The expression "Funny, you don't look Jewish" has been around for a long time. It was even lampooned in the Beatles' cartoon movie Yellow Submarine which was released in 1968.
It is clearly the punchline for a joke - a joke that was so well known that the punchline itself could be re-used for other jokes and the listener would get it.
But what was the original joke?
I finally found it in an article about Jewish humor written for the Zionist magazine Midstream in the 1950s.
A lady approaches a very dignified man on the subway and asks him, "Pardon me for asking, but are you Jewish?" He coldly replies, "No."
She returns in a moment and apologetically asks again, "Are you sure you're not Jewish?" Yes, he is sure.
Still not convinced, she asks a final time, "Are you absolutely sure you're not Jewish?"
The man breaks down and admits it, "All right, all right, I am Jewish." To which she makes the rejoinder, "That's funny. You don't look Jewish."
The article includes some really good jokes that reflect the Jewish American mindset of the time: Jews were still discriminated against, but in the aftermath of the Holocaust, complaining about it seemed petty. Jews were assimilating, but still felt guilty about it and struggled between being Jewish and wanting to be accepted to be as American as a WASP. Jews could be self-deprecating but if non-Jews would make the same jokes it was obviously antisemitic.
The article itself is very serious, but the jokes are funny (and many would be considered politically incorrect today.) Here are some of them that I had never heard before.
A Jew is discussing the Jewish problem with a Gentile in the Old Country. The Gentile contends that Jews cheat and lie. The Jew replies that they really are smarter than Goyim and sets out to prove it. He brings his companion to a Gentile store and asks for some matches, but refuses them when they are offered saying, "These matches light at the wrong end. I want the kind \ that light at the other end." Proprietor: "I'm sorry these are the only kind we have." They then proceed to a Jewish establishment, where the same transaction takes place. This time however, the Jewish businessman shouts to his helper, "Moishe, bring me those matches from the new consignment." He hands over the matches, turning them around. Outside the store, the Jew triumphantly faces the Gentile, exclaiming, "See!" The latter protests, "But maybe the first store didn't get that new consignment."
An aged Jew, dressed in traditional East European garb, black gabardine, white socks, kaftan, with long payes, appears in a Deep Southern town. He is an immediate object of curiosity. A crowd assembles and follows him. After a few moments his patience is tried. He turns on the crowd and says in a thick Yiddish accent, "What's the matter? Didn't you ever see a Yankee before?"
Maxie was a terrible soldier: In basic training lie never cleaned his rifle. When he marched with the troops he seemed to have two left feet. He was always getting commands wrong. His company commander had little hope for him when they went into battle, but was surprised to find Maxie receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for holding off an entire German regiment single-handed while his platoon moved to a safer position, saving, thereby, many lives and an important military position. The company commander demanded of Maxie's platoon leader how he had managed this superhuman feat of leadership. Replied the lieutenant, "Why I just handed Maxie a machine gun, patted him on the shoulder, and announced, 'Now, Maxie, you're in business for yourself!' "
A Jewish gangster has been in a gun fight with police. As he staggers into his mother's East Side apartment, nearly in extremis, his hands on a big bloody wound, he gasps, "Ma, ma, I-I've been hit. . . ." Mama says, "Eat. Eat. Later we'll talk."
Some missionizing Quakers make great inroads in a Long Island Synagogue, converting a sizeable number of its members. This prompts the Rabbi to say, "Some of my best Jews are Friends."
The government of Israel is worried about its unpopularity in foreign countries. So Ben-Gurion hires a market research company in New York to find out why people don't like Israel. The company does an exhaustive study and boils it down to this, "The reason you are unpopular is because Israel is identified with Jews. We therefore recommend that you change your name from Israel to Irving."
A Jewish girl calls up her mother, and the following conversation ensues:
"Mama, I'm married."
"Mazel Too! That's wonderful."
"But, mama, my husband is a Catholic."
"So? Not everyone is a Jew."
"But, mama, he's a Negro."
"What of it? The world has all kinds. We gotta be tolerant."
"But mama, he has no job."
"Nu? That's all right."
"But, mama, we have no place to stay."
"Oh, you'll stay right here in this house."
"Where, mama? There's no room."
"Well, you and your husband can sleep in our bedroom. Papa will sleep on the sofa."
"Yes, but, mama, where will you sleep?"
"Oh, don't worry about me, darling. As soon as I hang up I'm going to drop dead."
Three Reform Rabbis are arguing about which of them is the most thoroughly Reform.
The first one remarks, "My temple is so Reform that there are ashtrays in every pew. The congregation can smoke while it prays."
"You think that's Reform?" asks the second Rabbi. "In my temple there is a snack bar. The congregation can eat while it prays—especially on Yom Kippur."
"Gentlemen," says the third Rabbi, "as far as I am concerned, you are practically Orthodox. In my temple, every Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur, there are signs on the doors saying, 'Closed for the Holidays.' "
Hamas issued a press release yesterday where they praised the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, for her remarks at a virtual UN session held by the Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on Tuesday.
Hamas said that Bachelet's remarks were "important and pivotal", as they "shed light on the continued Israeli occupation's violations against the Palestinian people and holy places."
When a terror group praises the UN's top human rights official, that indicates that something is wrong. And indeed, something is very wrong with Michelle Bachelet.
Her statement can be seen on video here. She speaks for about ten minutes, of which about nine and a half are about how terrible Israel is - starting with the May war in Gaza, which she claims was "directly linked to protests and violent responses by Israeli security forces — first in East Jerusalem, then spreading to the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory and to Israel."
She doesn't mention that Hamas and other groups shot 150 rockets into Israel on May 10, including Jerusalem, and Israeli airstrikes were responses to those attacks. Instead, Bachelet fully adopts the Hamas narrative that somehow Israeli actions in Sheikh Jarrah and Jerusalem were what caused the war to start - implying that Hamas rockets were meant to defend Palestinians, not attack Israeli civilians.
Bachelet has nothing bad to say about Hamas at all. She doesn't even mention the terror group's name.
The other thirty seconds that don't obsess over Israel (starting at 10:50) are almost all directed at Hamas' rival Palestinian Authority, where she quickly lists "assaults of journalists and human rights defenders, as well as intimidation; gender-based violence and harassment; excessive use of force; arbitrary arrests and censorship." She then briefly mentions that "the de facto authorities have also restricted Palestinians’ rights."
