Tuesday, August 15, 2023
The Sbarro bombing mastermind is still free. Put her back in jail
Whenever Tamimi’s name was mentioned in the media in reference to prisoner swaps, the Justice Ministry assured the Roth family that there were no plans to release her. Over the years, however, it became clear to the Roth family that the woman who orchestrated their daughter’s murder would not stay in prison for long.New York’s New Untouchables
In October 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his plan to release 1,027 terrorists in a prisoner exchange for Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for about five years. Despite the years of reassurance, the worst had come true for the Roth family: Ahlam Tamimi was one of the terrorists to be released.
The nature of Tamimi’s discharge was akin to twisting the knife and reopening wounds to the families of the Sbarro victims. Tamimi was taken to a private meeting with Khaled Mashaal, former leader of the Hamas terror organization. She was then put on a VIP flight to Jordan and was received as a hero and a model of Palestinian resistance. Today, Tamimi lives in a middle-class neighborhood and is a television presenter on a Hamas-affiliated Jordanian TV channel.
Several weeks following Tamimi’s return to Jordan, the US Department of Justice intervened, since a federal statute mandates that the United States pursue any terrorist accountable for the murder of an American citizen on foreign soil. Today, Tamimi is one of 24 terrorists on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Jordan has refused to comply with its 1995 Extradition Treaty with the US.
Although the US had charged Tamimi under the law in 2013 (and sealed those charges for four years), the Jordanian courts ruled that Tamimi would not be handed over to the FBI because “the treaty was invalid.” Arnold Roth responds, “This is a fabrication: the treaty is invalid because Jordan made it invalid.”
The Roth family has been campaigning and lobbying US officials since 2017, demanding justice for their daughter. Yet, according to Arnold, the US is making no attempts at making this happen while “Israel is playing a quiet role in encouraging the Americans not to press Jordan or put them in a position where they are pressured to hand over Tamimi.”
Time and again, the Roth family has been told that this case is a “priority” for the American government, yet “officials” also claim that handing over Tamimi would destabilize Jordan and the entire Middle East. Arnold points out that in the past, Jordan has extradited terrorists charged by the United States.
It has been 10 years since the charges against Tamimi were filed, and Jordan is no closer to handing her over than it was from day one. Tamimi is roaming as a free woman, without needing to hide or live in secret. As Israelis, we accept that terrorism is a reality, but we cannot accept when politicians, judges and other leaders let a terrorist walk away without paying for her crimes.
Israel has already failed the Roth family; we cannot allow the US to do so as well. We, especially Israeli Americans, are morally obligated to use our voices and demand that Ahlam Tamimi is back where she belongs: behind bars.
More then ten years ago, then-New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg boasted of his unique courage in confronting his city’s Ḥaredim in a regulatory fight over circumcision, asking rhetorically, “Who wants to have 10,000 guys in black hats outside your office, screaming?” Avi Schick sees this as the beginning of a trend whereby state and local politicians don’t simply endorse policies to which Orthodox Jews object, but deliberately choose policies aimed at interfering with their religious practices:There is no such thing as an Israeli ‘settler’ in the West Bank
In October 2020, just as the harshest pandemic restrictions were being eased, Governor Cuomo created gerrymandered districts covering Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods where houses of worship were subject to severe limitations on attendance. Churches in those zones were also affected, but the governor openly declared that his target was “these ultra-Orthodox communities, who are also very politically powerful.”
Only Orthodox Jews are targeted for harsh treatment and simultaneously described as (too) politically powerful. The message is that they deserve what they get.
Most recently, New York and its most powerful media institution have unleashed dangerous rules and rhetoric aimed at religious schooling. Yeshivas have been educating students in New York for more than 120 years, and the laws governing private schools have been on the books even longer. That history signifies deep satisfaction with the yeshiva system, but it is dismissed because, as the New York Times wrote, those “who might have taken action have instead accommodated a ḥasidic voting bloc.”
I don’t believe that New York’s mayors and governors are anti-Semites. But the New York we inhabit at the moment reflects the convergence of the nanny state and the secular state. There is little deference to individual or parental autonomy, and even less respect for religious activity. The result is government limitations on circumcision, prayer, and religious education.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a settler is, “a person who arrives, especially from another country, to a new place in order to live there and use the land.” A settlement, according to vocabulary.com, is, “a colony or any small community of people.”
However, these definitions take on negative connotations when it pertains to Israel and Israelis. Even Israeli media have headlines such as, “Settlers arrested after deadly clash in Palestinian village.”
Various biblical texts refer to Israel as a “land flowing with milk and honey.” This description is in stark contrast to Mark Twain’s observations in 1867 that Israel (then called Palestine) was a desolate and barren country in both people and vegetation.
It was only after the start of the aliyah movement in the late 1800s, when many Jews joined their fellow Jews who had maintained a continuous presence in the Jewish homeland, did the land begin to bloom again with people and agriculture. The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” can be applied both in reality and metaphorically.
Jews meet the UN definition of indigenous people. Therefore, they are not “settlers,” and the places they live are not “settlements.” Which raises the rhetorical question: Why are there “Arab villages” but “Jewish settlements?”
Why are Jews settlers if they are indigenous people?
One unfortunate reason is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word Yishuv. The root of this word is shuv, to return. According to Wikipedia, the term Yishuv came into use in the 1880s to denote the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel, and became the word to describe the Jewish population of Israel prior to the establishment of the modern State in 1948.
