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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

05/30 Links Pt2: Biden's antisemitism strategy not enough to end Jew-hatred; How Religious Jews Became Official Scapegoats of COVID Policy; Air Force marks 75 years since its 1st-ever strike mission

From Ian:

Biden's antisemitism strategy not enough to end Jew-hatred
We Jews cannot solve this gargantuan age-old problem alone. If we could, antisemitism would have been eradicated long ago. Instead, it is rearing its fury-filled, ugly head, across the United States with frequency. This battle requires the masses to stand up and work together to combat this hatred.

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog tweeted his appreciation to the Biden administration: “I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism. Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the re-embracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism. Less than a century after the Holocaust, rising antisemitism in America and across the globe is cause for alarm. This report is an important first step in the long fight against this venomous hate.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has said: “As the US Jewish community is experiencing antisemitism at levels not seen in generations, we deeply appreciate that the White House has stepped up and delivered this significant, comprehensive strategy.

“It’s particularly notable that this approach recognizes that antisemitism is not about politics – it’s about principles. We are pleased that this strategy comprehensively addresses hate and antisemitism on campus, online and from extremists on both the far-Right and the far-Left.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, in his still powerful and insightful essay “Antisemite and Jew,” explains that the antisemite has created the Jew as a target of hate. The Jew represents everything that the antisemite loathes. That hatred is so deep and profound that even though they might love democracy, the antisemite does not even realize that their hatred is destroying the very society they love.

Sartre argues that this hatred is a passion and a deep-seated emotion. He explains that to the antisemite, the hatred is not an idea in the common sense of the word: it is not a point of view that is rational. “It is first of all a passion.”

Sartre tells the story of his high school friend who was livid that he had failed the French poetry test and the Jew, a son of Eastern European immigrants, had passed. The young man’s anger was vicious and so very visceral. He wonders how a Jew could understand French poetry better than he – a true Frenchman.

And then, the truth. Sartre gets his classmate to admit that he failed because he did not study and that it had nothing to do with the Jew. Rather than accept the blame he alone deserved, he transferred his anger and frustration to the ready scapegoat, a Jewish classmate.

Jew-hatred will not disappear, but the more non-Jews who join in the battle, the more likely it is that Jew-hatred will become socially unacceptable and even banished from polite conversation and public interaction.

That is truly the goal of this initiative.
Jonathan Tobin: Asking the wrong question about Biden’s flawed antisemitism plan
Those who have sought to defend the strategy by accusing its critics of quibbling over details are not just demonstrating poor judgment. They are failing to ask the most important question about antisemitism in America. The real query that needs to be posed is what role is this administration—even as it engages in a massive exercise in antisemitism virtue signaling—playing in enabling the growth of a form of Jew-hatred that is considered acceptable in political discourse, academia and popular culture?

The unfortunate answer is quite a lot.

This is, after all, the same administration that has mandated the implementation of the new secular religion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in every government department and agency.

The woke DEI catechism is rooted in critical race theory, which divides all Americans into two immutable groups: victims and victimizers. It is also directly connected to intersectional myths that treat Jews and Israel as white oppressors.

Biden’s embrace of this toxic ideology and his decision to make it official government policy are among the most momentous things he has done in the White House. In comparison to that awful decision, the publication of a strategy paper on antisemitism is relatively insignificant. This was reflected in the largely negligible coverage of the document’s unveiling in the secular media.

The Biden report did say that modules about antisemitism would be included in government DEI indoctrination. But anyone who thinks that this will temper the damage being done is forgetting that the DEI commissars who are implementing this doctrine of permanent race conflict throughout academia, the business world and now the government are exactly the same people who fought for the alternative to the IHRA definition. The only way to prevent the spread of this noxious form of left-wing Jew-hatred is to stop DEI, not to make minimal attempts to alter it.

The organized Jewish world was played perfectly by the Biden White House. As a result, the bulk of American Jewry, already inclined to support anything put out by the Democrats and to believe antisemitism is primarily a problem of the right, has had its preexisting biases confirmed.

