Palestinian media calls "Am Yisrael Chai" a "racist slogan calling for killing of Arabs"

Several Palestinian websites report about arson and graffiti that apparently was done by Jews in Sinjil, near Shilo.

While destroying cars and defacing property for no reason is not acceptable, the sites are reporting that the "settlers wrote racist slogans calling for the killing of Arabs."

The message on the graffiti?

"Am Yisrael Chai" - "The Nation of Israel Lives."

Nothing about Arabs. Not racist at all. 

Again, there is no excuse for revenge attacks, but does anyone call out  how the Palestinians try to use these incidents to incite hate with lies? And it is done purposefully - plenty of Palestinians know Hebrew. 

Here's a great music video with that theme of Am Yisrael Chai by Rav Mo.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Some 2022 antisemitic incidents you haven't heard about

The ADL keeps a database of extremist incidents, including antisemitic incidents. They list over 1700 so far for this year. I have been looking though their list for 2022, specifically incidents that mention Israel.

Here are only a few of them:

January, Brooklyn NY: Graffiti that read, "Kill Israel and the Jews" was found on the campus of a middle school.

January, Mountain View CO: In response to a Jewish middle school student's presentation on the Holocaust, the teacher harassed the student about the creation and policies of the State of Israel.

January, Seattle WA: The message "It's okay to be a Zionist genocider" was found spray-painted across the Jewish Family Service.

February, Buffalo NY: An antisemitic flier was posted on the campus of the University of Buffalo. The flier depicted Robert and John F. Kennedy with Stars of David etched over their faces, and the words, "Israel and the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers."

February, University City MO: In a social media post, a campus Birthright program was the target of an anti-Zionist campaign comparing them to Patriot Front, a White Supremacist organization. The campaign strongly suggested that, like the Patriot Front, the Birthright program should not be allowed on campus and the post included the call "Death to all Settler Colonialism!"

March, Storrs CT: A Jewish college student was the target of antisemitic harassment and removal from a campus community group for their pro-Israel activism.

April, New Brunswick NJ: The Israel Fellow for the University of Rutgers Hillel received multiple antisemitic Instagram comments in response to a video they posted regarding the recent terror attack in Israel. One comment read, "die jews die."

May, Santa Barbara CA: "Zionist the evil Jews have got to go" was written in chalk by a bus stop.

May, Champaign IL: "Death to Israel" and "Israelis kill children" was written in chalk on a college campus.

July, Lakewood CO: A Jewish person was approached by an unknown individual on the street who said, "The Zionists will burn."

July, Boulder CO: "ZIONIST SEX PREDITAR (sic) AREA!" was found written in chalk on a sidewalk.

August, Miami FL: A Jewish institution received a threatening phone call in which the caller threatened violence against the Jewish community on behalf of his "Palestinian Wife" in relation to events in Israel. The caller threatened to cut off the heads of Jewish people.

August, Brooklyn NY: Graffiti said that said, "Antisemitism was invented by a Zionist," "Zionism is Anti Semitism (sic) and "Antisemitism is overrated" was found on a train platform.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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11/14 Links Pt2: Israel Deserves Better than the NYTs Prophet of Doom; Chappelle and normalizing black antisemitism; CNN Producer Tweeted ‘#TeamHitler,’ Hamas Terrorists ‘Freedom Fighters’

From Ian:

Braving bigotry and enemy fire, Jews served the Union valiantly during the Civil War

Sgt. Leopold Karpeles had a dangerous job. Serving in the 57th Massachusetts Infantry’s E Company during the American Civil War, he was a color bearer, which meant carrying a flag that identified his unit’s position — a necessary role, but one that invariably drew attention from the enemy. In May 1864, his actions won him the Medal of Honor — a decoration created during the conflict. His citation credited him with encouraging fleeing men to reform ranks and drive back the Confederates during the Battle of the Wilderness in northern Virginia.

Karpeles’s story was one of the more prominent accounts of Jews in the US Army during the Civil War. A new book, “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army,” by Adam D. Mendelsohn, director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town, explores the wider narrative around Jews serving in America’s bloodiest conflict. Its release is scheduled for November 15, just a few days after Veterans Day.

