Sunday, November 28, 2021
Elder of ZiyonReturning to my tradition of bringing you a new music video for every night of Chanukah. Here's Six13 parodying West Side Story.
Sunday, November 28, 2021
Sunday, November 28, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
It celebrates a military victory of Jews against people who were trying to take over their homeland. It celebrates a victory of the few over the many. It celebrates the purification of the holiest Jewish site, the Temple in Jerusalem. It celebrates a miracle of the oil, showing God's involvement in the Jewish story.
It goes against everything the anti-Zionist, secular, socialist, "Jewish" Voice for Peace stands for.
But JVP's entire raison d'etre is to pretend that their brand of anti-Zionist Jew-hatred is actually a part of Judaism itself. So Chanukah is a challenge to them.
They must redefine the holiday itself. And, in so doing, they must redefine Judaism itself as well.
Here's what their Hanukkah page says:
Come celebrate Hanukkah this year building a radical, loving, anti-Zionist Jewish movement for liberation.
Who was liberated in the original Chanukah again? Oh yes, the people whose descendants JVP wants to exile!
Hanukkah means rededication.
Actually, it means "dedication."
This Hanukkah Against Apartheid, we rededicate our resolve to be bold and win against all that is life-taking and land-grabbing.
Oh? They are against Hamas, who just murdered a Jew? No, of course not.
It is said, the Temple was cleaned, sanctified, and rededicated after the Maacabees [sic] won the fight. Here, in diaspora, we can recognize the “Temple” as what we are building together: Judaism beyond Zionism. The Temple is where we practice our treasured values of justice, freedom, and equality; it is this practice that sanctifies the Temple.
JVP's' Temple has been replaced with a new, symbolic "Temple."
Sounds somewhat familiar....
Oh, yes, it sounds like Christian supersessionism! In various flavors of Christianity, the Jewish Temple has been replaced with the Christian people - or with Jesus himself, just like the Jewish people have been replaced with Christians.
Jewish Voice for Peace cannot stomach an actual Temple being central to Judaism. They take a page from Christianity and replace the Temple that is a central component of Judaism with whatever they consider important - in the process, saying that real Judaism is obsolete and their replacement theology is the real thing.
Similarly, JVP cannot subscribe to real Judaism, because in real Judaism the Temple and Jerusalem as central - and they don't want Jews to have any attachment to those. So they replace them.
You can call it a replacement theology.
"Jewish" Voice for Peace cannot possibly accept real Judaism. So it has to make up its own religion of anti-Zionism and calls it Judaism. And if that religion borrows some concepts from Christianity, well, why not? That religion was a success!
And then JVP writes something that sounds truly Christian:
Scroll down for JVP and friends’ virtual Hanukkah offerings.
Jews simply don't use the word "offerings" today.
Christians do it all the time.
There is nothing Jewish about "Jewish Voice for Peace." Their concept of and knowledge of Judaism is not Jewish at all.
I didn't think about this when I made this cartoon, but, wow, it is really true.
From Ian:
A Call to Action: Join the Maccabees
A Call to Action: Join the Maccabees
The Maccabean victory over Greece, the world’s major military power of the time, was miraculous. Perhaps even more miraculous was the third major successful effort to reestablish an independent Jewish state.Edwin Black: Yom HaGirush—The inside story of ‘Expulsion Day’
The modern-day Greek nations were first the Ottoman Empire and then the British Empire, upon which the “sun never set”; that is, until the British departure from Israel.
Last week, we witnessed the murder of Eli Kay. He immigrated to Israel on his own in his teens; served with distinction in the esteemed paratroopers’ unit; studied in a yeshivah; worked as a tour guide in the Old City; and was engaged to be married. A newly commissioned Israel Defense Forces paratrooper who attended his crowded funeral said that you could sum up the mood in one word: “determination.”
In other words, if you think that terrorists or their sympathizers are going to have even a shred of impact on our will, you are sorely mistaken. This only strengthens our resolve. We are the Maccabees. With God’s help, we have vanquished the world’s largest empires. More of us are coming, and we are building families and our Jewish future right here in the land of Israel.
This year, when celebrating the joy of Hanukkah, we must make it more than a superficial effort. Remember those who fought and found the oil to light our way.
Thank God for the miracle of Israel then and now. Commit to support the mission of the Maccabees of today. Support our people and help build the State of Israel.
No one can show me any identification of Arabs as Palestinians before 1964. On “The Edwin Black Show,” I have publicly asked for just one example. Yet the “Palestinian” cause has been championed—based on false history, fake facts, Jewish ignorance and the forgotten realities of 850,000 expelled Jews.Brown University’s Anti-Zionist Fantasy World
There have been many expulsions and forced migrations in history. The Spanish Inquisition broadly covers a single sphere of expulsion. The Trail of Tears covers one category of forced migrations, that of Native Americans. But never since the Roman Empire has the world seen some 15 countries openly coordinate the deprivation and expulsion of their citizens based solely on their religion.
Even though this grave act was always a flame burning in the families of the dispossessed, it was forgotten by the world. The “sha-sha” virus can infect an entire people proving there is both collective memory and collective amnesia.