By allowing themselves to be distracted by a clever information operation and thereby gulled into avoiding a confrontation over the most important detail about the document, mainstream Jewish leadership has once again failed its constituency. An administration that is enabling antisemitism can’t be trusted to fight antisemitism no matter what its purported strategy on the issue might claim to be.
Jonathan Tobin: Don’t call promoting anti-Zionism to Jewish youth ‘dialogue’
American Jews have always been addicted to interfaith dialogue. Jewish groups jump at any opportunity to engage in interfaith programs to foster alliances with other minorities. When applied to dialogue between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, dialogue programs, which are usually sponsored by groups that are critical of Israel, are generally even less productive than other kinds. All too often, they involve Arabs complaining bitterly about Israel and the Jews agreeing with them. While these engagements are well-intended and praised for their idealism, they often do more harm than good since they can serve to reinforce the unwillingness of Palestinians to give up their demented fantasies about the demolition of the Jewish state.

But now we’ve been given an example of a form of Jewish-Arab dialogue that goes well beyond that. The newest model that is being tried involves bringing American Jewish students together with people who are openly anti-Zionists, bent on Israel’s destruction to make them better informed about the Palestinian narrative.

That’s the conceit of a program launched by Ezra Beinart, a high school junior living in New York City who has been recruiting fellow teens to learn more about the Palestinian side in the conflict. And they are certainly getting that in the series of Zoom programs he’s led that have featured, among others, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a vicious opponent of the Jewish state and a supporter of the antisemitic BDS movement.

If his last name sounds familiar, it should. He’s the son of journalist Peter Beinart, whose well-chronicled personal and ideological journey began as a neo-liberal hawk, then a left-wing dove and self-proclaimed liberal Zionist to his current guise as an outspoken anti-Zionist who supports the elimination of the Jewish state, a position he advocates in publications like The New York Times and as a commentator on CNN.

I have often criticized Beinart’s work. And I debated him once in person several years ago when he was still playing the role of liberal Zionist. That was before he abandoned the cause of Jewish self-determination because, to his surprise, the people of Israel stubbornly refused to listen to his advice to make suicidal concessions to those who plot their destruction.

But while I make no secret of my disdain for his writing and statements—and am appalled at the way he uses his Jewish identity to give undeserved credibility to his attacks on Israel—I bear neither him nor his family any personal ill will. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t think of publicizing, let alone publicly criticizing, his son’s high school projects.


Panel of historians starts clarification of 1972 Munich Olympics massacre
A panel of historians set up to review the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes in a terror attack at the Munich Olympics is starting its three-year mission to examine what happened before, during and after the events of five decades ago, the German government said on Tuesday.

In April, Germany’s Interior Ministry named the eight-member international commission of experts, most based in Israel or Germany. That was part of an agreement last year with relatives of the 11 Israeli team members who were killed by Palestinian terrorists.

The panel’s first meeting was being held at the Interior Ministry on Tuesday. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pledged that “the events surrounding this terrible attack will finally be examined thoroughly and transparently.”

“The research findings should deliver answers to the many unresolved questions — answers which the German government has owed the victims’ family members and the public for more than 50 years,” Faeser said in a statement. Her ministry said there would be “regular publications and events.”

In September, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized for multiple German failures before, during and after the attack as he joined his Israeli counterpart and relatives of the slain athletes at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary.

Days earlier, an agreement for the relatives to receive a total of 28 million euros ($30 million) in compensation headed off a threatened boycott of the event. The sum included much smaller payments made earlier.

