The 16th Kina of Tisha B'Av refers to the tragic story of the Romans, after destroying the Temple, filled up a ship with 400 Jewish boys and girls who would be forced to become prostitutes in Rome. The children all chose to throw themselves overboard to drown rather than be subjected to that.
The commentary I am reading now by Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik said that there was a similar story about a group of Jewish schoolgirls in Warsaw who were also being readied to be raped by Nazi soldiers and who likewise chose suicide.
I found the story reported on page 8(!) of the New York Times, January 8, 1943:
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I will not be blogging or tweeting Wednesday night and Thursday until after 1 PM EDT in observance of Tisha B'Av.
May this be the last year that Tisha B'Av is a fast day.
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Western ideologies generally include a parable about villainous Jews. Because this is a set of ideas that sees itself as a political critique, the parable doesn’t come, as past versions have, from Scripture (in the case of Christianity), or from economic theory (as it did in Marxism), or pseudo-scientific racial doctrines (National Socialism). It comes from the news—specifically, from the mythology that I saw being constructed as a reporter a decade ago. A strange antagonism to something called “Israel” came up if you went to a Women’s March against Donald Trump in New York, or protested violence against African Americans in Ferguson, Missouri, or joined the Dyke March in Chicago, or presented an academic paper at the American Studies Association. It appears in the platform of Black Lives Matter from 2016, in left-wing politics in Britain and France, and in gender studies courses at California colleges.
These diverse applications are unique, if not entirely unprecedented, for a news story. But they make sense if we understand the Israel story as a kind of sacred template that can be used to explain many different situations. A good example became visible this spring in the wake of the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis: the myth that Israel trains American police officers in the same methods of brutality that killed Floyd, and which are deployed more generally against people of color. This conspiracy theory has been promoted as factual by (among many others) senior journalists, members of the British Labour Party, and, in early July, by the biggest Lutheran denomination in America.
That last detail supports the idea that new religions are never completely removed from the old ones. Indeed, the unique power of the Israel story is the way it takes the central preoccupation of the new thought system—the inequality of white Western power versus nonwhite Third World innocence—and projects it onto a setting already loaded with religious resonance. If you’re looking for a parable about human inequality, places called Jerusalem or Bethlehem are potent in ways that can’t be rivaled by Xinjiang or Laayoune, or Minneapolis.
A good illustration of this merger came in the form of a speech given to a convention of the Episcopal church in 2018 by a Massachusetts bishop who described atrocities she claimed to have personally witnessed in Israel. She described the murder of an innocent 15-year-old Palestinian by Jewish soldiers—“they shot him in the back four times, he fell on the ground and they shot him another six”—and the aggressive handcuffing by soldiers of a 3-year-old Palestinian boy whose ball rolled off the Temple Mount.
It later turned out that the bishop hadn’t seen any such thing, and she apologized profusely. But in a religious mindset, the question isn’t whether a story happened. The question is whether a story can mobilize believers to achieve good. If the answer is yes, the story is “true.”
This kind of thinking has now bled into newsrooms and university departments, precisely the bodies that are supposed to be engaged in observation and reasoned debate. If important parts of the press and the academy are beginning to sound like ministries, it’s happening at a time when religion and quasi-religion are on the rise everywhere—not just on the progressive left but also on the right, and not only in the West. Some of these trends are evident in Israel, too. As we speak, as if to symbolize the moment, the Hagia Sophia is being changed from a public museum back into a mosque—though in Istanbul, at least, the conversion is being done in the open.
Americans are experiencing a summer of discontent in a way that exceeds any in living memory. The nation is divided not just along political lines but seems increasingly immersed in something much more dangerous – a culture war in which both sides truly believe that not only will a triumph by their opponents bring ruin, but that the very existence of the republic and American democracy is at stake.
That's why both Jews and non-Jews need to pause this week and consider the lessons that the observance of Tisha B'Av: the day on the Hebrew calendar that marks the destruction of both ancient holy temples in Jerusalem, as well as many other catastrophes of Jewish history. The day of fasting and reflection, which begins this year on the evening of July 29, is not observed by most non-Orthodox Jews and generally considered too depressing to have become part of secular American Jewish culture, which prefers holidays that follow a model that runs along the lines of "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat."
But if there was ever a year when its lessons were needed by Americans of all faiths, it is 2020.
Tradition teaches us that the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE occurred because of "sinat hinam" – senseless or baseless hatred—that undermined Jewish resistance during the siege of Jerusalem and great revolt against the forces of the Roman Empire.
A war that pitted the forces of a small nation against the world's only superpower wasn't going to have a happy ending, no matter how united the defenders of Jerusalem had been. But the rabbis who subsequently reconstituted Jewish faith emphasized the way that the Jewish rebels were divided into competing factions within Jerusalem's walls. In the civil war that raged inside the doomed city, a Zealot faction destroyed food supplies that could have prolonged resistance. Their self-destructive behavior made the task of Roman conquest that much easier and provided Jewish history with a lesson of what not to do to survive in a hostile world.
It's an important lesson, but not one that most Jews – or non-Jews for that matter – find easy to follow.
The political lines dividing Americans are starker than at any moment in living memory. It's not just that Republicans and Democrats disagree about the issues. Most of the supporters of President Donald Trump and most of those who support his opponents seem unprepared to credit each other with good intentions, period.
For those of us that are children of Holocaust survivors, we know well the hell our parents went through to survive.
They hid, had no food, no clothes, no medical attention, and no help.
They were cramped in hiding places with no fresh air and couldn' t make a sound or Nazis would kill them.
It lasted a lot longer than this will last, some for up to 4 or 5 years.
They lost their education, their souls, their youth.
There were no supermarkets,no cell phones, no radios and no outside interference.
What we can compare with deadly accuracy is 1933 Nazi Germany and the inaction of our Jewish leadership and the Stockholm Syndrome response of many liberal Jews in the face of rising, hateful antisemitism.