“Individual cases obviously gave life and color,” Mendelsohn told The Times of Israel, including when it came to “their decision to enlist, their experience in the army — which was not an easy one, particularly for Jews.”

On the battlefield, there was deadly combat and fear, including the terror Karpeles experienced in Virginia. Jews in uniform also faced ignorance, antisemitism or both from fellow servicemembers and higher-ups. Notoriously, in General Orders No. 11, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant expelled Jews as a class from the war department he commanded in the American South in December 1862.

“Clearly, in the senior ranks of the army, we see in [William T.] Sherman, Grant, [Benjamin] Butler, others, echoing views current in American society at the time of Jewish speculators and shirkers, profiting at the expense of the Union,” Mendelsohn said. “All these things ultimately came to a head in Grant’s order.”

Yet there were also interfaith friendships formed through mutual dependence during wartime.

“What I sensed in the data was the nature of comradeship,” Mendelsohn said. “Serving alongside each other, the experience of fighting together, does bring down the barriers.”

After the war, many Jews joined a nationwide veterans movement called the Grand Army of the Republic, with some even taking leadership roles. While the book states that Jewish veterans were largely unrecognized immediately after the war out of a national desire to move on, this changed several decades later. In the 1890s, the Hebrew Union Veterans Association was established amid a wave of antisemitism sweeping the nation.

The antisemitic history of the Union Army and the US civil war - opinion

The contractor, smuggler, speculator and shirker, however, were more than just figures of scorn. Jews and other “shoddy aristocrats” came to be seen as the creators and beneficiaries of the new economic and social order produced by the war. This “shoddy aristocracy” — whose morals and manners marked them as undesirable, whose profits were ill gained, and whose power derived from money alone — was imagined to lord it over a new and unjust social heap summoned into being by the chaos and disruption of war.

Even as the heated rhetoric of the war years receded after 1865, these ideas remained primed for action. They were returned to service in the Gilded Age.

It was no coincidence that the episode traditionally identified as initiating modern antisemitism in America — the exclusion of Joseph Seligman by Henry Hilton from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs on May 31, 1877 — had at its center a man who had made a fortune as a contractor and banker during the Civil War. Seligman, a friend of President Grant, was viewed as an exemplar of the new capitalism that was remaking America.

Henry Hilton slandered Seligman as “shoddy—false—squeezing—unmanly,” a social climber who “has to push himself upon the polite.” Hilton drew upon themes familiar from wartime antisemitism: the Jew as speculator who trafficked in credit and debt; the Jew as obsequious ingratiator who attached himself to the powerful; the Jew as profiteer who advanced by improper means; the Jew as vulgarian who flaunted his (and her) obscene wealth and did not know his (or her) place; and the Jew as overlord whose money allowed him (or her) to displace others. In short, the “Seligman Jew” was the “shoddy aristocrat” by another name.

In an age of inequality and excess, the antisemite imagined the Jew as embodying all that was wrong with American capitalism. And during an age of mass immigration from Romania and the Russian Empire, they soon added another theme familiar from General Butler’s wartime diatribe: The Jew could not be trusted to become fully American.

Sadly, even as Louis Gratz, Max Glass and many other Jewish soldiers became American by serving in the Union army, the Civil War produced a range of pernicious ideas about Jews that have proven remarkably durable. We have escaped the everyday torments that afflicted Max Glass, but are still haunted in the present by the fantasies of Benjamin Butler and Henry Hilton.

A review of 'Woke Antisemitism', by David Bernstein

The American linguist and political commentator John McWhorter coined the term Woke Racism to refer to the latest wave of elite, radical, ‘anti-racist’ campaigners who posit that racism is so deeply embedded in the fabric of American life that it’s impervious to traditional civil rights and anti-racist legislation.

In order to level the playing field, liberal democratic systems of government – which aren’t up to the Utopian task of achieving perfect racial parity – must be radically re-constituted to allow for what Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How To Be An Anti-Racist”, refers to un-ironically as “anti-racist discrimination” against groups who are ‘disproportionately successful’.