Germany also agreed to acknowledge failures by authorities at the time and to set up the expert review.
Dara Horn: Mount Sinai at West Point
On Wednesday, Tablet contributor Dara Horn delivered the following remarks at the United States Military Academy at West Point to a gathering of about 100 Jewish West Point cadets, faculty, officers, alumni, veterans, and families and friends, celebrating the 18 Jewish graduating cadets of the West Point class of 2023. …

But the problem is that Jews have spent the past 3,000 years not being like everyone else. Uncoolness is Judaism’s brand, going back to the ancient Near East, where everyone else was worshiping a Marvel Cinematic Universe of sexy deities, and the Jews were like the losers in the school cafeteria, praying to their bossy, unsexy invisible God. And over many centuries as a minority in places around the world, Jews have made the choice over and over again to remain uncomfortable: to distinguish themselves from their neighbors in any number of ways, to cling to those distinctions and, over the course of their lives, to learn and understand what those distinctions really mean. They made that choice even when they had easier options, and even when it meant risking their lives.

One of the things I’ve learned in my work as a writer is the profound value of being uncomfortable. The uncomfortable moments are always where the story is, because those are the moments where you are about to learn something that you might have gone through your entire life not knowing. The only way people learn and change is by being uncomfortable, by choosing to put themselves into situations that push them to the very edge of what they think they understand. That is a choice that all of you know well. You’ve chosen, at a young age, to dedicate yourselves completely to defending our nation, without any way to predict where that commitment might take you. And you’ve chosen not only to commit to that uncomfortably uncertain future, but to lead others through it.
How Religious Jews Became Official Scapegoats of COVID Policy
Dr. Anthony Fauci became famous early on in the pandemic for his dedication to lockdowns and masking. For many, this made him a hero—and anyone who questioned or defied these measures a villain. Perhaps no one in the country became greater COVID pariahs than religious Jews. “Just drove through Hasidic Williamsburg. Saw at least 250 people, and not a *single* person was wearing a mask,” New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro tweeted in outrage in May 2020.

But rhetoric about COVID has changed. Officials who once advocated for harsh restrictions are quietly seeking to distance themselves from their earlier positions. It’s clear why Fauci, along with former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten would like to revise the record. The policies they supported are no longer popular. There’s mounting evidence that restrictions like mask-wearing and school closures did little to reduce the spread of COVID—but that these policies did cause enormous harm, including the worsening adolescent mental health crisis. But before we allow such officials to simply move on, it’s worth revisiting how the casual slandering of religious Jews became an accepted part of COVID discourse—especially since some of the decisions Haredim were vilified for have come to seem arguably wiser than those advocated by public health authorities.

Both Fauci and Weingarten now downplay their moral clarity during the pandemic. Fauci claims he never called for lockdowns, he only issued guidance. Weingarten—who once aggressively lobbied, and even sued to ensure that public schools stayed closed, while calling demands for schools to reopen “reckless,” “callous,” and “cruel”—recently testified before Congress that she had always wanted to open schools: “(We) spent every day from February on trying to get schools open.” (The string of community note fact checks that her Twitter account has accumulated demonstrates just how absurd this claim is.)

The emerging consensus on COVID is that more targeted and nuanced policies, such as those some European countries adopted, would not only have been significantly better for the economy, but also for public health—physical and mental. Of course, it’s easy to see the right thing in hindsight. What’s hardest to swallow is not that our public officials made mistakes about how to handle an intensely difficult and confusing situation, but that they so viciously demonized those who saw things differently.
Pro-Israel stage protester says Roger Waters’ guards threatened to break his neck
A pro-Israel protester who rushed the stage with an Israeli flag during a Roger Waters concert in Frankfurt on Sunday told Israeli media Monday about the aftermath of his act, including that security guards had threatened to break his neck.

Footage posted online showed the young man managing to reach the upper deck while running from security, while groups of protesters dispersed in the crowd were also waving large Israeli flags and singing “Am Yisrael Chai” (The people of Israel live), in what appeared to be a coordinated response to the former Pink Floyd frontman’s latest antisemitic controversy on his current tour.

On Monday night, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported that the man who got onto the stage was a pro-Israel Christian who heads the German-Israeli Society organization’s youth forum in Frankfurt, naming him only as Marcel L.

The network interviewed him about what happened after the on-stage protest against Waters.

“His security arrived quickly and violently took me down to the basement. They threatened to break my neck if I didn’t give them my mobile phone,” said Marcel.