Just as then when the voices of the leadership might have made a difference, but was barely heard, today most liberal leaders and clergy prefer to be politically correct and support our enemies.
Had Hitler conquered America or the area that is now Israel but was then the British Mandate, no Jews would have been left alive. That means many of those reading this article would never have been born.
What is it that left liberal and progressive Jews do not understand? When I hear the rabid antisemitic lies on videos and social media, I sense that another Hitler is coming - while you are sleeping, not 'woke,' dreaming about meeting the demands of the antisemitic Black Lives Matter.
Cogwar 8 Years on: BLM BDS & the Wokeocracy
In 2012 Prof Richard Landes said "Its not every generation that gets to defend a civilisation" and he advised that silence is not an option. In view of the extraordinary events since January 2020 when he was last in London, Campaign4Truth asked him how we have done in these 8 years: Have we been silent?
On Monday there was a “security incident” on our northern border. I am not going to try to explain it, because I have no idea of what actually happened. First reports were that Hezbollah fighters had crossed the border in the Shebaa Farms area at the foot of Har Dov, and fired an antitank missile at a Merkava tank. The missile was said to have missed, and IDF soldiers returned fire, killing four of the enemy. Lebanese sources, on the other hand, said that that several Israelis were killed.
Then it was reported that none of the Hezbollah fighters had been hit, and that no missile was fired. The story was that they had infiltrated into Israel (apparently the border fence is not continuous in the area), were detected, and driven back by IDF fire. Artillery fire and Israeli aircraft, as well as explosions, were seen in the area.
Hezbollah claimed that they had not crossed the border and had not fired any missile. The background is that a couple of weeks ago a Hezbollah operative was killed when Israel bombed an ammunition dump some 15 km. south of Damascus. Several Iranian and Syrian personnel were killed as well. Israel sent a message to Hassan Nasrallah saying that the Hezbollah operative’s killing was unintentional. But Nasrallah has promised that every Hezbollah casualty, wherever it occurs, will be avenged. So the IDF has been expecting and preparing for Hezbollah to retaliate.
Monday’s incident was supposed to be that retaliation. But Nasrallah has said no, the debt is still unpaid (though the mother of the man killed in Syria gave out sweets in honor of the operation). Another similar incident happened on the border last August. Again Hezbollah owed the IDF a debt of violence after its personnel had been killed by an Israeli strike in Syria. Several antitank missiles were fired at an IDF APC, and troops were seen evacuating apparently wounded soldiers from it. But it turned out that the vehicle had been empty. Apparently the idea was to convince Hezbollah that they had succeeded in getting their revenge.
All this makes me uneasy. It seems as though we are trying to prevent escalation by exhibiting weakness, rather than strength. Think about the statement that the death of the Hezbollah fighter in Syria was “unintentional.” That ammunition dump was most likely bombed because it contained equipment being sent from Iran to Lebanon to enable Hezbollah to convert its tens of thousands of rockets to precision-guided munitions, able to strike within a few meters of a selected target. Everyone understands that such weapons are game-changers. The goal of Hezbollah’s buildup, financed and supplied from Iran, is to kill Jews and destroy our state. Does it make sense that we should in effect apologize for killing someone involved in that project? The same strategy seems to be applied in Gaza. Hamas is allowed to fire barrages of hundreds of rockets at towns and cities in Israel; we try to knock them away (so far, pretty successfully) with our anti-missile systems. Then we punish Hamas by carefully targeting empty Hamas facilities in the Strip. If we killed anyone, then they would need to retaliate, and this way we prevent escalation while at the same time make them pay a price.
There is a problem on several levels here, which should be evident to anyone:
On the level of deterrence, the message we are sending is, “go ahead, try to hurt us, nothing much will happen if you fail.” And the natural result of this is that they are encouraged to keep trying.
On the psychological level, we are telling them – and ourselves – that we are targets. Shooting at Jews is acceptable. We have come to believe this ourselves. If we didn’t, we would respond more strongly.
Finally, on the level of honor, our failure to respond harshly to attempted murder is a sign that we are too weak to defend our own lives and property. In a Mideastern culture in which personal, family, clan, and national honor are almost tangible, someone who can’t defend what he has doesn’t deserve to keep it.
The appropriate response to maximize deterrence, self-respect, and honor is to always respond to attempts to hurt you with greater, even disproportionately greater, force. This is an elementary schoolyard lesson for dealing with bullies that kids of my generation learned quickly. The youthful Ariel Sharon understood this when he commanded Unit 101. Today, our leaders seem to have forgotten.
The strategy our leaders have chosen is to avoid escalation at all costs, even when it damages deterrence. They continue to kick the can down the road, perhaps in the hopes that war can be avoided until Iran self-destructs and Hezbollah withers away. In any case, they hope that whatever bad things might happen, it will be after their term as PM or Chief of Staff is finished.
Unfortunately, the long term application of this strategy has left us in a situation in which we are deterred by Hezbollah, rather than the opposite. They have the initiative, and can turn the pressure on and off at will. We are demoralized, despite the fact that we are objectively stronger than our enemies. And as a nation without national honor, we are held in contempt by allies and enemies alike.
This is not an easy thing to turn around. Our enemies have been conditioned to expect certain behavior. We need to teach them otherwise, which won’t happen overnight. But we have to try. Miscalculations on either side might lead us into war; but continued weakness will almost certainly do so.
Joe Biden is ahead of President Trump in key battleground
states, according to a new
Fox News poll, and the lead is
significant. Biden passed Trump by 11 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 13
points in Minnesota, and 9 points in Michigan. The question is why, considering
a Rasmussen poll released June 29, found that 38% of voters believe that Joe
Biden has dementia. That’s almost four out of ten voters.
It’s no secret the mainstream media is pulling for Joe
Biden. They want Donald Trump dethroned and a Democrat—any Democrat—installed
in the White House. In spite of this fact, they too, cannot help but notice Joe
Biden’s little (and not so little) brain farts.
#BarelyThereBiden spent the last year forgetting Obama’s name, who the last President was, and when he was Obama’s VP.