The Hebrew word Yishuv translates to “community” in the form of towns, population, inhabitants, neighborhoods, villages, etc.
‘Three Worlds’ by Avi Shlaim review
In April 1941, the British ousted the pro-German government of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani who fled to Mussolini’s Italy. While the British waited outside the gates, the mob attacked Jews in their synagogues and homes, killing 179, destroying over 500 shops and looting nearly 1,000 homes. Some Iraqi Jews became more receptive to the Zionist message to emigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine. Others who regarded themselves as proud patriots, such as Shlaim’s parents, felt that this was a difficult blip in a comfortable existence. Arab nationalism, however, was on the march. In November 1945, Coptic, Greek Orthodox and Catholic institutions were attacked in Cairo. In the Great Synagogue in Aleppo, prayer books were burned.Liberal Arab site picks holes in Avi Shlaim’s conspiracy theories
The UN Resolution of November 1947 on partition into two states led to the emergence of Israel and the disappearance of Palestine. Some of its territory was taken by the new state of Israel beyond the UN boundaries, but the bulk was taken by Jordan (West Bank) and Egypt (Gaza). This situation lasted until the Six Day War in 1967. For Israel, the internecine conflict was a war of independence; for the Palestinian Arabs, it was the Nakba – a catastrophe of flight, exodus and expulsion. Shlaim dilutes such complexities into monochrome stereotypes, solely blaming ‘the Zionists’ with a broad brush.
In July 1948, the Iraqis passed a law which made adherence to Zionism an offence punishable by death. In September 1947, the prominent communal figure Shafiq Ades was hanged in front of his home after a show trial. He was accused of selling arms to Israel as well as supporting international communism. The human rights of Jewish communities throughout the Arab world after 1948 were hardly defended by their governments. Those in power often led campaigns of incitement against their Jewish citizens. The number of Palestinian Arabs who left Israel was matched by the number of Jews who left the Arab world.
The Jews of Libya and Yemen viewed the emergence of Israel in messianic terms and flocked there. In contrast, the assimilated Jewish elite in Baghdad was much more conflicted. The Jewish bourgeoisie in Iraq, including Shlaim’s parents, had hitherto kept their distance from Zionism and communism. Now Jews were labelled as ‘aliens, traitors and a fifth column’.
Many hoped that this crisis would soon pass. Instead, Iraqi Jews were transformed from being honoured mercantile professionals into impoverished paupers, living in ma’abarot (tent cities) in an Israel struggling to cope with the aftermath of war, a failing economy and a tremendous influx of immigrants. Jewish immigrants from the Arab world also had to deal with the discriminatory and patronising prejudice of many of the pioneers, often from the Ashkenazi world of Eastern Europe. There were exceptions: Sami Michael, a communist activist from Baghdad, became a well-known writer in Israel and headed its Association of Civil Rights.
Several bombs exploded in Baghdad while Jews waited to leave for Israel. Shlaim believes that three out of the five bombs were planted by Zionists to catalyse a quicker exodus. As Shlaim states in this book, leaders of the Iraqi Zionists, Shlomo Hillel and Mordechai Ben-Porat, described such accusations as ‘patently absurd’ – yet this incident has become a point-scorer in the megaphone war today between Israelis and Palestinians. Two Iraqi Jews, Yusuf Basri and Shalom Salih Shalom, confessed to three of the bombings after being tortured. They later retracted their confessions, but to no avail. They were hanged in January 1952.
Although legions of academics have researched this question during the last 70 years, Shlaim goes into great depth to ascertain what happened through conversations with nonagenarians living in Israel. He comes across as someone torn between his professional training as a historian and his desire to tar the Zionists with responsibility for these events. This book conveys a sense of profound sadness about those who found themselves at the mercy of events over which they had no control and who have lived with a continuing anguish.
While some mainstream press in Britain – such as The Spectator, the FT and The Sunday Times – have given positive reviews to Avi Shlaim’s Three Worlds : Memoir of an Arab-Jew’, the Arab and pro-Palestinian press have lionised the emeritus Oxford professor. However, Raseef 22, a liberal Arab medium published in Beirut, seems to be an exception. Surprisingly, it has voiced views sceptical of Shlaim’s contention that he had ‘incontrovertible proof’ that the Zionists caused the mass flight of Iraqi Jews by planting bombs in 1950 -51.Book review: How should Golda Meir be remembered? Deborah Lipstadt weighs in
Avi Shlaim as a young child in Iraq with his family
Iraqi political historian Salam Al-Azzawi says, “These attempts have been historically documented during the era of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It is also impossible to rule out the theory of Israel’s involvement in these events. At the same time, the hand of Arab Iraqi groups is present in them, especially since the bombings coincided with a period of political crisis and economic stagnation, which contributed to increased animosity towards the Jewish community that controls the market.”
He further adds in his interview with Raseef22, “The bombings accompanied the rise of nationalism in Iraq, and there is a common belief in their involvement in some of these bombings, given the nature and quality of the operations carried out. Nationalist movements relied on small-scale bombing attacks, while Zionist groups preferred to carry out their operations secretly, such as planting explosive devices and organized attacks.”
Retired modern history professor Ibrahim Al-Rubaie does not rule out Israeli involvement in the bombing operations, but he points out that such beliefs remain mere opinions due to their lack of accurate historical research methodology and the inability to document these events.
