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Friday, May 05, 2023

05/05 Links Pt2: Kindertransport nurse was the first to hold the King when he was born; Only Jews are accused of exaggerating the racism they face

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The coronation of King Charles will be more than an amazing spectacle
On Saturday, Britain’s King Charles III will be crowned in London’s Westminster Abbey.

The coronation, which will be viewed by millions around the world, promises to be a spectacle of ceremony and magnificence for which the British have no rivals.

Even this week’s dress rehearsal, which was carried out in the middle of the night, was attended by crowds of spectators and produced awe-struck responses to the mile-long military procession taking the gold state coach to the abbey from Buckingham Palace.

The significance of the event, however, goes far deeper and wider than all the pomp and circumstance. The coronation makes two statements of great importance for today’s world about the place of religion in public life and the importance and meaning of the nation.

Both religion and nation are currently opposed, scorned and vilified by the dominant progressive elites of Western culture. Many such people also oppose the monarchy, viewing it as an anachronism redolent of hereditary privilege that has no place in a modern democracy.

Throughout the West, there is now an all-out assault on the very idea of the nation along with its inherited culture. This is fueled by a determination to impose supposedly universal values that will usher in the unity of all mankind.

This onslaught involves an attempt to dismember the traditional nuclear family; vilify white society, normative sexuality and men; and hijack education and replace knowledge and rationality with propaganda and the suppression of dissent.

At the core of this agenda—whose echoes can also be heard in the anti-government protests that have been rocking Israel—lies the aim of exiling religion from the public square.

The monarchy in Britain embodies both religion and nation. The core of the coronation is a religious dedication. Dressed in a simple shirt, the King will be anointed with holy oil and in this private ritual will take his monarchical oath of service to God.

Few realize that the British monarchy is patterned on Jewish history. Early English kings even believed they were descended from King David. They appreciated the revolutionary aspect of ancient Israel: Its monarch was not the supreme ruler, a status which invites tyranny and despotism, but was himself answerable to God, the one true king over all.

The British coronation rite is modeled on the accession of King Solomon as described in the Book of Kings. Solomon was escorted to the throne by both religious and military leaders, as will happen to Charles, and was anointed by Zadok the high priest, represented this weekend by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The choir in the abbey will raise the roof with Handel’s sublime “Zadok the Priest,” and the holy oil will have been brought from Jordan, part of the original Land of Israel.

Jews know better than anyone that what keeps a nation together is continuity—the adherence to principles, traditions and rites that shape a people and are handed down through the generations.
Howard Jacobson: From Saul to David, Jews always did a good coronation
Whatever further thoughts God has about the heavenly right of kings to rule, it’s this transformative moment — when He mightily passes on His spirit to Saul and turns him into “another man”, not a god, but a man unlike all other men and, indeed, unlike himself as he was before Samuel anointed him — that explains the religious significance of coronations and why the English always sound like Jews when they invest a sovereign.

I haven’t yet seen the order of service for Charles’s investiture but if it’s like his mother’s, it will begin with a reading of Psalm 122, which was written by King David himself, and which prays for the peace of Jerusalem.

Think of that! We’re in the middle of London and we’re praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Soon, the Archbishop will call on God to bless and sanctify His chosen servant Charles, as He had once consecrated kings and prophets to teach and govern “thy people Israel”.

And it isn’t long now before the magnificent musical introduction of Zadok the Priest. “And as Solomon was anointed King / by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet / So be thou anointed, blessed, and consecrated King.”

How much more proof of the Coronation’s root and branch ceremonial Jewishness do we need? As Solomon was anointed King . . . so be thou anointed King.

I have felt a kind of kinship with Charles ever since I saw newsreels of him looking lonely as a boy. Something of that sadness still attaches to him in my eye, happier as he appears to be now, sitting in the Royal Box with Camilla watching The Marriage of Figaro rather than Little Mix.

So I hope he enjoys his big day as I, all things considered, enjoyed mine — if you will allow that a bar mitzvah is a coronation on a more intimate scale. I emerged from mine, anyway, no longer a boy; Charles will emerge, as did King Saul, no longer the man he was. It’s a grand and solemn thought. All Hail the King. Baruch haba.
The Jewish details of King Charles’ coronation: Shabbat arrangements, Jerusalem oil
At a reception of faith leaders at Buckingham Palace the day after Queen Elizabeth’s death in September, King Charles pulled Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, aside for a word.