Will Joe even remember he has a fundraiser with Obama tonight?
— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) June 23, 2020
The media has tried hard to recast Biden’s strange utterings
as “gaffes.” See, for instance, here,
here,
here,
and here.
But it’s not a “gaffe” when he falls asleep during Hillary’s endorsement.
Joe Biden has fallen asleep listening to Hillary Clinton during his own town hall pic.twitter.com/tCfbXwezys
It's not a gaffe when he has his wife do the talking so he won’t have to speak.
Jill Biden: "This moment reminds us that the presidency is about true leadership -- having the forethought to prepare for the worst, the backbone to lead through chaos, the character to move beyond politics." pic.twitter.com/lhwvRiaXHT
— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) June 23, 2020
Joe Biden’s brain issues, of course, may not actually be dementia. The
fact is, the presidential candidate has had surgery for not one but two
aneurysms. Remember the bloody eye incident when Biden’s eye literally filled
with blood on live television?
The hubbub surrounding this event prompted Biden to talk
about his experiences with brain surgery in 1988. From the Washington
Examiner:
“I ended up with what they call a cranial aneurysm,” Biden
said at a campaign event on Friday. “I had to be rushed to a hospital in the
middle of a snowstorm, and the fact is, the president was nice enough to offer
a helicopter to get me there. I couldn’t go up because of the altitude. My fire
company got me down in time for [a] 13-hour operation and saved my life.”
Biden suffered the burst aneurysm in 1988, when he was a
Delaware senator. Believing that he was close to death, a Catholic priest was
preparing to administer Biden's last rites. Surgeons clipped a second aneurysm
before it bust a few months later.
At the time of Biden’s brush with death in 1988, his wife,
Jill Biden, feared that he would never be the same. In a forthcoming
autobiography, “Where the Light Enters," Jill recounts Joe's doctor
telling the family that there was a significant chance he’d have permanent
neurological damage, particularly after he suffered a second aneurysm, a
condition in which an artery becomes weak and bulges out.
"Our doctor told us there was a 50-50 chance Joe
wouldn't survive surgery," she wrote. "He also said that it was even
more likely that Joe would have permanent brain damage if he survived. And if
any part of his brain would be adversely affected, it would be the area that
governed speech."
This is a candid account of what happened back in 1988. But does
this past history have implications for the present? And are Biden and his wife
still being upfront with the public today? From the same piece:
The last time Biden disclosed information about his health
was in 2008 when Dr. Matthew Parker, a physician the Obama campaign selected
when Biden was the running mate, spoke to the press. Biden’s actual doctor,
John Eisold, the physician who attended to Biden and the rest of Congress, was
not the one to present the medical records...Parker said he didn’t know whether
Biden had more aneurysms, and said “everything that could be done is being done.”
From the information revealed, it was not clear how often Biden
has been screened for aneurysms, and there wasn't any other information
provided when he was vice president. In contrast, records show that Barack
Obama had at least four medical checkups during his presidency.
No law requires presidents, vice presidents, or candidates to
have a medical checkup or to disclose what comes of it.
The article also makes the point that if Joe Biden had two
aneurysms, he could well have another:
Dr. Babu Welch, a neurological surgeon with University of
Texas-Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute, said that people who have had
one aneurysm can always have another. People are supposed to undergo regular
screenings shortly after they have an aneurysm, but then can space them out further
as time goes on, he said.
Dr. Gavin Britz, director of the Houston Methodist
Neurological Institute, said his research has revealed that people have a
decrease in life expectancy after an aneurysm. The key, he said, is to make
sure to catch them before they rupture.
The New York
Times asks whether Joe Biden might have developed another aneurysm going
so far as to suggest that having had two aneurysms, Biden is actually “more
likely” to have a third:
A question arises: Has Mr. Biden developed a new
aneurysm over the last two decades that could burst?
Doctors, who long thought that berry aneurysms were a
once-in-a-lifetime event, now generally believe that they can recur. About 5
percent or less of patients who have had a berry aneurysm develop new ones at
the original site or elsewhere in the brain.
“Over the last two decades,” said Dr. Robert F. Spetzler of
the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, “we have learned much more about
aneurysms, and the fact is that when you have had one aneurysm, you are more
likely to develop another one. Although the likelihood is very low, it does exist.”
Are Joe’s “gaffes” a result of his aneurysm, or from his
brain surgeries? And what would happen if another aneurysm were to burst while
Joe was in office? That last may be a bit difficult to predict, but Wikipedia
offers a history of what happened at that time, pointing out that
Biden had a serious complication. We also learn that back then, Biden was
sidelined from work for a full seven months, and that he was told his chances
for a full recovery were somewhat slim (emphasis added):
In 1988, Biden suffered two brain aneurysms, one on the right
side and one on the left. Each required surgery with high risk of long-term
impact on brain functionality. In February 1988, after suffering from several
episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by long-distance
ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and given lifesaving surgery to
correct an intracranial berry aneurysm that had begun leaking. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary
embolism, a major complication.
Another operation to repair a second aneurysm, which had
caused no symptoms but was at risk of bursting, was performed in May 1988. The hospitalization and recovery kept Biden
from his duties in the Senate for seven months.
In retrospect, Biden's family came to believe the early end
to his presidential campaign had been a blessing in disguise, for had he still
been campaigning in 1988, he might well not have stopped to seek medical
attention and the condition might have become unsurvivable. In 2013, Biden
said, "they take a saw and they cut your head off" and "they
literally had to take the top of my head off." He also said he was told he would have less than a 50% chance of full
recovery.
Biden has, until now, failed to share any appraisal of his
cognitive state. And some voters may be getting nervous about that with November
not so far away. The
Hill had a piece in early July entitled, “Joe Biden must release the
results of his cognitive tests — voters need to know.” The piece references more voter polls:
A recent Zogby poll found that 55 percent of likely voters
surveyed thought it was “much more” and “somewhat more likely” that Biden is in
the early stages of dementia, while 45 percent thought it was less likely. That
number included 56 percent of independents and 32 percent of Democrats.
