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Thursday, September 18, 2025

09/18 Links Pt2: Open season against the Jews; The Guardian’s Descent: Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Open season against the Jews
Only America currently stands between Israel and this unconscionable, obsessional and murderous malice of the world against the Jews. That support, though, is itself vulnerable. In 2028, Trump—Israel’s greatest supporter in the history of the presidency—will have departed the White House.

The Democrats are so deeply in hock to their anti-Israel, anti-Jewish far-left that they will be enemies of both Israel and civilization for the foreseeable future.

The Republicans, however, are themselves now badly split between conservatives and conspiracy-theorist, antisemitic crazies—a development which has come into sharper focus since the murder earlier this month of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

Whatever the motive for Kirk’s assassin turns out to be, Kirk’s death is a strategic blow to America. Talked of as a future president, he had a unique gift in reaching American youth with a patriotic message of cultural conservatism and Christian renewal. And he was a great supporter of Israel.

Since his murder, however, MAGA’s conspiracy-theorist wing has erupted with a stream of antisemitic claims centered on Kirk’s memory and with deranged fantasies that Kirk was murdered by the Mossad.

The leader of this faction, former Fox News host and current political commentator Tucker Carlson, is claiming to be the true inheritor and guardian of Kirk’s legacy. As such, he is claiming (with no evidence at all) that before his murder, Kirk had turned against Israel. But Tucker himself has platformed innumerable wild and vicious anti-Israel and anti-Jewish claims.

On his Tablet podcast this week with Israeli commentator Gadi Taub, the American political analyst Mike Doran said Kirk’s murder had set in train a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party—over Israel. It’s also a struggle over Israel for the soul of America.

It is beyond remarkable how so much of the world’s agenda now involves hatred of Israel and the Jews.

There are many reasons for this. The rise of Muslim political power in Britain and Western Europe (and increasingly in the United States) has got politicians dancing to the Islamists’ tune and turning their countries into hotbeds of Islamic supremacism and “Gaza first” policies to destroy Israel.

This agenda finds eager acceptance among liberal universalists, whose hatred of the West and the nation-state has led to embrace of the Palestinian cause and belief that preposterous Palestinian lies are the unvarnished truth.

In other words, as I wrote in my book published earlier this year, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West and Why Only They can Save It, the West’s attack on Israel and the Jews can only be explained by its attack on its own core values and identity.

This has erased conscience, justice and rationality in the West. That’s why it’s behaving in this way towards Israel—the great standard-bearer of conscience, justice and rationality.

And as history has shown, every culture that tried to wipe out the Jews has itself been wiped out while the Jewish people have survived. History is once again repeating itself.
Stephen Daisley: Neither Balfour nor Britain created Israel. The Jews did
Balfour guilt has political elites donning their sackcloths and ashes but we would all benefit from regaining a little perspective. Britain did not create the Israel, neither through Balfour nor its administration of Palestine/Eretz Yisrael. Jews created Israel. The Old Yishuv. The early Jewish immigrants from central and eastern Europe. Mizrahi Jews, many driven out of Arab and Muslim lands in which their families had lived for generations. (This is the Nakba people don’t talk about.) Jewish sovereignty was fought and paid and planted and prayed and all too often bled for. It was not a gift, but a reclamation.

The UK had a role, no doubt about that. For all the tensions between the Brits and the Zionists, the arrests and floggings and hangings of Jewish freedom fighters and the Irgun’s and Lehi’s bloody reprisals at the King David Hotel and in the eucalyptus groves of Even Yehuda, the British Army kept enough order to prevent the Arabs of the Palestine territory and surrounding countries from slaughtering the Jews en masse. Orde Wingate trained the Haganah in self-defence and British mahalniks like Tom Derek Bowden flocked to Israel in 1948 when the Arabs tried to exterminate the nascent Jewish state.

But the Britain that issued the Balfour declaration was the same Britain that four years later severed almost 80 per cent of Palestine and handed it to the Hashemites for an Arab state, which is now Jordan. This is why, today, Israel is only a narrow strip and, if the world gets its way, will become narrower still. It was also the British who drastically restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine during the Holocaust, an effective death warrant for desperate European Jews.

