan under the Middle Eastern sun, with many looking as “brown” as Palestinians and Arabs and Mizrahi Jews.
Israel Heritage Foundation Calls on Arizona Gov. to Fire Cabinet Member w/ Anti-Israel & Anti-Semitic Views
The Israel Heritage Foundation today called on Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs to dismiss a member of her cabinet who has aligned himself with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and whose social media posts are anti-Israel and antisemitic.

In January 2023, Governor Hobbs named Martin Quezada, who is a former member of both the Arizona State Senate and House of Representatives, as the Registrar of Contractors, which is the agency that licenses and regulates residential and commercial contractors.

As a state lawmaker, Quezada voted against Arizona’s first anti-BDS legislation in 2016, thereby opposing a bill that would prohibit companies with state government contracts from taking part in efforts to boycott the State of Israel.

In addition, Quezada helped organize a screening at the Arizona State Capitol of the 2021 documentary “Boycott,” which is about efforts in three states to challenge anti-BDS laws. Despite criticism from several fellow Democratic lawmakers who urged their colleagues not to attend the screening, noting that BDS is a hate movement aimed at demonizing Israel and that the lawsuits spotlighted in the film were all unsuccessful, Quezada pushed ahead and facilitated the film being shown. In attempting to rationalize his actions, Quezada offered a feeble explanation, claiming that the film “provided some much-needed context of this issue,” while failing to directly address the fact that the underlying premise of the film was blatantly anti-Israel.

Furthermore, Quezada voted against a Holocaust and antisemitism education bill which cited the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism and mandated that Arizona schools teach students that claiming Israel does not have a right to exist is antisemitic. Referring to the bill, Quezada minimized its importance by calling it “a strong and a well-funded lobbying effort that’s underway right now to take advantage of this crisis to redefine ‘anti-Semitism’ to include any criticism of the nation-state of Israel.” Quezada also attempted to justify his opposition to the bill by discussing what he termed the “human rights abuses that are happening in Israel right now.”

Moreover, Quezada retweeted a video of Rep. Rashida Tlaib in May 2021 in which she accused Israel of engaging in “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.” Using the hashtag “#FreePalestine,” which is a slogan through which people call for the elimination of Israel and maintain that Jews have no right to their own state, Quezada urged his Twitter followers to “take 10 minutes” and listen to Congresswoman Tlaib’s remarks. On another occasion, Quezada noted on Twitter that he was “proud to be present today as a friend and an ally to the Palestinian people,” and once again used the hashtag “#FreePalestine,” in response to a tweet that referred to a rally at the Arizona state capitol “to demand that our tax dollars do not go to fund the killing and the forced displacement of the Palestinian people.” (h/t jzaik)
‘Historic Victory’: US Gov’t Rules That University of Vermont Failed to Address Campus Antisemitism
The US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has ruled that the University of Vermont (UVM) failed to respond to numerous complaints of antisemitism and anti-Zionist harassment and discrimination, according to a press release issued on Monday.

The announcement marks the first time the Biden administration has resolved a complaint of campus antisemitism and the first time ever that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act has been applied to anti-Zionist discrimination.

OCR began investigating the university in Oct. 2021 after the Brandeis Center and Jewish on Campus filed a complaint alleging that a teaching assistant harassed UVM students who embraced Zionism and that student clubs, including UVM Empowering Survivors — a sexual assault awareness group — expelled them from their groups. Additionally, UVM’s Hillel Center was vandalized and no one was punished. OCR said on Monday that the university did not investigate “serious allegations of harassment” and that “responsive steps” were “delayed,” effectively “discouraging” students and staff from coming forward in the future. Among the complaints the university left unaddressed was an allegation that an anti-Zionist teaching assistant bragged about giving Jewish students zero credit for class participation. In another complaint, the same professor allegedly celebrated when someone stole an Israeli flag from a Jewish student’s residence and captioned “Kristallnacht” on a post showing damage to a Jewish-owned business.

OCR announced that the complaint is resolved, with UVM agreeing to implement several reforms, including a top down review of its procedures for assessing discrimination complaints, new training for Bias Response Team members that emphasizes civil rights laws’ protections for national origin and shared ancestry, and a formal statement affirming its commitment to address antisemitism on campus.
Anti-Israel Hate Spewed by Speaker at Michigan High School — and Hate Crimes Rise
The assemblies on March 14 at Bloomfield Hills High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, were billed as “No Place for Hate.” Unfortunately, one of the speakers, approved by school officials, was Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian organization that supports “legitimate armed struggle” against Israel. She was also “chair of the Free Gaza Movement.”