Unlike her allegations against Israel, she goes into no detail on these human rights abuses against Palestinians. Palestinian women are victims of gender-based violence? Who cares? Certainly not the UN's chief human rights defender.
The video is even more striking. When Bachelet accuses Israel of abuses, she speaks deliberately and looks up from her prepared notes and tries to make eye contact with the viewer. But when she talks about Palestinian abuses, she turns into a robot - she speeds up her delivery and barely looks up from her text. It is a checkbox for her - she doesn't want to be accused of bias so she throws in a little about Palestinian human rights abuses, burying it in her litany of impassioned criticism of Israel.
There is essentially no daylight between the positions of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and those of the Hamas terror group. No wonder Hamas praised her.
Like Hamas, the UN's own human rights chief proves that she doesn't care at all about the human rights of Jews. Like Hamas, Michelle Bachelet proves that the only time she pretends to care about the human rights of Palestinians is when she can blame the Jews.
In recent years, American universities have been appointing large numbers of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff with the intention of creating more tolerant environments on campus for students from all backgrounds.
The Heritage Foundation did a study of the tweets from over 700 DEI staff, and found that when it comes to Zionism and Israel, they are quite intolerant.
The analysis is somewhat predictable but still shocking:
To measure antisemitism among university DEI staff, we searched the Twitter feeds of 741 DEI personnel at 65 universities to find their public communications regarding Israel and, for comparison purposes, China. Those DEI staff tweeted, retweeted, or liked almost three times as many tweets about Israel as tweets about China. Of the tweets about Israel, 96 percent were critical of the Jewish state, while 62 percent of the tweets about China were favorable. There were more tweets narrowly referencing “apartheid” in Israel than tweets indicating anything favorable about Israel whatsoever. The overwhelming pattern is that DEI staff at universities pay a disproportionately high amount of attention to Israel and nearly always attack Israel.
While criticism of Israel is not necessarily antisemitic, the inordinate amount of attention given to Israel and the excessive criticism directed at that one country is evidence of a double-standard with respect to the Jewish state, which is a central feature of a widely accepted definition of antisemitism.
Frequently accusing Israel of engaging in genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and other extreme crimes while rarely leveling similar criticisms toward China indicates an irrational hatred that is particularly directed toward Jews and not merely a concern for human rights.
The evidence presented in this Backgrounder demonstrates that university DEI staff are better understood as political activists with a narrow and often radical political agenda rather than promoters of welcoming and inclusive environments.
Rather than promoting diversity and inclusion, universities may be contributing to an increase in anti-Jewish hatred by expanding DEI staff and power.
This chart summarizes the main findings.
Anyone who thinks that Israel is a worse violator of human rights than China is pretty much guaranteed to be an antisemite.
Continuing a historic trend, in 2020-2021 a segment of campus anti-Israel groups and activists engaged in rhetoric that incorporated antisemitic tropes, including those related to alleged Jewish power and control over the media or political affairs. While major anti-Israel groups state their opposition to antisemitism on their websites, they repeatedly appear unaware, ambivalent or defiant when their own rhetoric about Israel and Zionism becomes offensive or plays into antisemitic themes. More often, they deny that it is even possible for anti-Israel or anti-Zionist rhetoric to be antisemitic. While only a minority of anti-Israel activity on campus explicitly references antisemitic tropes, the large volume of anti-Israel activity ensures many Jewish students will encounter bigotry.
In addition to the use of antisemitic tropes and themes, anti-Israel rhetoric can become antisemitic when opposition to Zionism turns into the active maligning, exclusion and denigration of Zionism and Zionists. During the 2020-2021 academic year such a pattern was evident, in particular during the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflagration. Viewing Zionists as inherently nefarious and undeserving of certain rights can lead to many Jewish students feeling isolated and under siege. Moreover, the vitriol aimed at Jews who support Israel’s existence is rarely matched with energy targeting non-Jews, most of whom also recognize and support Israel’s existence.
Despite the swanky setting and the (mostly) maskless crowd in bespoke suits and dresses, UJA-Federation of New York’s Wall Street Dinner Monday night made very clear that the city – and even its most affluent denizens – still lived in the shadow of the pandemic.
There was an atmosphere of relief in the room, with the usual scenes of hugging, smiling and schmoozing that typify fundraising dinners. Hors d’oeuvres were eaten, awards were given and speeches were made.
But the ongoing effects of COVID pervaded the event Monday night at the Marriott Marquis in midtown Manhattan, and lent it an air of guardedness. Former mayor Michael Bloomberg received the night’s main award, and Stephanie Cohen, an executive at Goldman Sachs, was also honored.
But in the first speech, former Goldman Sachs CEO and current chairman Lloyd Blankfein made a point of reminding attendees how the pandemic has bared their privilege.
“The lesson of COVID that’s most pertinent to tonight’s purpose is just how bifurcated our society is,” said Blankfein, who emceed the event.
“So let me say, at the risk of being provocative and sounding tone-deaf, I had a pretty good pandemic, and most of my friends who live in the same bubble as me had a pretty good pandemic too,” he continued. “The market went up and we even made money. That is our bubble. But what about the rest of the world, the 99%? People in service jobs who had to show up or whose jobs didn’t survive the pandemic?”
I realize that standing up to your friends is not easy — and that’s especially true for young people. They have their antenna up against injustice, and that’s great to see. But on campuses across the country, if they want to be involved in social justice issues, they often feel forced to make a terrible choice. They can either defend their Zionism and be excluded from groups that claim to be progressive, or they can join these groups and turn a blind eye to them when they single out for attack the only democratic country in the Middle East and the only Jewish state in the world.
That is wrong.
We cannot allow a new generation of Jews to be intimidated from supporting the very existence of Israel — or to feel shame about their heritage, rather than pride.
So to everyone here, whatever your party, I hope you will recognize that as a people — and as a country — we cannot afford to let prejudice live within partisanship. We must call it out wherever it exists, and no matter who is involved — whether we hear it from Marjorie Taylor Greene or Rashida Tlaib or anyone else.