According to his statement to Raseef22, the writer excessively relied on conspiracy theories and deviated from neutrality in historical narration, while it would have been more appropriate for him to stick to presenting his own opinion.
It appears to be the summer of Golda.Israel-Australia ties: Is the friendship eroding between longtime allies?
Just before “Golda,” a film about the former Israeli prime minister, heads to theaters, and a play titled “The First Lady” premieres at the Habima theater in Tel Aviv, a new biography of the legendary stateswoman is hitting shelves, as the world continues to grapple with her legacy almost 50 years after she left office.
“Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch” – the latest offering in the Yale University Press “Jewish Lives” biography series – was written by Deborah Lipstadt, a longtime historian and scholar who became the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism last year.
In this examination of the pioneering Israeli leader, Lipstadt succeeds in painting a visceral portrait of Golda Meir as a gifted orator and blunt negotiator, a pragmatic, single-minded and often inflexible leader who was wholeheartedly devoted to the Zionist mission.
Israel’s only female prime minister to date, Meir left a legacy that is still hotly debated, and she remains today both praised and derided by Israelis – as she was during her lifetime. Lipstadt notes that when she set out to write the book, what she discovered were depictions and impressions that “ranged from the venomous to the hagiographic.”
In the book’s introduction, Lipstadt writes that she worked to present the many facets of Meir’s identity and explain both her ardent supporters and detractors: “I understand both the reverence and the sharp critique. I have sought the balance between these two extreme views of Israel’s fourth prime minister in order to write a study of an exceptionally accomplished woman who was not without her serious flaws.”
Across more than 230 pages, Lipstadt traces Meir’s life from Ukraine to Milwaukee, from activist to organizer, kibbutz worker to power broker, ambassador, MK, cabinet member and ultimately prime minister.
The Australian government’s recent decision to begin referring to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied Palestinian territories” and Israeli settlements as “illegal” runs counter to its claim to be a “committed friend” of Israel.Row in France As Leading News Outlet Attempts Rehabilitation of Notorious Antisemite
In the original Toy Story movie, Woody and Buzz Lightyear’s relationship is characterized by an enduring bond of friendship forged through difficult moments. Similarly, Australia’s bond with Israel has its roots in testing times.
During World War I, as part of the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign, 60,000 Australians fought the Ottomans – joined by a legion of hundreds of Zion Mule Corps, a squad of Jewish fighters envisioned by Ze’ev Jabotinsky and formed by Joseph Trumpeldor. In 1917, Australian soldiers’ bravery was instrumental in the famed Battle of Beersheba. Australia was also the first country to vote in favor of the Partition Plan on the 29th of November, 1947.
To this day, warm ties endure. Two-way trade was estimated at over $1.3 billion AUD in 2021 and is growing at a rapid rate. The respective Australia-Israel and Israel-Australia chambers of commerce have never been busier, with senior Australian business delegations visiting the Start-Up Nation on an almost weekly basis and numerous Israeli companies establishing offices Down Under. Moreover, the Australian Jewish community is known for its vociferous support for Israel.
Australia's move to refer to West Bank, Gaza as "Occupied Palestinian Territories"
And yet, this recent decision of the left-leaning Australian Labor Party (ALP) is a sharp deviation from the Australian government’s steadfast support of the State of Israel. By identifying them as “Palestinian territories,” the Australian government is effectively denying any legitimate Israeli legal claims to the West Bank.
At best, this represents a lack of basic comprehension of Israel’s thousands of years of connection to Jewish cultural and historical sites in the West Bank, and at worst is a cynical pandering to the extreme-left elements inside the ALP ahead of their internal national conference to be held next week – all at the expense of one of Australia’s strongest allies.
A key failing of this new Australian policy is that it is no longer in line with statements by key Australian allies like the US and Canada. It also contradicts previously held positions that final status issues should be resolved through negotiations between the two parties.
An article praising one of the most notorious antisemites in French history has resulted in a storm of condemnation of its author, a parliamentarian from the conservative Les Républicains (LR) Party.Jonny Gould: Hostile media laps up ‘civil war’ falsehood
The article — titled “Maurice Barrès, the herald of the sacred union” — was published on Saturday in the weekend magazine of the prominent media outlet Le Figaro and extensively discussed in its weekly podcast. The article’s author, Jean-Louis Thiériot, argued that Barrès, a writer and politician who stoked violence against Jews during the show trial of the French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus during the 1890s, deserved a more generous interpretation of his legacy despite his well-known antisemitic views.
According to the late scholar of antisemitism, Prof. Robert Wistrich, Barrès was among a crop of leaders who advocated “street-fighting antisemitism,” since this was “the weapon which had the most attraction for the plebeian masses.” Yet according to Thiériot, Barrès antisemitism should not diminish his contribution to the “construction of our national imagination…what a role he played!”
Responding to Thiériot on social media, several commentators highlighed viscerally antisemitic statements uttered by Barrès. “Dreyfus is a traitor; I deduce that from his race,” he wrote of the Jewish army officer who was framed in 1894 on false charges of spying for Germany in a case that unleashed a wave of antisemitic violence across France. In another essay, he wrote: “‘Down with the Jews!’ Will it be the title of a particular chapter of our history? The crowd always needs words of war to rally, it wants some cry of passion.”
