Thursday, October 31, 2024

10/31 Links Pt2: Purging Jews From the Arts; Abigail Shrier: The Kindergarten Intifada; Bubble-Wrapping Coates; Ministries cut ties with Haaretz

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Purging Jews From the Arts
You are to be unpersoned, that is, if you write about Israel without denouncing the Jewish state—a rule that is intended to disqualify Jewish writers of any and every nationality—or if you are Israeli and have not renounced your country and your people, like any Good Jew apparently would. Israelis are currently under fire from seven fronts in a war that began with an explicitly genocidal invasion by Iranian proxies, and if you do not do something to help the cause of exterminating your own people, you are heretofore banished from the arts.

I’m not sure it’s possible to top the reaction from the poet Gillian Lazarus, who said:

“The likes of Sally Rooney would boycott the likes of Amos Oz, David Grossman and Yehuda Amichai. It’s as if a composer of advertising jingles boycotted Mozart.”

Look, if Sally Rooney could write like Howard Jacobson she would probably not be trying to purge her competition.

But she can’t, and so we all must suffer.

As I said, what’s interesting about Rooney is seeing who else joins her fatwas—especially if they don’t have to. Arundhati Roy is on the list calling for a loyalty oath for Jews in the arts, sadly. Jonathan Lethem, too. Other fellow listers: Jasbir Puar, an academic who invented a blood libel about Jewish organ harvesting; Naomi Klein, professor of “climate justice”; Mohammed El-Kurd, who accused the Jewish state of having an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood”; and other such literary luminaries.

The loyalty oath has made something of a comeback among Western institutions, especially in the academic world, where Jews are occasionally permitted to participate in campus activities as long as they publicly call for the ethnic cleansing of their fellow Jews from whichever part of the world is currently trying to expel them.

Then there is the other angle to the purge: In addition to being irredeemably immoral, it’s also very stupid. Fania Oz-Salzberger, daughter of the late Israeli writer Amos Oz, responded on social media: “My late father, Amos Oz, would have been sad, disgusted, but proud to be banned by these 1000 writers and literati. And ban him they would. Not because he didn’t care for the Palestinians, of course he did, but because he’d be the first to tell these virtue signallers that they are historically and politically ignorant.”

I would go further and point out that Amos Oz, simply by being both an Israeli cultural giant and an advocate for Palestinian self-determination, did more for peace every moment he was alive than Rooney and Kushner will do in a lifetime—not least because a cultural boycott of influential left-leaning figures can only sabotage the Palestinians who want statehood and isolate them from likeminded Israelis.

But that point is only relevant if you believe Sally Rooney and Rachel Kushner and the other inquisitors are interested in helping Palestinians. If they only care about harming Jews, then this purge makes perfect sense.
Howard Jacobson: Political boycotting of the arts paints a picture of tyranny
Thus, to be a boycotter you must believe there is a hierarchy of compassion and condemnation. Only those whose anguish is as vociferous as theirs are allowed a voice. What makes this inquisition so grotesque is that the inquisitors are themselves artists or art-enablers.

Art matters. The pleasure we take from looking long at a painting or grappling with a complex novel or symphony is not some idle luxury. It transforms, invigorates and inspires. It redeems that belief in our shared humanity, which it is so easy, especially in angry and divisive times like these, to lose. And it does that not by confirming what we already think and feel, but by daring us to risk everything we hold dear on the turn of a single page. Creativity, in whatever sphere, is the means not of finding but of losing ourselves.

Everything must be permitted for artists but the silencing of their fellows. To boycott authors, agents or publishers on the grounds that they hold views objectionable to you is to violate art and the part it has played in stirring and individuating the imaginations of men and women since the first cave drawing appeared.

Art is not to be confused with a post on social media. It is not a statement. It is not susceptible to thumbs-down disagreement for the reason that it doesn’t invite thumbs-up consensus. It is not an echo chamber. It is a meeting place, not only of people who read and look and listen differently to one another, but of the hostile and the loving, of the real and the imagined, of colours that are not meant to go together, of words that clash and contradict.

Those who cannot bear such vitality of contradiction congregrate with the like-minded in a safe space they call a boycott, but for which the real word is tyranny.
BHL Boycott Backfires
Fortunately, in the case of Mr. Lévy’s Israel Alone, this cynical pandering to antisemites, ideologues, and to those who worship at the altar of the bottom line backfired. Education may enlighten the prejudiced, which is why Mr. Lévy’s book is so urgently needed, but there are few antidotes for stupidity, except the free market, which is working brilliantly in this instance. Interest in the book is quite robust and will undoubtedly have a positive effect on sales. So, we owe thanks to Shelf Awareness for the unintended consequences of its malfeasance.

We are pleased to add that our organization, in partnership with B’nai B’rith International, has raised funds from generous private donors to purchase and distribute for free thousands of copies of the book to college students around the country. Mr. Lévy will also be speaking in November at select American and Canadian universities. As he explained, “curbing this hate begins by going to the source.” It is abundantly clear that far too many universities and far too many journalists have failed to provide what Americans need to understand about Israel and the Middle East.

Censors can cause a lot of short-term damage, but history tells us that they ultimately lose and their disgrace follows. This comes from the first-century Roman author Tacitus: “When what has been created is persecuted, its authority grows. Neither foreign despots nor others who employ such savagery beget anything except infamy for themselves and glory for those they persecute.”

The ironic good news is that despite the efforts of Shelf Awareness, many more people are now aware of Israel Alone. They can make up their own minds about its message.
Bubble-Wrapping Coates
CBS News is in turmoil following an appearance by Ta-Nehisi Coates that actually included probing questions about his new book on Israel. All it took was one interview during which Coates received some pushback for the legacy media to lose its mind and denounce the CBS anchor, and for the network to quickly rebuke him. Top CBS newsroom brass—i.e., woke PR types with zero actual newsroom experience who now run the network—apparently believed Coates should be coated in bubble wrap and only given friendly questions, preferably fed to him in advance.

But babying American intellectuals is not the American way. Feuds and sharp elbows have been a long-standing part of the American intellectual tradition—and signal the public’s appreciation for robust debate.

One of the greatest feuds in American intellectual history was between Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman. Hellman was an apologist for communism, something for which McCarthy had no patience. In 1980, McCarthy went on the Dick Cavett show and famously said of Hellman that “everything [Hellman] writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” Hellman responded with a $2.25 million libel suit, which was never resolved before her death in 1984.

Cavett’s various shows, which ran on multiple networks from the mid-1960s to the 1990s, often served as a showcase for great American intellectual brawls. After Gore Vidal lumped together Charles Manson, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer for their poor treatment of women, Mailer was understandably incensed. Shortly afterward, Mailer appeared with Vidal on an episode of Cavett’s show. Things were headed south while the two men were in the green room, where Mailer headbutted Vidal. They didn’t get much better on camera, with the two men trading barbs and Mailer at one point approaching Vidal menacingly. Cavett thought Mailer was going to take a swing at Vidal, but he didn’t, and just angrily pulled the papers Vidal was holding from his hand.

Mailer was still mad six years later when he saw Vidal at a cocktail party at Lally Weymouth’s New York apartment. In front of an impressive crew of literati, Mailer threw a drink in Vidal’s face and followed up with a punch. As Vidal wiped the blood from his face, he responded with a retort that landed harder than Mailer’s blow: “Norman, once again words have failed you.”

Vidal also feuded with the author Truman Capote. They didn’t trade physical blows, but instead took swipes at each other in the press. Vidal sniffed that Capote’s prose was like Carson McCullers, combined with “a bit of Eudora Welty.” Capote countered that Vidal got his literary influence from the New York Daily News.