But I stumbled upon the Farhud in researching my 2003 book Banking on Baghdad. This rekindled the torch of awareness.
“The Farhud Recognition Project,” energized by Sephardim in the United States, only asked for the mass murder to be remembered. I dove further into the topic, resulting in my 2010 book, The Farhud—Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust, which tracked the Arab-Nazi alliance, the awful pogroms and the post-war expulsion.
In June 2015, I and a group of committed communal leaders were able to do what many memory-seared families called the impossible: proclaim International Farhud Day at the United Nations in a historic event globally livestreamed by the U.N. itself.
But I always wanted to do more and give identity and homage to the mass expulsion. This month, with the support of my colleagues in many countries, on a special edition of “The Edwin Black Show,” I proclaimed Nov. 30 forever more to be a day of remembrance named “Yom HaGirush.”
That name, Yom HaGirush, marks when Jewish communities across many countries were once again dispossessed, but became repossessed in the free nation of Israel. The Jewish state now possesses these people and their descendants—and they in turn now possess their Jewish state. Possession is nine-tenths of survival. Israel has become the final stop for the Jews.
From Morocco to India, and from Yemen to Afghanistan, the lives and centuries of legacies were incinerated. It was done in broad daylight with barely a murmur from the world.
It happened not even five years after the world learned that six million Jews had been exterminated and millions more made refugees. Mark it down on a piece of paper: Yom HaGirush. YomHaGirush.com is now in embryonic form, but soon will be a vibrant worldwide resource and a warning to the world that when we say, “Never again,” we mean it.
Brown University is working hard to become the most anti-Israel school in America. In its competition with Columbia University and New York University, Brown not only boasts the nation’s first ever endowed chair in Palestinian studies (named after PLO poet Mahmoud Darwish), but the recipient of that dubious honor, professor of history Beshara Doumani, is currently serving as the president of Birzeit University, located down the road from PLO headquarters in Ramallah. Brown University has become the Providence Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
To that end, Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies competes with Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies and NYU’s Kevorkian Center to celebrate Palestinianism and decry the evils of Israel. Brown’s latest effort came on November 12 in the form of a Zoom talk by Somdeep Sen, associate professor in international development studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. Sen was promoting his book, titled “Decolonizing Palestine,” which is academic-speak for “Denouncing Israel.”
Like many anti-Zionists, Somdeep Sen lives in a dream world, partially of his own creation and partially thrust upon him by the fantasy world created by a sect of pro-BDS, anti–Semitic liberal-arts academics who insist that Israel is an “apartheid state” and there is a country called “Palestine.”
He announced repeatedly that his book is an attempt to “normalize Hamas” by rendering it “de-exceptionalized.” In academic jargon, this means that Sen’s work is dedicated to softening the image of Hamas, contextualizing the terrorist organization so that it seems to be just another movement of downtrodden underdogs fighting against oppressors. This delusion led him, multiple times during his talk, to compare Hamas to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
- Sunday, November 28, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Israel's President Isaac Herzog plans to light the first Chanukah candle in Hebron, at the Tomb of the Patriarchs - Judaism's second holiest place.
The reactions from the "moderate" Palestinian Authority and "extremist" Hamas were nearly identical.
Mahmoud al-Habbash, advisor for religious affairs to Mahmoud Abbas, and Husam Abu al-Rub, undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, said that Herzog's visit represents a provocation to the feelings of the Palestinians, and to the feelings of millions of Arabs and Muslims.
Hamas said that the visit would be "a provocation to the feelings of the Palestinian people and a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque." It warned that "the occupation bears full responsibility for the repercussions of this attack," calling on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and Hebron in particular, to "confront this provocative step and confront the attack on the Ibrahimi Mosque."
But Leftist Israeli groups are no less strident.
Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and other groups plan to protest in Hebron, making a pun on "The Days of Chanukah" into the "Days of Chanufah - Impiety/Hypocrisy:"
Israel's previous President Reuven Rivlin also visited Hebron, also to protests.
Hamas and the Leftist protesters agree: Jews should not be allowed to visit their holy places unless the Muslims generously allow them to.
Historically, Jews were never allowed to enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs (or the Temple Mount) when they were under Muslim rule. Jews had a pay an annual protection payment to ensure that Muslims wouldn't destroy Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and that they would be allowed to visit the Western Wall. Right now, the only way Jews can visit places like the synagogue in Jericho or Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus) is under permission from the PA and IDF protection.
That is what these groups want the status quo to return to.
According to these groups, freedom of religion is not a human right - but Muslim antisemitism is.
UPDATE: All Palestinian media headlines at this moment say "Herzog stormed the Ibrahimi mosque."
- Sunday, November 28, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
On Friday, the adults in the room made a statement about how unacceptable this new brand of antisemitic fascism is on campus.