Left-wing parliamentarians Thomas Portes and Matthias Tavel respectively denounced Thiériot for “praising a notorious antisemite” and for keeping “despicable company.” Ronan Loas, the mayor of a small town in Brittany, separately criticized the leadership of the LR Party for remaining silent regarding Thiériot’s article, slamming Barrès at the same time as the “herald of antisemitism and racism.”
Because none of these crie de coeurs from the liberal influencers like Yossi Klein Halevi and Thomas L Friedman, account for the millions of Israelis, the majority who have nowhere to go.
Blue collar guys and girls in Holon and other towns further north, the mixed cities of Haifa and Lod and the big Israeli Arab cities you never even heard of, economically disconnected from Israel’s scale ups aren’t leaving.
And rather inconveniently for those who wish to keep the narrow band of unelected judges as Israel’s checks and balances, it’s they who voted for Bibi over a million times – and who wouldn’t countenance for a minute not serving as their fathers and mothers did before them.
And like the binary schism going on near you, it’s not just working class Israelis, the well-to-dos, born into ideals which put the IDF and national unity ABOVE politics aren’t joining the protests either.
Protestors claim Israel’s looking increasingly like its neighbours, other autocratic states which ignore their citizens.
Yet no one’s died, no rubber bullets, no curfews.
The Basic Law framework threatens to be abused. “If one side wins, Israel will lose”, says President Isaac Herzog.
Israel can only survive with consensus and unity to keep punching above its weight.
But there is merit on both sides and in such splits, good people coalesce alongside those you’d rather give a wide berth to.
But what strikes me is the faithlessness in the protesters, the worst case scenario, the language which gets practiced in boycotts, roadblocks, strikes and rhetoric which crosses a line.
When will more respect be shown to the Charedim, whose Torah values are a component of the nation? They’re the point of difference between Israel and every nation in the world.
Trouble is, there is a column of Israelis, who are determinedly secular, who hate the religious. They have the luxury of living in Israel to do that.
We can’t do that as much as a minority around the diaspora.
Left-wing antisemitism is a growing threat
From narratives of a powerful Jewish lobby, supposedly in control of governments and media to support Israel, to calls to “globalize the Intifada” – antisemitism in segments of the political Left is an alarming and growing trend in Europe. While the far-right continues to pose a more violent threat to Jews worldwide, antisemitism stemming from certain left-leaning groups is more pervasive in a day-to-day sense and poses a different kind of threat, especially in Europe.Israel slams 'modern-day antisemitic blood libel' in Princeton
While they attempt to wrap these and other narratives in a virtuous guise, setting up their criticism of Israel or Zionists as a battle between good and evil, with the latter being “Israel,” “the Zionists,” and “the powers that be” – those on the Left who make these claims are in reality only promoting classic antisemitic tropes.
When these individuals rail against “a new Holocaust” perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians, and against “Apartheid,” “settler colonialism,” and “ethnic cleansing,” they are employing false narratives about Israel, some of which are rooted in antisemitism.
And when there’s fighting between Israel and the Palestinian terror organizations, these groups and their rhetoric help to foment angry mobs that appear in front of synagogues across Europe. And as a result, identifiably Jewish individuals are vulnerable to attacks and Jewish communities feel unsafe.
Why has left-wing antisemitism in Europe gone overlooked?
These are the findings of a new report by ADL, “Antisemitism and Radical Anti-Israel Bias on the Political Left in Europe,” written in collaboration with the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Germany, the Community Security Trust in the UK, the magazine K in France, and ACOM (Action and Communication on the Middle East) in Spain.
This report does not contain hard data and statistics, but rather reflects trends observed within the political discourse and civil society of certain European countries. Prior ADL research, including our 2023 G100 survey, revealed quantifiable data about the percentage of the population who hold antisemitic attitudes, with Spain at 26%, France at 17%, Germany at 12%, and the UK at 10%.
Our report shows that antisemitism from some individuals on the Left, expresses itself in all four European countries, primarily through demonization of Israel and anti-capitalist sentiment. And it makes clear that the challenges facing Jewish communities in Europe are a bellwether for what could come to the US.
Last Wednesday, in the wake of a report that Princeton University will include a book in its syllabus that claims that the IDF had been harvesting Palestinian organs, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli wrote a letter to the university’s senior leadership.SNP-led Scottish Government rejects Tory bill to ban councils from Israeli boycotts
The letter was written to Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber and Dean of Faculty, Professor Gene A. Jarrett.
“I am writing to you as Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, which entails the responsibility of fighting incitement and bigotry against the Jewish People and the State of Israel,” Chikli prefaced the letter.
He went on to express his disappointment over the inclusion of the book, entitled The Healing Humanities: The Right to Maim by Jsbir Puar. Among other things, the book asserts that Israel is “supplementing its right to kill with the right to maim.”
The book was approved by the university's Near Eastern Studies Department faculty for the upcoming course, Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South.
“It was shocking to see that this book includes explicit insinuations that Israel uses a deliberate strategy of maiming Palestinians,” Chikli continued in the letter. “This delusional and false accusation is nothing but a modern-day antisemitic blood libel.”
The diaspora affairs minister continued, noting that the claims of the book were antisemitic propaganda that do nothing to advance academic debate, free speech, or legitimate education.
“Rather,” he writes, “it contributes to a hostile and divisive atmosphere against Jews and Israelis who study at your university, as well as against the Jewish community.”