The only thing that matters to such campaigners is the racial disparity in economic and social outcomes, which is viewed as sufficient evidence to demonstrate racism. Not only are all other possible factors for unequal results ignored, but it’s considered racist to even consider other explanations.

Thus, “privileged” whites and those labeled as “white adjacent” must accept a future where they will face ‘progressive bigotry’ until there’s complete racial parity in all areas of life.

Though the proponents of this Woke Racism typically focus only on the Black-White paradigm, the question of where Jews (and other successful, yet historically disadvantaged minorities) stand within this racial binary is rarely prominent within the public discourse.

Jason D. Greenblatt: Israel Deserves Better than the New York Times' Prophet of Doom

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote last week that in the new Israeli government coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu will soon preside over a parade of right-wing horribles whose very existence dooms Israel itself. Friedman then makes a giant leap of logic to suggest that if Jews in America share his distaste for two members of the new Israeli government, they will turn their backs on Israel once and for all. Apparently, these days, members of the Israeli government must pass muster not just with Israeli voters but also with newspaper columnists like Friedman - when in fact Israel, like the U.S., gets to choose its own leaders through free and fair elections.

Friedman claims that Arab countries entered the Abraham Accords only because "they wanted to trade with Israel." First, there's nothing wrong with that. And second, the Arab nations made peace with Israel because they're tired of pointless, expensive hostilities and because they recognize a common enemy in Iran. Friedman ought to have more respect for the courageous Arab governments that normalized their relations with Israel, and for those who may have quietly supported it from behind closed doors.

I abhor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' anti-American comments, his payments to Palestinians to reward them for harming and murdering Israelis, and his comments about the Holocaust - yet I would still work with Palestinians and their leaders to try to improve their lives and seek peace between them and Israel. We don't burn everything down just because we disagree, however strongly, with the views of some of those in power.

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See how differently University of Wisconsin-Madison responds to racist and antisemitic graffiti on campus

In recent years, there have been a number of antisemitic incidents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

The most recent one was this week, where messages of hate towards Jewish student groups were chalked on campus sidewalks.

Here is the entire statement from the very same two people this week (emphasis mine):

It was a wonderful first day of classes on Wednesday in so many ways, from the sunshine to the great energy on Library Mall and Bascom Hill. We love seeing our students back on campus.

However, we were disappointed that this was marred by multiple sidewalk chalkings appearing around campus, targeting several Jewish student groups labeling them as “racist,” “genocidal,” and “having blood on their hands.” These labels are antisemitic: they attribute broad actions or beliefs to Jewish student groups.

OK, now that we have established that they are antisemitic, what should be done?

Nothing.

To those Jewish students and others affected, we are sorry for the impact this had on your first day of class at UW. We truly strive to create a campus where every student feels they belong, and this kind of messaging harms that goal and aspiration.

Our job as leaders is not to respond every time a controversial or offensive incident happens on our campus. However, these chalkings provide us a timely opportunity to express our expectations for civil engagement for the campus this fall and as we move forward together.

Here at UW, we believe in sifting and winnowing and a robust commitment to free speech. That can be difficult and uncomfortable at times. While we do not know who created these chalkings, and acknowledge the impact they had, nonetheless we also acknowledge they represent free speech which is a core value at UW. Just because something isn’t prohibited doesn’t make it a good idea. Our expectation is that we engage across differences and discuss varying views and ideas with civility and respect and that did not happen here.

We strongly believe that we learn best in environments that are inclusive and where people feel listened to and heard. Statements targeting students or other student groups, while not against the law or campus policy, violate our norms and actively work against the culture of belonging for which we are striving.

To our entire community, we hope you hear our calls for civility and kindness while at the same time, embracing vigorous, honest debate. Please use this semester to respectfully engage with one another while deepening our culture of belonging.  

The university admits that this was an antisemitic message. But instead of expressing a zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism, UWM says that it is merely disappointing and an example of free speech - a core value! 

Can anyone imagine a similar reaction to an anti-Black message on campus? You don't have to imagine. 

In 2020, racist graffiti was sprayed on campus. And here was the reaction:

University of Wisconsin–Madison was alerted Thursday to racist graffiti that was spray painted on multiple buildings in the Library Mall area.