More worrisome for Biden, perhaps, is that about 60 percent
of young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 thought it likely that Biden is
suffering early-onset dementia, along with 61 percent of Hispanics. The good
news is that only 43 percent of blacks doubted Biden’s mental capacity.
Another piece, from Chicago
Sun Times(July 26), asks, “Can Joe Biden keep it together?” and speaks
of “whispered doubt” suggesting the public may be concerned about Biden’s
fitness for office:
There is a dreadful possibility, a whispered doubt that lurks
at every Biden appearance.
“I watched, and sometimes cringed, at his performances in
debates and other public appearances,” Laura Washington writes. “Biden stumbled
over and mangled names, facts and concepts. At times, he seemed confused.”
It is only natural that Trump supporters would attempt to
capitalize on Joe’s oopsies. Hence we have this ad from the Committee to Defend
the President which speaks not about “gaffes” but asks if Joe Biden “has the
mental capacity to keep America safe,” and then comes right out with it: “Does
Joe Biden have dementia?”
Politico
(July 3) emphasized the meanness of the dementia accusations referring to this
election cycle as “The Dementia Campaign.” An excerpt:
Just listen to Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, the day
after Joe Biden’s big Super Tuesday victory and the victory speech in which he
was momentarily confused over which side of the podium his wife and sister were
standing. “As a smart friend said last night, Joe Biden has spent his entire
life trying to succeed in presidential politics,” the Fox News host chortled,
“and now he has: Too bad he’s not there to enjoy it. Pretty funny.”
Politico wants to
de-emphasize the dementia/brain damage and shift the focus to the mild
impairment of age, stressing that we have a geriatric political culture:
The issue is
especially acute now that so much power in American government is held by
people older than 65. While rates of dementia are going down gradually in the
United States, 65 is the age at which 20 to 25 percent of people have mild
cognitive impairment and 10 percent have dementia, according geriatric
researcher Kenneth Langa at the University of Michigan. Six members of the
Supreme Court are over 65, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will turn 80 on March 26,
and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last month turned 78.
Joe’s brain issues, however much the liberal left wants to
distract us, make it really difficult to resist watching and laughing at his latest “gaffes” such as the one about nurses
blowing into his nostrils to get him moving.
.@JoeBiden: "I had nurses at Walter Reed hospital who would bend down and whisper in my ear, go home and get me pillows. They would … actually breathe in my nostrils to make me move, to get me moving.” pic.twitter.com/hxW1UYs7Ba
That “go home and get me pillows,” sends me into giggle
fits, each and every time. But then I feel a little bit mean and even
voyeuristic. And I can’t help but think: It’s not nice they’re putting this
brain damaged guy out there like this. Why are they doing this: running this
guy with brain damage?
I know what the conspiracy theorists think: if Biden wins
the presidency, which he might win in spite of dementia, because he’s the Not
Trump, he won’t be the one making the decisions. Instead, he will be a puppet. The Manchurian Candidate come to life.
So who is really running the show? Deep State? Soros? Obama?
Someone/something else? And what does this mean for Israel, and for the world at large?
Will Biden hang in there, or will the pressure and stress become too much, say during a debate with President Trump? And if it does become too much for the man who has twice undergone the neurosurgeon's knife, what happens next? Who will step in and take over the show?
Your guess is as good as mine. Which means that about all we can do is sit back and watch this public circus with guilty pleasure and not a little incredulity at the fact that, should nothing and no one intervene, the Democrats will vote for Joe Biden, despite his cognitive issues, come November.
Because they definitely choose brain
damage over Trump.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Wednesday night and Thursday is the most tragic day in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av. it commemorates a number of terrible events that occurred on that day, including the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem. It is a fast day for Jews.
The ninth day of Dhu'l-Hijjah (the 12th and final month of the Islamic calendar) is the Day of 'Arafah. It is the day when pilgrims stand on the plain of 'Arafah to pray. On this day, Muslims all over the world who do not witness the annual Hajj should spend the day in fasting.
The Day of Arafah is more like Yom Kippur than Tisha B’Av – according to Muslim legend, those that fast on that day will be forgiven not only for the previous year’s sins but for the coming year’s sins as well. This brings up interesting theological questions.
However, fasting on that day is a custom, not obligatory, for Muslims.
Since very few Muslims are going on pilgrimage to Mecca this year, and the Muslim population was smaller that last time Tisha B’Av coincided with the Day of Arafah, that means that this year there will be more people fasting on Tisha B’Av than at any time in history. Of course, the vast majority aren’t Jewish.
The New York Times is doubling down on Peter Beinart’s plan to replace the Jewish state of Israel with a binational “Israel-Palestine.”
A Times op-ed by Beinart earlier this month called for eliminating the existing country of Israel and substituting instead something that Beinart calls “Israel-Palestine,” “a Jewish home that is also, equally, a Palestinian home” or “a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.”
Now the Times is piling on with a podcast in which Beinart is given a half-hour of audio time to advocate what the Times podcast headline calls “The Case for a One-State Solution.” If President Donald Trump or a Republican senator had used the word “solution” in the same breath as a call to wipe Israel off the map, you can bet that it would be accused of dog-whistling echoes of the “Final Solution” faster than you can spell Jonathan Weisman, but here we are.
One gets a sense of where the Times podcast is headed not only from the introduction but from the scripted lead-in read by Times columnist Ross Douthat. “Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is now threatening formal annexation of strategic pieces of Palestinian territory, a move that signals comfort with permanent occupation,” Douthat intones. This is inaccurate and tendentious on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. Start, though, with the Times assertion that this is “Palestinian territory.” That’s precisely what is in dispute, and in fact as recently as May 2020, the Times opinion section, after a complaint from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, corrected a subheadline that erroneously described the West Bank as “Palestinian territory.” In addition, it’s quite possible that annexation signals precisely discomfort with “permanent occupation.” Agree or disagree with annexation, the idea is that it would change the status of the annexed territories from “occupation” to lands in which Israeli law or sovereignty applies on a more permanent basis. Also, it’s not “Benjamin Netanyahu’s government,” but the democratically elected government of the people of Israel.