Scottish ministers have blocked a new UK wide law stopping public bodies from boycotting Israel.A New Anti-Zionist Institute Demands That Which It Seeks to Deny to Others
The Scottish Government said it was concerned the proposed legislation could restrict its autonomy to determine its own policies on international relations.
The ruling SNP-led administration in Edinburgh has now urged the Scottish Parliament to refuse legal consent for the proposed Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill.
The new rules aim is to prevent public bodies, including councils and universities, from bringing in sanctioned unilateral bans on Israel.
The bill would outlaw campaigns, including those relating to the purchase of goods and services or investments. The UK government at Westminster has previously highlighted a 2014 Leicester city council motion banning goods from Israeli settlements.
The bill, introduced by Communities Secretary Michael Gove in the House of Commons in Westminster in June, would apply to the whole of the UK.
But the Scottish Government argue the bill is “wholly unnecessary and an unwelcome alteration of Scottish ministers’ competence”.
Explaining the reasons in a consent memorandum lodged to the Scottish Parliament, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison said: “The first reason is the disproportionate and unnecessary nature of the Bill.
A newly-formed “Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism” (ICSZ) will almost certainly never produce any serious insight into Zionism, but the institute itself is proving to be a useful case study in the inherent antisemitism of anti-Zionism.Meet Mohammad Assadi, Ottawa Anti-Israel Activist & Promoter Of Hezbollah Terrorist Propaganda
The ICSZ is a project of a handful of professors and activists who purport to be embarking on a “critical study” of Zionism. A review of the “founding collective” and their “points of unity” brings out a clear picture of their mission and beliefs: they demand those very things they simultaneously demand the world’s Jewry be denied.
Consider the “Points of Unity,” which declare, “[w]e reject the exclusionary/scarcity model of academic work.” It further decries that “academia is an exclusionary environment,” and says that its members “aim to broaden the community of participation in rigorous research and conversation on Zionism…”
Yet, the members and supporters of ICSZ have long battled to create exactly what they decry: an exclusionary environment.
The ICSZ has multiple connections with the “U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel,” whose entire purpose is to exclude from and restrict the “community of participation” in academia. Not only is USACBI one of the co-sponsors for the ICSZ’s upcoming 2023 conference (titled “Battling the ‘IHRA definition’: Theory & Activism”), but multiple founding members of ICSZ are from USACBI.
Among the “founding collective” is Rabab Abdulhadi, an extremist professor at San Francisco State University known for claiming that “welcoming Zionists on campus” amounts to “a declaration of war against Arabs, Muslims, [and] Palestinians…” She’s also one of USACBI’s co-founders. Abdulhadi’s conduct over the years has been so antithetical to the idea of “broadening the community of participation” that she led to her university system being sued over discrimination against Jewish students. The suit resulted in a settlement agreement in which her university system was forced to “issue a statement that persons of all faiths, ethnicities, national origins, and viewpoints, including but not limited to Jews, Israelis, and Zionists, are welcome on the SFSU campus.” Even before the settlement agreement, the university president felt it necessary to issue a statement saying that Abdulhadi’s rhetoric was “contrary” to the university’s “principles of inclusion, thoughtful intellectual discourse, and sharing of ideas that are central to our academic environment.”
HonestReporting Canada has previously alerted the public to the nefarious actions of noted anti-Israel activist Firas al-Najim, one of the country’s most prominent campaigners against the Jewish State, and our efforts helped to ensure that al-Najim was suspended from Twitter, as well as TikTok, two popular platforms where much of his hate was disseminated.
Al-Najim’s spreading of hateful antisemitism on social media was only a fraction of his activities targeting Israel and Jews. Al-Najim, founder of the group Canadian Defenders For Human Rights (CD4HR), has publicly accosted shoppers at a Toronto-area Israeli store, verbally harassed Holocaust survivors, dressed up as an Orthodox Jew and infiltrated a Jewish event in order to aggressively confront attendees, and more.
Al-Najim has also targeted members of Canada’s Iranian diaspora who express their opposition to the Tehran regime. In 2022, according to police, he drove his car at “a high rate of speed” in the direction of anti-Iranian regime protesters, and when police attempted to apprehend him, he sped off. He was eventually arrested, and his vehicle was later found with bear spray, a baton, and an airsoft gun.
Al-Najim continues to receive assistance from supporters, who help his efforts in defaming Israel and intimidating members of Canada’s Jewish community.
In May, 2023, Mohammad Assadi, an Ottawa-based activist, created a GoFundMe fundraiser for al-Najim, encouraging followers to donate to a campaign to support al-Najim’s efforts to protest at Toronto’s Walk With Israel, where he has been a regular demonstrator, harassing attendees.
🔵 Please sign this petition calling on @Princeton to stop teaching the outrageous #antisemitic blood libel that Israel is intentionally 'maiming' & 'harvesting' Palestinians organs. This is promoting hate & lies, not education!
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 15, 2023
📝 SIGN HERE: https://t.co/CrhbM4ueLp
Philanthropist @lauder_ronald explains the urgent and disturbing consequences of @Princeton’s new “Trauma Studies” course, which indoctrinates US students to believe disturbing outright lies about the IDF and “Palestinian organ harvesting.”
— Jewish Leadership Project (@_TheJLP) August 14, 2023
We call upon Jewish organizations and… pic.twitter.com/GYLPXjs6N3
This is what victim blaming looks like.