Vidal was threatened with physical violence in perhaps his most famous feud, with National Review founder William F. Buckley. The two men appeared on ABC News during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Vidal had prepared extensively for the debates and got under Buckley’s skin by calling him a “crypto-Nazi.” An angry Buckley responded, “Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.” For the rest of his life, Buckley regretted that loss of composure.


In new book, Lee Yaron tells Israel’s story through intimate accounts of Oct. 7 victims
Just a few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, Haaretz journalist Lee Yaron began gathering testimonies from the massacres and learning the personal stories of their victims. Having been thousands of miles away on the day of the attacks, at Columbia University where the Israeli reporter was on a fellowship, Yaron seized the only tool she felt she had to help the victims — to tell their stories thoroughly and faithfully and ensure they are remembered. In her book, 10/7: 100 Human Stories, which was released in September, Yaron digs deep into the experiences and histories of more than 100 civilians — spanning the gamut of Israeli society as well as foreign victims — through interviews with survivors, the bereaved and first responders.

Interwoven through the personal stories Yaron, 30, provides Jewish and Israeli historical background as well as political analysis. “I wanted the book to be a way to understand — not just to get to know the victims — but understand Israel and the history of the conflict better,” Yaron said in an interview with Jewish Insider during which she also discussed the impact Oct.7 had on Israel’s peace camp, the reaction of the global left to the Hamas attacks and the gender aspect of Israel’s intelligence failure leading up to Oct. 7.

The following interview is lightly edited for clarity.

Jewish Insider: What made you decide to write this book?
Lee Yaron: I started very early, in the end of October, and I just felt I needed to do something. There’s not much you can do for the dead. So the thing I felt like I could do is to write, and I really wanted to tell the story of Oct. 7 from the bottom-up. I couldn’t hear the politicians anymore. You know, all of these people taking this innocent civilian’s life and just revealing and mistelling their stories. And I wanted to hear it, to learn about them first, to learn about their lives and their beliefs and their communities, and as you saw, I went really deep on the research of their families’ histories two and three generations back, because I tried to understand Israel again and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through these victims to use their stories as a mirror for a bigger story. But it started just from, you know, we’re after Yom Kippur now, and I really felt like I wanted to ask them, “slicha” [sorry], and I wanted to do something for them, at least to make them remembered.

JI: Was there anything that shocked you that you hadn’t already known, that you hadn’t heard already in the stories already out there?
LY: There were a lot of, for example, in the Moshe Ridler story, the story of the Holocaust survivor, I knew a little bit about his story from what was published in Israeli media, but when I was doing the research, I learned about just how crazy is the story of how he survived the Holocaust and was saved by this Ukrainian family. And then afterward, it was amazing the discovery that he was deported from his home in Hertza on the very same day of Simchat Torah, when he was murdered 82 years later. When we began the interviews, the family didn’t know it. And then after two or three interviews, we stayed in touch, and they told me, ‘You wouldn’t believe it, we got a letter from another survivor that is now living in Israel, and she said she knew Moshe from this town, and she wanted us to know that the Nazis deported them on Simchat Torah.’ And they were like, ‘We don’t know if it’s true, you know, it’s like a very old lady, but check it.’ And then I went to the community’s yizkor [remembrance] books, and there are documentations from them, and I discovered it was true.

So a lot of the things were about how this day is not just part of Israeli history, but it’s part of Jewish history, and putting this day in the wider context of you know, understanding the Shahar Zemach story [the peace activist killed defending Kibbutz Beeri], and then understanding his grandmother’s story fleeing the Farhud pogrom in Iraq in Baghdad in ‘41 and this family of generations of fleeing persecution, trying to find a safe place. And how, in that matter, Oct. 7 is not just about our immediate pain and grief. It’s about the shattering of a dream of generations of Israel as a place of safety. And I think that was something that I discovered in so many stories, and a question that is still open now, when we see so many young people now leaving Israel, using the passports of their grandparents to go back to other countries, this feeling of if this place can fulfill its mission, its dream, what we were promised Zionism will be.
Released hostage Erez Kalderon marks bar mitzva as his father remains in Hamas captivity
Erez Kalderon, who was released from Hamas captivity in the November hostage deal, marked his Bar Mitzvah Thursday without his father Ofer, who was taken hostage with him and is still held by Hamas.

"It's going to be very hard," said his uncle Nissan Kalderon, who will accompany Erez as he takes his first steps in Judaism as an adult, speaking to The Jerusalem Post ahead of the event.

“I asked him what he thought about who he wanted standing next to him in the synagogue,” he said, adding that he wanted to make sure everything was settled in advance because surprises are very hard for the family these days. “He asked me to stand next to him and hold his hand, so that is what I will do.”

Nissan said he believed Ofer could return.

"Listen, it could be a surprise. He could come back; it could happen at any moment," he said, adding that the family is "holding onto hope that anything could happen."

In spite of this hope, the family was prepared to support Erez for his bar mitzvah without his father, Nissan said.

“The fact that I will be with him is certainly not a replacement,” he said, adding that Erez’s bar mitzvah is a moment when his father should be by his side.

“It’s going to be very, very hard that we are doing something that in some sense in Judaism is meant to be a father and son,” Nissan said. “It’s the ceremony of maturing, and Erez will need to do it alone.”

“While I will be there, while I’ll hold his hand, while we’ll cry together, still, there is no replacement,” he said. “A father should be with his son on that day.”

Following Erez’s request, the family planned a small family ceremony at the synagogue where Erez will be called up to the Torah for his first aliyah before gathering for a seudat mitzvah (obligatory festive meal), Nissan said.

Any additional celebration of the bar mitzvah would be up to Erez, he said.


Abigail Shrier: The Kindergarten Intifada
In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country—there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles—met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel. In front of a PowerPoint that read, “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired,” history teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating students.

But how to transport busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally, during the school day, without arousing suspicion?

“A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”

Gochez was just getting warmed up. “It’s like tomorrow I go to church and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.”

The crowd burst into approving laughter.

The Free Press obtained a video of the United Teachers Los Angeles meeting. You can watch it here:

Seated at a keffiyeh-draped table, Gochez said, “Some of the things that we can do as teachers is to organize. We just have to be really intelligent on how we do that. We have to know that we’re under the microscope. We have to know that Zionists and others are going to try to catch us in any way that they can to get us into trouble.”

He continued: “If you organize students, it’s at your own risk, but I think it’s something that’s necessary we have to do.” He told the audience of educators that he once caught a “Zionist teacher” looking through his files. Gochez warned the crowd to be wary of “admin trying to be all chummy with you. You got to be very careful with that, even sometimes our own students.”

John Adams Middle School teacher and panelist William Shattuc agreed, a keffiyeh around his neck. “We know that good history education is political education. And when we are coming up against political movements, like the movement for Zionism, that we disagree with, that we’re in conflict with—they [Zionists] have their own form of political education and they employ their own tools of censorship.”

What are the “tools of censorship” employed by Zionists? Apparently, they include accusing teachers who rail against Israel in the classroom of antisemitism.

“They try to say antisemitism, which is really ridiculous, right?” said Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona, ethnic studies teacher at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles. Cardona recently received a National Education Association Foundation Award for excellence in teaching. “What they do is they conflate. Part of that is by putting the star on their flag,” Cardona said, referring to the Jewish Star of David. “Religion has nothing to do with it.”

But, she insists, that the course she teaches, and whose curriculum she helped develop—ethnic studies—is fundamentally incompatible with supporting Israel. “ ‘Are you pro-Israel—are you for genocide?’ And if anybody were to say, ‘Okay, sure,’ that’s really not ethnic studies.” (Gochez, Shattuc, and Cardona did not return requests for comment.)