And as we do this, we should remind our allies of something Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of Great Britain once said: “The hate that starts with the Jews never ends there.” And of course, as the quotation on the wall of the Holocaust Museum reminds us, the hate that starts with others can end with us.
We have always believed that in America, “It can’t happen here.” But when lies are widely accepted as truth, when verbal and physical attacks on marginalized groups pass without condemnation, when wild conspiracy theories run rampant, when election results are dismissed as fraudulent, and when leaders in government downplay an assault on the U.S. Capitol and the peaceful transfer of power, we must recognize that, tragically, it could happen here.
America is increasingly becoming a tinderbox. And we know from history that small fires — if they are not extinguished — can grow more dangerous and deadly, and can even lead to the unthinkable.
Tonight, as the holiday ends, let us resolve to find inspiration in the unity Hanukkah celebrates — all year long. Let us shine a light on anti-Semitism, whenever it appears and whoever it comes from. And as we do, may God’s light shine on all of us, of all faiths, working to repair the world.
We can't afford to let prejudice live within partisanship.
Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who died on Sunday at 98, had a complex record on Israel but a much more clear-cut one on Soviet Jews, whose cause he championed as a senator and Senate leader.
“The freedom of enslaved people is America’s business, and freedom is a task we must apply,” Dole, a Republican and Senate minority leader at the time, said in remarks at the 1987 mass rally at the U.S. Capitol on behalf of some 400,000 Jewish refuseniks. “I will not rest, and you will not rest, America will not rest, until they are all free.”
Dole told the crowd that in his close to three decades in Congress, he had dealt with many requests from people who wanted help for family members seeking to immigrate to the U.S. “I’ve never had one ask for help to leave America.” The list of Soviet Jews who were aided by Dole includes the dissident-turned-Israeli politician Natan Sharansky and Evgeny Yakir.
He implored Gorbachev, who was scheduled to arrive soon after for bilateral talks in the U.S., “Let every last woman and child, who wants to sleep under the same roof with their children and their family, or say a prayer in the synagogue, whether it be in Washington or Jerusalem; who only wants the chance of medical treatment — let them go, Mr. Gorbachev, let them go.”
In 1985, when he was Senate majority leader, Dole introduced a resolution that called for an end to harassment and for the release of refuseniks. It read in part: “Americans are a people who have strong compassion for the oppressed, undying love for freedom and an unwavering intolerance of the deprivation of basic God-given rights.”
A few years earlier, in 1982, Dole and former Congressman Jack Kemp — donning yarmulkes — presided over a Jewish long-distance wedding between a dissident in Washington, D.C., and a woman seeking to escape from the Soviet Union.
This morning I sat down with my newspaper, my coffee, and my cat, to read that the IDF held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the completion of the massive and sophisticated barrier on the border (or whatever it is) with the Gaza Strip.
They call it an “iron wall,” 65 km long, with a fence that rises to a height of 6m above the ground and a concrete barrier below it whose depth is not specified, but is said to go deep enough to stop the tunnels that Hamas loves to dig. There is also a barrier that extends into the sea at its northern end. The whole system is rich in various kinds of sensors, radar, cameras, and even remotely controlled weapons. The IDF reports that numerous tunnels were discovered and destroyed during the construction of the underground barrier.
The system took three and half years to build at a cost of 3.5 billion shekels, or more than US$ 1.1 billion. That is a lot of money that could be used for many other purposes, but given the situation it was necessary.
There is nothing quite as frightening for civilians living near Gaza or on the northern border near Lebanon than the prospect of a terror tunnel opening up a few meters from their homes. In some cases, residents heard sounds of digging and voices speaking Arabic before a tunnel was discovered. Hamas had plans to kidnap civilians and execute mass casualty attacks through these tunnels, and during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, some 14 tunnels that crossed the border into Israel were destroyed, plus several more inside the strip.
You may recall that Hamas terrorists infiltrated through a tunnel back in 2006, attacked an IDF post near Kerem Shalom at the southern end of the strip, killed two IDF soldiers and wounded several others including Gilad Shalit, who was carried back through the tunnel to Gaza, where he was held for more than six years. He was ultimately released in exchange for 1,027 prisoners in Israeli prisons, many of them murderers serving long sentences. These prisoners represented both Hamas and other terrorist factions, and many returned to terror activities.
But barriers in general have not proven effective deterrents to attack, because ways are almost always found to bypass or neutralize them, as happened with the Maginot and Bar-Lev lines. And while Hamas may not be able to go over or through the new barrier, they can still launch rockets and fire mortar shells over it, as well as release incendiary and explosive balloons to be carried by the prevailing winds into nearby fields and Jewish communities. The inexpensive rockets, even when most of them are intercepted by Iron Dome, comprise an effective form of economic warfare, with each Iron Dome launch costing some $40,000 (usually at least two interceptors are fired at each incoming rocket at a cost of $40,000 each).
Just as the mounted cavalry was neutralized by the machine gun, and the machine gun made less effective by the tank, Hamas rockets are presently neutralized (except economically) by Iron Dome. But the advent of precision-guided rockets and drones can change the equation. Today we know that Hezbollah has some quantity of them, and probably Hamas has some or will get some soon.
The new barrier also doesn’t prevent Hamas from exporting subversion to sympathetic Arabs in Judea/Samaria and even among Arab citizens of Israel.
Those of you who regularly read my columns know what’s coming. Pure defensive measures, building the ghetto walls higher and stronger, can only hold an enemy at bay, not defeat him. And technological advances by the aggressor, like precision-guided rockets, can tip the balance quickly. The only way to defeat an enemy is by moving from defense to offense. So while defensive technology, like the barrier, may be necessary for survival, it is not sufficient for victory.
Everything I’ve said so far deals only with the tangible or kinetic aspects of the conflict. The psychological aspect is another story entirely. The message that we send to ourselves, our friends, and our enemies, by our reliance on defensive technology and tactics, is that it is if not acceptable, it is still understandable that savage Jew-haters will continue to bombard our country with the intent to kill as many of us as possible. And soon – this, actually, has already happened – many people begin to think that it is acceptable after all. We become the guy at the carnival who sticks his head through a canvas sheet and dodges balls thrown by the patrons.