— Brooke Goldstein (@GoldsteinBrooke) August 13, 2023
CUNY would rather investigate Jewish professors for reporting antisemitism than deal with the rampant Jew hatred in their campuses. CUNY must be held accountable for fostering a hostile environment against Jews.
pic.twitter.com/FviSlw6G8R
Not a PEEP from @HillelIntl or @JCRCNY about CUNY placing 4 Jewish profs under investigation for filing complaints documenting antisemitism on their campuses.
— SAFE CUNY (@SAFECUNY) August 14, 2023
Impossible to imagine, given they have been put in charge of negotiating on behalf of us, the Jewish victims of CUNY.…
Chancellor Matos-Rodriguez, who previously slammed Fatima Mohammed’s law school commencement speech, refuses to hold the Dean of @CUNYLaw accountable for applauding her.@CUNY is now investigating 4 Jewish professors for reporting antisemitism on campus.https://t.co/6b5kp4ypbE pic.twitter.com/4W2RYYNCK7
— Adar Rubin (@rubin_a1) August 14, 2023
Lena Badr Abdelhamid, a former pres of Students for Justice in Palestine at @GeorgeMasonU: “It’s not a f**king clash...And gtfo [get the f**k out] if you’re gonna talk about both sides. Violence against an oppressor is self defense and fully justified.” https://t.co/7LEEIvKWXt pic.twitter.com/HrD8PdECy5
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) August 14, 2023
BBC inconsistency on minors and terrorism
The BBC’s approach to reporting on “terrorist offending” under-18s in the UK is particularly interesting when compared to its coverage of Palestinian minors engaged in rather more than searching out and sharing problematic material on the internet.Noname refuses to apologize for including Jay Electronica's verse on album amid antisemitic claims
Last month a seventeen-year-old member of Hamas from Jenin who actually made bombs (rather than downloading a manual from “dark corners of the web”) was killed:
“Seventeen-year-old Ali al-Ghoul was shot while attacking an IDF bulldozer with a pipe bomb. The Jenin Battalion later put out a video showing al Ghoul and other minors making IEDs.”
The BBC’s coverage did not however include the words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’:
“The Palestinian health ministry said nine Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including three in the overnight drone strike. They all appeared to be young men or in their late teens – some confirmed as belonging to armed groups.”
Moreover, the corporation (again) later chose to amplify a third party’s talking points concerning “children”:
“At a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the UN’s humanitarian office said it was “alarmed at the scale of air and ground operations that are taking place in Jenin and continuing today in the West Bank, and especially [the] air strikes hitting a densely populated refugee camp”.
She said the Palestinian health ministry had confirmed that three children – two 17-year-old boys and a 16-year-old boy – were among those killed, and warned that damage to infrastructure meant most of the camp now had no drinking water or electricity.”
As documented here, all three of those “children” were claimed by terrorist organisations.
As we see, the BBC’s editorial guidelines do not prevent it from using language such as terrorism, terrorist or terror when covering extremism among under-18s in the UK. However, such terminology is scrupulously avoided when the corporation reports on Palestinian minors recruited by designated terrorist organisations and actively engaged in terrorism.
Acclaimed rapper Noname is refusing to apologize for including a verse from fellow emcee Jay Electronica that has been criticized for being antisemitic on her latest album, Sundial.Call for memorial for British Jews whose remains were moved to mass grave in 1970s
The verse appears on the song "Balloons," which Noname announced would be the album's lead single in July. That decision prompted some fans to question the inclusion of Electronica, who has been linked to antisemitic rhetoric in the past.
"Here's the truth. No, I am not antisemitic," Noname wrote in an Instagram Story on Sunday. "I don't hate groups of people. I am against white supremacy, which is a global system that privileges people who identify as white. I've been clear about this for years."
Ignoring or ignorant to the fact that white supremacists are rampantly antisemitic and thus being anti-white supremacy would thus mean also being anti-antisemitism, Noname continued, "I'm not going to apologize for a verse I didn't write. I'm not going to apologize for including it on my album. If you feel like I'm wrong for including that's fair. Don't listen. Unfollow and support all the other amazing rappers putting out dope music. Your disappointment truly means absolutely nothing to me, and I say that with love."
Noname had previously defended the inclusion of Jay Electronica, who has links to Louis Farrakhan as a member of the Nation of Islam, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center due in part to its "notorious antisemitism and homophobia."
The Chicago rapper threatened to cancel her album's release amid the Jay Electronica backlash before deleting her Twitter account altogether.
Electronica — who dated Erykah Badu for five years and shares a daughter, Mars, with her — sampled Farrakhan on the intro to his 2021 album A Written Testimony, which also includes the track "The Ghost of Soulja Slim," in which Electronica makes an antisemitic reference.
On "Balloons," Electronica trafficks in conspiracy theories while making several obliquely antisemitic allusions, to the Rothschilds, to Farrakhan, to the Ukrainian president, ending his bars with, "If anybody asks, tell 'em Farrakhan sent me / It's the War of Armageddon and I'm beggin' the listener / If you ain't fightin', that mean you either dead or a prisoner."
Call for memorial for British Jews whose remains were moved to mass grave in 1970sMonument to gay victims of Nazis vandalized in Berlin
Remains were moved from a cemetery in Mile End, east London, after it was bought by the forerunner of Queen Mary University London in 1973
The remains of thousands of British Jews including Benjamin Disraeli’s grandfather and the prizefighter Daniel Mendoza were reburied in unmarked mass graves to make way for a new university campus.