It’s tempting to dismiss this as one more bull session among radical teachers leading a far-left public-sector union. If only.
The Lid: Fellow Jews: VOTE FOR TRUMP: He Will Continue To Fight Against Antisemitism And For Israel
If you support Israel and oppose Antisemitism, you must vote for Donald J. Trump. The former President has supported Jewish and pro-Israel. Issues since the 1970s. That support didn’t change when he sat in the Oval Office during his first term and will be the same if elected next week.

Below, you will see Trump’s involvement with the Jewish and pro-Israel community for the forty-five years before he became President. Following that will be some examples of his supportive actions as President. Where possible, Trump’s presidential actions will be compared to similar actions taken by the Harris/Biden administration.

Trump Supported Jews And Jewish Causes His Entire Life. Not Because He Was Running For Office

Trump’s record of friendship, generosity, and affection for the Jewish community in the US and in Israel is stunning and extraordinary.


Poll: Most Democrats blame Israel ‘a lot’ for Mideast conflict
A new poll reveals deep partisan divisions among American voters regarding responsibility for the escalation of the Middle East conflict, with a majority of Democrats blaming Israel.

The survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted from Oct. 11-14, found that about 60% of voters attribute “a lot” of responsibility for the war’s escalation to Hamas, Iran’s government and Hezbollah. Partisan differences emerge regarding Israel’s role, with approximately 60% of Democrats saying the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility, compared to only about one-quarter of Republicans.

While approximately half of voters are “extremely” or “very” worried about a broader regional conflict, about 40% express significant concern about potential U.S. military involvement. The survey was completed before Israel’s strike on Iranian military installations on Friday.

As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris compete for Muslim and Jewish voters in crucial swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Middle East situation has emerged as a key campaign issue.

Regarding U.S. policy options, voters show strong support (55%) for economic sanctions against Iran, which could impact its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. However, they remain divided on providing weapons to Israel’s military, with more opposing than supporting direct government funding for Israel’s military operations.

The poll indicates minimal backing for U.S. troop deployment, with about half of voters opposing such action. Only about two in 10 voters support sending U.S. troops to assist Israel, with a similar proportion remaining neutral.

On ceasefire efforts, approximately half of voters believe the United States is doing “about as much as it can” to facilitate agreements between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah. About three in 10 voters think more could be done, while roughly two in 10 suggest less involvement.
Florida Dems chair Nikki Fried says many Jews have started to ‘question the Democratic Party’
Nikki Fried, the Jewish chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, told Jewish canvassers in her state that the party was losing Jewish voters because of the robust Republican response to pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

Fried’s ostensible pep talk to canvassers seeking to reach undecided Jewish voters, coming Wednesday evening in a Zoom call organized by Florida Jewish Democrats, was unusual in her candid expressions of concern that Republicans have made gains with a constituency that has traditionally voted overwhelmingly Democratic.

A narrative of Jews who identified as progressive or left-leaning feeling alienated by the left since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, is widely established, and Republicans have sought to peel away Jewish votes because of it. Fried’s comments represent a rare acknowledgment by Democrats of a potential impact at the ballot box.

Fried said doubts about Democrats have spread beyond “Republican Jewish friends” who have historically been the “outliers” in a constituency that has long been reliably Democratic.

“What has happened since then in American politics has made a lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters start to question the Democratic Party,” she said.

“I hear a lot about the Squad,” she said, referring to a small grouping of progressive Democrats who are stridently critical of Israel. “I hear a lot about Kamala Harris’s policies, you know, what Joe Biden has or has not done.”


‘CNN’ commentator Van Jones blasts pro-Hamas ‘idiots’ for supporting a ‘Nazi organization’
In a discussion with actor and activist Jonah Platt on Tuesday, CNN commentator Van Jones offered strong words to describe Hamas and the terror group’s Western supporters.

“The Palestinians deserve all the support in the world,” Jones said on Oct. 29 during the “Being Jewish with Jonah Platt” podcast. “Their cause is just, they want human rights, they want dignity, they want sovereignty—that’s beautiful. And it’s been hijacked by a Nazi organization called Hamas who are terrible.”

Countering the positions of some others on the left, Jones said of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip: “They are not freedom fighters. They are freedom takers. They are not interested in democracy, they are not interested in human rights. They are not interested in women’s rights. They are not interested in gay rights.”

Jones continued: “They are not interested in anything we care about. And they are trying to destroy Israel way more than they’re trying to help the Palestinians. It’s a Nazi organization.”

Characterizing support for Palestinians as “a good cause that’s been hijacked by bad people,” he urged that “you’ve got to be able to talk about this stuff honestly.”

He said that as a result of his positions on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, “I’ve had people pull money out of things I’m a part of. But who cares? Nothing compared to what those kids went through at the Nova festival. Nothing compared to what the people went through at the kibbutz.”

Personalizing the discussion, Jones said “I’m a progressive, so Hamas attacked my people. Those are my people on the kibbutz—those are liberals, those are my people.”


The Toll of Hate
An outspoken supporter of Israel, Alderperson Debra Silverstein has become a lightning rod for public criticism and harassment since last year’s Hamas attack and Israel’s retaliation. For the past 13 years, Silverstein, the only Jewish member of the City Council, has represented the 50th Ward, a diverse North Side stretch that runs through West Ridge, Rogers Park, and Lincoln Square. She talked with Chicago about the treatment she’s received recently, her efforts to push back against hate incidents of all types, and her ongoing condemnation of Mayor Brandon Johnson for what she sees as stoking tensions.

You have become more publicly visible since protesters shouted you down at two separate City Council meetings. At the first, less than a week after the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, you introduced a resolution to condemn Hamas. What happened when you got up to speak?

People had already heard about the resolution, and public comments had been just really awful. So the mayor put two plainclothes police officers behind me and another in front of the chambers. It was total chaos. I wouldn’t speak over the booing and the yelling and the heckling, so every time that started, I would just stop. And it happened so many times that the mayor ended up clearing the gallery. That’s when they started chanting, “Debra Silverstein, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” We probably had about an hour’s recess until we were able to get the crowd out. They ended up staying in the lobby. So when the meeting was over, the police weren’t going to let me leave through City Hall because people were down there just screaming. They gave my car keys to my staff, and they took me down the elevator through the basement, and I actually walked out of — I think it was the Daley Center. I’m not even sure where I was. They put a police car in front of my house for several days after that. Since then, every time I would get up to speak, I would be booed. And it just continues. I was even heckled yesterday at my committee meeting.

What about harassment outside of City Hall? I know your office was vandalized, you’ve gotten threatening emails and calls, and your Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in West Ridge has been targeted.

In May, I was selected to light a torch in Israel for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s independence day, for my work on antisemitism. I was just landing back in Chicago from that trip and turned on my phone and saw that [cars in] my neighborhood, just a block from my house, [had been leafleted with] antisemitic flyers. They said that Jews caused 9/11, that Jews are responsible for COVID, that Jews control the media, et cetera. So there I was, having such a wonderful, meaningful experience in Israel, and literally as soon as I landed, it was like, Welcome back to Chicago, get back to being an alderman.

The Secure Community Network, a national nonprofit based in Chicago, reports that antisemitic incidents here have at least doubled since 2022. How do we combat that?

Fighting hate of all kinds has become my passion, even before October 7. I introduced a hate crimes ordinance that unanimously passed [last December]. The old one had been on the books for 30 years. It hadn’t been amended or anything. We did a lot of research, talked to a lot of organizations that deal with hate crimes. We added a definition for hate incidents because those are precursors to hate crimes. We wanted to make sure people were reporting them, so if there was an uptick in a particular area, the police could focus their attention there.
Chicago education board president resigns amid backlash to antisemitic social media posts
Rev. Mitchell Johnson, the newly appointed Chicago Board of Education president under fire for antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial social media posts, has resigned from the position, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Thursday.