For the sake of our national honor as well as to maintain deterrence, such a situation cannot be allowed to stand.
Hamas is a deadly infection, and it has turned Gaza into a pocket of pus on the side of our country. Walling it off is only a temporary expedient; curing the disease will require wiping out the bacteria that cause it. The danger to our citizens in the south and ultimately in the entire country can only be ended by crushing Hamas as a military and political force, which calls for an intensive campaign, including a ground incursion.
It’s sometimes suggested that if Israel destroys Hamas, then what will arise in its place will be worse. The answer is that in that case, we’ll need to destroy the replacement as well. It is also said that the expense and difficulty of ruling the strip in the event that there is no acceptable autonomous leadership will be too great.
But keep this in mind: in January of 2009 Israel was poised for a ground invasion of Gaza, which was called off after Tzipi Livni was summoned to the US and apparently given an ultimatum by officials of the incoming Obama Administration (the same one that supported Hamas’ parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt). Since then, we have found it necessary to have four small but costly wars, and to spend 3.5 billion shekels on a barrier – and the threat remains. What if we had gone ahead and conquered Gaza and killed the war criminals leading Hamas?
Or go back further, to 2005, before Hamas had control of the strip. What if Israel had not withdrawn, if we had not destroyed numerous successful Jewish communities and displaced 8,000 people? What would the situation look like today? Would it be better or worse? Would it have been more “costly and difficult” than a series of wars and the building of a massive barrier?
I think the answer is clear. Cowering behind the walls of the ghetto is a poor idea both practically and psychologically. Rather, we must bring Hamas to total defeat, like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas, a Holocaust film from 2008, is one I’d never seen before. I didn’t
really want to watch it. I’ve seen enough Holocaust movies to last a lifetime,
if you’ll excuse the inappropriate idiom. But like vegetables you eat for your
health and not your palate, I figured I was due for a serving.
Anyway, it’s not like one can really shy away from learning
about and remembering the Holocaust. Or maybe you can, if you are a non-Jew.
You can just choose to stick your head in historical sand and live your life
blind to the implications of so many millions of Jews hunted down, herded into
gas chambers, and incinerated into ash.
But not only non-Jews become ostriches when faced with the
catastrophe that is the Holocaust. Jews worldwide say, “Never again,” and then
do very little when actually faced with a huge spike in antisemitic incidents
and attacks as is currently the case. For this reason alone, the rest of us are
tasked with the heavy responsibility of refreshing our collective memories, and
continuing to educate ourselves on this subject. This work will never be over.
Watching The Boy in
Striped Pajamas is a part of this work, only because it teaches a lie. Which
is why it is unsurprising that The Boy in
the Striped Pajamas is on Netflix. After all, Michelle and Barak “randomly
shoot a bunch of folks in a deli” Obama, are hard
at work destroying long-accepted societal norms. They are getting the big
bucks to teach us that whites have privilege, America is not exceptional,
and the Jews are nothing special:
Back in 2018, the [Obamas] first signed a groundbreaking
multi-year deal with Netflix through their production company, Higher Ground
Productions. "We created Higher Ground to harness the power of
storytelling," President Obama told The Hollywood Reporter. "That’s why
we couldn’t be more excited about these projects. Touching on issues of race
and class, democracy and civil rights, and much more, we believe each of these
productions won’t just entertain, but will educate, connect and inspire us
all."
Of course, I wasn’t really thinking of any of this when I
clicked play. Netflix had shown me the preview; I had some free time; and I
realized that I had never watched this movie and thought I probably should. I
steeled myself for the “lesson” I was about to absorb.
The first thing I noticed was the lush cinematography. The
scenery and clothing are realistic, the colors rich. As time went on, I
realized that beautiful colors and fine film work can be as deceptive as it is
effective in strengthening the message a movie is intended to impart. In the
case of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,
that message is: Not all Germans are bad and not all Jews are good.
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas then, is one more in the pantheon of Holocaust movies calculated to
show good Germans where few to none would have or could have existed. The
movies are well made and full of pathos. The main purpose of these films,
however, is not to teach the Holocaust but to suggest that there were the same
number of good Germans as bad—and as many Germans who refused to serve in the
Nazi army as those who served, an outlandish and shocking fiction.
Watching these movies, anyone ignorant of what really
happened will be waiting for it: the moment where a good Nazi does a kindness
for or saves a Jew. Because that is what filmgoers like best. That is what
moves them. This is not, however, what happened in the Holocaust. For the
approximately 7 million (and still counting) Jews who were murdered, there were
no good Nazis, no good Germans waiting in the wings to save a Jew just so viewers
could pass around that box of tissues as they delicately dab their eyes (and
eat popcorn).
The Jews had no Saviors
The Jews had no saviors. They were murdered, their lives and
future generations lost forever. It is as coldly horrible as that.
But inversion of truth is a theme that is evident throughout
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The roles
are reversed, and a little German boy and his family are the victims. This is
what students are meant to absorb as they watch this “educational” film.
This is actually no different from the message imparted by the
BBC today about Jewish victims of Arab terror. The BBC works hard at skewing
the truth for its audiences. Typical consumers of BBC fare have no idea that
many Arabs are terrorists and that they specifically target Jews. The BBC has
told them, and they believe, that the Jews have no right to any territory
within the borders of the modern State of Israel. BBC viewers believe that the
terrorists are victims, and the victims, evildoers, because the BBC has told
them so.
Humanizing Nazis
“Humanizing Nazis echoes the trend of humanizing terrorists.
It serves the purpose of diminishing the brutality of their intentions by
claiming a justifiable ‘cause,’ says Dr. Elana Heideman, Holocaust scholar and
Executive Director of The Israel Forever Foundation. “As a result, one who
feels the humanity of the Nazi can examine the victims of that brutality with
increasing callousness, disregard and, specifically for Jews, increased
dehumanization.”
This kind of disregard for and even dismissal of the plight of the Jews is evident in The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas. The movie does not teach the Holocaust—instead it whitewashes genocide for an
audience so ignorant of history, it doesn’t even know it is watching a lie. Or
perhaps it simply doesn’t want to know, and prefers fiction to reality.