The University of Toronto is opposed to all forms of discrimination, and committed to the protection of freedom of speech and academic freedom. The University was alarmed to learn about two motions passed at the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) Annual General Meeting on November 24. Both motions are inconsistent with the University of Toronto’s core values of freedom of speech and inclusion.One motion reaffirmed SCSU’s commitment to the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement; another concerns the rights of Jewish students at UTSC. Student organizations are free to take positions on a wide variety of controversial topics. Student societies for which the University collects mandatory fees based on registration must abide by our Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Societies. This Policy simultaneously affirms the independent operation of autonomous student societies and the requirement that “autonomy must be exercised in a manner that is compliant with the law and University policy. Further, all Student Organizations must conduct themselves in an open, accessible and democratic manner.”One of the requirements in the BDS motion is that SCSU “refrain from engaging with organizations, services, or participating in events that further normalize Israeli apartheid.” The motion allows an exception for suppliers of Kosher food if “no alternatives are available.” A requirement that providers of food as a religious accommodation be required to apply for an exemption, or even be asked about their views about issues elsewhere in the world is unacceptable.So too is the striking of the language about academic freedom from the second motion. Academic freedom is an individual right, and the Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Societies requires that these organizations must permit their members to determine which positions to take. Nor should they restrict the speakers that they can invite, or organizations with which they can cooperate based on their connections to a particular country.The motions are specifically focused on Israel in a way that is troubling to many members of the community. Such motions would be no more acceptable if focused on another country, or if a student organization in which members are enrolled by their registration were to take multiple stands on a wide variety of issues.The University’s place in society requires that its members be free to take positions on controversial questions. These issues are addressed by a number of University of Toronto policies, including the Statement on Freedom of Speech and the Policy on the Recognition of Student Groups. According to our Statement of Institutional Purpose,The University of Toronto is dedicated to fostering an academic community in which the learning and scholarship of every member may flourish, with vigilant protection for individual human rights, and a resolute commitment to the principles of equal opportunity, equity and justice.Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.These requirements apply directly to the SCSU motions. It is not acceptable to impose political tests on the recognition of Jewish student groups on any of the University of Toronto campuses. It is unacceptable to impose political tests on suppliers of Kosher or any other type of food.The University will be following up with the SCSU to address our concerns.Meric S. GertlerPresident
The statement is way too polite. The people behind these motions were themselves violating University policy, not to mention basic decency and liberal standards, and they should be put on notice. Putting a purity test on student groups and on suppliers of goods and services is, simply, fascism.
Singling out Jews by making a specific motion banning kosher food from vendors who are not sufficiently anti-Israel is clear-cut antisemitism, and President Gertler should have called that out. As the Jewish Student Life group at U of T mentions:
Although there were many strong comments made by the University in our support, there is a need to call out bigotry by name when it is so clearly manifested. The actions of the SCSU were not simply political disagreement. The passing of these motions is an act of blatant antisemitism and must be addressed as such.
I am also troubled by one sentence: "The University’s place in society requires that its members be free to take positions on controversial questions." This implies that supporting the existence of the only Jewish state in the world is controversial. It is not; it is mainstream. Calling it controversial is essentially saying that one supports the positions of such human rights luminaries as Algeria, Syria and Iran. When President Gertler says a statement like that, it shows that the haters have scored a victory in putting Israel's very existence into question even in this statement against them.
Gertler's mother survived the Holocaust and he has lectured in Israel, so no doubt the modern fascist antisemites will claim that his position is due to his being "Zionist," not because he is right.
- Sunday, November 28, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Every once in a while one can see the birth of a new conspiracy theory in the Arab world.
This one is a doozy.
Palestinian news site Amad reports that the Egypt-based Justice and Development Organization for Human Rights, which we recently noted supports Hamas terrorism, has figured out why the US is pushing normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states.
According to this theory, because of climate change, millions of Jews will want to emigrate from the US and Europe to Israel.
Israel is too small to accommodate them, so - according to Zaidan al-Qani, its spokesperson - the US hatched a plan with Israel to push normalization with Arab countries so that the millions of Jews have a place to go.
Al-Qani added that Arab governments are implementing the "deal of the century" with its various clauses in agreement with the United States of America, with the aim of opening the doors of Arab countries to settle Jews displaced from Europe and America.
It's a little unclear why only Jews would be displaced in this future climate catastrophe. But it takes time for crazy conspiracy theories to flesh out.
Saturday, November 27, 2021
From Ian:
The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai helped shape Israel-India relations
Canada’s Largest Labor Union Rejects Israel Boycott by 2-to-1 Margin
The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai helped shape Israel-India relations
November 26 marks 13 years since the terror attacks in Mumbai, India. On that night, in 2008, 10 gunmen associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT – “Army of the Righteous”) organization attacked five locations in the city, firing at random, with the simple intention of killing the maximum number of people. The attackers deliberately targeted areas of the city frequented by foreigners, evidently with the intention that this would maximize the global impact of their actions.
Among the sites targeted was Nariman House, known also as “Chabad House.” Six Israeli citizens were tortured and murdered at this site, which had been deliberately selected by the organizers. Among the dead Israelis were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who managed the Chabad House. Sandra Samuel, an Indian citizen who worked as a nanny for the Holtzbergs, famously risked her own life to save their then two-year-old son, Moshe.
The Mumbai attacks did not conclude on the evening of November 26, 2008. Rather, the gunmen took hostages and held off the Indian security forces for three days. The final death toll was 165 killed, consisting of 140 Indian citizens and 25 foreign visitors. Nine of the 10 gunmen were also killed. The 10th was apprehended by the authorities, convicted of murder, and executed four years later.