Rather than sticking to the agreed upon talking points, Arraf launched into anti-Israel tirades at all four assemblies. Jewish students were rightfully shocked. They were able to feel the same emotions that some of their great grandparents felt before abandoning Europe for America. Thanks to Arruf, there was a place for anti-Jewish hate at BHHS, and it grew. Students on Instagram invited other students to wear the colors of the Palestinian flag on March 17. Some students waved Palestinian flags in the parking lot while chanting “We love Kanye West.”

Once word got out, Jewish students learned that it wasn’t just at high school that hatred of Israel and Jews was tolerated. Some adult reactions to Arraf’s displays of antisemitism demonstrated that Jews also don’t count much in the real world.

The school district’s superintendent, Pat Watson, sent out two letters of apology. In one, he pledged to “implement staff training to identify antisemitism and Islamophobia … These and other forms of hate must be addressed.” We’ve seen this before. Antisemitism, the world’s oldest and most malleable hatred, can never be fought on its own. It must always be tied to the coattails of some other bigotry.

The coverage by local Detroit area news sources was worse. Every one of them gave Arraf large portions of their reports to respond, while giving minimal attention to her approval of violence against Israelis. Click on Detroit gave her a minute and a half of a 3.5 minute video to spew her anti-Israel libels and insist she opposes antisemitism. She repeated the typical, overused, strawman argument of people conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Another Click on Detroit report allowed Arraf to claim, “certain interest groups are now harassing the BHHS administration and student organizers over my participation … the same forces that have been working to shut down Palestinian voices.” The report also pointed out that Amnesty International shares Arraf’s view, without giving full voice to why these clams aren’t true. That is propaganda.
Wesleyan University is hosting Israel Apartheid Week this week
The group Students for Justice in Palestine at Wesleyan University began its annual "Israeli Apartheid Week" on Monday.

The week-long campaign is planned in collaboration with The Resource Center, an office at Wesleyan. In an advertisement, the center called the event "a national campaign to raise awareness for the ongoing injustices committed against Palestinians by the State of Israel over the last 75+ Years."

"Israeli Apartheid Week" activities include screening a documentary as the fourth installment of the Palestinian Film Series and a lecture by Faisal Saleh, the director and founder of the Palestine Museum US, titled 1948: What exactly happened "to teach the history of the Palestinian Nakba in which 700,000 Palestinians were displaced by Zionist militias," according to The Resource Center.

Wesleyan, located in Connecticut, is home to roughly 700 Jewish students who make up some 25 percent of the campus population, according to Hillel's College Guide.


Guardian repeats lie of Palestinians being cleansed from Jerusalem
In a new article (“Mount of Olives becomes latest target in fight for control of Jerusalem”, April 3), the Guardian Jerusalem correspondent repeats a variation of the lie we’ve refuted over the years at the outlet suggesting that Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem.

Here’s the relevant passage:
The erosion of the Islamic and Christian presence in Jerusalem – the two Palestinian faiths – is not happening by accident. Palestinians are being pushed out of the Old City and East Jerusalem neighbourhoods by settlers, while the Israeli government is demolishing increasing numbers of Palestinian homes on the grounds that they lack building permits and displacing the community with development projects that do little to address the needs of Palestinian residents.

If, as McKernan suggests, there’s an Israeli plan to depopulate non-Jews from Jerusalem, the state has failed miserably, as there has been no erosion of the (Muslim and Christian) Palestinian population in the city.

First, as the following statistics alone – from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research (JIPR) – show, the proportion of Palestinians and Jews in east Jerusalem has remained fairly steady over the last 40 years – at a 3:2 ratio.

If you look at the entire city (both east and west), stats from the JIPR show again that there’s been no erosion of the Palestinian population in the holy city. The Jewish population of Jerusalem declined proportionately from 74% in 1967, to 72% in 1990, to 68% in 2000, and to 61% in 2020. Concurrently, the Palestinian population increased proportionately from 26% in 1967, to 28% in 1990, to 32% in 2000, and to 39% in 2020.