The podcast goes further downhill from there. Rather than really debating or challenging Beinart, the Times columnists egg him on. “Philosophically, I am completely right there with Peter,” Times columnist Michelle Goldberg says at one point, while nevertheless mildly expressing concern that the Beinart plan would “turn into a civil war.”
What Did This Anti-Israel Org Use a Holocaust Photo For?
In a new low, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) exploit Jewish victims of the Holocaust by falsely portraying them as Palestinian. Let's set the record straight about AMP's anti-Semitism
In theory, the officials, researchers, and analysts working in the area of human rights are committed to unbiased, politically neutral reporting. In practice, these words often stand in sharp contrast to the activities and biased agendas of these institutions. This bias is characteristic of many major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) claiming human rights agendas. A prime example is Human Rights Watch, which exhibits a fundamental and consistent bias against Israel. View PDF
FINALLY: the United Nations has published our detailed exposé of the Palestinian Authority leaders, educators, textbook, schools & youth centers that demonize Jews and Israelis.
Tonight and tomorrow is Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples and many other tragedies that befell the Jews throughout the centuries.
One of the kinot (liturgical poems) to be read on the day is איכה ישבה חבצלת השרון #10, “How does the Rose of Sharon sit [alone],” written by the famous and prolific Eliezer HaKallir. It lists the 24 mishmarot – the families of Kohanim (priests) who each spent a week at a time doing the Temple service, who each lived in a different town surrounding Jerusalem.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Kohanim all moved to the Galilee to different towns, mimicking how they lived in separate towns around Jerusalem. The brilliant HaKallir poetically alludes to the family names in each verse while listing the names of the towns they lived in.
It seems that Jews in the Middle East kept a tradition of calling out every Shabbat the name of the family that would have been taking care of the Temple that week. This list was found in the Cairo Genizah as late as 1034 CE.
Apparently, there was a custom to inscribe these family names in stone to be placed in synagogues so the correct name could be called out every week. There have been stone fragments of these lists found in ancient synagogues in Israel, but the most complete list was found in Yemen in 1970. Eleven lines of the 24 are partially or wholly visible in this stone column, with family names.
The visible words are:
Here is a reproduction of the entire list of names as used in synagogues, put together from fragments of the findings in Caesarea. I’m not certain how the author of that paper reproduced the entire text.
The Yemen stone column does not include the names of the Galilee towns the Kohanim moved to. According to the Beit Hatfusot Museum of the Jewish People in Israel, this column itself is dated to Second Temple times! – and the tradition of calling out the names of the Kohanic families predates the destruction of the Temple!
Where in Yemen was this stone column of huge importance found?
In a mosque about 15 kilometers east of Sanaa.
Muslims didn’t only steal the site of the Jewish Temples. They also stole priceless artifacts like this from the Jews in the Diaspora.
This is something else to lament on Tisha B’Av.
UPDATE: This paper dates the stone column to after the destruction of the Temple. (h/t Sapir Analytics)
UPDATE 2: I’m no expert on late Semitic epigraphy, but from my research of Hebrew evolution I think that the Yemen stone is from after the Second Temple era, perhaps around the 2nd century CE.
The Houthi rebels in Yemen are proud of their Jew-hate. Their slogan and flag says “Damn the Jews.”
I’ve been posting about Arabic-language reports on the last remaining Jews in Yemen being forced out of the country – jailed, pressured to sell their possessions for a song to the Houthis, and sent away.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry denied the reports two weeks ago, but the Arabic articles are unusually detailed. This article from Aden-TM and Yemen Akhbar lists every remaining Jew in Yemen.
The last two Jewish Yemeni families are waiting for deportation from the areas controlled by the Houthi militia, after another group of Jews left them under the pressure and threats of the militia, which will make Yemen, for the first time in its modern history, devoid of the adherents of Judaism, with the exception of four individuals residing in the countryside of my province Imran and Sanaa.
Two days ago, the rest of the family of Saeed Al-Naati, who was forcibly deported to an Arab country, left when the rest of the family members, the man's wife and son, sold the remainder of their property to them in the Rayda area of Amran and Sana'a governorates.
With this batch leaving the Houthi-controlled areas, the only members of the Jewish community that will remain in the tourist city in Sana'a are the families of the brothers Suleiman Musa Salem and Sulaiman Yahya Habib, and the family of Salem Musa Mara’bi who moved to the complex owned by the Ministry of Defense near the US embassy building in 2007 after the Houthis assaulted them and looted their homes and all their vehicles and equipment in the Ghurair Al Salem area in the Kataf district of Saada governorate. (Also?) a woman lives with her brother in the Rayda district, and a man and his wife live in the Arhab district of the Sana'a governorate.
According to what one of the Jews said, the remaining two families are also ready to leave because it is difficult for them to survive after most of the followers of the Judaism left, with most of their relatives. The rest of the sect is ready to leave the country to avoid harrassment, to preserve the safety of their lives, and to obtain the release of the young Levi Salem, who suffered a stroke and paralysis in the Houthi prisons, despite his acquittal of the charges against him by the court.
It is with sadness and grief that the source says: “It is now clear that the Houthis want to deport the rest of the Jews, and prevent them from selling their properties at their real prices, and we are surprised that the international community and local and international human rights organizations have remained silent towards the process of forced deportation and forcing the Jews to leave their country and prevent them from disposing of their property.”
The Yemenite Jewish community has been there continuously for well over 2000 years; according to some they have been there from as far back as 1451 BCE, during the times of the First Temple.
It looks like this is really the end of the Yemenite Jewish community that had been there for over 2000 years (according to some, they’ve been there since the First Temple period.)
Comedian Seth Rogen showed off his ignorance about Israel and Judaism in an interview on some podcast with an equally ignorant Jew.
