The writer Ahmed Khaled Mustafa intended his novel to be a true historical document that combines facts and fiction in a beautiful narrative form. The novel centers on Bobby Frank, a wealthy Jewish character who belongs to a class of ultra-rich Jews, who is killed in mysterious circumstances by two young Jewish men from the same neighborhood....This novel tells historical events related to Judaism and Freemasonry and their control of the world. Roxelana the Jewish woman who was in the palace of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and her success in threatening the Ottoman Empire internally, as well as the story of Harut and Marut and their planning of Judaism on the world and their ability to control the minds of young people.The writer used in his novel a set of images and non-exaggerated metaphors that serve the ideas that the writer wants to reach the reader, including what the writer described to the Jews, as he said: “The Jews are beings that must be disposed of immediately, revolting and malicious worms and cursed forever. of them all their books and we burn, we must expel them all from our country. "Antichristos is a dialectical narrative that contributes to unveiling the cover of Judaism, which tries to destroy all those who oppose it, regardless of their affiliation, even if they are Jews themselves.
Friday, September 24, 2021
- Friday, September 24, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Josh Hammer: The Moral Perverseness of Democrats' Foreign Policy Priorities
In the aftermath of President Joe Biden's disastrously executed withdrawal from the Afghan backwater, that would have translated to $400 million directly subsidizing the Taliban. That's the same Taliban-run Afghan government that, as FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted to Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) during a Senate hearing earlier this week, counts eponymous Haqqani network member Siraj Haqqani as its interior minister. Haqqani remains wanted by the FBI, and there is a $10 million bounty for his capture. Some Democrats would apparently rather fund Haqqani's government than protect innocent Jewish, Arab and Christian lives in the Holy Land using state-of-the-art missile defense technology. Indeed, many Democrats would presumably still rather send amorphous "humanitarian aid" to Afghanistan which, due to ubiquitous venality, would of course just subsidize the Taliban, than fund the inherently defensive Iron Dome system.Melanie Phillips: The Democrats' Iron Dome fiasco, and what it means
That is, quite simply, perverse.
But at this point, it also should not be surprising. For years during the Obama administration, Democrats embarked on a broader Middle East-centric foreign policy realignment crusade by which the U.S. would create distance between itself and its formerly staunch Israeli and Sunni Arab allies, and cozy up to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Years later, the purported rationale for such a realignment remains unclear. The Iranian regime is the world's leading state sponsor of jihad, and regime propagandists quite literally chant "Death to America" in the streets of Tehran. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, for whom the Biden administration nixed in February the Trump administration's previously affixed "terrorist" label, have as their official slogan: "Allah is Greater, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam." They sound like nice people.
Democratic Party foreign policy is in complete shambles right now. Much of that intellectual descent goes back to the Obama, and even the Clinton, administrations. But it has rapidly accelerated in recent years, as the tail that is Ocasio-Cortez's Jew-hating "Squad" has come to lead the dog that is the broader Democratic Party apparatus. Unapologetic anti-Semites and anti-American zealots, sadly, are now steering one of America's two leading political parties. That is now an inescapable truth.
Those baying for Israel's blood deny that this singling out of Israel for demonization is essentially the same kind of deranged treatment meted out to the Jews through the ages.Israel has an obligation to defend itself
Instead, more and more on the left – tragically, including many Jews – now nod along to the evil and patently ludicrous charges against Israel of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
When Israelis are murdered in the disputed territories of the "West Bank," the silence from the human-rights-obsessed, "anti-racist" left is deafening. These murders are simply ignored because, to supporters of "Palestinian rights," these Jewish victims are simply to be written out of the script of humanity.
Even to "moderate" Israel supporters on the left, there are good Israelis and bad Israelis; good Jews and bad Jews. The bad ones are deemed bad because they fight their enemies; the good ones are deemed good because they cave in to them.
The result is a vast increase in attacks on Jews, with students on campus increasingly hiding their Jewish identity.
So what should Israel and its supporters do in response?
Israel's new ambassador to the United States, Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, has rightly said: "We are in the midst of a war of consciousness, and the State of Israel has to develop new, strong and profound tools to deal with this challenge."
In fact, Israel has never responded adequately to this great crisis of Western thought. This is partly the result of Israel's epic and endemic governmental incompetence.