Hate Thrives in France24 Arabic’s Social Media Talkbacks
“[T]here should be more,” one reader posts on France24’s official Arabic Facebook page, referring to the deadly 2019 shooting attack at a California synagogue. Another commentator celebrates the murder by calling for mass genocide: “Death to all the Jews of the world.”

The dust has barely settled since a CAMERA Arabic exposé into the antisemitic and anti-Israel social media activity of France24 Arabic journalists stirred up a media firestorm and resulted in the network’s severance of ties with one reporter and mild warnings for others. Nevertheless, CAMERA Arabic’s newest investigation unearths unchecked anti-Jewish bigotry thriving in the comments sections of the media outlet’s Arabic social media. Clearly, last month’s antisemitism scandal did not move the publicly-funded French network to undertake necessary house-cleaning.

CAMERA Arabic’s latest research reveals that France24’s Arabic social media team has repeatedly failed to monitor and filter out readers’ hateful talkbacks responding to posts on France24’s Arabic social media. A thorough examination of France24 Arabic’s YouTube and Facebook posts about fatal attacks on Israeli civilians since the May 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls revealed several hundred Arabic comments celebrating the murders. As of the publication of this article, all of them are still viewable.

In 19 out of 31 such France24 posts, more than half of the comments either cheered for the attacks and the attackers or merely expressed joy over the death of innocent civilians. In all but one post (which had no comments), the ratio of hateful comments of this sort reached 20 percent or more.

In the image at left, commentators on France24 Arabic’s official YouTube page celebrate the deadly November 2022 stabbing and car-ramming attack in which a Palestinian terrorist killed three and wounded three more near Ariel. One commentator exhalts: “My Lord will [make] the martyrs of Palestine prevail over the sons of pigs and apes [i.e., Jews]”

Elsewhere on France24 Arabic’s YouTube page, commentators fete the March 2022 Bnei Brak terrorist attack in which five were murdered. One commentator write: “We wish the number [of the dead victims] reach five million”
Hamas’ Editors: AFP Deletes Genocide Call From Terror Statement
The guiding principles of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire service contain a clear ban on manipulating quotes, and instruct journalists to “report sources accurately, without modifying what was said or selectively using quotes that misrepresent the sense of the statement.”

But these editorial standards did not deter AFP from distorting a quote about Israel in a March 31, 2023 article. Reporting on a missive by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, AFP cited “Gaza’s Islamist rulers” as issuing the following warning:
The seizure of land by the Israeli occupation and the colonial expansion of settlements are doomed to fail.”

Yet “Thousands commemorate Palestinian Land Day in Israel, Gaza,” which was reprinted by France24 and focused on Palestinian Land Day protests in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, failed to inform readers what “occupation” and “settlements” mean exactly in Hamas’ dictionary.

This, even though the US-designated terror group is shockingly forthright about its intentions to annihilate the only Jewish state and seven million of its citizens. In fact, AFP appears to have gone out of its way to remove all references to Hamas’ explicit plans to murder and expel the world’s largest Jewish community, with the full statement in Arabic and English reading as follows:
We will not give up an inch of our historical Palestine [sic], from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, and reiterate that the seizure of land by the Israeli occupation and the colonial expansion of settlements are doomed to fail.”

HonestReporting also discovered that AFP edited out the part where Hamas hailed “the steadfast Palestinian people” in what it dubbed “the territories occupied in 1948 [sic],” which, if included, would have dispelled the prevailing media narrative that Land Day somehow advocates peaceful coexistence with Israel.
BBC’s Bowen inaccurate on November '22 Israel election result
The morning after the Israeli prime minister’s address announcing a temporary delay of his government’s efforts to advance legislation concerning the judicial system, the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newsday’ aired several items relating to that topic, including commentary from the corporation’s former Middle East editor (now international editor) Jeremy Bowen.

Presenter Rob Young began (from 37:42 here) by asking Bowen “How big a crisis would you say this is for Israel?” to which Bowen replied:
Bowen: “Well it’s massive. Some people in Israel say it’s the worst internal crisis that they’ve ever had because what it shows is that the country is really deeply divided. Something like 60% of voters voted for this coalition government but there are hundreds of thousands on the streets protesting vehemently against what it is trying to do…”

The coalition is comprised of six parties – Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Religious Zionist party, Otzma Yehudit and Noam but the latter three ran on a joint list in the election in November 2022.