I want to look at one statement he said:
And I also think that as a Jewish person, like I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. You know, they never tell you, that oh by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was– just sitting there, oh the fucking door’s open!…Literally they forget to include the fact to every young Jewish person: Basically, oh yeah, there were people living there.
Do Jewish kids not learn about the existence of Arabs in British Mandate Palestine?
There are not too many Zionist textbooks about Israel’s history meant for children, but I found one – The Story of Modern Israel for Young People by Dorothy F. Zeligs, published in 1950.
If any Zionist history book would erase Arabs, it would be one written in the afterglow of Israel’s 1948 victory.
But while this book is undoubtedly Zionist, it not only discusses Arabs often –it is sympathetic towards innocent Arabs. (It is not sympathetic at all towards the Arabs that tried to push the Jews into the sea.)
This photo in the book says it all:
It is literally impossible to teach Israel’s history without mentioning the Arabs who were the majority before 1948. The riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929; the mini-civil war of 1936-9, the reasons for the British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration, the partition plan, the fighting in 1947-8 and the refugee issue – these topics cannot be avoided if one is taught even a perfunctory history of Israel, no matter how Zionist that history is.
But I would bet that Seth Rogen is utterly unfamiliar with the 1929 riots or the 1936 Arab uprising or any detail of the 1948 war beyond “Israel won.” He is completely and totally ignorant about Israel’s history, because if he knew 1% of what he pretends to know he would never say such a stupid thing.
It is entirely possible that Rogen grew up knowing nothing about Israel – he’s proving it today. But it is far more likely that he slept through class (according to The Forward, he attended a Jewish elementary school and a Zionist summer camp) than that he was taught that there were no Arabs there.
Why is anti-Semitism treated as less bad than other forms of racism? Why is it a growing force in some sections of the left? Why is it often greeted with the words ‘well, he has a point’ rather than with the stern, irate condemnations we would expect in response to racism more broadly?
It’s because of identity politics.
Anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred. It has exploded in societies numerous times over the millennia, often with unprecedented murderous consequences. It sometimes changes shape – going from being a religiously motivated hatred to a form of biological racism, from a far-right pursuit to a shamefully left-wing phenomenon – but it is always there, in one form or another. And today, one of the forms it takes is identitarian categorisation.
Identity politics has helped to resuscitate anti-Semitism. One of the worst things identity politics does is categorise people according to whether they are oppressed or privileged. It creates hierarchies of victimhood. Intersectionality is an avowedly sectarian, divisive cause, given to grouping entire peoples according to whether they are historic victims or the beneficiaries of privilege. This very easily morphs into a form of moral categorisation: the victim groups are good, the privileged groups are bad. So black people deserve our sympathy and our support, while white people – the most privileged, apparently – deserve scorn, and constant lecturing (‘Dear white people’), and re-education. Witness how virtually every corporation in the West is now reprimanding and controlling its workforce through the mad ideologies of ‘white fragility’ and ‘white privilege’.
Identitarianism is a toxic, divisive politics. And it has proven particularly bad for Jewish people. Where do they go in the woke racists’ categories? Which inhuman identitarian box must they be placed in? It’s the ‘privileged’ one. Consider how both far-right and far-left racists flit between terms like ‘white privilege’ and ‘Jewish privilege’. Jews are successful, right? They aren’t struggling. Therefore, they are ‘privileged’. And ‘privileged’ is bad. It’s immoral. The ‘privileged’ are the new oppressors, requiring constant condemnation. White people, ‘cis’ people, people of Indian Hindu heritage, Jews… all privileged, all bad, all on the receiving end of the new hatreds whipped up by the destructive politics of identity.
Wiley’s racist rants contained elements of the old anti-Semitism, especially the vile trope about Jews running the world. But they had a big dose of identitarian anti-Semitism, too. His belief that Jews conspire in the repression of blacks, and that Jews (being white) can be racist but black people (being black) cannot be racist, springs directly from the identitarian ideology. It’s time to face facts: the new politics of identity, this racialisation of every facet of life, the myopic obsession over skin colour and ‘privilege’ and heritage, have breathed life back into actual racism, including the oldest racism. Identity politics is a gateway drug to actual racial hatred. Reject it.
In the last eight months, we’ve seen two mass murders of Jews—one attempted and one successful—by people who expressed interest in racially exclusive Black Israelism. Grafton Thomas, who burst into a Monsey, New York, rabbi’s home during a Hanukkah celebration and hacked at people with a machete, rambled in his journal about “Ebinoid Israelites” and “Semitic genocide.” David Anderson, who, along with an accomplice, sprayed a Jersey City kosher market with gunfire and killed three people (and a cop earlier), was steeped in Black Israelism, though he was wary of the organized sects. One wonders: When the coronavirus pandemic loosens its grip on public spaces and the proselytizing bands of Black Hebrew Israelites return to street corners to shout racist abuse at passersby, as they have done for decades without causing much controversy, will they draw the attention of anti-racist protesters?
And again, there is the steady anti-Jewish street violence. In New York City in the last two years, social media has recorded a sizable fraction of it in Brooklyn neighborhoods where Blacks and Jews coexist. Some of the perpetrators of those hate crimes revealed Black Israelite beliefs. One man beat and choked an Orthodox passerby while yelling about “fake Jews.” Another shouted “They’re not Jews!” and threw rocks at a group of Jewish women and children. Someone accosted a Forward journalist and screamed that she and her friends were “fake Jews … Whose time was almost up!” A woman berated an Israeli student on the subway: “You ain’t even a Jew, you white.” As Griff noted ominously to Nick Cannon, anticipating Wiley: “Now because you recognize [your Hebrew origin], you know who they are.”
There is not a racial crisis between Blacks and Jews. High-profile African Americans, including Charles Barkley, Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon, Zach Banner, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, quickly and resolutely criticized DeSean Jackson and Stephen Jackson. And not all people influenced by Black Israelism—a broad group that includes thousands of “African Hebrew Israelites” living in Israel—are anti-Semites. But in our increasingly panicked politics, where fanciful and vicious conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon have seen viral adoption, the sudden mainstreaming of a racist conspiracy theory with demonstrated links to violence should stir serious concern.