“I also didn’t want to let go of the Israeli flag, so the guard told me he would break my arm if I didn’t give him the flag,” he added.

Waters himself reacted to the protest during the show, saying it had put him off and had been “quite unnerving” for him.


‘Not good enough,’ says RJC’s Brooks of Kennedy Jr explanation of tweet supporting Roger Waters
It’s been a busy few hours on Twitter for Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and a Democratic candidate for president in 2024.

First Kennedy tweeted support for the musician Roger Waters, co-founder of the band Pink Floyd who is facing widespread criticism for dressing as an SS officer and for other Holocaust imagery at a recent Berlin concert.

“Roger You are the global hero Orwell had in mind when he said ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act’ The high priests of the totalitarian orthodoxies are trying to silence you with censorship, gaslighting and defamation. Please keep speaking truth to power!” Kennedy wrote on May 27. (The Daily Caller has found that quote is not one of Orwell’s.)

Kennedy has since deleted that tweet, although screenshots remain on Twitter.

The following day, Kennedy posted a follow up on Twitter. “In my remarks about Roger Waters, I was referring to his dissent on Covid and the war in Ukraine,” the Democratic candidate posted. “I have only recently learned about some of his other views, which I do not share.” In another tweet, he added, “I support Israel’s right to exist within secure borders and I also support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Kennedy, who has a reputation for opposing vaccines, deleted that tweet as well, although it too was captured in screenshots.

“Not good enough,” Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, tweeted.

“This is the fawning tweet to racist and antisemite Roger Waters that Robert Kennedy Jr. has now deleted,” Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, tweeted. “But he also deleted his quasi non-apology as well. Don’t worry Robert, screenshots are forever and we will remember which side you took!”


US lawmakers blast NYC public colleges for anti-Zionist commencement event
National and local politicians in New York blast the City University of New York (CUNY) and its law school for a commencement ceremony that featured a keynote speech attacking the Jewish state and “Zionists.”

US Congressman Ritchie Torres calls the speech “anti-Israel derangement syndrome at work.”

“Imagine being so crazed by hatred for Israel as a Jewish State that you make it the subject of your commencement speech at a law school graduation,” Torres says.

US Congressman Mike Lawler says, “CUNY should be ashamed of itself — and should lose any federal funds it currently receives.”

New York State Assemblymember Simcha Eichenstein says, “This hate-filled and dangerous speech has been brought to you by CUNY and paid for by New York taxpayers.”

New York City council members Ari Kagan, Kalman Yeger and Inna Vernikov also blast the city college system over the speech.

“CUNY Law continues to be a bastion of antisemitism, encouraging another generation to hate Jews. This vile blood libel is yet another example of how dangerous it is to be Jewish on a CUNY campus,” Yeger says.

Lee Zeldin, a former congressman and gubernatorial candidate, says, “Until the administration is overhauled and all Jewish students and faculty are welcome again, taxpayer funding must be immediately halted.”


Eric Adams slams CUNY law grad for 'negativity and divisiveness' after calling for attacks on 'fascist' police and military - as new video emerges of her calling for 'Zionist professors' to be banned from campus
NYC Mayor Eric Adams has slammed a CUNY law graduate for her 'negativity and divisiveness' after she incited anger and slammed 'fascist' cops and military in the US.

Yemeni immigrant Fatima Mousa Mohammed gave the graduation speech at City University of New York's law school on May 12 - but unearthed footage has also shown her previously demanding Zionist professors be banned from the college.

Mayor Adams was also at the ceremony and was booed by students while being introduced to the stage as a former NYPD cop.

The controversial clip from the law graduation ceremony inflamed social media - including lawmakers and NYC's mayor, who today bashed her 'words of negativity and divisiveness.'

During her time as a student in New York City, Mohammed was known for being an avid protester and active member of Students for Justice in Palestine.

In March 2022, a clip showed her speaking in front of 'Friends of the IDF' in Midtown Manhattan to a crowd of people holding Palestinian flags.

Mohammed said: 'Demand that Zionist professors are not welcomed on your campus. Demand that Zionist students are not in spaces where Palestinian students are.'