His decision to leave the post came at the request of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who said in a statement that Rev. Johnson’s posts “were not only hurtful but deeply disturbing. I want to be clear: antisemitic, misogynistic, and conspiratorial statements are unacceptable.”

“My administration is committed to upholding the mission of transforming our public education system,” said Mayor Johnson. “It has become clear that his continued participation in the BOE would hinder the important work we need to accomplish for our schools.”

Rev. Johnson’s appointment came after the Board of Education’s entire previous membership stepped down at the start of the month to protest policies proposed by Mayor Johnson.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker also called for Rev. Johnson’s resignation on Thursday afternoon, saying Rev. Johnson’s inflammatory posts disqualify him from educational leadership.

A day earlier, Mayor Johnson had defended Rev. Johnson (no relation), saying Rev. Johnson “has expressed sorrow and is seeking atonement.” A spokesperson for Mayor Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The resignation comes two days after Jewish Insider revealed Rev. Johnson’s history of antisemitic posts on Facebook, including saying that his “Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment.” On Thursday, NBC5 Chicago reported on other posts that delved into misogyny and conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Rev. Johnson was just sworn into the position one week ago. He did not respond to requests for comment.
'Squad' Member Summer Lee Touted Support From 'Pittsburgh Jewish Community' Member Now Indicted for Vandalizing Pittsburgh Synagogue
Rep. Summer Lee (D., Pa.), a member of the anti-Israel "Squad," published a letter last year touting support from "members of the Pittsburgh Jewish Community." One of those "members," Talya Lubit, is now charged with vandalizing a synagogue and Jewish community center located in Lee's congressional district.

Federal prosecutors announced charges on Wednesday against Lubit, a Pittsburgh native, and Mohamad Hamad, a U.S. and Lebanese citizen, for vandalizing Chabad of Squirrel Hill and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh on July 29.

Lubit and Hamad allegedly painted "Jews 4 Palestine" and an inverted triangle, a symbol affiliated with Hamas, on the Chabad of Squirrel Hill. They painted "Hate Zionists" on a sign outside the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. They are charged with damaging religious property and conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, charges that carry a penalty of up to two years in prison.

The indictment could bring renewed scrutiny to Lee, whose district encompasses both of the targeted groups—and who has ties to one of the apparent vandals, Lubit.

In November, Lee touted a letter released by Lubit and other Pittsburgh activists that called on the Biden-Harris administration to push for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. Lee published the letter on her website and noted that the activists had thanked her for "her leadership in this moment of immense pain and fear." Lubit is listed on Lee’s congressional website as one of the signatories of the letter.


Horrible Hasbara: Israel’s Poor PR Efforts
The pro-Palestinian movement enjoys international success because it revolves around one simple (and simplistic) narrative: namely, that the Palestinian Arabs lived peacefully on their own land for millennia, until the 20th century, when imperialist Zionist Jews conspired to steal their land and established a decades-long tyrannical regime supported by the West, whose very existence deprives them of their liberty. The pro-Palestinian camp have spent more than 75 years perfecting their 30-second elevator pitch. It’s time for Israel to catch up.

To begin with, the PM’s office must consolidate all departments involved in public relations into one entity: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Amichai Chikli’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry has been a dismal failure and should be the first to go.) Once this has been achieved, budget allocations should be revised and additional funds raised to give the MFA a budget of at least $US 1 billion. Armed with the necessary resources, the MFA can establish cross-ministry liaison channels and commission an in-house marketing team to create a public diplomacy strategy that effectively communicates the “Four Hs” of a new hasbara: Heritage, History, Horror, and Heroism.

The first stage, Heritage, requires a clear, concise, and concrete narrative describing how the Jewish people emerged in the same land upon which the modern State of Israel has been constructed. Jews must be universally understood as an indigenous population whose origins and millennia-long attachment to Israel are supported by a robust academic corpus of archaeological, historical, and genetic evidence. Instead of arguing that the land should belong to the Jews, Israel should be highlighting the indisputable fact that the Jews belong to this land. In this way, it can counter the erroneous colonisation narrative peddled by pro-Palestinian groups.

The second stage, History, requires more work. The way in which history is taught in the classroom must change. As a November 2023 report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) has demonstrated, those responsible for the Palestinian National Authority (PA) curriculum currently taught in UNRWA schools have for years used the classroom as a vehicle for perpetuating antisemitic and jihadist values. The miserable condition of Palestinian education presents a significant opportunity for Israeli public diplomacy. However, as long as history remains a neglected discipline in the Israeli curriculum, Israel will never empower ordinary citizens to represent its values abroad. While Palestinian schoolchildren are taught to idolise terrorists, Israeli students should receive a rigorous education on the origins of the Jewish people, their diasporic history, the nature of antisemitism, the rise of the Zionist movement and its key figures, and the virtually ignored plight of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. The ultimate goal should be to equip Israeli adolescents to defend the principles of Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should coordinate with educational centres, libraries, school districts, and universities internationally in order to promote understanding of Israeli history. The American K-12 education system, whose post-7 October stance has been increasingly pro-Hamas, should be a priority. The MFA should also work with groups like the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), Yad Vashem, Harif, HonestReporting, and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) to formulate educational initiatives that could gain traction among local communities and in international academia. Misconceptions that are common even within pro-Israel circles—such as the dangerous myth that the State of Israel was gifted to Jews by the West as a way of atoning for the sins of the Holocaust—must be dispelled.

Israeli Muslims and Mizrahi Jews should be invited to appear at televised international conferences and community events to ensure that their stories do not remain untold. The government should also platform non-Jewish peace activists from the MENA region, such as Loay Alshareef and Rawan Osman. Instead of mindlessly repeating that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, Israeli hasbara should lay the groundwork for audiences to come to such a conclusion themselves.

The third stage, Horror, should involve declassifying visual images and testimonies from Israeli families affected by Palestinian terrorism, especially children and the elderly. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should also work with international antisemitism monitoring bodies such as the UK’s Community Security Trust (CST) and the USA’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to obtain footage of antisemitic violence. Launching accessible social media campaigns in English, French, Spanish, Levantine Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, and Farsi will allow Israel to globally communicate the everyday dangers of living next to Iran-backed terrorist groups and show how hatred of Israel is translated into antisemitic violence on the streets of London, Paris, New York, and elsewhere.

The final stage, Heroism, must fully demonstrate the global threat posed by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and all the other jihadist proxies of the Islamic regime in Iran. Israel must be shown to be a necessary force for stability in the Middle East, highlighting the positive reception of their military successes by various non-Jewish individuals and groups in the region.

Some people believe that Israel’s public diplomacy efforts are always going to be futile: they believe that antisemitism is a phenomenon as old as the Jews themselves, and that its current reformulation as anti-Zionism will likely persist for decades to come. Nothing can be done, they feel, to convince the world of another path forward. The constant failure of every half-hearted attempt at hasbara seems to prove them right. But I think they’re wrong. The State of Israel will not be rejected and despised forever—not if we are able to rethink the way we do hasbara.
Ministries cut ties with Haaretz over 'apartheid' allegations
At least three ministries announced on Thursday that they would end all cooperation with the Haaretz newspaper, following allegations voiced this week by its publisher and head of Haaretz Group, Amos Schocken. He said Israel’s rule in the West Bank and Gaza is a “cruel apartheid regime” over Palestinians, called Palestinian terrorists “freedom fighters,” and called for sanctions against Israel’s leaders.