According to the results published by the Central Elections Committee, the Likud party received 23.41% of the unspoiled ballots, United Torah Judaism received 5.88%, Shas received 8.25% and the Religious Zionist Party (including Otzma Yehudit and Noam) received 10.84% of the vote.

In other words, the parties which make up the current coalition together received a total of 48.38% of the votes rather than 60% as erroneously claimed by Bowen.
SUMMARY OF BBC NEWS WEBSITE PORTRAYAL OF ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS – MARCH 2023
BBC audiences saw no reporting on internal Palestinian affairs during March, meaning that throughout the first quarter of 2023 only one item in that category (concerning a girls’ boxing club in Gaza) has appeared on the BBC News website.

Stories from PA and Hamas controlled areas that were ignored by the BBC during March include the arrest of a political activist and the arrest of a journalist, death sentences given out by Hamas, terror supporters at elections at a university in Hebron, shooting in the streets, a teachers’ strike, Hamas incitement ahead of Ramadan, an attack on German tourists in Nablus, the arrest of a journalist in Gaza, an attack on a mixed gender party in Jenin, the stabbing of a judge and rioting on the Gaza Strip border.
McGill Daily Promotes Anti-Israel Talking Points As Part of “Israel Apartheid Week” Coverage
There is an old philosophical question that asks, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

The McGill Daily, a student newspaper at McGill University in Montreal, could very well prompt another version of that question: “If there is an anti-Israel event at McGill University and it’s not covered by The McGill Daily, did it ever take place?”

Provoking that question was an article published by the newspaper on April 3, written by Maya Pack entitled: “SPHR Holds Rally for Montreal’s Israeli Apartheid Week,” covering the actions of a local anti-Israel student club, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), and its recent involvement in “Israel Apartheid Week” programming in Montreal.

As reported by Pack, during a rally held on Friday, March 24 protesting “the university’s financial and academic ties to Israel,” unnamed speakers from SPHR and other groups railed against a number of areas of collaboration between McGill University and Israel, including a planned collaboration between McGill University and Tel Aviv University, as well as the existence of the Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute (SASSI) at McGill University, founded by Canadian-Israeli philanthropist Sylvan Adams.

Pack’s article – which was little more than a stenography of the March 24 anti-Israel rally – quoted one unnamed speaker from SPHR McGill as decrying the SASSI as being a “highly politicized attempt to systemically normalize colonial Zionist institutions” and an example of “’sportswashing’ – the practice of an individual, company, or government funding or organizing sports to improve their reputation.”

Such assertions are meaningless gobbledygook. Firstly, Sylvan Adams himself has refuted allegations that he’s engaging in “sportwashing” saying his sports initiatives look to build lasting bonds of coexistence and understanding. Furthermore, Israel is not a colonial state by any stretch; the Zionist movement, while only originating in the 1800s, is merely a more modern manifestation of the ancient Jewish hope for Jewish self-determination in the Jewish People’s ancient homeland, the Land of Israel.


Herzog heads to Poland for 80th anniversary of Warsaw Uprising
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and their wives, will travel to Poland to attend the 80th-anniversary commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, standing together with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

During the visit, which will take place April 19, Herzog will also meet separately with Duda at the Presidential Palace to discuss bilateral relations and the fight against antisemitism. Duda’s wife was born to a Jewish father.

Following the commemoration ceremony, the three presidents will make a joint statement to the media.

Herzog will later participate in a ceremony at the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw and will meet with the Jewish community of Warsaw.

In the evening, the Herzogs will attend a special Warsaw Ghetto Uprising concert at Poland’s National Concert Hall.

Although this will be his first visit to Poland as president, Herzog has been there before for a synagogue dedication ceremony in Zamosc, where part of his family had once lived.
‘A Small Light’ shines on Miep Gies, who kept Frank family hidden in Amsterdam
National Geographic released the trailer from the upcoming eight-part limited series “A Small Light,” produced by ABC Signature and Keshet Studios. It will have a multi-network launch on May 1 at 9 p.m. EST with a simulcast across National Geographic, National Geographic Wild (Nat Geo WILD) and Lifetime of the first two episodes. On Saturday, May 6 at 8 p.m. EST, Freeform will encore the premiere episodes.