She spoke before a crowd cheered: 'We don't want no Zionists here!'

Zionists are people who believe in the rights and protection of a Jewish nation - Israel. Many Jewish people across the world view themselves as Zionists.

Speaking today, Eric Adams said in a tweet: 'I was proud to offer a different message at this year’s CUNY law commencement ceremony — one that celebrates the progress of our city and country, and one that honors those who fight to keep us safe and protect our freedoms, like my uncle Joe, who died at age 19 in Vietnam while giving his life for our country.

'We cannot allow words of negativity and divisiveness to be the only ones our students hear.'


CAMERA Op-Ed The Washington Post Pretends that Terrorists Are Both Journalists and Credible Sources
Two recent reports by The Washington Post neatly encompass everything that is wrong with both the newspaper’s coverage of the Israel-Islamist conflict and the paper’s journalism itself. Both dispatches appeared on the same day, May 10, and both were filed by the newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau.

In a news report on an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counter-terrorist operation, the Post treated a terrorist-linked entity as a credible source. While ostensibly about IDF strikes aimed at taking out leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a Gaza-based terror group, the article uncritically quoted casualty claims by “Palestinian health officials.”

Later, the Post noted that “four women and four children were among those killed in the morning strikes, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.”

Yet, notwithstanding its innocuous sounding name, the “Palestinian Health Ministry” is run by Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group. And it has a long history of lying to journalists, who — for some inexplicable reason — are more than willing to parrot its claims.

In a July 7, 2021, report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, entitled “The Media in the 2021 Gaza War,” Middle East analyst Lenny Ben-David noted that a “Hamas government body, the Health Ministry, was a primary source for international media outlets on the number of Gaza’s dead and wounded” in that conflict. However, the statistics supplied by the Ministry were “unreliable.”

Ben-David pointed out: “A study on Gazan casualties in the 2014 war published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs uncovered a Health Ministry official, Ashraf al-Kidra, who served as the ‘keeper of the statistics.’ Al-Kidra used a very broad definition of civilians, saying the term applied to ‘anyone who had not been claimed by one of the armed groups as a member.’”

It makes perfect sense that a terrorist group would lie and manipulate casualty statistics for propaganda purposes. Indeed, that’s part and parcel of what terrorist groups do across the world.

Hamas itself has acknowledged as much. For example, in a 2018 interview, Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar admitted to Al-Jazeera that the group believed in “deceiving the public” for propaganda purposes.

And Hamas, which runs the Health Ministry, encourages civilian casualties.
BBC Jerusalem bureau does churnalism for CPJ report
Neither does Bateman bother to inform BBC audiences that among the rest of the “at least 20 journalists” killed over more than two decades are at least six others who were either members of terrorist organisations (for example Khaled Hamad), present at a Hamas facility or employed by media outlets belonging to terrorist organisations at the time of their deaths. Notably, Bateman has no comment to offer on the topic of the CPJ’s portrayal of people employed by the media arms of designated terrorist organisations as journalists and civilians.

Bateman’s report is hence nothing more than churnalism: the uncritical amplification of a press release or a report put out by a third party. While that practice is not rare at the BBC, it is worth noting that this particular narrative – and not least its connection to the topic of the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, which Bateman and his colleagues have vigorously promoted over the past year – links to an unevidenced allegation that some BBC journalists have been promoting for many years.

Needless to say, the safety of journalists while doing their job is an important issue. So too is the abuse of journalism and journalists by terrorist organisations and repressive regimes but neither Tom Bateman nor the CPJ appear to be overly interested in that aspect of the story they chose to promote.
Guardian finds new Palestinian cause to promote
These efforts by the civil rights group – via their Center on Extremism – have historically been more focused more on the right than the left. Further, anyone familiar with their broader political orientation – which includes strong support for Israeli-Palestinian co-existence and a two-state solution – would dismiss as absurd any suggestion that they’re scheming with PayPal to deny Palestinians access to financial services.