The reception was pushed earlier in the day than originally planned to accommodate Mirvis, since it fell on a Friday. But it ran long and Shabbat was approaching. According to Rabbi Nicky Liss, head of the Highgate Synagogue, Charles asked Mirvis what the rabbi was doing sticking around — didn’t he have to get home by Shabbat?

The protocol is that no one is allowed to leave the room before the king does, Mirvis responded. Charles then promptly told him to get home.

Both men are expected to bring that spirit of mutual respect to Charles’ coronation day on Saturday, as the new king will include a range of faith leaders who have never before been featured in a royal ceremony of this magnitude.

While much of the ceremony is still rooted in Christian rituals, representatives of Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Bahai and Zoroastrian communities will be incorporated into the proceedings.

In fact, non-Jewish faith representatives will enter Westminster Abbey before Anglican clerics. Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh members of the House of Lords will hand Charles objects of the royal regalia. And in a notable cross-cultural mash-up, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is Hindu, will read a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which includes language on the “loving rule of Christ over all people and all things.”

There is one large obstacle for observant Jewish participants and onlookers: The ceremony falls on Shabbat. But Charles has invited Mirvis to sleep in his home on Friday night — Clarence House, located a 15-minute walk from Westminster Abbey, the site of the coronation — so he can easily get to the event without using electricity (he will attend an early morning Shabbat service on his way).

And when religious leaders recite a “spoken greeting in unison” to Charles at the end of the ceremony, Mirvis will not use a microphone.
Call the (Jewish) midwife: Kindertransport nurse was the first to hold the King when he was born
On 5 July 1939 Ingelore Czarlinski, 15, and her sister Marion, 11, two Jewish girls from Berlin arrived in Harwich, a port town in Essex, on the Kindertransport. Just nine years later, Ingelore (now Susan) was the first person in the world to hold the future King Charles in her arms.

Susan, who had coincidentally changed her surname to Charles, had followed in the footsteps of two of her aunts and trained to become a nurse. She got a job working for obstetrician Sir William Gilliatt, who was chosen by the young Princess Elizabeth to attend the birth of her first baby, by caesarean.

Marion wrote in the Association of Jewish Refugees magazine in September 2005: “On 14 November 1948 I invited my sister to tea at my flat in Clapham. The phone rang and an official voice asked her to ring a Whitehall number immediately. Soon after a car came for her. When she arrived at Buckingham Palace she prepared the princess for delivery. The senior nurse assisted Sir William with the operation and Susan waited in an ante room with Prince Philip, who told her she reminded him of the beautiful Greek girls he had known when he was young. Eventually she was called into the delivery room and given Prince Charles to hold until his grandmother, the Queen Mother, took him from her.”

Charles was born at 9.14 pm in the music room at the palace, which had been converted into an operating theatre. He weighed 7lb 6oz. Obstetrician Sir John Peel and midwife Helen Rowe were also in attendance.

Marion explained that Susan was chosen for this role because not only was she a dedicated nurse, she was also incredibly discreet. So discreet in fact that her two daughters, Rebecca and Debra, didn’t know anything about their mother’s important role in the future king’s life until she and their father were invited to Princess Anne’s wedding in 1973. “We were naturally surprised and very curious as to why our parents were invited to a royal wedding, so our mother sat us down and explained,” says Debra.


Only Jews are accused of exaggerating the racism they face
The simple truth is that most Jews who oppose cancel culture also deplore racism and antisemitism. We always have and we always will. This is why when we encounter explicit instances of racism or antisemitism, such as the Guardian cartoon, we react.

By contrast, the most avowed antiracists rarely care about antisemitism because they simply don’t understand it. The logic is different from other racisms. Jews are often seen as white and, thanks to hard graft, appear to do well, as do other British minorities, like British Indians.

But the irony that truly makes my blood boil is that Jews and only Jews are accused of exaggerating the racism they face. They are the only victims that are told to stop complaining; yet they are far more likely to be true victims, with Jews five times more likely to face racism than other faith groups, according to Home Office figures.

Indeed, far from being exaggerated, antisemitism is the most under-reported racism in the Western world. But I imagine the people tying themselves in knots to defend the use of a squid in a basket of money under the word ‘Gold’ held by a man with a giant nose and grotesque lips would disagree.

I have been truly amazed in recent days by these knots, and how vicious they are. Some of the cartoonist’s defenders have even drawn an equivalence between the current backlash and the response in 2015 to the Charlie Hebdo cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, which included the murder by masked Muslim gunmen of 12 people in the Hebdo offices in Paris, including cartoonists and editorial staff.