If Britain should apologise for anything, it is for the failure of successive governments to live up to the three promises contained in the Balfour Declaration.The first, to “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of” a Jewish national home in Palestine, was betrayed by the Transjordan separation and is betrayed even now, as British ministers affirm Israel’s right to self-defence from one corner of their mouths while sanctioning it for doing so from the other.

The second promise, that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, is often raised by Palestine activists and other anti-Zionists. While Israel’s management of religious and ethnic differences is as imperfect as any country’s, non-Jews enjoy legal equality and guaranteed rights. For the absence of self-determination for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the Israelis must take their share of the blame, but it is a share no bigger than that of the Palestinians themselves.

The third promise, the one everyone forgets about, was that “the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” would not be adversely affected. Yet Britain has watched as ancient Jewish civilisations have been all but erased in countries like Iraq, Egypt and Morocco, and closer to home it is failing to deter antisemitism in UK institutions and at street level.

When the Telegraph interviewer put to him that Jews needed a homeland, Charles Dance replied: “It’s all very complicated.” Conscience is a fickle fellow indeed. Dance can rest assured that his conscience is clear. The Balfour Declaration did not create Israel and the Britain that produced Balfour no longer exists.

Shorn of our empire, our defences depleted by elite preferences for much-hailed but seldom-seen soft power, we are now a mid-level power at best. We can no more “unpick” the 1917 declaration or redraw the Middle East map than we can rule India or pack off convicts to New South Wales. A Foreign Office statement today carries less weight than the paper it is printed on. Such are the wages of an empire’s death.

Without realising it, progressives like Dance are hankering for a new imperialism, an enlightened imperialism, in which the solution to the Middle East crisis resides in London or some other European capital. If only the government would denounce Israel more, sanction Israel more, betray Israel more, Britain’s recalcitrant child would finally fall into line. Only Israel isn’t our child, she is a sovereign and independent nation and will remain so for as long as her people are willing to fight for her.

We are no longer in the business of nation-making. We can barely keep our own nation together. The past can be celebrated or lamented, critiqued and revised, but it cannot be undone. The Jewish people built their own state, but the Balfour Declaration will remain a record of a gone-forever moment when Britain’s word carried moral weight throughout the world.
The Guardian’s Descent: Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism
At the heart of the film lies an old poison dressed in new rhetoric: collective Jewish guilt. A B’Tselem activist declares, “As an Israeli Jew, I belong to the collective perpetrating this genocide. It is done in my name.” This is not moral courage — it is the most lucrative pose in the propaganda business: the token Jew who profits by smearing his own people. These opportunistic traitors thrived in Nazi Germany as Judenräte and Jewish Ghetto Police, and in the Soviet Union as “useful Jews” like Trotsky, weaponized for the regime’s purposes and later discarded. It’s nothing new: fascists and communists alike have always used Jewish faces as props to legitimize their war on Jewish survival.

Cassel ties a neat bow on his story: “We spoke with dozens of people across Tel Aviv and found little concern for Palestinians in Gaza.” This is confirmation bias disguised as discovery. The reality is that Israeli society is saturated with grief, argument, and mourning. Hostages dominate headlines. Protests fill the streets. Israelis argue ferociously, care deeply, and worry about the world’s opinion. But nuance spoils propaganda, so it ends up on the cutting-room floor.

B’Tselem’s Sarit Michaeli accuses Israelis of collective guilt, while Matthew Cassel nods along, blaming not only Israel but the international community for enabling a so-called genocide. This is not journalism — it is the laundering of antisemitic propaganda through token voices and selective editing.

The final twist is to widen the circle of guilt. After branding Israelis as genocidaires, Cassel and his B’Tselem chorus declare that the “international community” is also to blame. This is the propaganda endgame: if you don’t denounce Israel, you too are complicit. Western readers, watching from their sofas, are recruited into the script. Your government, your taxes, your silence — all framed as participation in Jewish crimes.

This is blood libel evolved for the 21st century. Yesterday, it was the village Jew accused of poisoning the wells. Today, it is the Jewish state accused of genocide — and anyone who doesn’t join the mob becomes an accomplice. This isn’t journalism. It’s a sadistic inquisition, and The Guardian has chosen to play inquisitor with glee.