For the full series run, two episodes will debut every Monday at 9 p.m. EST on National Geographic, stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu, and will be available on the Nat Geo TV and ABC apps.

Based on an inspiring true story, Miep Gies (Bel Powley) was young and carefree (and opinionated) when Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) asked her to help hide his family from the Nazis during World War II. Without hesitation, she agreed. For the next two years, she and her husband Jan (Joe Cole), along with several other everyday heroes, watched over the Frank, van Pels and Pfeffer families hiding in the secret annex.

“When we first heard the remarkable story of Miep Gies, we were gripped and deeply moved,” said Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president of global scripted content and documentary films for National Geographic. “We were also convinced that this limited series about an everyday superhero—one that most people around the world have never heard of—needed an unprecedented rollout.”

Bernstein added that “we are determined to bring ‘A Small Light’ to the largest global audience possible, and hope that this ambitious rollout across multiple networks and streaming platforms allows audiences to fall in love with and be inspired by Miep, just as we have.”
Education is key to fight Jew-hatred in the Netherlands - Opinion
It goes without saying that the Netherlands will forever be associated with the Holocaust and the years that Anne Frank and her family lived there, hiding in an attic to avoid Nazi deportation. Millions of people flock to Amsterdam each year to get a sense of what her life was like in captivity and to be reminded of the Dutch complicity in the murder of Dutch Jews.

While this important history should never be forgotten, today’s antisemitism is far more complex and nuanced and will require new methodologies to oppose it. Broad European research shows that there is still much the Dutch government can and should do to combat modern-day antisemitism. Because research and talk without action will not suffice.

The Networks Overcoming Antisemitism (NOA) project, conducted by the Center of Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), researched ten policy areas in the Netherlands to see what policies were being pursued in the field of antisemitism, as well as their subsequent efficacy. It turned out the Dutch scores were not as good as we had hoped.

The NOA project is a collaboration of key European Jewish organizations established in 2014 to tackle rising antisemitism in Europe. As part of the project, the status of antisemitism in each country is analyzed, national reports are developed, and the various EU member states use this information to shape their antisemitism policies. This methodology allows for concrete and effective antisemitism policies to be made quickly and concisely.

The Dutch survey was conducted by researcher Aron Vrieler. He came across a number of important findings. For example, the Dutch government regards antisemitism as a specific form of racism that deserves targeted measures. Yet, as Vrieler discovered, their expertise sometimes falls short. Another notable but not surprising trend is the government’s tendency to link antisemitism to the Holocaust.

After the research was conducted, conclusions and recommendations were written, and each domain was assigned a score, indicating the state of the fight against antisemitism.

Here’s what the findings showed. In the areas of religion and security, the policies in place to fight antisemitism appeared to be the most effective. In the Netherlands, people can properly practice their Judaism, and our country is also a positive example in the field of restitution.
Rome’s Lazio soccer club handed suspended stadium ban for antisemitic chants
Lazio was given a suspended partial stadium ban Tuesday after some of its fans directed antisemitic chants at Roma during the city derby last month.

The Serie A judge ordered the Curva Nord, the northern end of the Stadio Olimpico where Lazio’s hard-core “ultra” fans sit, to be closed for a game but suspended the sentence in consideration of Lazio’s decision to hand out three lifetime bans to involved spectators.

If there is another case of fan misbehavior over the next year, Lazio will be ordered to serve the one-game partial stadium ban in addition to any new penalties.

One fan who wore a shirt with a reference to Adolf Hitler at the derby and two others who performed Roman salutes, which are associated with fascism, were banned for life by Lazio.

Authorities reviewed security camera footage from inside the Stadio Olimpico after pictures of the fan wearing a Lazio shirt with the name “Hitlerson” and the number 88 — which is a numerical code for “Heil Hitler” — circulated on social media following Lazio’s 1-0 win over Roma.

Lazio was already ordered to play a game with part of the Stadio Olimpico closed to spectators earlier this season after fans directed racist chants at Lecce defender Samuel Umtiti and winger Lameck Banda, who are both Black.


Could Israel’s fusion energy co. power our future factories and cities?
The ability to produce energy via nuclear fusion could significantly impact the environment and geo-strategic and economic development issues.