But it's also because of Israel's deeply felt belief that trying to make Israel's case to Britain and Europe, where Jew-hatred has been ingrained for centuries, is a hopeless task – while (with the exception of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who understood that Israel had to appeal directly to the American public) it could take American support for granted.
Now it needs to revisit that last assumption as a matter of urgency. Yet at this most critical juncture, Israel has saddled itself with a feeble governing coalition that appears to believe that a plastic spoon should be brought to a gunfight.
The most common refrain from strong Israel supporters was: “Israel has a right to defend itself.” The people making those statements thought they were helping Israel, but they were not.
Of course Israel has a right to defend itself. Why wouldn’t it? By even mentioning the “right,” you are welcoming a debate whether Israel does or does not have a “right” to defend itself.
It is time for the pro-Israel and I daresay pro-America crowd to permanently change the lexicon. “Israel has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens.”
The most basic expectation that a citizen of any country has is the expectation to safety and security. This is an obligation of the state to its citizens, not a right, not an option. It is a non-negotiable obligation.
When a nation does not fulfill its obligation, it questions its ability to succeed as a state. To win a war, you must choose the correct battlefield.
This week it became clear that the Democratic Party is currently negotiating Israel’s surrender as their very right to exist has been called into question, and those willing to fight to extinguish it cared more than those who purport to defend it.
The cause is not lost, and strong bipartisan support for Israel is important to Israel, but it is even more important to America.
Combine this week’s capitulation with America’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan – with Americans and allies left behind with zero repercussions for anyone in the administration or Congress – and we have a glaring lack of understanding of a country’s obligations to its citizens.
- Friday, September 24, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Friday, September 24, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Friday, September 24, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- media bias, NYT
Minutes before the vote closed, Ocasio-Cortez tearfully huddled with her allies before switching her vote to “present.” The tableau underscored how wrenching the vote was for even outspoken progressives, who have been caught between their principles and the still powerful pro-Israel voices in their party, such as influential lobbyists and rabbis. (A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment on her change of position.)The phrase "such as influential lobbyists and rabbis" was later excised. It can still be seen as of this writing in the wire service version of the story here (archived).
The back and forth was the latest flare-up in a long-simmering feud between an energized new generation of progressive Democrats — many of them people of color — that has demanded an end to conditions-free aid to Israel and others in the party who argue that the United States must not waver in its backing for Israel’s right to defend itself.
“I will not support an effort to enable war crimes and human rights abuses and violence,” Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, said on Thursday. “We cannot be talking only about Israelis’ need for safety at a time when Palestinians are living under a violent apartheid system and are dying from what Human Rights Watch has said are war crimes.”
In an angry speech, Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida, said he would not allow “one of my colleagues to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and label the Jewish democratic state of Israel an apartheid state.”“To falsely characterize the state of Israel is consistent with those who advocate for the dismantling of the one Jewish state in the world,” he said. “When there is no place on the map for one Jewish state, that’s antisemitism, and I reject that.”
His maneuver appeared to be intended to calm Israeli officials, who had watched with alarm as the fight unfolded on Capitol Hill and had closely followed previous efforts by young, liberal lawmakers to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
UN should bar future Durban debacles
Durban IV, held this year on Sept. 22 and marking the 20th anniversary of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance turned out to be a debacle. This was expected.
But the lies that it propagated, like those of its predecessors, did not begin in 2001, with the first such gathering in South Africa. The world should have seen what was coming back in 1975 when the "Zionism is racism" mantra was introduced with the passage of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379.
Indeed, Durban was and remains a most regrettable creation of the United Nations.
It is high time for the United Nations to reject useless distractions from its mission of promoting humanity and peace. It must simply prohibit this hateful commemorative event from happening again.
If member countries want to hold a festival of hate, they should do so without the blessing or the name of the United Nations. To go through this dishonest exercise of announcing something in the name of fighting racism, which prompts at least 20 Western countries correctly to boycott it, while others attend under political pressure, is ridiculous.
The United Nations should just save itself the embarrassment of having its name attached to this fiasco. The countries firmly committed to Durban are those that have called for Israel's destruction. Many of them commiserate with Iran.
The 20 dark years of the Durban conference
On Sept. 22, 2021, an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Durban Conference will be held in New York as part of the annual UN General Assembly, but unfortunately, nothing has changed for the better in the last twenty years. They are the same wolves in sheep's clothing.UN commemorates controversial Durban summit with no apparent mention of Israel
This year, too, when 31 [now 36] countries show support for Israel and are boycotting the event because of its antisemitic stench even more so than in previous conferences – it is not a real sign of progress. I do not believe for a moment that these countries tend to favor the State of Israel or are sympathetic to Jews wherever they are.