The Aftermath: Manufacturing a Mob Against Jews
The Guardian doesn't just tell a story — it manufactures a mob. Within twenty-four hours, Cassel's "documentary" had nearly a million views, 26,000 likes, and more than 5,600 comments. Scroll through them and you see the result: a chorus of digital pitchforks, parroting the script they've just been fed.

"Israelis will forever have to reckon with what we have done to Palestinians."

"The victims of genocide turned into perpetrators of genocide."

"Nazis could have parties beside concentration camps, just like Israelis on the beach."
Hollywood vs. Hollywood: Battle Brewing Between Stars, Studios & the Pro-Palestinian Press
The article then folded in the celebrity boycott letter, presenting it as a “new pledge to boycott working with Israeli film institutions and companies.” Noticeably absent? Any mention of Paramount’s unequivocal statement rejecting the boycott — released days earlier. In other words, The Hollywood Reporter chose to present a picture of unified anti-Israel solidarity in Hollywood, when in fact the industry itself was already fracturing.

This isn’t an isolated case. A wider snapshot of the outlet’s coverage shows a consistent pattern: lionizing Palestinian filmmakers while nit-picking Israeli ones. One glowing feature was headlined: “Amid the Tragedy of War, Palestinian Filmmakers Are Finding a Way to Break Through.”

By contrast, a recent review of Barry Avrich’s “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which documents Israeli general Noam Tibon’s desperate effort to save his family from Hamas terrorists on October 7, was dismissed as offering a “tense but oversimplified snapshot.” One criticism leveled at Avrich was that he focused “too much” on October 7 so that “nobody needs to think of anything that came before or after.”

Before? What exactly does The Hollywood Reporter believe happened “before” October 7 that could possibly contextualize the butchering of Israeli families in their homes? The implication is as grotesque as it is telling.

This is the deeper problem. We could say that Hollywood’s most prominent industry voice has traded neutrality for selective outrage, but the truth is The Hollywood Reporter was never neutral. Like much of Hollywood, it has long been sympathetic to left-wing and progressive causes.

But to suggest this is simply more of the same would be a mistake. In aligning itself with the pro-Palestinian cause as framed by Hollywood’s loudest activists, The Hollywood Reporter is not being “progressive.” It is lending its voice to a movement from which its celebrity backers will eventually distance themselves — when the wind shifts, or when they realize they are alienating their employers and fans.

Publications don’t have that luxury. Unlike actors insulated by a bubble of self-congratulation, The Hollywood Reporter is still an industry institution. Its credibility is supposed to rest on professionalism, not posturing. By choosing sides, it risks a stain that will be far harder to wash off.

The actors flaunt the pins, the filmmakers sign the pledges, and The Hollywood Reporter cements the narrative — one it may find impossible to rewrite when the curtain falls.


The scavengers clawing at Charlie Kirk’s corpse for their sick, sad conspiracy theories
From Ackman to Seth Dillon to Shapiro to Kirk’s pastor, the notion that Kirk was becoming a quiet crypto-Nazi has been decidedly debunked. But perhaps we have to consider some of his last words when asked whether he was still friends with Owens in light of her recent embrace of the dark side.

“There is a corner of the internet that wants to point and blame the Jews for all their problems,” Kirk said in a rhetorical masterclass of the nondenial denial. “Everybody, this is demonic, and it’s from the pit of hell, and it should not be tolerated, period.”

Jackie Kennedy might have wanted Oswald to be a segregationist the same way the Left wants Robinson to be an alt-right groyper and Owens wants Kirk’s killer not to be Robinson at all but rather an Israeli agent instead.

But sometimes the assassin really is a silly little communist.

As they grow more ubiquitous and powerful, some stars are subsumed into their own celebrity. As their public images dominate their lives, their inner personas shrink and become obscure. It is not uncommon to hear of harrowing tales of business moguls or A-list actors, who, at the apex of their fame, are devoid of real, life-long friends or any semblance of actual family. It is no mistake that just a few months before legendary Zappos founder Tony Hsieh died in a drug-fueled house fire, his good friend Jewel warned the billionaire that every single person around him was on his payroll.