As I watched The Boy in
Striped Pajamas, I came to understand that I was not so much getting a
lesson on the Holocaust, as on the futility of war. This is galling, and a
misdirection. The Holocaust is about Jewish genocide. Look at it straight on, I
angrily told the screen. Stop co-opting it for your flavor of the month ideology.
Not that anyone would listen. Just as they wouldn't listen in my Facebook meme group when I asked them not to use Holocaust and Nazi terminology or imagery in reference to vaccination mandates and programs, or anything and anyone they do not like.
A Joking Reference
“Nazi, now a word used to refer to anyone who may
demonstrate some version of stringency in their behavior or attitude, has
become a form of a joking reference, removing the severity of the murderous
truth behind the name,” says Dr. Heideman. “The potential benefit of humanizing
Nazis would be if it were to teach others how easy it is for any individual to
give in to their basest human tendencies for evil and cruelty when the matter
of responsibility is taken away.
“Unfortunately, this is not the result as more and more
become enamored with the idea of power, strength, pride that the humanized Nazi
represents,” says Heideman.
Perhaps that is why we find Bruno so sympathetic. The little German boy, son of a Nazi commandant, is
the main characterin The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. His grandmother is against Nazism and war in general. Her punishment for speaking out is that she is
killed—though we are told she died in an Allied bombing. We know, however, that
she was killed, because her husband, a Nazi sympathizer, was there with her and was left completely
unscathed. This is one of many pointed revelations that Bruno and his mother confront
as they wrestle with understanding what is actually happening.
It is a very slow reveal. And no one who really knows the
history of the Holocaust would believe that everyday Germans learned only with
time that evil that was all around them. Even little boys like Bruno would have
known full well that the Jews were being hunted down and killed like rats. But
in the context of the fiction that is this movie, Bruno remains clueless
throughout the movie. Which is why *SPOILER ALERT* he blundered into a gas
chamber and died.
Bruno isn’t the only character who doesn’t get it. His
mother, too, seems to have little awareness of the Holocaust until it is waved
under her nose. His father, of course, is a prototypical Nazi brute. There
needed to be at least one. (Ralf is there to represent!)
The Real Drama Begins
It’s when Bruno’s family moves next door to a fictional
Auschwitz that the real drama begins. There’s a terrible smell. We see the
chimney of the crematorium belching Jewish smoke. Bruno’s mom figures it out
and has a nervous breakdown. The subtle message here is that “not every German”
took part in the atrocities. Some, like Bruno’s fictional mom, were either
married to Nazis, making it complicated for them to leave, or were simply
unaware of what was happening all around them. Which is simply not possible.
We learn that the maid and a handsome blond Nazi
soldier named Kotler are probably Jews under cover. They overact the part of “Good
Germans” and Nazis, in order to save their skins. One of them is unsuccessful.
Bruno, against his mother’s directive, goes to explore
what he thinks is a farm next door. He comes to an electric fence where he
meets Shmuel, a little Jewish boy imprisoned in the camp who is stealing a few
precious minutes of leisure. After they spend a few minutes getting acquainted,
Shmuel takes up a wheelbarrow and goes back to work. Which makes no sense. In a real concentration camp, he
would have had no ability to take a break to play at a fence. He would have had
no will of his own to resume work at his leisure.
The friendship between the two deepens on Bruno’s daily
visits to the fence, sometimes with food that is subsequently wolfed down by the Jewish boy.
The storyline as presented made me angry. What Jewish boy, in such a scenario, would have had the energy
to play?
Equal Danger
Also: instead of worrying about Nazi brutality, the viewer spends most of the movie terrified that one of the little boys will make a mistake and be electrocuted
at the fence. This is part of the lie that the producers shove down our
throats: Jew or German, it matters not. Both are in equal danger, both boys are willing to sacrifice everything--their very lives--for friendship (as if the Jewish boy had a choice or anything to say in the matter).
Eventually, Bruno risks his life to go under the fence. We
are made to believe this makes him brave. The little boy is not a Nazi, just a
regular German hero. But in actual fact, there was no such thing.
Bruno’s characterisation perpetuates the belief that most
German civilians were ignorant of what was happening around them. In fact the
general public in Germany and in occupied Europe were well aware that Jewish
people were being persecuted, forced to emigrate and eventually deported. There
were also many who knew that Jewish people were being killed. Many Germans
profited from the Holocaust as Jewish properties and belongings were
‘Aryanised’, which meant they were taken from their Jewish owners and given
instead to ‘ethnic’ Germans. A minority of German civilians resisted Nazi
ideology. Nazi authorities stamped out resistance to the regime quickly and
brutally . . .
As an audience we learn a lot about Bruno, so he becomes a
real little boy in our imaginations. However, Shmuel is only ever depicted as a
one-dimensional victim. Shmuel has no personality or individuality, so
the audience doesn’t build an emotional connection with him. This means it is
harder for the reader to empathise with Shmuel and his situation. . .
Shmuel’s story is also historically inaccurate. For readers
of the book it is clear that the camp is probably the Auschwitz concentration
camp complex as Bruno calls it ‘Out-With’. If a young boy like Shmuel had
entered Auschwitz-Birkenau then it is very likely he would have been sent
straight to the gas chambers on arrival, just like the majority of children who
arrived there, as the Nazis didn’t consider them useful as forced labour. A
small number of children were chosen for medical experimentation but these
children were kept away from the main camp. Even if Shmuel had been selected
for forced labour he would not have had the opportunity to spend most of his
days sitting on the outskirts of the camp.
The story’s conclusion leaves many readers upset. Bruno digs
a tunnel under the wire, crawls into the camp, then he and Shmuel go looking
for Shmuel’s missing father. Both boys are swept up in a group of prisoners
being taken to the gas chamber, where all of them are murdered. The emotional
focus of the story is on Bruno’s family and their distress as they realise what
has happened to their son. The reader’s attention remains with the experience
of the concentration camp commandant and his wife whose son has been killed in
what is portrayed as a tragic accident.
Because the focus of the story remains on Bruno’s family,
the book does not engage with the main tragedy of the Holocaust: that none of
the people in the gas chamber should have been there. Due to the way in which
Shmuel’s character is portrayed in the novel, his character doesn’t engage the
reader’s sympathy in the way that Bruno does. Shmuel represents the 1.5 million
children murdered by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the death camps
of occupied Europe and in the killing fields where millions of civilians were
shot into mass graves, yet the reader’s sympathy is directed towards a Nazi
concentration camp commandant and his family.