You can buy some fake smiles with money, but the world will not turn over and change as a result of it. It is impossible to solve the phenomenon of age-old antisemitism at conferences.
It is possible to gather from conference to conference, but other than money and publicity to promote political agendas or to mark that we have done something about it, no real benefit will come out from such events.
The only condition for change is the self-awareness of the people of Israel and a new attitude about our destiny. The Jewish people were founded from a collection of representatives from different peoples, a composition of different elements, equally committed to unity and love of others.
Antisemitism is resentment of us by the nations of the world. They feel Jews hold the secret for a better future but that we are not opening the pipe for that goodness to flow to all the peoples. Subconsciously, the world expects us Jews to connect with each other, to be united and reach a strong feeling of love for others. If we act in this way, we will be a light unto the nations, we will spread light and not darkness, love instead of hatred. Only in this way will we eradicate the hostilities against us.
The Foreign Ministry released a statement denouncing the conference as the commemoration began.
“The original Durban Conference, a UN-hosted event, became the worst international manifestation of antisemitism since WWII,” it said. “Inflammatory speeches, discriminatory texts and a pro-Hitler march that took place outside the halls were only part of the ugliness displayed in 2001.
“The ‘World Conference on Racism’ actually ended up encouraging it, including through the parallel NGO forum, which displayed caricatures of Jews with hooked noses and fangs dripping with blood, clutching money.”
“Twenty years later, some of the same organizations have waged a BDS campaign against the only democracy in the Middle East, but they have failed,” the ministry added, referring to the Israel boycott movement.
“The halls of the #UNGA are empty, and with good cause,” tweeted Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz along with a Foreign Ministry list of boycotting countries. “Honorable men and women will not dignify this antisemitic event with their presence.”
The United States still faults “the anti-Israel and antisemitic underpinnings of the Durban process and has longstanding freedom of expression concerns” with the results, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Wednesday explaining her country’s decision not to participate in the anniversary meeting.
Thomas-Greenfield, who is African American, said that combating racism is a top priority for her and for the Biden administration. She said that the US would continue working on the issue in “more inclusive” settings, without detailing what she meant.
The US decision drew criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the nation’s most prominent rights groups.
The boycott “sends the wrong message to the global community regarding the US commitment to fight all forms of racism and racial injustice everywhere,” ACLU Human Rights Program director Jamil Dakwar said.
Opposed antisemitic Durban IV:
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 23, 2021
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BREAKING: ???? Sweden pulled out of the U.N.'s Durban IV conference yesterday, due to its history of antisemitism and anti-Israeli prejudice.
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 23, 2021
?? This is the first time in 20 years that Sweden has boycotted one of the UN's Durban-related racism conferences. Statement by @SweMFA: https://t.co/vG5X1kAWyd pic.twitter.com/pRNumYlfKB
In case you’re wondering which side #Ireland & #Belgium stood on at #UNGA #DurbanIV conference yesterday, they shared platform with such noted liberal democracies Iran, Qatar, Venezuela & Pakistan.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 23, 2021
cc. @BelgiumMFA @BelgiumUN @Sophie_Wilmes @dfatirl @irishmissionun @simoncoveney pic.twitter.com/XETPICW2PU
US House Approves $1 Billion Standalone Bill to Replenish Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense
The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a $1 billion bill to replenish Israel’s defensive shield against rocket attacks on Thursday, also known as the Iron Dome missile system. The measure — which passed by a final tally of 420 to 9, with two members voting present — will now move to consideration in the Senate. The House voted on the standalone legislation after funding for the Iron Dome was removed from a broader spending bill. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid praised the results of the vote, saying that it “reaffirms the special relations between our two countries, rooted in shared values and strategic interests.” “Upon my urging, House leadership has committed to bringing a standalone bill to the floor to replenish the Iron Dome missile defense system,” said Congresswoman Kathy Manning (D-NC) ahead of the debate on the House floor. “We will pass this bill with the support of the majority of my colleagues and reiterate our ironclad support for our ally, Israel.”