By the time he died, Kirk was not a billionaire, but he had gotten a president elected the leader of the free world once in 2016, helped resurrect his reputation from political exile, and then won back the White House again in 2024. He managed to become a household name to the extent almost universally reserved for a top tier of elected officials ready to throw their names into the next presidential primary.

Yet at the pinnacle of his power, Kirk was more grounded than ever. He was a great man who remained a good one, a self-made man who built his world in the image of what he believed would best serve the Lord and blamed nobody else for his shortcomings.

And those grifting off of his death hate him for it.

In Shapiro’s new book, Lions and Scavengers, which was written well before Kirk’s murder but only released this month, he almost prophetically defined the difference between Kirk and those, well, scavenging his death for political gain.

The lion, in the spirit of Machiavellian virtue, “thrills in his capacity to choose,” and in the face of adversity, a lion such as Kirk “does not complain about the unfairness of life: He seeks an answer.”

By contrast, Shapiro defines the spirit of the scavenger as “the spirit of envy,” driven by “the impulse to escape his own failures and shortcomings by blaming others.” Indeed, the left-wing liars and alt-right grifters all trying to telegraph Robinson as a member of their preferred oppressor class are the same as the scavenger who “believes that his own failure is the fault of the stars, and of the fates, but mostly, of the Lion.”
Hugh and Seth Mandel of Commentary discuss the tug of war over Charlie’s views on Israel

Jim and Hugh discuss the danger that the memorial service for Charlie will be hijacked

Netanyahu: Israel ties to Charlie Kirk murder a ‘monstrous lie’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that claims the Jewish state was involved in the murder of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk were a “monstrous big lie.”

“Josef Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, said that the bigger the lie, the faster it will spread. Well somebody has fabricated a monstrous big lie, that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk’s horrific murder,” the premier said in a video message on X that garnered 1.6 million views.

“This is insane. It is false. It is outrageous,” he said.

“Charlie Kirk was a giant. A once-in-a-century talent who defended freedom, defended America, defended our common Judeo-Christian civilization. Charlie loved Israel. He loved the Jewish people. He told me so in a letter that sent me just a few months ago,” the premier continued.

“‘One of my greatest joys as a Christian,’ he said, ‘is advocating for Israel and forming alliances with Jews to protect Judeo-Christian civilization.’ He encouraged me to make the case directly to the American people about how vital Israel is to U.S. national security. He told me: ‘The Holy Land is so important to my life, it pains me to see support for Israel slip away,'” said Netanyahu.

“Now if Charlie disagreed with a policy of mine or decision here and there, not only did I not mind, I welcomed it. This is the essence of Charlie. This is the essence of a free country. It’s exactly what Charlie stood for. And I knew that his suggestions always came from the heart—from his love for Israel and from his love for the Jewish people,” he continued.

“A few weeks before his death, I spoke to Charlie. I invited him to visit Israel again, and sadly that won’t happen. Now some are peddling these disgusting rumors, perhaps out of obsession, perhaps with Qatari funding. What I do know is this: Charlie Kirk was a great man and a great man deserves honor, not lies. Rest in peace Charlie Kirk. May your memory be a blessing,” the prime minister concluded.


University of Connecticut student senate votes down anti-Israel divestment
A proposed referendum on whether the University of Connecticut should divest from companies that conduct business with Israel failed in the student senate on Wednesday night.

The referendum would have been released to the public university’s undergraduate student body to put to a public vote several questions, including whether the university should disclose its investments in companies and organizations that “profit from, engage in or contribute to the state of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and apartheid regime.”

The university’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Students Association and Jewish Voice for Peace sponsored the document.

The student senate voted against the referendum 15-8, with four abstentions.

“We dodged a bullet,” Joel Harris, a sophomore and student senator at the university, told JNS.

“We dodged protests erupting on campus, urging students to vote a certain way,” he said, noting that the wording of each question “featured words like ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethical’ in a way to imply a correct answer.”

Some student senators who had initially been in favor of the proposed referendum ended up voting against it, according to Harris.