A British
study on student reactions to Holocaust films including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,
illustrates some of the main takeaways from the film:
"[The movie] made me feel more compassionate towards
both sides in this kind of issue between maybe Jews and Germans, although I'm
only using those kind of terms to, to categorise ... if anything, I've taken
away ... a grander understanding of not just the Jewish people and the problems
they faced but the German people and the problems that they faced, too, and
then these things coming together" (Peter, 26, dance practitioner).
"Yeah, pretty much, erm, don't let your kids climb
under fences ... I suppose, try to explain these things, like kind of bad
things in the world to your children, don't keep them in a complete innocence
... He didn't know what was wrong with going ... to the other side ... if he
had known, maybe he would have been a bit more standoffish but then you kind of
think, well, the fence, that, that whole thing shouldn't have existed anyway,
the concentration camps, so it's, it shouldn't have existed and he, like as a
child, shouldn't have to know about it, shouldn't have to burdened with these
kind of terrible, terrible events and emotions and stuff, so it's, it's, I
don't know, it's very hard to reconcile what I think towards the movie, I
think” (Sam, 19, student, when asked if he thought that the film held a "message for today").
The study author writes:
The arguably loaded question that I asked him, which
presupposed that the film does indeed have a "message", did not surprise
Sam. His response was immediate and detailed. It reflects what [some have] warned
of in relation to The Boy in the
Striped Pyjamas: that Bruno's death "becomes less a consequence of
prejudice and more a bizarre health and safety incident. If Bruno had been
properly instructed about the camp (as would have been the case in reality) he
would not have gone inside.”
Sam realised that this "message" is flawed as the
concentration camps "shouldn't have existed", but his concern is,
nonetheless, reserved for Bruno (as the one that should not be burdened) rather
than Shmuel. [Other experts have argued that "we are supposed to be
somehow devastated, along with the Nazi commandant that the wrong boy died.”
Among the English pupils interviewed . . . we similarly find
"a perspective of widespread German ignorance of the Holocaust" and
"a marked tendency to shift their locus of concern from the victims of the
Holocaust onto the bystanders and even, to some extent, to the perpetrators.”
It is an awful thing that the book on which this movie is
based and the movie itself are considered Holocaust "classics" and are used as
educational materials in classrooms all over the world. As more and more states
mandate Holocaust education, we must have proper oversight to ensure that what
is taught reflects the actual horror of the Holocaust. It is critical to ensure that children
understand that there were no good people saving the Jews.
The enormity of the
catastrophe deserves to be seen head on without historical embellishments or distortions. No one has the right to exploit and abscond with the Holocaust for their own purposes. No
one has the right to minimize or distort the truth.
AP has an article about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan chiding Israel by saying that it should show more "sensitivity" towards Palestinians, by - for example - not letting Jews pray in their holiest place.
A few paragraphs down, it mentions:
Israel, for its part, is upset by Erdogan’s warm relations with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Israel considers Hamas a terror group.
The implication is that only Israel considers Hamas a terror group.
However, much of the free world considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Canada, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States all agree with Israel that Hamas is a terror group, and Australia, New Zealand and Paraguay have designated its Al Qassam Brigades only as a terrorist organization.
Why would AP imply that it is only Israel that makes this designation?
There is really no way to look at this and not conclude that AP wants to downplay Hamas terrorism and subtly make Israel look paranoid for calling out Hamas for what it is.
And when a major wire service shills for Hamas, that should set off alarm bells for everyone.
A group of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton on Monday introduced a bill that would allow the US government to sanction foreign banks using the American financial system to facilitate so-called “martyr payments” to families of Palestinian terrorists.
“Radical Islamic terrorists shouldn’t be rewarded for killing innocent people, and banks should be held responsible for processing any sort of ‘martyr payments,’ Cotton stated at a press conference Monday introducing the new bill.
The bill, named the “Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act of 2021,” seeks to ensure “Palestinian terrorists don’t benefit financially for committing these senseless murders,” Cotton added.
The legislation builds on the Taylor Force Act, which was passed with bipartisan support in 2018 to restrict non-humanitarian US aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to make payments to security prisoners and their families.
The Act was named in memory of a former American army officer stabbed to death in 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv.
“The legislation has made a difference, but our work is not yet finished. Reporting has revealed that foreign banks in the Middle East in the Mediterranean, continue to process the so-called martyr payments, sometimes in US dollar-denominated transactions,” Cotton said. “They have escaped sanctions by avoiding an official US presence, while maintaining correspondent accounts in the United States.”
There is no set date or event for when the Second Intifada ended, with some saying the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip was the ‘end date’ while others say that the death of Yasser Arafat led Palestinians to stop the violence.
Ten years later, the 2015 “stabbing intifada” began with Palestinians – mainly youth – stabbing, running over and shooting Israeli soldiers, civilians and even tourists in a wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel. There were almost daily attacks in the winter of 2015-16 before the violence decreased.
There have been sporadic waves of violence since and all, if not most of them, were carried out by lone-wolf Palestinian youths.
Unlike during the first two intifadas, the challenges that the army faces during the current wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel are completely different.
The Palestinians who were involved in the violence during the first and second intifadas were much older than the average attacker that the army currently faces. The IDF’s intelligence-gathering capabilities have also increased dramatically since the prior two intifadas.
Another change that’s less apparent but just as important is the increased communications between the two sides which did not exist before.
But while the IDF does not consider the recent attacks as a significant rise in violence, or another “wave” of attacks, the military must admit that the lone-wolf attacker is a threat that they have yet to control.
Jonathan Schanzer: US Media Coverage on Israel is 'insane'
Author and Middle East analyst Jonathan Schanzer joins JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin to discuss his new book "Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War."
The two discuss how the myths about the conflict spread by Palestinian terror groups and picked up by the media have impacted opinion about Israel and how the conflict between Fatah and Hamas and their opposition to peace with the Jewish state is ignored by the Jewish state’s critics.