- Thursday, September 23, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Rep. ANDY LEVIN (D-Mich.) wants a two-state solution to be official U.S. policy, and new legislation he’ll propose tomorrow sets out a pathway to make that arrangement a reality.If Congress passes and President JOE BIDEN signs the “Two-State Solution Act,” American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will formally state…— “[that] only the outcome of a two-state solution can both ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own.”— “that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are occupied territories and should be referred to as such consistently in official United States policies, communications, and documents.”— “that the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is inconsistent with international law.”— “that settlement expansion, demolitions of Palestinian homes, revocations of residency permits, and forced evictions of Palestinian civilians by Israel impede the establishment of a Palestinian state and violate the human rights of the Palestinian people.”
— Products made in the Palestinian territories should be marked as made in “West Bank/Gaza,” “West Bank/Gaza Strip,” or “West Bank and Gaza” — not “Israel,” “Made in Israel,” or “Occupied Territories-Israel.”— No funds, defense articles or defense services the United States sends to Israel may be used to annex more Palestinian territory or violate “internationally recognized” human rights.— The secretary of State and U.S. Agency for International Development administrator may authorize grants to private, nonprofit and other organizations to support human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the Palestinian territories.— The United States should reopen its consulate in Jerusalem to engage with Palestinians and allow the reopening of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington, D.C.— The United States should encourage the Palestinians to reform their so-called “pay to slay” practice of providing financial benefits to imprisoned or dead breadwinners, which leaders say is their welfare program.
The Palestinian assault on Jewish history and heritage
If anyone still has doubts about the Palestinian Authority’s determination to erase all traces of Israel’s ancient Jewish heritage, an important new report should lay to rest any such uncertainties.Alan M. Dershowitz: The Squalid "Squad" Is Trying to Destroy Bipartisan Support for Israel
The 65-page document, entitled “National Heritage Survey” and published by the Shilo Forum and the Shomrim al HaNetzach (“Preserving the Eternal”) organization, examined a selection of 365 of the most important national and cultural Jewish archaeological and historical sites in Judea and Samaria.
The findings are nothing less than shocking and infuriating and require immediate attention from Israel’s government.
Simply put, hundreds of cherished Jewish sites in the Land of Israel which survived 2,000 years of Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mameluke and Ottoman occupation are being systematically destroyed right under our noses by the Palestinians.
The report, which has not received the widespread attention it deserves in the Israeli and international press, found that 289 sites, representing a whopping 80% of those surveyed, have been damaged or destroyed.
These include sites dating back to biblical times, as well as those from the Second Temple, Herodian and Hasmonean periods.
The fact that the Squad picked on the Iron Dome to make its stand against Israel is significant. The Iron Dome is a system developed jointly by the United States and Israel that is purely defensive. It does not kill, injure, or threaten anyone. It only protects civilians against war crimes committed by terrorist groups that direct lethal rockets against innocent civilians.
The fact that the Squad would try to deny Israel the right to defend its civilians speaks volumes about the lack of morality and decency among Squad members and their allies.
It follows from this effort that the Squad will oppose any and all aid to Israel, including protecting its innocent civilians against Iran's nuclear threat. The obvious goal of Squad members is to deny Israel the right to defend itself against aggression. At least one of its members has denied that Israel has the right to exist.
These bigoted actions directly violate the platform of the Democratic Party (as well as that of the Republican Party). The Democratic Party must decide whether it will become captive to its most extreme wing or whether it will marginalize these radicals who are not only anti-Israel but, in many ways, anti-American. They are intolerant of dissent and due process for those who disagree with them. They are anti-police, anti-military, and anti-free market economy.
The time has come, indeed it is long past, for the Democratic leadership to stand strong against the anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-decency squalid Squad. The leadership can no longer stand idly by the bigotry of their members. If they persist in tolerating the intolerable, they will lose the support of the all-important mainstream voters.
Understanding the Enemy
IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Dr. Anat Berko is a criminologist, former Knesset member, and a world-renowned expert on terrorism, whose research focuses on suicide bombers and their handlers. Over the course of 20 years, she met with Palestinian terrorists, including senior Hamas figures such as the group's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. "The personal relationships that I built with them led to deep insights," she said. "I come from an Iraqi family, I understand Arab culture from the inside."
Q: What is the recurring pattern in the inner world of security prisoners?
Berko: "They are...people who are rooted in a collective society, while we conduct ourselves as individuals. The issue of masculinity is very important to them, and they don't see incarceration as a blow to their status, as criminal prisoners do, but as something that reinforces their status in the eyes of society - something for which they receive recognition as future leaders."