The Mumbai attacks were a profoundly traumatic event seared in the memory of the people of that city, and of India as a whole. Meanwhile, 13 years on, many unanswered questions remain regarding the perpetrators of the attacks, and who stood behind them.
The direct responsibility of the Sunni Islamist LeT group for the Mumbai killings is not in doubt. The captured gunman, Ajmal Kasab, admitted his membership of this organization, and described in detail the process in which he and his colleagues had trained in Pakistan, and set out for the attacks from Karachi, the capital of Pakistan’s Sindh province.
Canada’s Largest Labor Union Rejects Israel Boycott by 2-to-1 Margin
Canada’s largest labor union rejected a motion endorsing the movement to boycott Israel during its national convention on Thursday, by a broad margin that was applauded by Canadian Jewish groups.
Members of the 700,000-strong Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) held the body’s biennial summit online this week. Resolution No. 70 called for CUPE to “support the Palestinian people’s’ right to self determination and their demands to end Israel’s military occupation and colonization,” and to officially back the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Weighing the measure Thursday, CUPE members spurned the measure with 32% voting for and 68% against.
“CUPE members should be praised for standing up to the lies and intimidation of the BDS movement,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada, on Friday. “The passage of this motion would have inflicted great harm not only on Jewish and Israeli members of CUPE, but on all workers who benefit from trade between Canada and Israel.”
“CUPE has heeded the wise words of Tommy Douglas, Canada’s greatest labour icon: ‘The main enmity against Israel is that she has been an affront to those nations who do not treat their people and their workers as well as Israel has treated hers.’”
Commenting Friday, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said members voting against the resolution “chose peace over division.”
“BDS is an anti-Zionist, antisemitic movement that calls for the demonization and delegitimization of Israel and denies the Jewish people the universal right of self-determination,” CIJA said. “It does not stand for Palestinian rights.”
- Saturday, November 27, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
When BDS says that it was created by a call from "Palestinian civil society," or when the socialist Left complains that Israel is calling some "Palestinian human rights groups" fronts for terrorism, they try to give the impression that Palestinian society is a socialist paradise.
It is nothing of the sort.
While Palestinian terrorism had originally traditionally skewed far to the Left, with the most spectacular terror attacks of the 1960s and 70s coming from socialist organizations like the PFLP and its offshoots, the vast majority of Palestinian society is not interested in socialist ideals.
A new poll from the JMCC asked Palestinians about what should govern the Personal Status Law, and 72.3% of respondents said it should be based on Islamic Sharia.
More directly, the survey asked Palestinians which political party they would vote for in legislative elections. All the socialist parties combined - the PFLP, DFLP, PPP, FIDA - gather just 2% of the support of Palestinians.
The socialist Left is excellent at propaganda. They excel at making it appear that they have a groundswell of popular support. The entire concept of basing BDS on the call of "Palestinian civil society" which sounds very impressive while no one realizes it is on the fringe of Palestinian society as a whole is brilliant.
But when you support Palestinians, you are supporting people who show time after time that they support the most regressive positions in regards to social justice issues.
Here is an infographic I made in 2013 based on a Pew poll that shows the side of Palestinian society that the Western media ignores.
Friday, November 26, 2021
From Ian:
Meir Y. Soloveichik: The 1620 Project
Meir Y. Soloveichik: The 1620 Project
Four hundred years ago this month, the Mayflower set sail for the New World. On board was William Bradford, who would serve for decades as governor of Plymouth Colony and whose memoir is still the central source of knowledge about the colonists’ triumphs and travails. His grave is in Plymouth as well, an obelisk marking the spot and bearing his name. But above the engraved English words three words appear, etched in Hebrew: Adonai ezer hayai, the Lord is the help of my life. To most tourists, the Hebrew words are gibberish, but to Jews who come upon them, they are a source of fascination—and a reminder, 400 years after the Mayflower set sail, of the remarkable tale of America itself. The origin of the intriguing epitaph can be found in Nick Bunker’s fascinating book on the Pilgrims, Making Haste from Babylon. There he reveals Bradford’s fascination with Hebrew, and how, at the end of his life, he began to study what he saw as a sacred script. “I have had a longing desire,” Bradford reflected, “to see with my owne eyes, something of that most ancient language, and holy tongue … and what names were given to things, from the Creation.” With paper scarce, Bradford “copied out his exercises on blank pages at the front of the manuscript of his history of the plantation. He covered the white space with nearly 900 Hebrew words, starting with eight names for God.” Bradford’s Pilgrims, like the Puritans who would follow him, “wished to swim back up the stream of learning, and to absorb the wisdom of the Bible from as close to the source as possible.” They sought out Christian exegetes with interests similar to theirs, who “read with sympathy the rabbis of the Roman Empire, Egypt, and medieval Spain, authors whose books were preserved by the Jews of Germany or Venice.”Lyn Julius: Exodus commemoration is an antidote to denial
Bunker further reveals that Bradford’s engagement with Jewish tradition began on the Mayflower itself. One book he carried with him was a commentary on the Psalms by the Hebraist Henry Ainsworth. While Ainsworth was interested in the vastness of rabbinic tradition, he was in love with Maimonides, whom he called “the wisest of the Hebrew Rabbins.” Ainsworth cites Maimonides in explaining how Psalm 107 serves as the source for Jews to express gratitude to God after successfully crossing a wilderness or a treacherous body of water. Bradford’s brethren could certainly identify with this teaching, and his memoir, which references the words of this Psalm, recounts that upon arriving safely at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims expressed their own gratitude to the Almighty. The feast that we annually commemorate today would not come until 1621, but, as Bunker reflects: “If we could ask William Bradford to define the first Thanksgiving in America, he would point to something else. He would say that it took place at the instant of arrival, at the moment on Cape Cod when the Pilgrims fell on their knees to say the Jewish prayer.”