An op-ed in Kuwait's Al Rai Media by columnist Sultan Ibrahim Khalaf starts off with:
Zionists are inherently prone to be blackmailers. Perhaps the famous play "The Merchant of Venice," written by Shakespeare, gives the best examples of this bad quality that was represented by the Jewish merchant Shylock in the play.
This characteristic still accompanies the Zionists in their relations with the countries of the world.
Yes, Shylock is the ultimate blackmailing Zionist.
Khalaf goes on to use Israel's dispute with Poland over Holocaust restitutions as proof of the "Zionist" blackmailing nature, and then he says, "The accusation of anti-Semitism is used by the Zionists at any time and for any reason."
"Zionists" are genetically disposed to be blackmailers as is proven from a piece of antisemitic fiction. Even worse, they falsely accuse righteous people like this author of antisemitism!
Every week, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency publishes an unintentionally funny list of articles in the Israeli media that they claim show Israeli "racism and incitement."
Practically none of their examples ever show actual incitement or racism.
Examples from this week's edition include an article that quoted a Jew who lives in Judea and Samaria who says that there is a 50% chance of him being hit by a stone when he passes by the Al Lubban school. Another article in Israel Hayom called for a law against teaching terrorism in schools, in the wake of an Arab teacher murdering a Jew in Jerusalem and the discovery that he taught his students to hate Jews.
Perhaps the craziest example of "racism and incitement" was a TV report from Kan that described the recent unearthing of a building in Yavne from the era of the Sanhedrin immediately after the destruction of the Temple. The story showed evidence that Jews lived in the building.
To Palestinians, anything that proves that Jews lived in Israel before the 20th century is clearly incitement against them, because it shows that Jews were there before Arabs.
For more than two decades, Texan civil engineer Rasmy Hassouna was a contractor for the city of Houston. Hassouna has consulted the city on soil volatility in the nearby Gulf of Mexico – a much needed service to evaluate the structural stability of houses and other buildings.
He was gearing up to renew his government contract when a particular legal clause caught his eye: a provision that effectively banned him or his company, A&R Engineering and Testing, Inc, from ever protesting the nation of Israel or its products so long as his company was a partner with the city of Houston.
For Hassouna – a 59-year-old proud Palestinian American – it was a huge shock.
“I came here and thought I was a free man. It’s not anybody’s business what I do or what I say, as long as I’m not harming anybody,” he told the Guardian. “Were you lying all this time? If I don’t want to buy anything at WalMart, who are you to tell me not to shop at WalMart? Why do I have to pledge allegiance to a foreign country?”
A governmental entity may not enter into a contract with a company for goods or services unless the contract contains a written verification from the company that it:
(1) does not boycott Israel; and
(2) will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.
All it says is that the State of Texas will not do business with companies that boycott Israel or Israeli products.
It doesn't say that Texas has a "ban on boycotting Israel," as the Guardian headline claims.
Rasmy Hassouna can boycott Israel all he wants. He can protest Israel all he wants. His company can put a giant picture of a swastika on an Israeli flag in its lobby if it wants and still remain a legal contractor for the State of Texas. It is certain that his company doesn't have any bylaws that say "we will never buy Israeli products" so, as company president, he can even sign the provision saying the company doesn't boycott Israel without doing anything wrong.
And if Hassouna insists that his company must boycott Israel, then he can no longer bid on Texas contracts. The company would not be banned or declared illegal.
Is this a freedom of speech issue? No. Boycotts aren't speech, they are actions. Texas could say they won't do business with companies boycott Black-owned businesses without that being considered a violation of the companies' freedom of speech.
Texas contractors must agree to a host of other legal requirements to obtain business, like not being allowed to discriminate against others based on national origin, or not being allowed to do overtly religious actions. They have to display civil rights posters if they deal with clients. They can't discriminate against anyone based on sex, race, color, disability, religion and other criteria. No one says that this is a violation of freedom of speech. These requirements are no easier than asking businesses to say they won't discriminate against Israel or Israeli products.
The Guardian's anti-Israel bias could not be clearer.
With the BBC having doubled down on its claim of “a slur about Muslims”, and with more and more people listening to the video and failing to hear any such slur or indeed make out any words at all, disgust and dismay in the Jewish community are growing. Parents of the teenagers have accused the BBC of “demonising” their children. The Board of Deputies has called on the BBC to apologise. It said: The BBC thought that they heard a slur in English. What they were actually hearing was a distressed Jewish man speaking in Hebrew appealing for help.
Oh — and while the BBC website reported as fact a slur about Muslims can also be heard from inside the bus
(which no-one else seems to have heard), it described the antisemitic attack itself (which everyone watching the video can clearly see) as merely allegations [my emphasis] of antisemitic abuse directed at Jewish passengers on a bus.
Today, the ever-decent former Labour MP Lord Austin writes in the Telegraph: I have always defended the BBC, but can’t imagine an incident involving any other group being reported in this way. It needs to listen to people from the Jewish community and look at this very carefully. We can’t have people thinking that incidents of racism are handled differently depending on who the perpetrators and victims might be.
The demonisation of Israel leads to racist attacks against Britain’s Jewish community. Our national broadcaster should be shining a spotlight on that, exposing the racists and standing up for the victims, not bending over backwards seemingly to find an equivalence where none exists.
As Ian Austin rightly says, the BBC (itself no slouch, alas, when it comes to demonising Israel) has questions to answer about this. If it persists in its claim of an anti-Muslim slur from within the bus, it must produce the evidence for this that everyone can hear for themselves. Otherwise it must take action — and be seen to take it — against those responsible for what looks horribly like an attempt at moral equivalence between Jewish victims and their attackers to diminish the reality of the antisemitism that continues so brazenly to cover Britain in shame and disgrace.
A week is ample time to correct its report and apologise to the victims. That it has not yet done so is irresponsible.
If there's one thing white supremacists and the far left agree on, it's hating Jews
Why did the BBC insist that Jews who were abused during Chanukah must have incited the violence?
The sad fact is that for most Jewish people the idea of being attacked in the street isn’t that outlandish
Yesterday ‘godfather of grime’ Wiley was back spouting off about his favourite hate subject; Jews. In a rambling YouTube video, the British star, who was thrown off of Twitter and YouTube for antisemitism, but is back on both, asked, as if he had come to some amazing new realisation: ‘Why did that happen between them and Hitler? Why? Why did Hitler hate you? Exactly.’