The suggestion that there is any comparison to be made between the Hebdo terrorists and the ensuing threat to cartoonists the world over, and the Jews upset at depictions that echo those used in the organs of a party that went on to commit genocide against them in Europe 80 years ago, is heinous.

Finally, the protestation that nobody knew Sharp was Jewish is pretty weak. Having never been the slightest bit interested in the man, I found out he was Jewish by reading his Wikipedia page two weeks ago. It was right there. Next time a Guardian cartoonist finds himself doodling a squid, a big pot of gold and a fat Jewish-looking grotesque, maybe he’ll bother to Google him first. But I won’t get my hopes up.


The antisemitism that never went away
The dismissal of Jewish concerns about antisemitic hostility to Israel’s existence as merely the exploitation of historic Jewish victimhood to perpetuate the current victimhood of the Palestinians—an argument that has been frequently advanced in the pages of The Guardian—has resulted in a desensitization towards antisemitism more generally. If Israel is regarded as an oppressive state with wealthy Diaspora Jews eagerly supporting it with money and political influence, then there is very little space for any empathy with the community’s current sense of insecurity or any identification with the persecution that defined previous generations.

In these situations, a typical response of Jewish leaders has been to call for more education—about Judaism, Jewish culture, the Holocaust, the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities abroad and much more. The problem with advancing “education” as a means of dampening down antisemitic feeling is the rather large assumption that the knowledge and insights gained in a classroom session will trump the antisemitic bigotry imbibed on social media, in school playgrounds, in certain mosques and in other locations, both real and digital.

Precisely because there are no guarantees of success, it is vital that whatever educational programs are offered are first-rate in terms of substantive analysis and hard-hitting in terms of the conclusions that are drawn. Last month, I wrote about an extraordinary collection of antisemitic images and objects—postcards, walking sticks, paintings and other trinkets—currently housed at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany. Assembled in the aftermath of the Holocaust by Arthur Langerman, a Belgian Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, the collection spans several centuries and continents.

Having covered antisemitism for more than 20 years, I like to think that I am relatively inured from being shocked at such images, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t prepared for what I saw in the Langerman collection. Every monstrous depiction of Jews you could possibly imagine, including the sexual abuse of children, the execution of Jesus and the joyful of participation of Jews in usury, is contained therein.

Langerman explained to me that his primary motive in gathering this collection (the largest of its kind in the world) was to try and answer a perennial question: How could an apparently civilized country like Germany dehumanize and then exterminate 6 million Jews? “The answer is that they were inundated with antisemitic images showing Jews as rats, bugs, spiders—vermin that you have to get rid of. This was the message they were receiving 100 years before the Shoah. It’s why I have never found a single statement from a Nazi saying, ‘I regret what I did,’” he told me.

Slowly but surely, similar imagery is creeping once again into public discourse. Sad as it is to say, Rowson’s caricature of Richard Sharp in The Guardian could sit quite happily in Langerman’s collection. For that reason, every political cartoonist should be given the opportunity to study Langerman’s archive and Jewish organizations would do well to arrange their visits.

Will imparting knowledge of the long tradition of visual antisemitism persuade cartoonists that while a Jewish person is, like anyone else, fair game for satire, their Jewishness should be left out of the equation? We owe it to ourselves to try.


Sam Smith concert in Israel cancelled due to 'logistical issues'
British pop singer Sam Smith has cancelled their forthcoming show in Israel citing technical issues.

The 30-year-old Grammy Award-winner, whose 2023 album Gloria topped the UK chart, was due to play The Summer in the City Festival in Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park on 31 May.

Event organisers have now said that the first of two nights of the festival, featuring Smith and Papa Roach, has been cancelled "due to unforeseeable technical and logistical problems”.

In a statement, they said: "The festival concerts of June 1 will continue as planned. Those who bought tickets are welcome to contact the company they bought the tickets from for a full refund. People who bought tickets for both days of the festival who want to keep the ticket for the second day will be refunded 25% of the ticket price or cancel it and get a full refund."

In the last few months, an online campaign was formed to urge the star to cancel their gig.

According to Pink News, Ghadir Shafie, the co-founder of the Palestinian Feminist Center for Gender and Sexual Freedoms wrote an open letter to smith accusing the star of helping "prop up the false image of Israel as a modern, democratic society."

“It may sound benign, but it is what allows Israel to continue its wholesale theft of Palestinian life, land, and dignity.”