Bradford’s Hebraism set the stage for what would follow. The Puritans who arrived after the Mayflower were equally obsessed with the people of Israel. This was succinctly and sublimely described by George W. Bush in remarks to Israel’s Knesset: The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: “Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.” The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.
Professor Mohamed Aboulghar is a busy man—an obstetrician, politician and amateur historian who has published two books on the Jews of Egypt. Apparently, they are selling like hotcakes. At a recent Zoom meeting, however, his assertion that few Jews had been driven out after the 1956 Suez crisis, and that the rest had left of their own free will, provoked outrage.President Herzog marks 30 November
Some 25,000 Jews were forced out: Dozens of Egyptian Jews could testify to having been expelled at 24 hours’ notice, or interned for months and put on a ship leaving Egypt, their property sequestered without compensation.
As the saying goes, “denial is a river in Egypt”—but denial is not confined to the Arab world. Plenty of academics and opinion-makers in the West believe that Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully before Israel was established. Executions in Iraq? Torture in Egyptian prisons? Deadly riots in Libya? If all this was not a figment of the Jewish imagination, they say, it was “understandable backlash” for which the Zionists are ultimately to blame. (The Farhud massacre in Iraq seven years before the establishment of Israel, and the Tritl in Fez, Morocco, in 1912, are harder to explain.)
Jews who look back to their idyllic childhoods in Arab countries have themselves contributed to Exodus denial. Their golden age only lasted as long as the colonial era in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab nationalism soon marginalized and oppressed minorities. Other Jews suppress negative memories because they suffer from a kind of dhimmi syndrome, a survival strategy developed more than 14 centuries of “coexistence” that entails silence and submission.
This year, Israel President Isaac Herzog will mark 30th November, the date designated to commemorate the exodus of 850,000 Jews from Arab lands and Iran with a reception, live-streamed to a global audience and hosted jointly with Merav Cohen, minister for Social Equality, at the President’s residence in Jerusalem. After the formalities, organisations representing the different communities have been invited to join him for a tour of the residence, which was home to the President when his father Chaim Herzog was himself President.
The commemoration has a personal significance for President Isaac Herzog, as his mother Aura (nee Ambache) was a Jew from Egypt, born in Ismailia. Her sister Suzy married the great diplomat Abba Eban. The President has often mentioned that his mother’s family had fled Egypt in 1948, leaving all their possessions behind.
The Ambache family was among 11,000 Ashkenazi Jews driven out from Palestine during World War I by the Ottoman Turks, mostly because they were identified with the Turkish enemy Russia. The Palestinian Jews found refuge in Egypt. They were helped to resettle by the local Sephardi community. They joined other Ashkenazi refugees fleeing the Tsarist pogroms at the turn of the 20th century. Egypt was the only Arab country to host a Jewish community composed of both Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
From Ian:
Mark Regev: Anti-Zionism, antisemitism does nothing to help Palestinians
UN Watch: Protecting Human Rights
Mark Regev: Anti-Zionism, antisemitism does nothing to help Palestinians
THERE IS a lesson here for all the militant “friends” of the Palestinians worldwide. Demonization of Israel, unequivocal backing of maximalist demands and fervent opposition to any concessions, does nothing to help the Palestinians. Such positions only support the perpetuation of the futile hardline approach that created the Nakba in the first place.Melanie Phillips: Israel needs a narrative strategy. This is why
From Dublin to Durban to Detroit, those urging the Palestinians to remain steadfast and unbending, proclaiming their belief in ultimate victory, are peddling a lie. Every vector points in the opposite direction. With each passing year Israel is stronger; more powerful militarily, more influential diplomatically, more integrated regionally, more consequential economically, more sizable demographically and more advanced technologically.
There is no evidence that Palestinians will somehow be able to dictate terms, and by promoting a maximalist stance divorced from the strategic realities these “friends” are emboldening the intransigence that can only lead the Palestinian people to a political dead end.
Such an untenable position can have no logic unless the militants’ publicly professed solidarity with the Palestinians is merely a veil for the oldest of hatreds. Of course, charges of antisemitism often face a knee-jerk rejection, portrayed as an attempt to silence criticism of Israel. But to refute the connection between radical pro-Palestinianism and antisemitism is to disavow reality.