Additionally, the “Palestinian groups” which, McGreal explains, “accuse [ADL] of conflating the campaign for Palestinian rights with extremism and antisemitism” typically do so because they reject the group’s advocacy on behalf of the widely accepted IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism. IHRA lists, as one example of antisemitism, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”.

Palestinian groups which reject Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within any borders of course find it threatening that so much of the internationally community sees such a stance as morally abhorrent, and as intrinsically inconsistent with the post-Holocaust pledge of ‘Never Again’.

Whilst we don’t know why PayPal is denying services to the Palestinians, the company has broadly cited “risk, compliance, regulatory and resource allocation issues”, without getting into specifics. Though it would be ideal if we knew more about their decision, the mere existence of disparate outcomes is not prima facie evidence of discriminatory conduct.

We’ve complained to Guardian editors about McGreal’s omission of the NGO behind the campaign.


Prosecutor: Pittsburgh synagogue shooter harbored ‘malice and hate’ for Jews
Prosecutors on Tuesday described how a heavily armed suspect barged into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shot every worshiper he could find in the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history.

Robert Bowers’ federal trial got underway more than four years after the shooting deaths of 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Twelve jurors and six alternates — chosen Thursday after more than 200 candidates were questioned over a month — are hearing the case. They include 11 women and seven men.

“The depths of the defendant’s malice and hate can only be proven in the broken bodies” of the victims and “his hateful words,” Assistant US Attorney Soo C. Song said during her opening statement.

Some of the survivors dabbed tears, while Bowers, seated at the defense table, showed no reaction.

The defense was expected to present its opening statement before the prosecution began calling witnesses. This undated Pennsylvania Department of Transportation photo shows Robert Bowers. (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation via AP, File)

Bowers, 50, could face the death penalty if convicted of some of the 63 counts he faces in the October 27, 2018, attack, which claimed the lives of worshippers from three congregations who were sharing the building, Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life. Charges include 11 counts each of obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death and hate crimes resulting in death.
White supremacist wanted to 'set up community where children would be taught antisemitic curriculum'
A white supremacist who was obsessed with guns wanted to establish a 'private' community where young children would be taught an 'antisemitic curriculum by military style personnel', a court filing says.

Chad Edward Keith, who described himself as a Nazi who would die for his believes, wanted to establish the community in Colorado, it is alleged.

Investigators say the plans emerged after the 41-year-old was arrested for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

An investigation was launched by the FBI after several reports that Keith was illegally in possession of firearms. He was barred from handling weapons after a previous felony conviction.

He was charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person due to a previous federal weapons conviction. If convicted on the most recent charges, he could spend up to 10 years in prison.

The FBI recruited an informant who obtained undercover pictures of Keith's weapons and learned about his white supremacist views. The haul consisted of 11 weapons and included rifles, handguns and shotguns, according to investigators.

He was pictured by an FBI informant handling guns at a 2.6-acre property in Cotopaxi, Colorado where he planned to start the private community where children would be taught the 'antisemitic curriculum'.
Does Maureen Lipman's new play use the Holocaust to demonise Israel?
Central to this play is the idea that Jews should somehow know better. The narrative briefly touches on Holocaust survivors being turned away from Palestine and the Six-Day War, but these elements serve as mere backdrop for the main event: the Jewish mourning ritual for a little girl killed by Jews. The message? Modern Jews (Israelis) have not learned their lesson.

The Holocaust was an industrialised mass murder of Jews. The notion that we should ‘know better’ after the loss of over six million lives diminishes it to an educational exercise. Expecting Jews to be morally superior due to the horrors our families endured is a sick idea, even if spoken by an imagined Holocaust survivor. The lessons of the Holocaust should be shared by all of humanity, but Jews should not bear the burden of being morally superior due to our history of enslavement, torture, starvation and murder.

The play offers no positive thoughts about the modern state of Israel. If Rose represents the embodiment of the 20th-century Jewish experience, shouldn’t she feel pride not just for the establishment of Israel, but also for its remarkable achievements and contributions to the world? As the son of an actual Holocaust survivor, sitting in a London theatre alongside my Israeli husband, I saw no reflection of the accomplishments of Jewish identity today.