"In their society, they are seen as normative people....They are essentially conformists, since acts of terrorism are not seen as something wrong [in Palestinian society]. Even inside the prison walls, they don't feel isolated, unlike criminal prisoners. Security prisoners feel safe in prison since they are jailed in certain affiliation groups, according to the terrorist organization to which they belong, so that they have social support from the inside, and public support from the outside."
Q: Is there a possibility of rehabilitating Palestinian prisoners?
Berko: "They don't express remorse; in my opinion, there's no potential of rehabilitating them because, from their perspective, they didn't do anything wrong or forbidden. Their society empowers them for what they did."
"Palestinian security prisoners...receive medical care that isn't included in the [Israeli] healthcare basket....There are security prisoners with serious illnesses who get imprisoned only so they can receive certain medications, or others who get imprisoned so they can study quietly for their matriculation exams. The life of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, for example, was saved thanks to brain surgery he had when he was a prisoner [in Israel]. If he had been in Gaza, he wouldn't be alive today."
- Thursday, September 23, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Councilor Karen Paul (D-Ward 6)....wanted the matter settled Monday night, noting that she'd received 2,000 emails about the resolution, only 10 of which she said supported the measure.
- Thursday, September 23, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Thursday, September 23, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
In addition to amounts otherwise provided by section 101, for “Procurement—Procurement, Defense-Wide”, there is appropriated $1,000,000,000, for an additional amount for fiscal year 2022, to remain available until September 30, 2024, which shall be for the Secretary of Defense to provide to the Government of Israel for the procurement of the Iron Dome defense system to counter short-range rocket threats: Provided, That such funds shall be provided to address emergent requirements in support of Operation Guardian of the Walls: Provided further, That such funds shall be transferred pursuant to an exchange of letters and are in addition to funds provided pursuant to the U.S.-Israel Iron Dome Procurement Agreement, as amended: Provided further, That nothing in the preceding provisos shall be construed to apply to amounts made available in prior appropriations Acts for the procurement of the Iron Dome defense system.
- Thursday, September 23, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Opinion, Vic Rosenthal
Islam is on track to become the world’s most widespread religious faith and will probably surpass Christianity in number of believers by 2070.
There are many reasons for this. One way to explain the growth or decline of a religious population is to look at the religion as a set of memes, mental entities that spread from one mind to another. These memes reproduce and change like life-forms, struggling with the forces of natural selection in their environment, the 7.9 billion human minds on planet Earth.
For example, here is a somewhat unfriendly answer to the question “why is Islam growing so rapidly?” in memetic terms. The pseudonymous author cites Islam’s built-in features that protect the memes that are part of Islam from changes that might weaken them, and facilitate its spread. Some of these features are common to other religions, but some seem to be unique to Islam. For example,
Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. … Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.
There is also the duty to take part in jihad, the doctrine that lands that have become Islamic must always remain so, the very concrete description of the joys of paradise that await good Muslims (and especially martyrs), and the numerous practical advantages that accrue to Muslims in Islamic lands. And of course, Islam is a veritable Hotel California: it is remarkably easy to join, but the penalty for leaving is death.
Other religions, like Christianity, engage in proselytizing and (at least in the past) facilitated their spread by conquest. Christianity too, in the relatively recent past, enforced disadvantageous conditions on non-Christian residents of Christian countries, including special taxation, limitations on occupations, even persecution and expulsion. Both Islam and Christianity have protected themselves with blasphemy laws and prosecutions, although generally speaking Christianity has been moving in a more moderate direction at the same time that radical Islamic practice has become more common.
Judaism, since the destruction of the Temple and until the reestablishment of the State of Israel, has been a diasporic religion. Its memes became adapted to an environment in which Jews were a minority, and temporal authority was always in the hands of non-Jews who displayed varying degrees of hostility. Since Biblical times, Judaism has not expanded by conquest; and until recently proselytizing has been minimal and conversion to Judaism difficult. Lacking temporal power, Judaism was unable to provide material advantages to converts, even if it had wanted to.
If the memes of Islam and Christianity were adapted to expansionism, Judaism was tuned to self-preservation. It needed to be, because the Christian and Muslim worlds where most Jews found themselves could be cruel and dangerous. Diaspora Judaism did undergo changes and evolved in different directions, but although customs and degrees of observance varied widely, the top priority remained survival, which meant maintaining separation from the non-Jewish majority. Jews are sometimes criticized for being “clannish,” tending to prefer the company of their own, favoring other Jews as employees, choosing Jewish lawyers and doctors, and so on. This is self-protective behavior.