While several companies worldwide are working toward nuclear fusion, only one company in Israel has jumped full-throttle into the effort: NT-Tao is Israel's first and only start-up in the field of nuclear fusion. The company aims to build a compact fusion device that will be scalable enough to power anything from a factory to an entire city - enabling the world to transition away from oil, natural gas and coal.

What is fusion?
Nuclear fusion generates clean energy by fusing atoms, unlike nuclear fission, which produces energy by splitting atoms. Fission is a primary environmental concern because atomic power produced by fission creates radioactive wastes that can remain dangerous to human health for thousands of years.

In contrast, nuclear energy produced by fusion doesn't generate long-term radioactive nuclear waste.

Specifically, to achieve fusion, two hydrogen atoms need to be melded together to form a helium atom.

NT-Tao was founded in 2016 by Oded Gour-Lavie, Doron Weinfeld and Boaz Weinfeld and incorporated in 2019. In 2021, Gour-Lavie told The Jerusalem Post, the company had a significant breakthrough when it managed to develop a highly efficient heating technology of the hydrogen plasma at high density.

This task, Gour-Lavie said, can be very challenging. Scientists have been working on nuclear fusion for around 80 years. That's because to achieve enough energy, you need more than two hydrogen atoms; you need thousands.

Gour-Lavie said the company's plasma heating method is expected to reach 1,000 times higher density than other fusion reactors, making its fusion reaction 1 million times more effective and resulting in significantly greater energy production than other developing solutions.

Gour-Lavie focused on energy after completing a 30-year career in the Israeli Navy and IDF.
Israeli atomic clock to measure Jupiter’s atmosphere
Israeli innovation is powering a historic mission to Jupiter scheduled for launch this month as the Jewish state sends its first-ever complete electronic system to deep space, the Israel Space Agency said on Monday.

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft is set to liftoff on April 13 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and onboard will be an Ultra-Stable-Oscillator (USO) atomic clock from Israeli company AccuBeat.

A group of Israeli researchers led by Professor Yohai Kaspi from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot is leading the experiments with the clock that will measure the chemical properties of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

“With the help of a radio beam sent from the spacecraft through the atmosphere and thanks to the precise clock, we will measure tiny changes in the frequency of the beam. Thus, throughout Jupiter’s orbit we will get a temperature profile at a certain point and throughout the mission we will build a three-dimensional map of Jupiter’s atmosphere. This data will allow us to understand the structure and composition of the first and largest planet in the solar system,” Caspi explained.

The clock is built to function for 15 years. The mission will take seven to eight years to reach Jupiter with the estimated orbital arrival to the gas giant in 2031.

JUICE aims to map out Jupiter and its surrounding neighborhood and determine if its 95 known natural satellites, or moons, are habitable.

The Israel Space Agency in the Innovation, Science and Technology Ministry funded the USO clock and the Weizmann experiment. The device is integrated into the Italian Space Agency’s 3GM system. The Israel Space Agency is partnering with the Italian Space Agency in the JUICE project.
Orthodox Jewish fashion blogger becomes surprise hit among Muslim women

'Golem' monument uncovered near Gaza Strip after 50 years
Decades after it was destroyed by the IDF for security purposes, parts of the "Golem" statue have been uncovered near Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the Gaza border, according to a statement from the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel (CCHSI).

The Golem, a work by sculptor Arye Ben-David, was installed at the kibbutz to commemorate those who fell defending the Israeli towns surrounding Gaza. It portrays two soldiers, one looking out to the horizon with the other wounded at his feet.

During the tensions leading up to the Six Day War, Israeli security forces worried that the monument would help aggressors target Kibbutz Nahal Oz more easily, so they destroyed it in an explosion.

Recent preservation efforts
Recently, as part of an IDF endeavor to further conceal the kibbutz from incoming rockets, construction workers uncovered parts of the monument. Now, the CCHSI is considering ways to preserve it.

"The 'Golem' statue still represents the reality surrounding Gaza - security and settlement...Together with the residents of Nahal Oz, the CCHSI wishes to [recognize] the place as a heritage site, to make it accessible to the general public and to place a blue heritage sign ... that will [share] the fascinating story of the statue."
Kibbutz Nahal Oz is a frequent target for rockets from Gaza. Most recently, in February, kibbutz residents heard rocket sirens before the IDF intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza headed in their direction.
A cave in the West Bank tells the story of 6000 years of refuge, including the Mongol invasion

Ama’re Stoudemire Says He Hopes to Remarry Someone Jewish With Torah Values and Wants More Kids
Amar’e Stoudemire did a flash Q&A Sunday on his Instagram Story and told his followers about his desire to remarry someone Jewish who wants to live a Torah-observant lifestyle with him.