First, on the substantive level, anti-Zionist activists deny Jewish peoplehood and reject the Jews’ right to national self-determination. This while championing the very same right for others, the Palestinians. When you uphold a universal principle, but oppose it for the Jews, what is that called?
Second, there have been a series of documented cases where groups ostensibly established to support Palestinian rights have been exposed for being awash with antisemitic bigotry, Holocaust revisionism and Jewish conspiracy theories. David Collier’s 2017 report on the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is but one of numerous such examples. This is not a new phenomenon. In his autobiographical Once Upon a Country, acclaimed Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh describes being in London on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, searching for a pro-Palestinian event among what he perceived as being wall-to-wall British public support for Israel. When finally coming across such a meeting Nusseibeh discovers it is being hosted by neo-Nazis.
Finally, social scientists have found a clear statistical correlation between anti-Israel activism and antisemitism. When surveyed, hardcore pro-Palestinian activists are more likely than others to hold strong antisemitic prejudices, soft pro-Palestinian activists are more likely than others to be mild antisemites (see Jewish Policy Research’s 2017 “Antisemitism in contemporary Great Britain: A study of attitudes towards Jews and Israel”).
Israel needs to develop a strategy that shapes the narrative rather than – as at present – trying to defend itself on ground chosen by its enemies. Rather than merely responding to the onslaught, it should be constantly placing essential but rarely stated truths into the public domain.
It should be pointing out, for example, that there is nothing illegal about its "settlements" that are underpinned by international law. It should be calling out Western governments for misrepresenting the Geneva conventions in the false claim of "illegal occupation."
It should constantly be driving home the fact that that the Jews are the only extant indigenous people of the land. It should be publicizing the Palestinian Authority's Nazi-style portrayal of the Jewish people as bloodsuckers controlling the world – and pointing out that this vile agenda is actively supported and promoted by supposed "anti-racists" in the West. And so on.
Yet Israel has no such proactive strategy.
Understandably, it is preoccupied with the need to fight off the immediate threats to Israeli lives from its genocidal enemies bristling with weapons on its borders and on its streets. It's also frightened of not playing by the diplomatic rules and thus upsetting its friends in the west, however false they may be.
More fundamentally, it believes that trying to influence Britain or Europe, with their terrible histories of endemic antisemitism, is a useless endeavor.
This is a bad mistake. In Britain at least, many support the Palestinian narrative of lies simply because they haven't the faintest idea of the truth. And that's because Israel doesn't provide it for them.
America and the West ignore the reality about Iran or the Palestinians or the Muslim Brotherhood because they take refuge in the fantasy that the world is shaped in their own image.
Israel is in the unique position of being both of the West and at the same time of the Middle East. It is therefore uniquely equipped to educate the West out of this dangerous fantasy. That it chooses not to do so is a tragic mistake, both for Israel itself and for the world.
UN Watch: Protecting Human Rights
On Thursday, November 25, at 12 pm EST, UN Watch’s Fundraising Campaign continues. Hillel Neuer will speak about how we protect human rights, fight dictatorships, and answer your questions on the subject.
Mark your calendars and send your questions in advance to: campaign@unwatch.org
About the Campaign:
UN Watch needs to raise $500,000 by the end of November to ensure the continuation of its vital work. We are turning to our social media community to help us reach our goal.
We are only 1 week away and still need to raise $335,000!
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- Friday, November 26, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
The pace of normalization between Israel and Arab countries is, if anything accelerating.
This week we saw Israel and Morocco signing a security deal, Israel's former defense minister “Bogie” Ya’alon announced a new Israeli-owned venture capital fund in the UAE, American Jewish leaders are openly visiting Gulf leaders, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem wrote an op-ed in the Khaleej Times, and Qatar reached an agreement with Israel for the diamond trade, allowing Israeli companies to open there.
Any one of these would have front page news two years ago. Now they are happening every day.
Palestinians are alarmed at losing their Arab patrons, who for so many years they were able to bully in the name of "Arab unity."
This cartoon in Felesteen shows this antipathy with an illustration that would be considered very positive for Israel and very negative for Palestinians.
- Friday, November 26, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
In the early 1990s, the Internet Usenet forums were flooded by Holocaust deniers with long, detailed articles that purported to show that the Holocaust never happened.
For one thing, like the Holocaust deniers, the Arab boycott was explicitly antisemitic. It demanded that companies that wanted to deal with Arab countries answer questions about whether their owners or board members were Jewish. It blacklisted Jewish actors and performers. It extended into boycotting Jewish bankers in the 1970s. It didn't allow Jewish employees of multinational companies to set foot in their borders. Blatant antisemitism was not a good look.
This upset a lot of people, as most of the newsgroups were not moderated and no one could keep them out. Some would ignore them, some tried to create a new group where people could argue about the Holocaust.
Most people didn't notice that the antisemites were using the forums to refine their arguments to become more effective.
The points that were easily debunked were dropped, while arguments that could not be as easily countered were promoted and refined. Blatant antisemitism was reduced while pseudo-scientific arguments were improved in order to make the Holocaust deniers appear more reasonable and interested in historic research and debate.