The three ministries were the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, the Interior Ministry, and the Education Ministry. Later on Thursday, they were joined by the Economy and Industry Ministry.

The Diaspora Affairs Ministry’s director general, Avi Cohen-Scali, asserted that the ministry, along with the Bedouin Authority, which is also under its auspices, “will suspend all existing agreements” with Haaretz and halt any future partnerships with the organization.

In a letter dated October 31, 2024, Cohen-Scali condemned Schocken’s statements, saying they included “extreme, baseless, and false statements, positioning [Haaretz] alongside the central drivers of delegitimization” against Israel. He further wrote that calling “those who killed, raped, and butchered our people freedom fighters” was “false, outrageous, and severe” and “words of incitement straight out of the playbook of the greatest enemies of the State of Israel.”


‘Middle East Summit’ in Jerusalem calls for a new way forward
Jettisoning the two-state solution once and for all, via Israel taking sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, was the theme of the “Middle East Summit: A New Vision for Truth-based Peace,” which drew 500 attendees to Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria on Sunday evening.

Serving as inspiration for the conference was a new book by former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman: “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

While a Bible-based policy may sound far-fetched, Friedman combines realpolitik and sound analysis to argue that applying Jewish rule over Judea and Samaria is where biblical promise and good politics align.

People of faith demonstrate common sense on the issue, arguing that “not one inch” of land be given way, “least of all to enemies of the State of Israel with blood on their hands,” he writes.

“People of faith recognize that the land of Israel was given to the Jewish people by God. And if God gave this land to the Jews, no one has the right to undo that grant,” Friedman notes.

International institutions such as the United Nations, and many world leaders, on the other hand, continue to pressure Israel to make Judea and Samaria a Palestinian state, “notwithstanding the violence brought about by the Oslo Accords,” he continues.

A significant portion of the book focuses on the so-called two-state solution, which Friedman describes as “truly the definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

The book quickly garnered attention in Israel.

“Ambassador Friedman has presented, finally, an alternative to the two-state solution—[really] the two-state delusion—in his new book, ‘One Jewish State,’ which we hope will become policy following America’s upcoming elections,” said Rabbi Naphtali Weisz, founder of Israel365, an NGO that encourages Christian support for Israel and which sponsored the conference.
Former US Envoy Friedman: American Foreign Policy Shifts Fuel Middle East Conflict
In an interview with Felice Friedson, former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman argues that the US’s policy shifts, including lifting sanctions on Iran, have destabilized the Middle East, emboldening Iran’s proxies like Hamas. Friedman suggests that the Biden Administration’s shift away from strict alignment with Israel weakens alliances established under former President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords. He also describes his new book, One Jewish State, which presents a one-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria as a path for lasting peace, aimed at influencing Israel’s political left. Friedman believes Israeli sovereignty benefits Palestinians more than self-governance, citing economic and social opportunities Arabs have under Israeli administration. He also criticizes the current administration for delaying critical arms to Israel, calling it “entirely political.”

Friedman, noting US political stakes, asserts that policies perceived as unsupportive of Israel could cost Democrats votes in key states like Michigan. He affirms his willingness to serve again under a Trump Administration, aiming to restore “American credibility” globally and secure stability in the Middle East. To learn more about Friedman’s perspectives on US-Israel relations and his political aspirations, read the print article and view the full interview.

A Case for Annexing the West Bank
In 2020, when the Israeli government was considering annexation of parts of the West Bank, Mosaic held a symposium on the topic. This proposal then gave way to the Abraham Accords, but the underlying problems remain, and look very different in light of the events of the past year. David M. Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, was deeply involved in those diplomatic proceedings, and has now written a serious book making the case for the simplest solution: Israeli annexation of all of Judea and Samaria.

In his review, Robert Silverman praises Friedman’s arguments, and considers what this would mean for West Bank Palestinians:

Friedman has a creative solution to this conundrum: the Puerto Rico model. Puerto Ricans enjoy the full panoply of U.S. citizenship rights, except they don’t vote in national elections (although they do participate in the presidential primaries of U.S. political parties) and aren’t represented in Congress. In exchange, they don’t pay the same federal taxes as other U.S. citizens.

There are two problems with the Puerto Rico model for the West Bank. First, the majority of Puerto Ricans agree on their status in the U.S., most recently in a 2020 referendum on statehood. Friedman doesn’t mention offering West Bankers a similar referendum on becoming part of Israel. . . . Second, there is no consensus inside Israel on annexing the West Bank.

Instead, Friedman might consider reviving the Trump peace plan of 2020. It does allow Israel to annex the strategically important Jordan Valley and adjacent desert (roughly 30 percent of the West Bank) under certain conditions. Whether or not it is formally annexed to Israel, the Jordan Valley will undoubtedly remain Israel’s eastern security border. That is an Israeli consensus only strengthened by the recent Iranian-led attacks.
Caroline Glick: Here’s a Solution That Will Actually Bring Peace - Former Ambassador David Friedman
The concept of a “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians clearly hasn’t worked to bring peace and prosperity to the region. So what’s next?

Join JNS senior contributing editor Caroline Glick and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman for a conversation that will change the way you look at possible solutions to the conflict.

Glick and Friedman also discuss the upcoming U.S. presidential election and how the outcome could possibly affect the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East. Prepare to think outside the box!


Hen Mazzig: Jews are part of the very fabric of the Middle East
Recently I found myself in a heated exchange on X/Twitter with Dr Jeffrey Sachs from the Department of Politics at Acadia University. Sachs was arguing that whether Jews are indigenous to the Middle East doesn’t matter in the context of today’s political disputes. He even went as far as to suggest that the beauty of my culture or the political rights of my people wouldn’t change if I discovered that my ancestors had only arrived in Iraq or Tunisia in the 19th century. According to him, indigenity is irrelevant when it comes to political rights.

But here’s where Dr Sachs gets it wrong, not just about Jews, but about what it means to be indigenous and why it matters, especially in the face of erasure and displacement.

For my family and for countless others, indigenity isn’t an abstract concept. It’s rooted in real history, in real places, and in a connection to the land that has defined us for millennia. I come from a family of Mizrahi Jews who have lived in the Middle East for more than 2,000 years, long before Islamic conquests shaped the region. My ancestors didn’t “arrive” in Iraq or Tunisia in the 19th century. They were there for centuries, holding onto their identity and culture through waves of persecution and displacement. To dismiss that history as irrelevant is to erase the very real struggles my family endured to maintain their connection to their land and identity.

Indigenous identity isn’t just about where someone’s grandparents were born. It’s about where a people were formed, where their language, culture and traditions grew in deep connection to the land. The Jewish people aren’t indigenous to the Middle East simply because we’ve lived there for a long time. We are indigenous because that land shaped our very identity. Our language, our spirituality and our traditions were all born from the land of Israel. That’s what indigenity means. It’s not a casual claim of ancestry but a formative relationship between a people and a place.

When you dismiss the importance of that relationship, you’re not just abstracting, you’re erasing the very foundation of who we are. You’re ignoring the trauma of displacement, the loss of identity and the centuries of survival against efforts to erase us. For Jews of the Middle East, like my family, the connection to the land is what kept us going through centuries of exile and marginalisation. It’s not a question of aesthetics or abstract pride in heritage. It’s about survival.

Dr Sachs argued that our political and civil rights don’t turn on anything as “meaningless” as where our ancestors came from, but that statement misses the heart of the issue. The notion that we can detach identity from place and history as though they don’t matter is a dangerous oversimplification. It overlooks the fact that colonialism, in all its forms, exploits this very disconnection. It’s not just about political subjugation or economic exploitation. It’s about erasing the identity of a people, cutting them off from the land and history that sustains them. When the Islamic empires swept through the Middle East, Jews weren’t just politically subjugated, they were marginalised, their cultural and religious identities suppressed under regimes that saw them as second-class citizens.