Antisemites always think Jews deserve to be hated. It is baked into Christian culture – the Jews killed Christ and deserve to be punished. We may be a largely secular society but that view persists in some quarters. Perhaps its clearest expression can be found in The Great Replacement theory being spread by white supremacists. Coined by the French writer Renaud Camus, who has been found guilty in his home country of inciting racial hatred, the theory posits that because Jews fought for more immigration rights, feminism and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, they want to replace white Christians. It was adherence to this warped ideology that led a white supremacist to kill 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
On much of the contemporary left, Jews are seen as fair game because of Israel. Only the ‘good Jews’ – the ones who openly denounce the only Jewish majority state in the world will be allowed to be part of their ‘progressive’ circles and even then, they will be viewed with suspicion. For the hard left in particular, Jews deserve to be punished for speaking up against the sainted Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitism. Indeed, people with ‘anti-racist’ or ‘peace and love’ in their Twitter bios are still remarkably keen to tell me, a Jewish writer, that ‘the Jews deserve what is coming for attacking Jeremy Corbyn’.
So when a group of religious Jewish kids, who had been singing and handing out doughnuts in celebration of Chanukah, were attacked by a group of people in Oxford Street last week, while most people were simply outraged, some – including in a BBC newsroom – asked: ‘What did they do to deserve it?’.
*New*@metpolice published some grainy images of the suspects abusing Jews on Oxford St. We’ve extracted some clearer images from the video footage
Over 1/3 of American Jews have experienced an anti-Semitic incident. This issue is not about Israel, nor is it a political issue. This is a civil rights issue. Jew-hatred has now become systemic in the United States and we must put an END TO IT.#EndJewHatredpic.twitter.com/2mg9ymLmhg
Last March, 140 faculty members in Canada signed a statement against the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
As with literally every other criticism of the IHRA Working Definition, they do not mention that it explicitly contradicts what they claim it says.
We write as Jewish faculty from across Canadian universities and colleges with deep concern regarding recent interventions on our campuses relating to Israel and Palestine. Addressing all forms of racism and discrimination, including antisemitism, is imperative at this historical moment. Among the signatories, many share family histories profoundly and intimately shaped by the Holocaust. We write out of a strong commitment to justice, which for some of us is vital to an ethical Jewish life.
We add our voices to a growing international movement of Jewish scholars to insist that university policies to combat antisemitism are not used to stifle legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state, or the right to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We recognize that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a legitimate, non-violent form of protest. While not all of us endorse the BDS movement we oppose equating its support with antisemitism. We also are deeply disturbed by the upsurge of antisemitic acts in recent years which display painfully familiar forms of antisemitism.
We are specifically concerned with recent lobbying on our campuses for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. This definition offers a vague and worrisome framing of antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and that may be “directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property.” The most serious problem however is that the definition is tied to a series of examples of which many are criticisms of the Israeli state.
Notice that these people who claim to be mainstream Jews have a hard time saying the word "Israel," instead making up something called "the Israeli state."
The IHRA working definition says as clearly as possible that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It also says that the examples given are dependent on context. Beyond that, it states that the definition is non-legally binding.
These signatories knowingly lie about it.
If this group, and the many critics of the IHRA, really cared about antisemitism and freedom to criticize Israel, they would highlight the parts of the definition that support their views if - as they claim - it is used to silence them. But they support the idea that one should be allowed to criticize Israel out of proportion to criticism of every other state. They deny that left-wing antisemitism even exists. They deny that Arab antisemitism exists.
To them, antisemitism is the Holocaust, Nazis, the KKK - and not much else.
It takes a great deal of hate to create an organization dedicated to minimizing the definition of antisemitism.
The ironic part is that IHRA could support legitimate criticism of Israel. These efforts to quash it show that legitimate criticism is the last thing they are interested in.
People who really care about antisemitism don't try to minimize the definition of antisemitism, just as people who really care about racism wouldn't exert effort to limit what is considered racist. These Jews want to enable most types of modern antisemitism, not fight it.
The letter came and went with little notice but the faculty members' hate of Israel didn't disappear. So they now decided to create an entire organization dedicated to telling the world that they aren't that kind of Jew who supports the existence of a state that is a safe haven for Jews.
So they are relaunching their "network" that was already launched in March, and scheduled a press conference for Thursday.
Notice that they chose a name, "Jewish Faculty Network," to make it appear like they have the support of most Jewish faculty. This is especially ironic since they say as one of their principles, "we oppose the intervention on campuses that level spurious charges of antisemitism from organizations claiming to represent a singular 'Jewish community.' Not in our name. " Yet they are doing the same thing! Their claim to represent Jews is their very claim to legitimacy.
JFN is just another group of hypocrites who hide their hate behind claims of caring about justice, peace, academic freedom and fighting antisemitism.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
Weekend long read
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1) At the Misgav Institute, Arsen Ostrovsky explains ‘The Law Of Exploding
Pagers’. “Last week the world watched as the terrorist army Hezbollah was...
T...
Weekend long read
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1) At the Misgav Institute, Arsen Ostrovsky explains ‘The Law Of Exploding
Pagers’. “Last week the world watched as the terrorist army Hezbollah was...
T...
Making a Correction
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Researching for an article on the "Saison", I checked the Hagana history
volume and a footnote directed me to the Palestine Post and a column
entitled "R...
The transparent mob attack on the Jewish Chronicle
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Make no mistake, the Jewish Chronicle made a huge error in trusting a
source they should not have done. But as embarrassing as this episode may
be – the ...
One Choice: Fight to Win
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Yesterday Israel preempted a potentially disastrous attack by Hezbollah on
the center of the country. Thirty minutes before launch time, our aircraft
destr...
Yom Hashoah 5784 – 2024
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Israel’s Yom Hashoah began at sundown this evening with the annual ceremony
at Yad Vashem with torches lit in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of
the...
Closing Jews Down Under Website
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With a heavyish heart I am closing down the website after ten years.
It is and it isn’t an easy decision after 10 years of constant work. The
past...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
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Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...
Thursday, December 09, 2021
Elder of Ziyon