“University bylaws state that a referendum has to be concise and neutral, and this particular referendum was neither of those two things,” he said.
UKLFI: Edinburgh University distances itself from problematic “Race Review”
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) wrote to Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University, Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, on 5 September 2025 about a deteriorating situation on campus, citing repeated examples of intimidation and harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and staff. The letter expressed concern that this situation would be exacerbated by the University’s uncritical endorsement of a “Race Review” carried out by groups in the University.

The Review is entitled “Decolonised Transformations – Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism”. It includes a strand on Palestine, focusing on the involvement of the University’s long-serving Chancellor, Arthur Balfour.

In a statement posted on the University’s website on 27 July 2025, Professor Mathieson, described the publication of the Review as “a landmark moment in this ancient institution’s willingness and determination to learn from its past, as well as its present, in order to shape its future.”

He continued: “On behalf of the institution, I extend our deepest apologies to all individuals and communities impacted by the legacies of our connections to enslavement and colonialism. … The findings of the Race Review will help to inform our evolving policies and practices as we design a University fit for the future.”

The Review is also promoted by a video and other commentary on its website.

The Review recommends that the University:
divest from “any interests supporting Israel’s dispossession”;
reverse its adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism; and
establish a Palestine Studies Centre to provide space and funding for “educational activities and community engagement relating to the effects of imperial legacies on Palestine and dispossession” and scholarships for “students of Palestinian heritage”.


Seth Frantzman: Why did Hamas trot out Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad to show he’s alive?
Now, the question is: “Why is Hamad the one who has appeared first. It is likely because he has been seen as a key negotiator in the past and possibly a more “moderate” member of Hamas. “Moderate” in this context is merely a term because all of Hamas backed the October 7 attack, and the leaders have said they will carry out more genocidal attacks.

Nevertheless, Hamad is known to have played a role in the negotiations in the past, including more than a decade ago, when Gilad Schalit was held in Gaza between 2006 and 2011.

The messaging in showing Hamad is to indicate that a Hamas leader has survived who might be flexible regarding a deal.

However, Doha and Hamas likely believe the strike was intended to derail a deal. Many questions remain now about the push for a deal.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that the United States wants to end the war and see all the hostages returned to Israel in one handover. The US also wants to rebuild Gaza.

There are concerns that as Israel’s operation in Gaza City, Gideon’s Chariots, grows, the window for a deal could close for weeks or months.

In Israel, supporters of the hostages have continued to call for a deal and an end to the war.

The 48 hostages have been left in Gaza for 711 days. Israel’s Channel 12 reported on a meeting in London with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, in which an effort to return to talks with Hamas may be brought up.

There are also reports that Hamas is facing pressure as the IDF increases its campaign in Gaza City. This might push Hamas back to talks.

Qatar has rallied Arab countries to support it in the wake of the strike. The appearance of Hamad is meant as a message. The message is that Hamas still has leaders and that they also may continue to be an address for talks.


Documentary lays bare Nazi propagandist celebrated for her cinema, unpunished for crimes
I wish this movie came out 50 years ago. Or at least when Leni Riefenstahl, the incredibly gifted film director and close associate of the Nazi party, was alive and on her decades-long “I knew nossing!” tour. It took Riefenstahl 101 years to finally die in 2003, and during much of her post-war life, she enjoyed the benefit of the doubt.

“Riefenstahl,” by German documentarian Andres Veiel, proves what many suspected: She was a rotten person.

For some, it’s an ivory tower problem, but others tussle greatly with the great ethical conundrum of separating the art from the artist. That old war horse neighed mightily when I recently reviewed a new (and very good) film about the Dreyfus Affair directed by Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and directly compared his situation (exiled to France and unable to collect his Hollywood awards in person!) with that of the scapegoated Jewish military officer.

The grandmother of ’em all, though, has long been Riefenstahl. The German filmmaker began her career as an actress, then transitioned into the male-dominated field of directing with 1932’s “The Blue Light,” a mountain-set fable that creatively mixed state-of-the-art technology and groundbreaking cinematic forms. It was a sensation, and among its admirers was Adolf Hitler, who felt her performance represented the epitome of Aryan womanhood.

Though she never joined the Nazi party (a fact she repeated several thousand times later in life), she socialized with Hitler and accepted the commission of several propaganda films, including “Triumph of the Will.”