This is the reality my family lived through. My ancestors didn’t survive centuries of displacement and persecution just to be told their connection to the land is irrelevant. That history is not an abstraction. It’s the reality of what it means to be indigenous, to have a bond with a place that defines who you are and, when severed, leaves lasting wounds.


House ed panel: ‘Shocking’ college concessions to anti-Israel protesters
Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce released the findings of their year-long investigation into campus antisemitism on Thursday, writing that universities offered “shocking concessions” to anti-Israel protesters.

The 122-page report—with 203 pages of appendices—concludes that university administrators across the country failed to enforce rules and “deliberately chose to withhold support from Jewish students.”

“For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” stated Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the committee’s chairwoman.

“While Jewish students displayed incredible courage and a refusal to cave to the harassment, university administrators, faculty and staff were cowards, who fully capitulated to the mob and failed the students they were supposed to serve,” Foxx added.

Just days after the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Foxx condemned pro-Hamas, antisemitic student protesters.

She announced a formal investigation into Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania on Dec. 7, which has since expanded to include eight other academic institutions.

Thursday’s report is based on interviews with administrators from those universities and examination of more than 400,000 documents.

Among the concessions that administrators offered was Columbia University providing a “menu” of options to its campus protesters, including a “resilience fund” for Gaza.

The report includes internal emails and other communications between university administrators that suggest that some of them may have misled Congress in sworn testimony during a series of hearings that the committee held with university presidents.
'Best Strategy Is To Keep Heads Down': Schumer Advised Columbia's Leaders To Ignore Anti-Semitism Backlash, Saying Their 'Problems Are Really Only Among Republicans'
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) quietly advised Columbia University's leaders to "keep heads down" and ignore congressional criticism of the school's handling of campus anti-Semitism, telling former university president Minouche Shafik that the school's "political problems are really only among Republicans," according to a new House Committee on Education and the Workforce report.

The committee's 300-page report stems from more than a year of interviews and over 400,000 pages of internal documents produced by elite schools like Columbia, Harvard University, Yale University, Northwestern University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. It demonstrates, by producing the private emails and text messages of university leaders, how they failed to protect Jewish students as anti-Semitic mobs seized their campuses in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror spree.

It also reveals that Schumer advised Shafik to tune out the criticism she was receiving from House Republicans.

Shafik, who resigned from her post in August amid a series of anti-Semitism scandals that roiled the school, texted board of trustees co-chairs David Greenwald and Claire Shipman in January to inform them that she had met with Schumer. The top Senate Democrat, according to text messages obtained by the committee, "advised Shafik that 'universities political problems are really only among Republicans'" and "recommended the 'best strategy is to keep heads down.'"

"When asked, Schumer and his staff indicated they did not believe it was necessary for the University's leaders to meet with Republicans," the report states. "Greenwald echoed this, writing in response, 'If we are keeping our head down, maybe we shouldn't meet with Republicans.'" In the texts published in the report, Shafik identifies Schumer as "very positive and supportive (and quite the storyteller)."

Days later, text messages show, Greenwald sent his predecessor, Jonathan Lavine, a New York Times article on the committee's "aggressive and expansive investigation into institutions of higher education."

"Let's hope the Dems win the house back," Lavine wrote. "Absolutely," Greenwald responded.

Schumer's private assessment differed from the public one he offered months later, when anti-Israel students launched the encampment that took over Columbia's Morningside Heights campus and eventually led to the violent storming of a campus building. At that point, in late April, Schumer criticized the protesters' "lawlessness."


NHS pathologist: ‘Dead and suffering Israelis brightens the day’
The NHS and General Medical Council are being urged to investigate amid growing concern about anti-Israel social media posts by health workers – as Jewish News revealed another shocking case.

Kingston Hospital says it has “taken action” after a post from Daniel Nava Rodrigues, revealed by Twitter account @GnasherJew, stated that he hopes “every IDF soldier shoots him/herself in the mouth”.

Posted on Twitter/X on 23 October, the pathologist, who previously worked at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, also wrote: “Dead and/or suffering Israelis are the only thing that brightens the day lately.”

Posts on his now deleted account (as of Wednesday) are the most recent in a series of shocking incidents uncovered since the 7 October Hamas atrocities, causing profound concern among the Jewish community and Jewish medical professionals.

Just weeks after the attacks, a survey found that 95 percent of UK Jewish health care professionals in the UK had noted a rise in the antisemitism they faced in the workplace.

Last week, Jewish News revealed that a senior academic at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had tweeted support for former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah being hailed a “hero” by answering a social media call to post a Lebanese flag to indicate support for him. Other cases have included:

• A doctor at Northwick Park Hospital being removed for posting antisemitic comments online;
• A UK doctor urging Gazans to ‘fight and die in dignity’ after 7 October terror attack;
• The temporary suspension by NHS England of Harrow GP Dr Wahid Shaida, who led the UK branch of now banned Islamist terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir;
• Dr Asif Munaf, a former contestant on The Apprentice, being suspended by the General Medical Council following a series of vile and offensive remarks about Israel, Zionists, Hindus and women; • Moorfields Eye Hospital launching a probe over a staff member’s Palestine badge;
• The chief executive of Central and North West London Foundation Trust apologising to the Antisemitism Policy Trust following the publication of a message advising members against attending professional antisemitism training;
• MP Jess Phillips claiming she received preferential treatment from an NHS doctor for vocally expressing that she supported a Gaza ceasefire.
Palestinian student who had visa revoked after saying October 7 made her ‘full of joy’ wins right to remain
A Palestinian student who had her student visa revoked after saying the October 7 massacre was “a once in a lifetime experience” has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision.

The tribunal ruled that the Home Office failed to demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar, 20, was “not conducive to public good” and found that the decision to revoke her visa was “disproportionate”.

Abu Qamar, a dual Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin, was stripped of her student visa in December 2023 over statements she made at a pro-Palestine demonstration at Manchester University and a subsequent interview with Sky News.

Speaking to the broadcaster at the rally on October 8, a day after the Hamas’s attack, Abu Qamar said she was full of “pride” and “joy”.

She said: “For 16 years Gaza has been under blockade, and for the first time they are actively resisting, they are not on the defence, and this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

She went on: “And everyone is, we are both in fear, but also in fear of what, how Israel will retaliate and how we’ve seen it retaliate overnight, and the missiles that it’s launched and the attacks, but also we are full of pride. We are really, really full of joy of what happened.”

Abu Qamar, who was the president of the Friends of Palestine society at Manchester University, claimed she was misinterpreted and that she was not expressing support for Hamas, but rather Palestinian resistance. She clarified that she did not condone violence against civilians.

The tribunal found that the Home Office’s decision reflected a “disproportionate interference with her protected right to free speech” under the European Convention on Human Rights.

It ruled that Abu Qamar’s comments could not be taken as support for Hamas or the October 7 attack, but rather were indicative of support for the Palestinian cause.

“There is a clearly recognised and fundamental distinction between supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting Hamas and their actions,” the judgment said. “Nowhere does the appellant express support for Hamas specifically, or their actions.”

Abu Qamar is “not an extremist”, the judgment said, adding that her description of Israel as an “apartheid” state was consistent with statements expressed by human rights organisations.


SBS Hebrew program falls silent
For the first time in its almost 50-year history, the Sunday SBS Radio Hebrew Program – including its one-hour English “Shalom Australia” component – is in recess into its third month.