In less than a year, the antisemites had managed to transform themselves from looking like bigots into looking like historians who were just challenging the conventional narrative. Without knowing the context of where they came from and a deep knowledge of the subject matter, their heavily footnoted papers appeared to have some legitimacy and could fool people who did not understand the nature of propaganda.
The so-called revisionists did not become any less antisemitic. They still subscribe to conspiracy theories where Jews are promoting myths to gain power. But by leveraging the nascent Internet, they learned how to hide their antisemitism better and present themselves as promoting a legitimate alternative history.
In many ways, this is the story of the movement to boycott Israel today.
BDS didn't come out of a vacuum. It is a direct continuation of the Arab boycotts of Israel throughout the 20th century. But the Arab boycott movement had mostly run out of steam by the turn of the century., and BDS came along to modify it and avoid the pitfalls that defeated the Arab boycott.
For one thing, like the Holocaust deniers, the Arab boycott was explicitly antisemitic. It demanded that companies that wanted to deal with Arab countries answer questions about whether their owners or board members were Jewish. It blacklisted Jewish actors and performers. It extended into boycotting Jewish bankers in the 1970s. It didn't allow Jewish employees of multinational companies to set foot in their borders. Blatant antisemitism was not a good look.
Another more technical issue is that the US passed laws against the Arab boycott. The Office of Antiboycott Compliance summarizes its goals: "These authorities discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from taking certain actions in furtherance or support of a boycott maintained by a foreign country against a country friendly to the United States (unsanctioned foreign boycott)."
US anti-boycott laws are specifically against boycotts by foreign countries. So BDS emphasizes that it is supposedly a grassroots, non-government movement, answering a call from "Palestinian civil society," to boycott Israel.
This is also why the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have not officially supported BDS, even though they encourage their own citizens to boycott Israel. (In 2018, the Central Council of the PLO did explicitly endorse BDS, but it is unclear if that has any official standing as a government body.) If they called on the world to support BDS, then the US anti-boycott regulations would kick in and US citizens would be penalized. The state-level anti-BDS laws are meant, in part, to counter the loophole that BDS exploited to ensure the campaign does not run afoul of US laws at the national level.
For its part, the BDS movement goes out of its way to deny any connection with the Arab League boycotts, saying "BDS activists are not acting in accordance with the Arab League boycott, which calls for boycott and divestment of any corporation doing business with or in Israel. Modern BDS campaigns take their cues directly from Palestinian civil society groups – not governments or political parties." This is directly to avoid US and possibly European sanctions.
The BDS proponents are just as antisemitic as their progenitors. Their movement is a continuation of the Arab boycott. Like the Holocaust deniers, they play up the pretense that they are legitimate players. Like the Holocaust deniers, they try to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors to appear more legitimate.
And as with the Holocaust deniers, those who see clearly see that they are just as antisemitic as they have ever been.
- Friday, November 26, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
At this time, Palestinian society is extremely worried about Jewish schoolchildren.
Israel is considering encouraging schools to go on field trips to the Temple Mount, and Palestinian media has been talking about it non-stop.
On Thursday, the main preacher at Al Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, issued a statement today about how Jewish schoolchildren visiting Judaism's most sacred place is somehow an existential danger Al Aqsa mosque.
Warning: extreme hyperbole alert.
The preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, warned today, Thursday, of an “existential danger” threatening the blessed mosque, as it was transformed into a lawless intrusion arena for students of settlement schools, as part of their compulsory tours.Sabri said that the occupation's transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a shrine for settlement schools is an attempt to promote the Jewish character of Jerusalem and end the Islamic landmarks in it.He added that the occupation wants to make Jerusalem the capital of the Jews, and accordingly it completes its procedures with the purely Jewish characteristics to say that Jerusalem is Jewish.He continued, "We've said before that Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger, but today it is really facing dangers."He considered the decision to include Al-Aqsa in the program of trips to the settlement schools as "a blatant interference in the affairs of the mosque, and an insult to its sanctity and its courtyards."Sheikh Sabri stressed that Al-Aqsa Mosque is above being subject to the decisions of the Israeli Knesset or the occupation courts, as it is for Muslims alone and by a divine decision. "We categorically reject the Israeli decision regarding Al-Aqsa, and we hold the occupation government fully responsible for any damage to the blessed mosque," he added.He cautioned about the seriousness of the decision, which violates Al-Aqsa courtyards, intensifies the presence of Jews inside it, and tightens the noose around Muslims, indicating that this step is in the interest of imposing Israeli sovereignty over the mosque.Sheikh Sabri pointed out that "these extremist Jewish groups feel that the atmosphere is ripe for them to attack Al-Aqsa Mosque."The preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque called on the people of Palestine and Jerusalem to "intensify the pilgrimage to the blessed mosque, and to reconstruct it permanently, to repel any possibility that we might be surprised by the extremist Jews."
Thursday, November 25, 2021
From Ian:
Hitler Intended to Eradicate the Jews of the Middle East
Hitler Intended to Eradicate the Jews of the Middle East
As German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers have detailed, Rauff carried out a “reign of terror” against Tunisian Jews that included conscripting 5,000 for forced labour. But with shipping to Europe under constant attack, Rauff could not carry out the larger SS plan to send Tunisia’s Jews to death camps in Europe.Giving Thanks in America
The Nazis’ intentions to carry the war against the Jews beyond Europe never wavered. Ultimately, though, defeat at El Alamein turned the tables and kept the SS from carrying out its plans.