Half a century later, the Jewish organisation responsible for the graves has for the first time publicly acknowledged that the reburial contravened Jewish law and that there is no lasting memorial to the dead.
The removal of the human remains from what is now the campus of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in east London took place in 1973 after the site was acquired for the institution’s expansion.
The bones of more than 7,000 Jewish people who died mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries were placed in four mass graves at the new burial site near Brentwood, Essex, with no stones marking the names of the deceased.
The remains are the responsibility of the S&P Sephardi Community, originally the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of London, which sold its Nuevo cemetery in Mile End to Queen Mary College, the forerunner of QMUL.
Jewish law requires the remains of each individual be buried as a unit and to not be moved for perpetuity. However, Rachel Fink, the community’s chief executive, said that because “many of the graves [at the Nuevo cemetery] were more than 200 years old, bone disarticulation over time may have prevented effective reburial of some individuals, thus contravening Jewish law”. Rabbis had given approval for the reburial, she said.
An unidentified vandal defaced a memorial to the LGBT victims of the Nazis in central Berlin with homophobic flyers and attempted to set fire to it, police said Tuesday.2 synagogues evacuated during livestreamed Shabbat services as wave of bomb threats enters 4th week
The man, who was spotted by a security guard but remains at large, threw a burning object at the memorial in the early hours of Saturday but it did not catch fire, a police spokesman told AFP.
He also affixed papers with a biblical quotation about homosexuality and the death penalty to the concrete slab monument, which features a video loop of two men kissing.
The security guard alerted police but the suspect was able to flee. A criminal probe has been opened.
The LSVD gay rights organization said in a statement it was “shocked by the incitement of hate” behind the incident, and by another act of vandalism against a separate Holocaust memorial the same night.
It noted that the Old Testament verse on the signs “is frequently abused for queer-hostile agitation.”
The monument to gay victims was inaugurated in 2008 for the thousands of LGBT people persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.
At least two synagogues in California evacuated during Shabbat services over the weekend as online trolls targeted Jewish congregations for the fourth straight week with fake bomb and other security threats.
At least 26 congregations in 12 states have received the threats, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which is raising alarm about the barrage. The organization believes the instigators are selecting their targets based on the availability of live-streamed services and other events, motivated by their desire to watch the congregations react to the threats in real-time.
“This is what happens when individuals coalesce around their hatred of Jews and use technology to try to optimize that,” Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The two California synagogues that evacuated in response to the threats were Temple Beth Torah, a Reform congregation in Fremont, which emptied its building on Friday evening, and Temple Beth Tikvah, a Reform congregation in Fullerton, which did the same during Saturday services. Both had received anonymous phoned-in bomb threats. Threat caught on Facebook livestream
Beth Tikvah’s Facebook livestream captures the moment that the threat made its way to the prayer leaders. “I am afraid that we need to stop and leave the building right now,” Rabbi Mati Kirschenbaum says after placing one hand on the shoulder of Cantor Shannon McGrady Bane, causing her to stop singing. She nods, removes her headset, and exits the camera’s view as a message goes up for viewers: “Coverage will be stopping.”
Temple Beth Torah and Temple Beth Tikvah did not return requests for comment Monday.
The wave of threats has also targeted two ADL offices and other religious congregations, including African-American churches. But the activity seems primarily motivated by antisemitism, Segal said, citing what he called “lowbrow and classic antisemitism” in the language used in the phone calls. The perpetrators do not seem to be connected to any larger antisemitic groups, he said.
This particular Chabad serves students at the University of Kentucky.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 15, 2023
Where is your condemnation of this @universityofky @UKYpres ?
Israeli computational model promises gene-based breast cancer screening
Tel Aviv University researchers on Tuesday announced the development of a computational model to predict increased genetic risk for breast cancer.Israeli academia climbs in international rankings
The model will enable, for the first time in Israel, the determination of a personal genetic risk score for breast cancer based on an individual’s genetic profile.
The technique, which could form the basis for the implementation of a personalized early detection policy, may save lives and enable a more efficient use of the health system’s resources, the university said in a press release.
The research, which was published in the Journal of Medical Genetics., was based on a large-scale international study that included the genomic data of about a quarter of a million women with and without breast cancer, and applied its findings to about 2,000 Israeli women.
“Our method will allow the health system to move to a personalized early detection policy… those who are identified as being at high risk will be tested from a younger age and more frequently,” said professor Rani Elkon of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU’s School of Medicine.
Three Israeli universities appear in the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities’ top 100 list that the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy published on Tuesday.Jewish students at University of Nottingham to get kosher meals for the first time
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot climbed to No. 67 from last year’s tie with Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology at 83rd. The Technion rose to No. 78.
Meanwhile, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem dropped to 85th place from last year’s ranking of 77th.
While the top 100 universities are ranked in numerical order, an additional 900 top institutions are ranked in groups, which included four other Israeli institutions.
Tel Aviv University placed in the 201-300 ranking, while Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan was in the 401-500 group. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva ranked at 501-600 while the University of Haifa rounded out the Israeli institutions in the 601-700 group.
Brandeis University in Massachusetts is in the 301-400 group.
For the first time, Jewish students at the University of Nottingham will be able to get kosher meals in halls of residence and shops on campus.Sir Ben Kingsley: I play Jewish roles because my grandmother was antisemitic
After years of planning and campaigning, Nottingham Chabad welcomed the news that the university would be providing Jewish students with the option of a hot kosher meal.