The pause began on August 18, a week after the program’s producer Amit Rehak – who has worked at SBS for 12 years – felt compelled to resign, following what he claimed were multiple unjustified restrictions placed upon his work.

He’d received two letters from management alleging he’d breached editorial guidelines in three stories that contained pro-Israel perspectives – which were then partially or fully removed from the program’s website.

A 15-minute interview with highly respected British Colonel Richard Kemp – who spoke highly of the professionalism of the IDF – was fully removed from the website, while several quotes from a May 20 interview with Combat Antisemitism’s director of European affairs, Oriana Marie Kruger – including her view that Israel was being demonised – were removed.

Rehak applied for the role of the program’s permanent executive director the day after it was first advertised by SBS in May this year – more than eight months after long-term producer Nitza Lowenstein retired – but was denied even an interview.

He told The AJN, “I felt bullied and deeply shaken when my integrity as a journalist was questioned for conducting important interviews with pro-Jewish perspectives.”
The BBC’s response to the Asserson Report
Some seven weeks after the publication of the Asserson Report on BBC coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, the corporation published the following short response:
As we see, that 127 word response is similar to the initial statement provided by the BBC immediately after the report’s release:

“A BBC spokesman said: “We have serious questions about the methodology of this report, particularly its heavy reliance on AI to analyse impartiality, and its interpretation of the BBC’s editorial guidelines. We don’t think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words divorced from context.

“We are required to achieve due impartiality, rather than the ‘balance of sympathy’ proposed in the report, and we believe our knowledgeable and dedicated correspondents are achieving this, despite the highly complex, challenging and polarising nature of the conflict.

“However, we will consider the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.””

To many, the BBC’s response will not come as much of a surprise, particularly in light of the statement put out on October 1st by the BBC’s CEO of News and Current Affairs in which she claimed that those expressing criticism of the corporation’s coverage do so “because it does not solely reflect their view of the conflict” and that “[t]hey are increasingly living in an information ecosystem that surrounds them with their own views and opinions”.

The BBC’s ongoing flippant dismissals of criticism only serve to highlight the need for an independent review of its adherence to the editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality that are the cornerstone of its contract with its funding public.
Repeated BBC promotion of a narrative based on ‘suspicion’ and ‘belief’
BBC audiences have of course not been told who those “many Palestinians” are or on what basis they “believe” the speculations to which the BBC has chosen to provide such generous amplification. Neither have BBC audiences been adequately informed about the relevant issue of Hamas’ often violent efforts to prevent civilians from evacuating the Jabaliya area.

We of course do not know whether or not Bowen and any of the other abovementioned BBC journalists have bothered to ask themselves whether or not promotion of that entirely unverified narrative concerning supposed adoption of the ‘Generals’ Plan’ (and their amplification of it) is intended to serve the political and/or military purposes of certain actors.

What we do see, however, is that despite repeated clarifications from the IDF and Israeli officials, the BBC is quite happy to pass off insinuations and speculations based on ‘belief’, ‘hints’ and ‘suspicion’ as “news that you can trust” and “credible journalism”.
GUARDIAN CORRECTS ERRONEOUS OCT. 7TH ISRAELI DEATH COUNT

HAARETZ AMENDS AFTER GROSSLY OVERREPORTING FATALITIES IN STRIKE ON NASRALLAH

The Times promotes another fabrication
While it’s unclear how hte Times journalist felt personally abuot the tropes used by Alice’s mother about ‘Jewish supremacy’ and ‘the chosen ones’, he made no effort to explain to readers that her accusation echoes racist tropes peddled by neo-Nazis, and appears in the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion to promote the lethal idea that Jews see themselves as a superior race.

However, far more problematic than Gryllis’s omission regarding the dangerous anti-Jewish history of the quote he chose to inclue is the fact that there is literally nothing in his piece to support the charge, beginning in the headline, that Christians are being specifically targeted by the Israeli government and/or settlers.

Once again, we see that what often passes for journalism in the British media as it pertains to Israel can be best described as narratives in search of evidence.


Bnei Brak man indicted for tracking Israeli nuclear scientist Iran sought to assassinate
The State Attorney’s Office files an indictment against Asher Binyamin Weiss, a resident of Bnei Brak, on suspicion that he has acted on behalf of Iran by tracking an Israeli nuclear scientist whom the Iranian regime sought to assassinate.

Weiss has been indicted on charges of having contact with a foreign agent, passing information to the enemy and obstruction of justice.

According to the indictment, Weiss used a GoPro camera to video the scientist’s house and car. The Iranian agent sent the video footage to a young man from East Jerusalem who was tasked with assassinating the scientist.

The indictment, filed last week to the Tel Aviv District Court, also included details of acts of arson and graffiti perpetrated by Weiss, as well as putting up hundreds of posters calling for civil rebellion.


Israel to extend bank deal to prevent PA’s collapse ahead of US vote
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will extend a waiver allowing Israeli banks to do business with their Palestinian counterparts in Judea and Samaria for one month, officials in Jerusalem told local media on Thursday, just hours before the agreement was set to expire.

The decision to extend the deal for another 30 days received backing from Israel’s Security Cabinet and comes against the background of the upcoming U.S. presidential vote and the desire to reconsider the issue soon depending on who wins, an Israeli official was cited as saying.

It also allows Israel to use the waiver as leverage since the Biden administration could take steps to advance Palestinian statehood during the transition period after a possible Trump win, the official told Walla.

The waiver, which Smotrich signed for a period of four months in late June, extends the indemnity to Israeli correspondent banks that transfer money to Palestinian Authority banks in Judea and Samaria. The deal shields major Israeli financial institutions with relations to the P.A. from lawsuits stemming from charges of supporting Palestinian terrorism.

The decision to extend the indemnity waiver was reportedly made as a tradeoff for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval to retroactively legalize several Jewish outposts in Judea and Samaria.


Germany to shut three Iranian consulates after execution of Jamshid Sharmahd
Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister of Germany, ordered the closure on Thursday of Iran’s three consulates in the Western European nation.

The development came as a result of the execution on Monday of Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian dual national living in California, who was kidnapped by Iran while traveling in the United Arab Emirates in August 2020.

Baerbock stated that “we have repeatedly made it clear to Iran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences” and that Berlin had chosen “to close the three Iranian consulates general in Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Hamburg.”

As such, Iranian consulate employees without German citizenship must leave the country.

Baerbock said Germany also calls for sanctions from the European Union against those involved in Sharmahd’s killing. Calling Iran a “dictatorial, unjust regime” she said it “does not act according to normal diplomatic logic,” and “it is not without reason that our diplomatic relations are already at an all-time low.”

On Tuesday, Germany recalled its ambassador to Iran, Markus Potzel, who returned to Berlin to consult on the next steps to be taken.


Unpacked: Why Do Jews Still Live in Iran?
In a country often seen as hostile to Jews, Iran’s Jewish community remains one of the oldest in the Middle East. Nearly 10,000 Jews continue to practice their faith, operating synagogues, kosher restaurants, and schools, even under the watchful eye of the regime.

Rooted in ancient Persia and shaped by Queen Esther’s legacy, their story is one of resilience, maintaining traditions that have withstood exile, persecution, and revolution.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:48 How Jews came to Iran
01:08 The Purim story of Queen Esther
02:47 Cyrus the Great and Jewish prosperity
03:37 Jewish life under Muslim rule in Persia
06:00 The Golden Age of Jewish life in Iran
10:29 The rise of Ruhollah Khomeini
13:28 The 1979 Islamic Revolution and Jewish flight
15:24 The Jewish community that remained in Iran
17:35 Iranian exiles in Israel
18:07 Iranian exiles in the USA
19:41 Resilience of the Persian Jewish community


NYC: Jewish victim of slashing attack expected to recover
A member of the Jewish community in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., was slashed in the face with a knife on Tuesday.