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel praised the gig's cancellation on Twitter saying: “Palestinians warmly welcome the news that @samsmith will not be performing in apartheid Israel, and avoiding artwashing or pinkwashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians.”

The festival events of June 1, featuring Robbie Williams, Calum Scott, Martin Garrix and Israeli singer Static, are set to go ahead as planned.


Psychology conference in New York features couple who advocate BDS
Mobile billboards outside the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology’s 42nd annual spring conference, which took place last weekend in New York City, asked: “Why is the American Psychological Association hosting antisemites?”

The latter reference is to Lara Sheehi, president of the society—part of the APA—and her husband Stephen.

A George Washington University psychology professor who supports boycotting Israel, Lara Sheehi has been accused of “singling out and targeting Jewish and Israeli students for adverse treatment because of their identity,” which StandWithUs has called “textbook antisemitic discriminatory conduct.”

She has also reportedly written on social media that Israelis are “(expletive) racist,” and that it is “so (expletive) ridiculous how Zionism works.” Stephen Sheehi is also a supporter of the BDS movement.

Chair of Middle East studies and professor of Arabic studies at the College of William & Mary, he was one of two speakers at a keynote question-and-answer session with graduate students on April 28. His wife hosted an April 29 informal lunch “presidential meet-and-greet for life members.”


Senior manager at Vodafone UK caught spreading antisemitism
Earlier this year, we identified the person tweeting antisemitic abuse under the pseudonym of “Cubit Sikorsky” as John McKinnie, Senior Global Optimisation Manager at Vodafone UK. We digitally archived the offensive tweets, forensically linked the Twitter account from where the antisemitic tweets were sent to McKinnie, and submitted a formal complaint of hateful conduct to the head of Vodafone’s Social Customer Experience & Engagement.

McKinnie’s Twitter account has since been deactivated and his LinkedIn profile page is no longer public or has been deleted.

John McKinnie is allegedly also a member of the UK Labour Party and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. Here is a selection of antisemitic tweets that breach the IHRA Definition on Antisemitism on many levels:

– Tweets referring to Jews and their supporters as “virus” and “psychos”

– Stereotyping Jews and mocking our traditional dress

– Asserting that allegations of antisemitism are a scam

– Trolling prominent Jewish Twitter accounts, targeting the chief Rabbi with abuse, and promoting the false and antisemitic apartheid narrative

Vodafone initially confirmed that the captured tweets were in breach of their policies and promised a full investigation. We recently wrote to Vodafone inquiring about the status of our complaint.
BBC contributors’ reactions to the death of a PIJ leader
Previously we looked at the BBC News website’s coverage of the death of the senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan due to a self-imposed hunger strike and refusal of medical care, as well as the all too predictable rocket attacks against civilian Israeli targets which followed:

Another notable aspect of that story is the reaction to Adnan’s death from some of the individuals and organisations regularly interviewed, quoted and promoted by the BBC.

‘Palestine Action’ – a group that is featured periodically on the BBC News website’s domestic pages – invited its Twitter followers to “pay respects”:

Frequent BBC contributor Omar Shakir of ‘Human Rights Watch’ praised the “resilience” of the PIJ leader who called for suicide bombings against Israelis:

Another NGO regularly quoted and promoted by the BBC – Amnesty International – managed to post a whole thread without mentioning the fact that Adnan was a member of an Iran backed internationally designated terrorist organisation:

Perennial BBC interviewee Husam Zomlot – the PLO representative in London – promoted disinformation:

One of the BBC’s most preferred contributors among Israeli NGOs, B’Tselem, referred to the “non-violent protest” of a man who lauded terrorism against civilians:
USA Today’s By the Book Report on U.S. Congressional Trip to Israel
“Good writing,” Ernest Hemingway observed, “is true writing.” Yet, when it comes to reporting on Israel, many journalists are unable—or unwilling—to provide dispatches that are honest, accurate or fair. However, a recent USA Today article is a notable exception.

The newspaper’s May 2, 2023 dispatch, “McCarthy in Israel to Open ‘New Chapter,’” succeeded where many other news reports have failed. Reporter Rachel Looker highlighted a recent trip by U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Israel. The dispatch, which appeared both online and in the print edition, was part of the paper’s coverage of the 75th anniversary of the Jewish state’s recreation.

McCarthy, USA Today noted, “led a bipartisan congressional delegation to the country” and said that a “newly formed friendship group will allow the House to engage more directly with the Israeli Parliament, travel to Israel to strengthen existing relationships and host Knesset members traveling to the United States.” The congressional delegation included 20 lawmakers.