It felt like a trick. All the familiar pontificating about whether Yiddish was the language of survival or defeat, the obvious jokes about Jews not being beautiful enough for swimwear (has Sherman never been to the beach in Tel Aviv?), were just a vehicle to get us to one cynical dramatic destination.

“Rose” perpetuates the same stereotypes and political manipulation that have historically led to our persecution – before, during, and since the Holocaust. Maureen Lipman’s remarkable performance cannot salvage it. As the Financial Times reviewer stated in 1999, “Rose is ingratiating junk.”
Kissinger denies delaying weapons airlifts to Israel during 1973 Yom Kippur War
Former US diplomat Henry Kissinger denied deliberately delaying airlifts of weapons to replenish Israel’s depleted supplies during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, saying any delay was due to logistical problems and the fact that Washington initially thought Israel was already winning.

Three years after the war, a retired US Navy admiral told the New York Times that Kissinger had deliberately delayed the supply of weapons in Operation Nickel Grass because he “wanted Israel to bleed just enough” to soften the way for post-war diplomacy.

However, in an interview broadcast by Channel 12 news on Monday to mark Kissinger’s recent 100th birthday, the former secretary of state said of this comment that “nothing happened that could be interpreted in that way.”

Amid a series of Israeli intelligence failures in the lead-up to the war, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on October 6, 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.

“To make the airlift of a country available to a war-making country that is in the middle of a war is not something that is normally done. Has in fact never been done,” Kissinger said in the interview, which was carried out on an unspecified date.

“It was also the week in which vice president [Spiro] Agnew resigned, so it takes a special Israeli attitude to even ask that question, if you forgive me,” Kissinger said.

“I mean this was a huge step we took. It saved Israel,” the former secretary of state said.
Successful but scrappy: Air Force marks 75 years since its 1st-ever strike mission
The Israeli military on Monday marked 75 years since the Air Force conducted its first-ever strike mission, during the War of Independence in 1948. A memorial plaque for the operation and for one of the pilots who was killed in the mission was also unveiled.

The daring airstrike at the Ad Halom site, close to the modern coastal city of Ashdod, is thought to have prevented the Egyptian army from marching on Tel Aviv just two weeks after Israel declared itself a state, changing the course of the war.

The four Avia S-199 aircraft — a bastardized Czech variant of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109G fighter — had been shipped over to Israel in dozens of parts in cargo planes owned by Al Schwimmer, a Jewish New Yorker and World War II pilot, violating a US arms embargo on the newly founded state.

While the aircraft were being secretly and hastily assembled in a hangar at what is known today as the Tel Nof base, an Egyptian division was marching up Israel’s coast, believed to have been aiming to capture Tel Aviv.

The four fighter planes were hand-painted with the Air Force roundel for the first time, but before they were even tested properly, Israel decided to gamble its entire air force on targeting the Egyptian convoy at the Palestinian village of Isdud, near the Ad Halom bridge, just 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Tel Aviv.

While the strike did not cause significant damage to the Egyptian division, it stunned them, as they had believed Israel had no air force. The Egyptian army halted its advance, a move thought to have changed the course of the war, which ended in Israeli victory nearly a year later. Lou Lenart, Giddy Lichtman and Modi Alon pose in front of an Avia S-199 plane in 1948. (Courtesy)

The mission was led by Lou Lenart, an American fighter pilot who helped smuggle the plane parts into Israel and later helped establish the Air Force’s 101st Squadron.

His number two in the mission was Ezer Weizman, who later became the chief of the Air Force, defense minister, and president.
Yom Kippur War. Prime Minister Golda Meir, on a visit to Sinai, meets with soldiers and receives a drink. "In a glass, in a glass," they instruct the soldier, who tries to serve her a bottle. "No, nothing," Golda replies. Then the glass arrives. "What luxury, what protection, it's not pretty," she says. And then: "Long live". A short clip from a video from the new IDF archive collection




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