When Reform Judaism appeared in the early 19th century, its de-emphasis of ritual observance (particularly Shabbat and kashrut) and its denial of the divine origin of the Torah was a radical departure from tradition, and indeed it weakened the self-protective nature of Judaism. Nevertheless it was still conservative (small “c”) in its understanding that the Jewish people were set apart from others – even if it was now possible for Jews to have lunch with Germans, they did not want their daughters to marry them.
This began to change with the migration of large numbers of Jews to the United States. After the beginning of the “Golden Age of American Jewry” around the end of WWII, Jews in the US felt less insecure. Little by little, barriers against Jews in housing, education, and employment disappeared. Jews began to take a disproportional part in American culture. Intermarriage increased, although until recently, even the Reform movement officially discouraged mixed marriages. Today it doesn’t take an official position on the question, although it encourages mixed couples to join its congregations and raise their children as Jews. Some Reform rabbis perform mixed marriages and some do not. As far as I know, the movement still requires rabbis to be married to Jews, although this might change.
But another mutation in the memeplex that is Judaism, which has occurred in the American Reform community very recently, has ripped out its “gene” for self-preservation, possibly disastrously for American Jews. To see what has happened, we need to consider the history of the movement.
Until the mid-1960s, early 1970s, American Reform Judaism was dominated by “classical Reform,” which aggressively tried to downplay the spiritual elements of Judaism, which it considered primitive. But American Jews who had been strongly affected by the radical cultural changes of the period found the experience of Reform worship empty and boring, and began to desert Reform Judaism for other streams of Judaism, Eastern religions, or secularism. Some even joined the “Jesus Freaks.” While their parents and grandparents believed it was important to maintain a connection to the Judaism of the past, even if it was attenuated, the boomers and their children didn’t see the point.
Reform Judaism responded in several ways. It tried to reintroduce traditional practices and customs, such as Hebrew prayers and Torah study, although its congregations lacked the Jewish background required or the attention span needed to obtain it. It became more welcoming to intermarried families. And it began to redefine Jewish observance, which previously meant performing the commandments defined in traditional halacha (Jewish law), as liberal social action. This strategy reached its peak with the appointment of politically progressive Rabbi Richard (Rick) Jacobs as URJ President in 2012.
But history moves on and the golden age of American Jewry is coming to an end. The traditionally antisemitic extreme Right hasn’t gone away, but more importantly the newly ascendant progressive Left, imbued with postmodern/postcolonial ideas, and “critical theory” of various kinds, has turned against liberalism, free speech, equality of opportunity, and Israel. And no surprise: they don’t like Jews much, either.
The new Reform Judaism, led by the so-progressive Rabbi Jacobs, has been caught out. Social action no longer means liberalism, which implies tolerance to all religious and ethnic groups, but the support of movements that are explicitly racist, anti-American, and antisemitic. This style of Judaism, which has been adopted by some 90% of affiliated American Jews, no longer functions to protect Jews as a minority within a more and more hostile culture.
Today it seems that American Orthodox Jews are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, because of their greater visibility. But if the “Cultural Revolution” continues in the direction that it has begun to go, then there is no doubt that life for liberal Jews will become far more difficult. Orthodox Jews, who have maintained their traditional self-protective culture, are better prepared to weather the storm. I strongly doubt that Judaism will ever morph into an expansionist religion like Islam or Christianity. But it looks as though the liberal Jews of America may have sawn off the branch they were sitting on.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Elie Wiesel (Sep 8, 2001): Durban: A Circus of Calumny
Hatred is like a cancer. It spreads from cell to cell, from organ to organ, from person to person, from group to group. We saw it in action in Durban. Even a man of the stature of Kofi Annan somehow lost his way and said things that were inappropriate for him.34 countries boycott Durban IV Conference
With the scandal of Durban in the backdrop, how can the world expect of Israel to trust the United Nations? And how can good people, idealists, have faith in the UN's mission to unite countries in an atmosphere of respect?
The conference in Durban will be remembered as a forum that was governed not by anti-Israelites but by anti-Semites. The fact that militant Palestinians hate Jews -- that is known already. One needs only hear the various Islamic leaders and read the books printed by the Palestinian Authority: They preach hatred and violence, not against Zionists but against Jews. Their slogan, naked and brutal and identical everywhere, was keenly felt and even heard in Durban: "Kill the Jews."