Yet when Black people express anti-Semitism it is continually treated as nothing to worry about. It is not hard to understand why. Anti-racist thought developed in response to the racial caste system in America and is primarily concerned with power. For those who are marginalized, it sees an accretion of victimhood; a disabled Black woman experiences compounding oppression at the intersection of her identities. On the other hand, those at the top of the racial caste system—whites—are invested with an almost mystical power that tends to flatten their other identities. Jews are generally regarded as white and privileged, so in practice, Jewishness seldom registers as a marginalizable identity. Anti-racists are dumb to our global history of persecution and vulnerability in the present.
Because anti-Semitism, like all conspiracy theories, mimics a politics of emancipation, anti-Semites believe themselves to be opponents of injustice. Among progressives today, the movement to redefine racism as “prejudice plus power”—that is, to downgrade nonsystemic forms of racism to mere personal “prejudice”—has ominous consequences for Jews. It fosters the belief that people who are thought to be powerful are deserving of hostility. And when racism poses as resistance by victims of racism, as anti-Semitism often does, it disqualifies Jews from concern.
Those who favor this revisionist definition have made so much headway that Merriam-Webster has agreed to incorporate it. How will we address a form of racism that purports to “punch up” against an evil elite? Most anti-Semitism in the West is nonsystemic, but its very nature is being systematically eclipsed. The loneliest hatred lives on, as it has for thousands of years—outside the ambit of our racial reckoning.
Pro-Israel advocate and president of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein announced via his Twitter page on Tuesday that he had 2-hour conversation with rapper Ice Cube where he claims that the musical artist supports condemning antisemitism and racism.
"I, Mort Klein, just had a 2-hour conversation with Ice Cube. We both grew up poor in Black hoods. Cube told me he thanked Jews for starting NAACP, many Black schools and fighting for Black civil rights. Cube told me he supports condemning Black and all antisemitism, and I condemned all racism," Klein said on Twitter Tuesday.
Shout out to Mort Klein who had the courage to seek the truth and speak with me and see for himself I am obviously NOT an anti-Semite or racist. I admire him for the advocacy of his people and look forward to talking more on how Black and Jewish communities can work together... https://t.co/dnVijJkR8q
Ice Cube has been immersed in a row as of late, after condemning NBA Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for writing an article mentioning the rapper on the topic of antisemitism, as well as tweeting an image of a mural that was removed from a wall in London in 2012 after complaints that the image was antisemitic.
The rapper vehemently denies that he supports antisemitism – or racism for that matter - mentioning that he only took issue with the article because he was mentioned in the article without being contacted first.
"Just for the record: I still love Kareem Abdul Jabbar definitely had a right to write against Antisemitism and racism," Ice Cube wrote on his Twitter page on Monday. "I was just hurt to be added into that article without a conversation to tell him that I am neither. But there is no wedge between me and my brother."
Egypt’s Economic Court sentenced Tik Tok influencers Haneen Hossam, Mawaddah al-Adham and three others to two years in prison and a LE 300,000 fine for violating family values and promoting debauchery and immorality via their accounts on social networking websites.
They were also accused of cooperating with organized human trafficking rings, and of using women to commit crimes that violate the principles and values of Egyptian society.\
Al-Adham’s TikTok videos look just like any other TikTok videos.
She dresses provocatively for an Egyptian but nothing seems to be illegal.
However, the Arabic versions of the story add a sinister twist. Her lawyer says that she was asked to undergo a “virginity exam” as part of the prosecution along with an examination of her bank accounts.
Al-Adham refused, and for all we know this may have been a factor in her sentence.
Egyptian police and military have been known to use “virginity tests” as weapons to control women. It is not something that is often discussed in English. If this was demanded of al-Adham, it is a truly disgusting indictment of the Egyptian justice system.
The veteran terrorist walked away from an offer that gave him more or less everything Palestinian advocates said they wanted. Two months later, convinced of Barak’s weakness and thinking bloody attacks on Israel would produce even more such suicidal concessions, he launched a terror war of attrition known as the Second Intifada. That traumatic conflict, which took the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis and many more Palestinians, blew up any remaining support for Oslo. It set in place a broad consensus among Israelis — further reinforced by the disastrous results of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which led to a Hamas-run terrorist state in the Strip, as well as the refusals of Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate in good faith — that peace is out of reach in the foreseeable future.
As Miller now concedes, the summit didn’t have any of the elements that could lead to success, such as “strong leaders,” a “workable deal,” and “effective US mediation.” Barak’s desperation and the Clinton administration’s poor planning made things worse. Miller is also correct in pointing out that Clinton’s belief that trying and failing was better than not trying at all was horribly wrong. The consequences of his hubris were paid in the blood of those slaughtered in Arafat’s intifada.
Nevertheless, Miller still holds on to the delusion that more American pressure on the Jewish state, coupled with a set of parameters for a deal that would have given the Israelis no wriggle room on Jerusalem and other intractable issues, might have made a difference. He disdains the efforts of the Trump administration to advance peace, thinking its leaders are far too close to Israel. But although Kushner seems to have tried to avoid making the same mistakes as Clinton, he too doesn’t seem to fully understand why even his more realistic “Prosperity to Peace” vision had as little chance of achieving an agreement as the 2000 summit.
In an interview with Newsweek, Kushner exhibited some magical thinking of his own. Kushner believes that the key to peace is pushing the Arab states closer to Israel. Doing so is a good thing in and of itself, but like every other formula for a settlement, it failed because the Palestinians just aren’t interested.
The lessons of the Camp David Summit rest on understanding that better diplomacy, planning, and help from outside parties is never going to be enough. Until the Palestinians give up their vision of a world without a State of Israel — one that is now sadly shared by Jews like Peter Beinart, who think the failure to make peace means that the Zionist project should be discarded in favor of a dangerous utopian vision that will lead to far more bloodshed than any intifada — no peace process, no matter how skillfully conducted, will ever succeed.