“The attacker allegedly yelled hateful rhetoric. This is a very serious incident, and the Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned about it,” stated Yaacov Behrman, a community leader. ” Witnesses at the scene testified that it was unprovoked. We are praying for the victim and sending support and love to his family.”

The New York City Police Department released photos of the alleged attacker and asked the public to help identify the man.

The department’s office of the deputy commissioner of public information told JNS that the NYPD received a report of a 30-year-old man, who was stabbed at about 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday as he walked on the street in front of 292 Ashland Place in Brooklyn.

“He was approached by an unknown individual,” who “cursed at the victim and slashed him in the face,” per the incident report that the NYPD provided to JNS. “The individual fled on foot in an unknown direction to parts unknown.”

Emergency medical services brought the victim, in stable condition, to Maimonides Medical Center, per the NYPD.

Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, wrote that she is thankful that the victim “is expected to make a full recovery.”

“We will not tolerate any attacks against our Jewish communities,” she wrote.
Chicago Jewish leaders decry mayor, laud police, as no hate
U.S. President Joe Biden took two days to comment after three men were shot in Burlington, Vt.—over Thanksgiving weekend, one of the year’s slowest news periods—before he said that he was “horrified.” The president noted that the victims were “of Palestinian descent” and “while we are waiting for more facts, we know this: there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America. Period.”

The following day, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stated that Americans were “praying for the full recovery of the three Palestinian students who were shot in Burlington” and “while the facts of this tragedy are still being investigated, we know that far too many people live with the fear that they could be targeted and attacked based on their beliefs or who they are.”

Like Biden, she used the word “hate” in her statement.

It later emerged that the shooter expressed pro-Hamas sentiments. Nevertheless, Biden referred to the incident when proclaiming Arab American Heritage Month in March, saying “a group of students were shot while just walking down the street—tragic reminders that hate never goes away.”

Five days after a 39-year-old, visibly Orthodox Jewish man was shot in Chicago as he walked to synagogue on Shabbat on Oct. 26, Biden and Harris have yet to issue a statement.

The lone reference connected to them came in an Oct. 28 speech at the University of Pittsburgh, in which Doug Emhoff, Harris’s Jewish husband, noted that “we see the antisemitic attacks that are happening week by week in America,” including “the man who was shot in Chicago while walking to Shabbat services two days ago.”

Harris and he “recommit ourselves to extinguishing this epidemic of hate,” Emhoff said.

Jewish leaders in Chicago told JNS that mum has been the word from city and state leaders as well.

Brandon Johnson, the city’s mayor who has drawn widespread criticism for being anti-Israel and promoting Jew-haters, waited three days to comment. When he did, he didn’t mention that the victim was Jewish.

“On behalf of the City of Chicago, our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the victim and his loved ones from this weekend’s shooting incident that took place in Rogers Park,” he stated. “This tragic event should have never happened.”


Oakland coffee shop throws out Jewish customer and calls his Star of David hat 'violent'
A California Jewish man was kicked out of a coffee shop for wearing a 'violent' Star of David hat.

Jonathan Hirsch filmed as he was asked to leave the Jerusalem Coffee House in Oakland on Saturday.

The owner could be seen referring to Hirsch's headwear as a, 'violent hat' before ordering him to leave for causing a disturbance.

The café describes itself as, 'a truly welcoming abode to our people of Palestine, Oakland, the Bay Area and beyond' which frequently hold Gaza solidarity events.

'I wear this hat all the time,' Hirsch told KTVU. 'I mean, I've had this hat for years. And it means a lot to me. It's meant a lot more over the last year.'

He explained he entered the premises because his five-year-old son needed the bathroom and his wife wanted to buy a coffee.

'I wasn't going out looking for a fight,' Hirsch added. 'But when someone comes up to me fighting I can't teach my son that Jews are these meek people that run and cower.'

The footage shows Hirsch mid-confrontation with the owner who repeatedly asks him to leave.

'You're being asked to leave. You're causing a disruption. This is a private business. You're being asked to leave,' the owner says.

'This gentleman asked me to leave because of my hat,' Hirsch responds.

The owner then say, 'This is a violent hat, and you need to leave' to an incredulous Hirsch.

The owner then demands to know if the dad is a Zionist, but he refuses to respond.

Things escalate when Hirsch invites the owner to call the police.


New memorials honor hundreds of Jews murdered at little-known Nazi labor camp
The son of a Holocaust survivor fulfilled a yearslong personal mission Wednesday with the unveiling of memorials in a Polish forest that honor hundreds of Jews murdered by German forces during World War II, among them dozens of members of his father’s family.

Michael Pomeranc, an American, was joined by relatives as well as the families of other Holocaust survivors to commemorate all those who were killed at the site of the former German labor camp of Adampol.

In a speech, Pomeranc spoke of growing up as a child in the United States with no graves of his murdered ancestors to visit.

“We never had the opportunity to lay a flower for any of our beloved ones who died here,” Pomeranc said at the ceremony. “But we will mourn them today. Their souls in heaven will always be with us.”

The ceremony took place at the site of a Nazi labor camp where Jews were forced to work in fields before they were murdered in 1943. During World War II the area was under the occupation of Nazi Germany, which used Jews as slave labor and carried out mass executions in death camps like Auschwitz but also at many other places which — like Adampol — have received very little attention.

Jewish and Catholic prayers accompanied the event, which was attended by local school children and watched by the descendants of Holocaust survivors far beyond Poland on a live stream. Illustrative: Memorial at the site of the Lety concentration camp in the Czech Republic. (Public domain, Max, Wikimedia Commons)

The Israeli ambassador spoke, while a letter was read from the US ambassador.

There are two living survivors of Adampol, but they do not live in Poland and were not able to make the trip.
5,000-year-old site near Beit Shemesh offers clues to how cities developed in Israel
Archaeologists have unearthed a large settlement west of Jerusalem dating from the early Bronze Age some 5,000 years ago, providing “a view of the beginning of the urbanization process in the Land of Israel,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said Tuesday.

The site, on the outskirts of Beit Shemesh, includes one of the earliest temples ever discovered in the Judean Lowlands.

Exactly who inhabited the site is unknown, but it may have been inhabited by the ancestors of the biblical Canaanites, said archaeologist Ariel Shatil, a graduate student at the University of Haifa and one of the directors of the dig, speaking to The Times of Israel by phone.

“It’s a very ancient period, and they didn’t leave much” in the way of written materials, Shatil said, adding that it’s possible that these were “among the people who developed into what we know as Canaanites, but we really don’t know.”

The Canaanites, portrayed in the Hebrew Bible as local antagonists of the Israelites as they were conquering the Land of Israel, are usually considered by archaeologists and historians to have been a civilization and culture that coalesced around 2,000 BCE, about a millennium after the recently excavated settlement.

The site, dubbed Hurvat Husham, “is exceptional not only because of its size, but because it reveals to us some of the first characteristics of the transition from village life to urban life,” the archaeologists said.

The findings at the site include a large public building, likely a “cultic worship site,” which contained a room with a unique collection of intact clay vessels, the IAA said.


Ep. 56. Black. Jewish. Conservative. Rapper. Nissim Black
Rapper Nissim Black joins Gabe on a live stream to talk about conservative values in the Black American community, his journey from being a Gangsta rapper from the inner city in Seattle to being a conservative, orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. Nissim shares his unique standpoint about pop culture, American politics and how the Black community interacts with the upcoming election.




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