These racist and white supremacist messages run counter to university values. UW–Madison does not tolerate racist behaviors. We value a diverse community where all members feel welcome, safe and supported.

UW–Madison responds to all reported bias incidents. ...

Those in need of support for this or any other reason are encouraged to contact the Dean of Students Office, the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement, University Health Services , the Multicultural Student Center or the Employee Assistance Office.

Look how different the two messages are! 

For racism, the university does not tolerate the behavior, for antisemitism, there is no such message.

For racism, it says it responds to every such incident but for antisemitism, it cannot. 

It tries to protect students who are victims of racism by providing support services but doesn't offer anything like that to Jewish students here.

There is no call for "vigorous and honest debate" about racism but there is about antisemitism.

This is about ss egregious a double standard as can be imagined. And Jewish students on campus are hearing the message, loud and clear.

(h/t StopAntisemitism)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Huge Yiddish cultural mural defaced in LA (updated x2)

This is a 60 foot wide mural in Los Angeles put up in 1998 for the Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle Southern California campus, a secular (and socialist) Jewish organization.

Recently, it was defaced:

From The Jewish Journal:

A mural on the south side of the Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle Southern California campus at 1525 S. Robertson Blvd was defaced with graffiti that reads “Free Palestine!!!!”

It was not immediately clear when the graffiti was spray-painted onto the building, as phones at the center were not answered on Thursday morning, Jan. 6 [sic - should be February], the day the Journal learned about the vandalism.

The wall-sized mural itslef – titled, ”A shenere un besere velt,” according to the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (a Yiddish phrase meaning, “A more beautiful and better world) – depicts cultural, biblical and historical imagery. The imagery includes a menorah, Israelites wandering in the desert, a young girl waving Israeli and American flags, and more.

Artist Elisio Art Silva completed the mural in 1998, according to the conservancy organization.

Photos obtained by the Journal on Thursday morning by a Pico-Robertson resident who was driving by and spotted the defaced building show the graffiti spaning nearly the entire length of the building, which, according to the conservancy group, measures 60-feet-long and 15-feet-high.

Robert Adler-Peckerar, executive director of the L.A.-based organization Yiddishkayt, which is a frequent collaborator with the national office and local branch of Workmen’s Circle, said the message of the graffiti reflects an ignorance about the mission of the victimized group. He described Workmen's Circle as being historically committed to ideas of “social progress, equality, human rights, civil rights and the general pursuit of human dignity,” which includes promoting a “progressive, peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said.

“I feel like this [the graffiti] indicates something much more about thoughtlessness than about an actual commitment to a free Palestine,” Adler-Peckerar said in an interview. “And a tremendous amount of cultural illiteracy [on the vandal(s)’ part].”

The Arbeter Ring/Workmen's Circle has traditionally been a socialist movement, anti-religious but very committed to Jewish/Yiddish culture and what it calls "social justice." It would not be called a Zionist organization.

In its statement, it said:

“It is ironic that the slogan defaced the mural of an organization whose observance of kol nidre, a major Jewish holiday, includes an Arabic American singer leading the hymn, ‘Peace, Shalom, Salaam,’ and that includes the aspirations of the Palestinian people in our other secular Jewish observances,” the statement continues.

“We invite those responsible for the slogan-painting to meet with us to discuss far more effective ways of encouraging progress toward a lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian states and their peoples,” said Ruth Judkowitz, Chairmentsh (chair person) of SoCal Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle.

This graffiti shows that to many supposedly "pro-Palestinian" activists, their target isn't Israel but Jews. It isn't "thoughtlessness" - it is hate.

It is a shame that an organization that says it pursues justice cannot recognize a hate crime and instead ascribes it to "cultural illiteracy." Even worse is its painful naivete thinking that more cowtowing can remove hate.

(h/t Doris, Bob K.)

UPDATE: New graffiti artists changed "Free" to another four letter word:

The Workmen's Circle response was that "this new defacement proves 'that there are idiots on both sides.'"

I think there are idiots on three sides here.

(h/t Rebbe Yell)

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