What is painful is not that the Palestinians and the Arabs voiced their hatred, but the fact that so few delegates had the courage to combat them. It is as if in a strange and frightening moment of collective catharsis, everyone removed their masks and revealed their true faces.
By means of the disgraceful conference in Durban, history has given us, the Jews, a sign. And we had better learn how to decipher it.
A total of 34 countries openly boycotted Wednesday’s conference at the UN marking the 20th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism in Durban because of the antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at the 2001 event.Noah Rothman: Progressives Hand Democrats Another Embarrassment
More than twice as many countries opted out of the event than the previous Durban Review Conference in 2011, when 14 did so.
The countries boycotting Durban IV were: Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, UK, US and Uruguay.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry thanked the countries for their support.
“The original Durban Conference, an UN-hosted event, became the worst international manifestation of antisemitism since WWII,” the Foreign Ministry stated. “Inflammatory speeches, discriminatory texts, and a pro-Hitler march that took place outside the halls were only part of the ugliness displayed in 2001. The ‘World Conference on Racism’ actually ended up encouraging it, including through the parallel NGO forum, which displayed caricatures of Jews with hooked noses and fangs dripping with blood, clutching money.”
The Foreign Ministry said that the organizations seeking to demonize and boycott Israel 20 years ago continue their campaign, but have failed. “Israel is a thriving state that is increasing its cooperation with countries in the region and will continue to do so,” it said.
Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan, who has worked for the past year to bring more countries on board against Durban, pointed out that few heads of state addressed the conference, like those of South Africa and Cuba, and only a handful – like Iran and the Palestinian Authority – sent foreign ministers to the event, in addition to more countries boycotting it than ever before.
To state this proposition as plainly as possible, more Israelis must die if there is to be peace. The logic articulated here is so sordid that it’s understandable why progressives would fail to articulate it plainly.
On top of being ghoulishly cruel, it is an idea that is strategically unsound and devoid of almost any theoretical basis. We know what this conflict would look like in the absence of this system because most of us remember a time before Iron Dome’s relatively recent introduction. That was a time that did produce more Israeli casualties as a result of rocket barrages from within Gaza. It was also a time that involved far broader and bloodier Israeli responses to those provocations, including costly ground operations that produced vastly more Palestinian deaths. The elimination of this entirely defensive system of radar installations and interceptor missiles would produce more violence and destruction, not less. To hear the left’s more honest members tell it, that’s not necessarily an undesirable outcome.
Fortunately, and despite their outsize influence on committees, it’s not hard to find Democrats across their party’s ideological spectrum condemning (albeit obliquely) the left and the setback they’ve dealt their colleagues. Democrats are now forced to clean up after their blinkered congressional allies. After spending his evening on the phone talking interested parties from Jerusalem to Washington off the ledge, House majority leader Steny Hoyer promised on Tuesday to reverse the damage his leftwing colleagues had done with a stand-alone vote that will restore funding for Iron Dome.
This will not, however, be the last time that Democrats are forced to mop up the wake their ideologically rigid progressive friends leave if only because it isn’t the first. Until Democrats understand that the costs associated with the influence of “Squad”-type legislators are steeper than the benefits, the embarrassments will continue.
Monday, September 20, 2021
Bari Weiss: Everybody Hates the Jews
Everybody hates the Jews. That’s the refrain from the brilliant satirist Tom Lehrer in “National Brotherhood Week,” a song that I had memorized by the time I was ten, given that I was raised by the kind of dad who made sure songs like “The Vatican Rag” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” were the soundtrack to our lives.David Singer: A Jew-hater joins Prince Harry & Meghan as Icons in TIME Top 100
My sisters and I would laugh as we sang along to lyrics we only half-understood:
Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Muslims
And everybody hates the Jews
The very fact of the song’s existence, of course, is evidence of abundant American tolerance and pluralism.
But these days, the idea that “everybody hates the Jews” feels like less of a punchline and more like an accurate report of public sentiment. It seems every other day a new study or survey confirms what so many American Jews are feeling, as the old joke had it, that they are hating us more than is necessary.
Today, came the latest study from the Brandeis Center, which released a poll of “openly Jewish” college students. Seventy percent of the students surveyed reported that they experienced antisemitism. Half of the students said they have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity at school, explaining that they felt doing so would protect them from harassment, bullying or social exclusion. This is the kind of thing we would expect to hear about the Jews of Europe. But not here.