The trip to Israel was McCarthy’s first foreign trip as House speaker.

USA Today carefully detailed McCarthy’s comments to the Knesset and refrained from editorializing—a welcome reprieve from many reports on the Jewish state, including recent dispatches on the congressional trip.

The Speaker told Israel’s parliament that the two countries have a “special relationship [that] can serve as a foundation for greater peace across the Middle East.” Referencing the landmark Abraham Accords, McCarthy said that “progress towards peace in the past few years have simply been remarkable.” He added: “Congress stands ready to work with Israel to broaden and deepen those accords, working for sustainable peace with all of Israel’s neighbors.”
SUMMARY OF BBC NEWS WEBSITE PORTRAYAL OF ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS – APRIL 2023
Once again BBC News website audiences saw no reporting on internal Palestinian affairs during April. Since the beginning 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 April include more death sentences given out by Hamas, the execution of a member of the ‘Lions Den’ in Nablus, the rescue of a Jewish couple by a man from Hebron, a strike by UNRWA staff which has prevented 45,000 children from attending school for weeks on end, attacks on Christians in PA controlled areas, attacks on a PA facility in Jenin, the death of a man in police detention in the Gaza Strip and a Palestinian Islamic Jihad military exercise in Jenin.
‘Heartening’: Bill Adopting IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Passes South Carolina House
The House of Representatives of the South Carolina General Assembly has approved landmark legislation that would require state officials to refer to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when investigating complaints of anti-Jewish discrimination.

All 105 members of the body voted unanimously in favor of bill H.4042, which was authored and proposed by Rep. Beth Bernstein (D). Bernstein told The Algemeiner on Thursday during an interview that she was surprised by the measure’s receiving bipartisan support in an era of extreme political polarization.

“I anticipated there would be some debate on it,” she said. “I was happy that there wasn’t and that we were able to pass this definition of antisemitism, so we could have some clarity and guidance on what antisemitism is.”

Bernstein added that the bill may not be receive a vote in the Senate before the legislative session ends this May but that efforts to make it law will resume in January, when the next session begins. The lawmaker, the only in the General Assembly of Jewish heritage, is also still advocating passage of the Pinckney Hate Crime Act, which, she says, will reinforce the provisions of H. 4042 and prevent South Carolina’s becoming the only state never to pass hate crimes legislation.
Thugs blare Hezbollah battle song at children outside Jewish school
A pair of thugs filmed themselves blaring a Hezbollah battle song from their car at children outside a Jewish school in Hendon, north London, as they laughed hysterically.

They posted the video to TikTok with the caption: “Drove past the Zionist school on full blast.”

The song is the soundtrack to a 2020 video disseminated by Hezbollah’s media propaganda unit. The footage shows ranks of militants performing the Hitler salute.

The lyrics, translated from Arabic by the JC, state that terrorists from the Iran-funded group fighters “are immortalised by blood,” adding: “We are Hezbollah… we will not accept humiliation or compromise”.

The men, whose identities remain unknown, can be heard laughing and clapping while filming the bewildered-looking children, some of whom are wearing kippot and holding Israeli flags.


Israel rated best summer vacation destination worldwide Israel topped the list with an overall highest score of 74 out of 100.
A recent article from Club Med named Israel, specifically Jerusalem, the best destination for a sunny summer vacation worldwide.

Club Méditerranée, also known as Club Med, is a French travel and tourism agency that specializes in all-inclusive holidays and has been in business since 1950.

Israel topped the list with an overall score of 74 out of 100 due to the fact that it enjoys an average of zero rainy days in the summer.

Summer also happens to be when Israel has the most daylight hours, with an average of 12 each day compared to only 9 hours of sunlight per day in the fall.

The runners-up were Marrakech, Morrocco and Goa, India.

Where do Israelis go in the summer?
Israelis, on the other hand, are not interested in staying home for the summer, unless they can go to Eilat. The southernmost city in Israel, Eilat offers a vast array of recreational activities for tourists to enjoy, as well as classic sunny Mediterranean beaches. It is the second most popular destination worldwide for Israelis and it is the only local city that made Booking.com's list of the top 10 most sought-after holiday destinations among Israeli tourists.


StandWithUs: Being an archaeologist in Jerusalem
"To be an archaeologist in Israel, it's a great privilege, because every aspect of our life has a direct connection to the history."

Travel through time with these Israel-based archaeologists as they 'dig deep' into the incredible journey of the land of Israel, from ancient times to modern day.






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