Rabbi Mendy Lent said: “We have been wanting to do this for years.”
The meals will be cooked by university chefs in Chabad’s newly licensed kosher kitchen, less than a mile away from campus.
“The university has been amazing at making this happen for us, and their chefs are really delighted to be doing this,” Rabbi Lent said.
University chefs will be using the kosher kitchen to batch cook recipes designed by Rabbi Lent’s wife, Brocha.
He said: “Everyone loves my wife’s cooking, and I am so happy that students are going to be able to get that home comfort food that they have enjoyed with us for so long.”
Speaking to the JC about the development, Brocha said: “I am a Jewish mama and I care about making sure people enjoy good food and that they are fed the home comfort meals they are used to.”
Brocha has designed a menu which includes favourites such as sweet and sour meatballs, roast chicken, spaghetti bolognese, roast peppers and pastries.
The legendary actor Sir Ben Kingsley has revealed why he has appeared in so many Holocaust films over the course of his career.
In an interview with Parade magazine earlier this month Kingsley, who has played a number of Jewish characters, was asked whether he felt a connection to those roles.
He said: "I remember as a schoolboy watching a wonderful television documentary series, which examined World War II. And as a schoolboy, alone in the house, I watched the liberation of Belsen on film.
"And I do remember as a young adolescent, I think I was maybe 11 or 12—this was way after World War II, of course, it was a retrospective—but I think my heart stopped beating for a little while. I went into deep shock as a child.
"The disturbing part of this story is that I remember within the same few days having a conversation with my maternal grandmother, who was inexplicably but quite vigorously antisemitic.
"So, the two impressions came to me almost simultaneously, and as a child, it was very difficult for me, impossible for me to counter my grandmother’s outburst, but I think a seed was planted in me that said to me, “One day I will speak.”
Kingsley has previously said that the root of his grandmother's antisemitism was that she was abandoned by a Russian-Jewish man who got her pregnant.
The veteran actor has taken on a number of Jewish roles in his career, starring in Schindler's List as Itzhak Stern, The Rabbi in Lucky Number Slevin and Simon Wiesenthal in an 1989 TV biopic of the Nazi hunter.
Sweet video of a kid being intellectually curious and open minded about a Jewish community he isn’t intimately acquainted with, and pretty much getting its beating heart correct - a truth far, far away from the bigoted slurs of haters pic.twitter.com/pRWG5mrqXn
— leekern (@leekern13) August 15, 2023
Out now on Fortnite, the Voices of the Forgotten Museum, the first Digital Holocaust Museum in the metaverse.
— Luc Bernard (@LucBernard) August 15, 2023
Island Code: 1511-8598-6202
I cannot thank everyone at Epic Games enough for the support on this. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/tLvdUNWf63
2,000-Year-Old Phanagoria Synagogue Discovered by Archaeologists in Southern Russia
The Phanagoria archaeological expedition conducting excavations in the Kuban has discovered one of the oldest synagogues in the world in what is today southern Russia.An Ancient Synagogue Is Testimony to the Persistence of Judaism during the Era of Christian Ascendancy
The base and contours of the walls of the synagogue were found on the Taman Peninsula near the Black Sea coast by archaeologists supported by Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo Foundation.
Phanagoria was the largest ancient Greek city on the Taman peninsula, spread over two plateaus along the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus. Today the site is located at a short distance to the west of Sennoy in Krasnodar Krai, Russia.
There was a large Jewish community in the city in the first century CE, with images of menorahs on amphoras and tombstones of this period attesting to the Jewish presence.
Medieval historians also confirm that the Jews made up a significant part of the population of the city: the 8 CE Byzantine chronicler Theophanes and the 9 CE Arab geographer Ibn Khordadbeha both called Phanagoria a “Jewish city”.
“An analysis of the surviving details of its decoration allows us to conclude that it was built at the turn of the millennium and existed for at least 500 years,” the Foundation said in Tuesday’s announcement.
While most of the historic synagogues discovered by archaeologists in Israel have been found in the northern part of the country, a few have been uncovered in the arid south. All Israel News reports on one:Israel’s oldest gate offers glimpse into ancient urbanization
The Ma’on synagogue, first discovered in 1957 on the southern end of Israel, is one of three ancient synagogues discovered so far in the western Negev region. The town of Ma’on is believed to have existed during the late Roman period and in the Byzantine period, during the 5th and 7th centuries CE.
Ma’on, or Manois, was considered to be a large town, mostly inhabited by Christians. While most likely under Byzantine rule at that time, the ancient synagogue is evidence that a Jewish community existed, with the religious center being the most significant expression of its independence.
The synagogue faces northeast, towards Jerusalem, according to Jewish tradition, and was thought to have been built on a basilica plan, with an ancient mosaic floor in the center and two side aisles paved with stone. The ceiling was believed to have been made of wooden beams and clay. The walls of the synagogue are thought to have been built with rectangular stones that were placed on stone foundations. According to inscriptions, a cavalry unit from the western Balkans may also have been stationed in Ma’on for a time.
A magnificent mosaic floor was [also] discovered at the site.
MUST WATCH: The Secret of Jerusalem UNCOVERED | Western Wall Tunnels. #Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/SsrS5lIRID
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) August 13, 2023
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