Yet leaving north Africa and the Middle East out of Holocaust history has erased the suffering of many of the Nazis’ victims and obscured the full significance of the victory at El Alamein.
Early in 2021, I received an email from the scientist Michael Bevan, son of Lance Corporal John Bevan of the Second New Zealand Division, who fought and was taken prisoner at El Alamein. “My father always thought they were fighting to preserve the British empire,” he wrote, which for “a colonial was not a high priority.” Only in the winter of 1945 in Germany, when as a prisoner of war his father saw female slave labourers building an airfield, did he fully grasp “the evils he had fought to contain”.
Therefore, the soldier’s son went on, understanding how the Eighth Army “established the El Alamein line”, and thus prevented genocide in the Middle East, “has brought new and deserved honour to the brave men of my father’s generation, who fought and suffered in Egypt.”
For their sake, too, the story must be told.
When Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot, a theatrical salute to the power of love in modern-day America, made its debut on Broadway in 1908, it brought down the house. How could it not? The production’s melodramatic staging of New World promise had something for everyone—family tension, musical bravura, patriotism, romance—and a host of visual clues to anchor it. Act I, for instance, featured a prominently displayed American flag in the home of a recently arrived Jewish immigrant family—you couldn’t miss it even if seated in the cheap seats—while the drama’s concluding coup de theatre involved the Statute of Liberty.Patriotic Manhattan synagogue has celebrated Thanksgiving since 1789
In the course of their daily lives, America’s immigrants didn’t have too many opportunities to demonstrate their love of country in a forum that felt true, unforced, and from the heart. The Melting Pot provided them with one.
The celebration of Thanksgiving furnished the nation’s newest Jewish arrivals, as well as those of long standing, with yet another. The two communities took eagerly to this most American of holidays, both on its own terms and, most especially, in relation to what some of their number defined as its biblical pedigree. Long before the New World gave rise to Thanksgiving, the Israelites of the ancient Near East, it was proudly said, had celebrated a national “day of gratitude”: Sukkot.
Now and again, flag waving and Thanksgiving went hand in hand. Jewish organizations that helped to familiarize immigrant children and their families with American culture often made a point of linking the two. In 1900, for instance, New York’s Educational Alliance held a “special Thanksgiving service” at which 50 young boys and girls, each bearing two small American flags “crossed on their breast,” marched in formation to the head of the auditorium. One young girl, “slightly larger than the rest,” or so the New-York Tribune reported, then waved an equally large flag, after which the children “in concert” recited the following pledge: “Flag of our great Republic, inspirer in battle, guardian of our homes, whose stars and stripes stand for Bravery, Purity, Truth and Union, we salute thee!” No sooner had they concluded this verbal display then they were once again put through their paces by engaging in a series of calisthenics without dumbbells—proof, it would seem, of their newfound physical dexterity as budding Americans.
Even when it wasn’t Thanksgiving, much was made of Old Glory on the Lower East Side and in other American Jewish immigrant enclaves. At graduation exercises and comparable public assemblies, educators and civic reformers were given to extolling the flag in the hope that those in the audience would come to understand that it wasn’t a “mere piece of bunting,” but a benefaction. “Every time you gaze upon it, every star and stripe should cause you to reflect upon what it means to those thousands of our people who, driven from their homes by persecution, find actual physical shelter beneath its folds,” declaimed the Honorable N. Taylor Phillips, a highly pedigreed New York Jew (his forbears fought in the Revolutionary War) and a dedicated public servant, at one such gathering in 1903. “Order your lives that you will shed lustre upon it in gratitude to the blessings which it gives you.”
A patriotic Upper West Side synagogue whose leaders fought with George Washington has been celebrating Thanksgiving since the first president proclaimed it a national holiday in 1789.
As a modern and secular holiday, Thanksgiving celebrations are rare in Jewish houses of worship — but that is not the case at Shearith Israel, America’s first Jewish congregation.
On Thanksgiving day, the temple will feature a special holiday-themed liturgy, followed by an address by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and readings from a Torah adorned with Liberty Bells. An English prayer wishing good health and fortune on the president, vice president, governor, and other elected officials has been recited for two centuries. There’s no turkey at the morning gathering, but ample hot chocolate for parade watchers.
The congregation was organized in 1654 by Sephardic Jews fleeing the inquisition in Portuguese-ruled Brazil, and the members of the synagogue at 2 West 70th St. take pride in being not just the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States but eyewitnesses to American history.
“We were around when it was a Dutch colony, and the establishment of the United States of America, and the very first Thanksgiving,” Barbara Reiss, executive director of the synagogue, told The Post. “We felt it was important enough to incorporate that into our service and our prayers from the get go as a day of thanks as American Jews.”
The roots of the Thanksgiving celebration stem from Gershom Mendes Seixas, the temple’s hazzan and first American-born leader of the congregation. He was a devoted patriot of the American Revolution.
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