Did she do a good job? Yes, yes, she did. Film scholars can talk ’til the schnitzel comes home about her revolutionary camera movements and editing techniques. The film won her prestigious prizes and, after the war, Riefenstahl called her highly art-decorated and choreographed hagiography of Nazism merely a reflection of reality — a documentary. In “Riefenstahl,” you can watch her claim that, had she been commissioned by an Allied nation, her film would have been much the same, just with different speeches.

And for years, scholars stroked their beards and said, “Maybe that’s so.” But “Riefenstahl,” which sinks its teeth into an enormous cache of previously unreleased audio and video (bless the German penchant for keeping orderly notes!), exposes the filmmaker as someone who is, at best, just a habitual fabricator, and at worst a fully committed Third Reich participant.
The W@r Israel Wasn’t Supposed to Survive | Unpacked
In 1973, on Yom Kippur - the holiest day of the year - Israel was ambushed. Missiles rained down, tanks stormed the borders, and the nation nearly collapsed.

Yet within weeks, outnumbered soldiers turned desperation into defiance. From the Valley of Tears to the banks of the Suez, Israel clawed its way back against impossible odds—ending the w@r not only victorious, but with handshakes that hinted at an improbable peace.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:51 The "Conceptzia"
01:58 Arab states' deception
02:36 Egypt and Syria's goals
03:44 The warning signs
05:34 Israel's pre-w@r considerations
06:30 Outbreak of w@r
07:21 Israeli political responses
08:24 Israeli w@r hacks
12:41 US and USSR involvement
13:56 Turning point in Israel's favor
15:53 The ceasefire
16:20 Grassroots truce
17:25 Israel-Egypt peace treaty




Here I Am With Shai Davidai: “The Golden Era of American Jewry Is Over” | Jonny Daniels
In this episode, Shai interviews Jonny Daniels, founder of the From the Depths Foundation, dedicated to preserving Holocaust memory and supporting survivors. Jonny shares his journey from growing up in London to making Aliyah at 18 and joining the IDF paratroopers. He discusses his deep connection to Israel, the challenges of Jewish identity in the diaspora, and the recurring theme of Jews feeling like guests in other countries. Jonny reflects on Jewish history, the importance of pride in Jewish achievements, and the unique moral standards upheld by the Israeli army. The conversation also touches on the resilience of the Jewish people, the lessons learned after October 7th, and the ongoing need for unity and pride within the global Jewish community.


Now on screen, a little-known story of resilience
One word that enters into untold numbers of post-Oct. 7 conversations is “resilience.”

Notwithstanding the constantly hovering shadow of the brutality committed against Israelis that day, the word speaks to their seemingly innate ability to get up each morning and go about the task of living their lives in the Jewish state. New high-tech start-ups appear, new medical advances are announced, restaurants open, artists continue to paint and even comedians have found their way to break the ice of ongoing trauma and hurt.

The word resilience also comes to mind about a forthcoming film, “Bau, Artist at War,” which will premiere this month in Los Angeles. It tells the story of graphic artist Joseph Bau (1920-2002), interned in the Krakow-Plaszów concentration camp from 1942 to 1945, and his wife, Rebecca Tennenbaum (1918-1997).

You may recall some of Bau’s story, which is touched upon in the movie “Schindler’s List.” He had a special talent for Gothic lettering, a style favored by the Nazis, working directly for the camp commander Amon Goeth. That work spared his life, though it was, like with all prisoners, lived on the edge.

At the same time, he was forging documents for prisoners who sought to escape the camp. To bolster the morale of his fellow prisoners, Bau secretly drew miniature cards with upbeat messages and illustrations that circulated throughout the camp. He also wrote poetry.

Any of this surreptitious activity could have resulted in his losing his life on the spot.

You may recall the scene in “Schindler’s List” of a secret marriage; it was the wedding of Joseph and Rebecca, who met at the concentration camp, and which took place in the women’s barracks. A dramatic love story, for sure. They were a remarkable couple, living for each other and for their fellow prisoners.


Andrew Klavan: The Catholic Priest Who Gave His Life At Auschwitz | Cecilia Stevenson
Cecilia Stevenson, producer of Triumph Of The Heart, joins me for a riveting discussion about the historical figure who inspired the movie: Maximilian Kolbe–a Polish priest who sacrificed himself at Auschwitz to save another man's life. During our conversation, we discussed the process of producing, funding, and green-lighting the film.