The former basketball player, who played in the NBA for 14 years, spent two years in Israel studying at a men’s religious seminary before completing his formal conversion to Judaism. When he retired from the New York Knicks in 2016, he moved to the Jewish state and played for the Israeli basketball teams Hapoel Jerusalem and Maccabi Tel Aviv. The six-time NBA All-Star, who has four children with ex-wife Alexis Welch, now lives a modern Orthodox lifestyle and is raising his children Jewish as well. He was a player development assistant for the Brooklyn Nets for two seasons but in May 2022 stepped away from the position because of his Shabbat observance.

When asked in the Q&A what traits he is looking for in a life partner, the former Phoenix Suns player said he wants someone Jewish who is “trustworthy” and hopes to “build a righteous family/children according to the Torah.” He also hopes to find a wife who is intelligent, “not overly concerned with social media” and “understand[s] world culture.” He added in response to separate questions that he “God willing” seeing himself living in Israel again and has dated an Israeli in the past. It would also be “a dream come true” if he could host and organize educational trips to Israel for those who want to learn about the country, he added.

Stoudemire said he’s prefer not to date someone younger than 25 and when asked what’s the oldest that he’ll date, he replied, “I can’t answer that but I do want more children.” He is also willing to date a woman who converted to Judaism or isn’t Jewish but is willing to convert, he explained.

When asked about his favorite aspect of Judaism, he said “my relationship with God.” He also shared with his Instagram followers his daily routine, which consists of waking up at 4 am to exercise followed by Torah and Hebrew studies and prayers until the afternoon, when he works out again before spending time with his children after they finish school. “Don’t forget afternoon prayer and nighttime prayer,” he added.
'Law & Order' actress DIANE NEAL just made Aliyah to Israel!

After several tries, Morrissey confirms two July shows in Israel
English singer and songwriter Morrissey is returning to Israel after a seven-year hiatus prolonged by several canceled shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The performer, who has often expressed his love for the Jewish state, will play July 2 at the Zappa Shuni outdoor amphitheater in Binyamina and on July 4 at Expo Tel Aviv, part of his 2023 UK and Ireland tour.

Morrissey last played Israel in 2016, and he received a symbolic key to Tel Aviv from longtime mayor Ron Huldai at a 2012 performance.

The singer, known for his baritone voice and lyrics that focus on various longings coupled with deprecating humor and anti-establishment themes, has a song called “Israel” on his album “Low in High School” in which he rebukes critics of the Jewish state.

“In other climes they bitch and whine/Just because you are not like them — Israel, Israel,” sings Morrissey, who has often declared his dislike for the BDS movement and boycotts of Israel.

Another familiar favorite is called “The Girl from Tel-Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel,” which Morrissey has said pays homage to a theatrical production of the same name based on the diaries of Etty Hillesum, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
Leonardo da Vinci Was Jewish
In all likelihood, Leonardo da Vinci was only half Italian. His mother, Caterina, was a Circassian Jew born somewhere in the Caucasus, abducted as a teenager and sold as a sex slave several times in Russia, Constantinople, and Venice before finally being freed in Florence at age 15. This, at least, is the conclusion reached in the new book Il sorriso di Caterina, la madre di Leonardo, by the historian Carlo Vecce, one of the most distinguished specialists on Leonardo da Vinci.

The official version of da Vinci’s birth is that it was the fruit of a brief fling between the Florentine solicitor Piero da Vinci and a young peasant from Tuscany called Caterina, of whom almost nothing was known. Yet there had long been a seemingly unfounded theory that Leonardo had foreign origins and that Caterina was an Arab slave. Six years ago, professor Vecce decided to kill the rumor for good. “I simply found it impossible to believe that the mother of the greatest Italian genius would be a non-Italian slave,” he told me. “Now, not only do I believe it, but the most probable hypothesis, given what I found, is that Caterina was Jewish.”