Most Israelis understand this bitter truth and have adjusted their expectations accordingly. It is to be hoped that future American governments, including a putative one led by former Vice President Joe Biden, which will likely be staffed by Clinton and Obama administration veterans, will be capable of understanding that in the absence of a sea change in Palestinian political culture, further negotiations are simply a waste of everyone’s time.
On July 20, 2020, the Dutch government announced that it was suspending funding to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) over links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). During a parliamentary debate, Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Development Minister Sigrid Kaag acknowledged that an internal government audit concluded that Dutch funds were used to pay the salaries of two UAWC employees who were also members of the PFLP terror organization and then arrested for murder.
According to NGO Monitor research, since 2013, the Netherlands has provided UAWC with approximately €20 million in grants.
In response to the Dutch announcement, UAWC issued a statement (July 22) attempting to deflect the serious allegations and misleadingly referring to “former employees” (the two were employed by UAWC at the time of the murder and their subsequent arrests). Reflecting the core emphasis on public relations and donor retention, the statement was published in English.
NGO Monitor has prepared the following detailed analysis of UAWC’s response:
Quote: For many years, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) has been attacked by the Israeli government and right-wing organization affiliated with it. Most of our projects are in “Area C” of the occupied West Bank, where we help vulnerable communities hold on to their land. The Israeli government has built illegal settlements in this area and wants to annex it. This is the key reason why we are attacked.
Analysis: UAWC opens (and closes) with a clearly political defense meant to appeal to European officials, emphasizing “’Area C’ of the occupied West Bank, where we help vulnerable communities hold on to their land,” and asserting that the “key reason” for being “attacked” is the Israeli government’s pursuit of annexation.
In reality, NGO Monitor’s research is the result of evidence linking UAWC to the PFLP terror group (see below). Since December 2019, UAWC’s links to the PFLP have taken on heightened importance, after Israeli authorities announced the arrest of two UAWC employees for murder. On August 23, 2019, Samer Arbid, UAWC’s accountant, commanded a PFLP terror cell that carried out a bombing against Israeli civilians, murdering 17-year old Rina Shnerb, and injuring her father and brother. According to the indictment, Arbid prepared and detonated the explosive device. Abdul Razeq Farraj, another UAWC employee, was also indicted for his involvement in the PFLP and the 2019 attack.
From a position of unprecedented weakness and distress, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is back to his old gambling habits. Similar to the summer of 2006, he is now threatening to perpetrate a terrorist attack against Israel in response to the death of one of his operatives in Syria.
Then, Nasrallah’s failed gambit triggered an all-out war, which exacted a terrible price from Lebanon and mainly from the Shiite ethnic group he purports to represent. Nasrallah himself was forced to pay a heavy price: his personal freedom. The man has been shuttered in his bunker ever since, and doesn’t see the light of day.
Nasrallah, however, is shackled to his equations — because he fears Israel will interpret a failure to act as weakness, he feels obligated to retaliate and is willing to risk a head-on clash. He hopes, of course, that he’ll be able to control the flames by keeping casualties on the Israeli side to a minimum, allowing Israel to absorb the event and temper its own counter-response, as it has done in the past.
For this reason alone, Israel should not play into Nasrallah’s hands. Rather, it should nullify the equations he is seeking to dictate and present him with a clear red line.
During the Second Lebanon War, Israel was strung along by poor leadership that failed to bring the IDF’s massive military advantage to bear. Instead of bringing Hezbollah to its knees, Israel was needlessly drawn into a 33-day war of attrition.
And yet, the results of that war sent a clear and decisive message to Hezbollah — that Israel will no longer allow the terrorist group to violate its sovereignty and continue attacking it from Lebanese soil. The quiet that prevailed along the border with Lebanon was therefore an important achievement, and it’s a fact that Hezbollah, battered and deterred, recognized that preserving this quiet was just as much in its own interest.
Al Qaws, the Palestinian LGBTQ group, will hold a protest against both Palestinian patriarchy and Israeli oppression tomorrow.
But they won’t be holding it in Ramallah or Hebron. They are doing it in Haifa.
On Wednesday, July 29th, alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society along with other queer and feminist Palestinian organizations will hold a protest in occupied Haifa to raise our voices against the patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist oppressions on LGBT and queer Palestinians, and to demand an end to violence against our bodies and lives.
…Discussions exploring sexual and gender diversity have spread broadly and can no longer be ignored or denied. Nor are they limited to specific groups in our society. These discussions have stormed our homes, our workplaces, and even our political and social spaces, making this one of the most controversial questions in Palestine. Yet the most consistent aspect of our visibility and the current debates remains the violence against LGBT and queer Palestinians. We have witnessed unprecedented physical and psychological violence on social media and beyond, reflecting various forms of homophobia and transphobia, often expressed through outdated and harmful myths and misconceptions that work to yet again demonize and exclude us from our own society, to control our bodies and repress our desires.
Of course, a Palestinian group – no matter how unpopular – must also talk about how awful Israel is.
The struggle to combat societal and state violence against the queer movement in Palestine unfolds on a complex terrain, structured by a settler-colonial power that denies Palestinian freedom and decolonization, and exacerbated by an economic system that exploits and degrades us. These violent foundations give rise to the “pinkwashing” narrative which opportunistically weaponizes our own pain against us, both on the global stage and within our communities. We stand in fierce opposition to the colonizing force that erases our struggle, then uses us as a fig-leaf for its oppression by claiming to be our salvation.
I suppose it pains them for me to point out that they chose to do the protest in Israel and not in their own Palestinian controlled areas – because they know that in the Palestinian territories they would be attacked and arrested by police while in Israel they will be protected by police.
This is the “pinkwashing” they rail against – where they choose to protest in the very nation that they claim is oppressing them.
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Thursday, July 30, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