Triumph of the Heart – Official Trailer
Triumph of the Heart tells the powerful true story of St. Maximilian Kolbe — a man who chose sacrifice over survival, and love over fear.

This September, experience the film that’s already moving audiences across the country.


‘To see my father’s face on a stamp is a gift,’ Elisha Wiesel says at USPS event
The U.S. Postal Service dedicated a new, two-ounce stamp honoring Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during a first-day-of-issue ceremony on Tuesday at the 92nd Street Y on New York City’s Upper East Side.

The 18th stamp that the Postal Service has issued in its distinguished Americans series features a black-and-white portrait of Wiesel. It will serve as a permanent rate stamp for two-ounce mail.

The half-hour ceremony drew about 100 people, including Postal Service officials, New York City police officers and philatelists. Wiesel’s desk, where he taught for many years at the 92nd Street Y, was placed on stage.

Collectors purchased stamps before and after the ceremony and lined up afterward for a signing session, receiving autographed programs and commemorative pins featuring the stamp image.

Lee Goldberg, meteorologist at WABC-TV, served as master of ceremonies. “Elie was a living reminder that silence in the face of injustice is complicity,” he said.
Elisha Wiesel: Telling His Father’s Story Before the World Forgets
According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the release of a new documentary film called “Soul on Fire” about the life of Holocaust survivor, author, teacher and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel couldn’t be timelier. At a time of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism and demonization of Israel, Wiesel’s example of courageous truth-telling is needed more than ever.

He is joined in the latest episode of Think Twice by Wiesel’s son Elisha, who works on Wall Street and for Israeli startups, as well as being a leading human rights activist. Elisha Wiesel said that he and his late mother, who passed away earlier this year, had been searching for a filmmaker to do a documentary about his father before choosing writer/director and producer Oren Rudavsky. He says that acting on his father’s instructions, they have refused to let anyone produce a film based on Wiesel’s classic Holocaust memoir, Night but believed a well-made documentary could help keep his memory alive as well as reintroduce a new generation to his work.

The film traces Wiesel’s Holocaust experience and journey back to life after surviving the camps and then his rise to prominence as an activist and author. But the key incident in it concerns his confrontation with President Ronald Reagan live on national television when he unsuccessfully sought to persuade him not to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg, where German SS soldiers were buried in 1985.

Elisha Wiesel, who was present at the White House for this event says that looking back at it now, he sees how difficult it was for his father, who liked Reagan very much, to lecture him in front of the country. But it was a classic example of how to “speak truth to power,” in the service of a great truth.

He also says that those Jews who speak out against Israel since Oct. 7, 2023 and in favor of “free Palestine” are not following his father’s example. Elie Wiesel was an ardent Zionist and never chose to criticize the Jewish state whether or not he always agreed with its government because he understood how that would be used by antisemites.

“Many of these people think that they're acting in keeping with my father's values. You know, I've seen signs at Israel-hating rallies that actually say, know, Elie Wiesel said, you know, the enemy, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. So, a lot of people go around and they think, you know, ‘I'm being Wieselian. I'm not indifferent. Look at me.’ But of course, I think my father hadn't properly envisioned at the time that he made that statement, how we've gone past, we've gone beyond indifference. We've gone straight to what I like to think of is indignant ignorance.”

He said that the current generation of young American Jews, “Don't feel what I feel in my heart. When Israel is attacked, it's visceral. It's gut level. It's emotional. This is 50% of my brothers and sisters in the Jewish people, so many of whom came, whether fleeing the Farhud in Muslim lands or the Holocaust, you know, to get to Israel. These are my people, my brothers and sisters, who have gotten to a place where they can finally defend themselves and create the state that is transforming the world with its inventions and its ideas.

Elisha Wiesel compared the “Free Palestine” movement and support for Israel-hating New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to the punk rock music he loved as a teenager.

“So much of the free Palestine movement to me, and so much of the tear it down, anarchy, let's end capitalism, has all of the violence of punk rock without the good music. It's just people looking for change without thinking too hard about what they're going to build or what should be built.”




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

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