Vecce was the right man for the job—he published an anthology of da Vinci’s writings and a biography, Leonardo, translated into several languages, and he collaborated on the exhibition of da Vinci’s drawings and manuscripts at the Louvre and Metropolitan Museum in 2003. He embarked on the research for his latest book during the reconstruction of da Vinci’s library, which is where he found the document that changed everything. Dated Nov. 2, 1452, seven months after Leonardo’s birth, and signed by Piero da Vinci in his professional capacity, it is an emancipation act regarding “the daughter of a certain Jacob, originating from the Caucasian mountains,” and named Caterina. According to the document, Catarina’s owner appears to have been the wife of rich merchant Donato di Filippo, who lived near the San Michele Visdomini church in Florence, and whose usual solicitor for business was Piero da Vinci. The date on the document is underlined several times, as if da Vinci’s hand was shaking as he proceeds to the liberation of the woman who just gave him a child.

Slavery was still current practice in 15th-century Italy, though on a much smaller scale than in the Ottoman Empire. The city of Florence alone had at least 1,000 slaves—among them Russians, Abkhazes, Turks, Serbs, and, like Caterina, Circassians from the Caucasus. Who was this woman who gave birth to one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance?
Tel Aviv Museum of Art among 50 most popular museums worldwide
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art ranked 48th on The Art Magazine’s recently released list of the 100 most popular museums in the world, with over one million visitors in the past year.

It’s the fifth consecutive year that the Tel Aviv Museum of Art made it to the list that includes the world’s leading museums, the only museum to do so from Israel.

The museum was ranked 56th last year, but climbed to 48th place, mainly due to a record-breaking 670,000 visitors to the November-May 2021 exhibition of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

The ranking is published annually by the international art magazine and is based on the number of visitors to museums around the world.

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art had 1,070,714 visitors in 2022.

In addition to Yayoi Kusama’s installation — “A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe,” a forest of giant, neon-pink tentacles — another draw was last July’s exhibit “The Last Photograph: Ran Tal after Micha Bar-Am,” in which Bar-Am, considered the father of Israeli photojournalism, opened up his 50-year archive for filmmaker Ran Tal.

Other popular exhibits included “Material Imagination: Israeli Art from the Museum’s Collection,” “Annette Messager: Desires, Disorders” and “Shira Zelwer: Gathering of Birds” by the Shiff Art Prize-winning artist, along with special projects for the museum’s 90th-anniversary events.
The Ancient Translation That Paired the Song of Songs with the Exodus
In many Ashkenazi congregations, the Song of Songs is read publicly on the Sabbath that falls during Passover. This custom stems from the traditional rabbinic understanding that this book’s portrayal of romantic love is an allegory for the love between God and the people of Israel. But how did this allegorical reading establish a connection to Passover, first mentioned in the 13th century? Sheila Tuller Keiter points to a targum, or rabbinically approved translation:

Enter the Targum Song of Songs, the Aramaic “translation” of the Song. Some targumim, like the relatively well-known Targum Onkelos, offer fairly straightforward Aramaic translations of the underlying biblical text. However, some targumim, especially later ones, are not so much translations as interpretations, often digressing into creative and expansive exegesis.

Targum Song of Songs does exactly that. It seems to have originated in the 8th or 9th century, and adopts the same allegorical approach of [an earlier, but less widely read, midrashic work], interpreting sections of the Song as references to the exodus from Egypt. Yet the Targum takes the conceit one step further, being the first source to reimagine the entire Song of Songs (not merely isolated verses) as a history of the relationship between God and Israel as it progresses through distinct eras; from the exodus to the building of Solomon’s Temple; from the Babylonian exile until the building of the Second Temple; and from the Roman destruction of that Temple until the eventual messianic rebuilding of the Third Temple. The biblical Song’s cycles of the lovers’ separation, longing, and reunification become the Targum’s cycles of exile and redemption that permeate Jewish history. The Targum explicitly connects the Song to the national redemption that began with the exodus of the Jewish people from slavery, into the welcoming embrace of God.

Thanks to the Targum, Ashkenazim didn’t just read the Song of Songs as a generalized love allegory, but as the story of Israel’s repeated exile and redemption, starting with the redemption from exile and bondage in Egypt. The Targum’s elaborate historical allegory made Song of Songs the perfect Passover reading for Ashkenazim. And as they sat in shul all those centuries ago, they could hear the Song of Songs, and feel hope for the final redemption.




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