“What is so alarming about these results is that the survey focused on more than a thousand AEPi brothers and AEPhi sisters. These are kids who generally enter college with strong Jewish identities and an eagerness to be active in Jewish organizations. Instead, they are learning to hide their Judaism. And the longer they are in college, we found, the more they closet themselves,” Kenneth L. Marcus, the head of the Brandeis Center, told me. “Anyone who has been paying attention can see that what happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus. This should be an alarm for the entire American Jewish community.”
This new survey (which you can read more about here) reflects the recently released FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics for 2020. The bureau says that 57.5 percent of religious-based hate crimes last year had Jews as their targets, even though Jews represent 2 percent of the population.
TIME has made a laughing stock of itself - and its credibility - by including 23 year old rabid-Jew hating Palestinian Arab journalist Mohammed El-Kurd and his twin sister Mana El-Kurd among 16 persons listed as Icons in its 100 most influential people in 2021.
Other Icons include the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, tennis player Naomi Osaka and entertainers Britney Spears and Dolly Parton.
Edward Felsenthal Editor-in-Chief and CEO of TIME – said of the magazine’s choices:
“At TIME, we see the TIME100 as far more than a list. It is a community of leaders whose energy and commitment we hope inspires others to spring into action as well.”
El-Kurd’s Jew-hating credentials were exposed in a May 2021 interview when making the following false claims:
“My entire neighbourhood is being stolen by Israeli settler organisations working with the Israeli government to ethnically cleanse us from Jerusalem, as they have been doing for 73 years”
The truth: Just four Arab families residing in El- Kurd’s neighbourhood of East Jerusalem – Sheikh Jarrah - are facing the risk of eviction due to a legal challenge by Jews claiming ownership of these four properties.
These Arab families have refused an offer that they remain in their properties as "protected tenants", recognise ownership of their homes by their Jewish claimants and pay a symbolic annual rent.
Jordan occupied Sheikh Jarrah and East Jerusalem in 1948 and expelled every Jew living there. Jews were unable to return there until after the Six Day War in 1967 and subsequently begin the long legal process to reclaim their properties given to these four families by Jordan in conjunction with UNRWA.
The 1967 Israeli census showed 29904 Palestinian Arabs were then living in East Jerusalem. Today that population numbers 428304 according to World Population Review. El-Kurd’s accusation of ethnic cleansing is offensive, inflammatory and one big lie.
American Blood Libel
Massena is an undistinguished small town with a population of about 10,000 in upstate New York. But in the fall of 1928, an incident occurred that brought the town national newspaper coverage and frightened Jews across America. On Sept. 22, a few days before Yom Kippur, Barbara Griffiths, a 4-year-old girl, wandered into the woods surrounding the village and disappeared. When she did not return home hours later, her frantic parents contacted the mayor and the local police. Thus began the tale of the only blood libel accusation against Jews in American history.
The blood libel is the accusation that Jews murdered Christian children at Passover to use their blood for making matzo. The charge first appeared in Norwich, England, in 1144, and from then on it popped up repeatedly throughout European history. It even appears in Chaucer’s “The Prioress’s Tale,” which is included in his Canterbury Tales. The myth never received any official backing from the popes, but that did not prevent local Catholic parish priests from referring to it on Good Friday and in Easter services.
1920s America was rife with such antisemitic narratives. These feelings were undoubtedly stoked by Henry Ford’s libelous series, “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem,” which was first published in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, from 1920 to 1922. The newspaper had a wider circulation than The New York Times. The articles were also collected and republished in pamphlets by the same title. Everyone who bought a Ford automobile received a copy. He was the most popular American, and millions of Americans bought his automobiles, and they believed and trusted him.
Thus it was easy for Protestant Americans, unnerved by the massive immigration and perceived social threat of Catholics and Jews into the United States during the early 20th century, to believe what Ford wrote. The Ku Klux Klan, which had been dormant, subsequently attracted large numbers of disaffected Protestants and reached a nationwide membership of 3 million by 1925. The Klansman’s creed concluded with the pledge, “I am a native-born American citizen and I believe my rights in this country superior to those of foreigners.” A contemporary observer remembered that Massena was awash in flyers advertising Klan meetings and hundreds of locals showed up at them.