Monday, October 29, 2018

From Ian:

WSJ: Amalek Comes to Pittsburgh
Eleven Jews were murdered Saturday in their synagogue. I knew five of them.
There are not so many of us Jews in the world—something like 0.2% of the population—so we pride ourselves on punching above our weight. We introduced some of the foundational ideas of Western civilization: the sanctity of human life, uniform morality, freedom, concern for the downtrodden, the weekend.

Sadly we are also above average in attracting evil people who hate what we stand for. This murderer, like all anti-Semites, resents the ideas that we carry in this world. Concern for the downtrodden? Who’s more downtrodden than a refugee?

The archetype for all anti-Semites is Amalek. His cowardly specialty was picking off the old, weak and infirm stragglers at the back of the Exodus pack. Saturday’s murderer was Amalek brought to life, as he mainly killed old and mentally challenged members of all three of the resident congregations.

For a couple of years, I was the head of a congregation that merged with Tree of Life; for many years I was a late-arriving regular at the Shabbat morning service that was attacked. I knew five of the people who were murdered. They were more than good and lovely people. They were the stalwarts who would show up on time and help out.

Rose Mallinger, 97, would always be there, sitting next to her sister. Saturday she was next to her daughter Andrea who, like the whole family, is possessed of a permanent smile. Andrea was shot. Rose was murdered.

Cecil Rosenthal, 59, knew my wife from childhood. He had special needs and a youthful exuberance. His younger, thinner brother, David, had a more serious mien and spoke less. He too had special needs. Like his older brother, he was murdered.

Irv Younger, 69, was a sweet man with a shock of white hair who would do anything that needed to be done at the shul. Murdered.

Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, was a member of Dor Hadash, a synagogue that rented space in the social hall. A family doctor, he escaped the initial assault and returned to help the survivors. He was murdered.


JPost Editorial: Never again
The shooter, Robert Bowers, has an active life on alt-right and antisemitic social media platforms, where he frequently engaged in Jewish conspiracy theories and trolled Jewish groups.

As the tragedy unfolded and Israelis became aware of the news after Shabbat on Saturday night, there was a sense of experiencing a death in the family. Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he would depart immediately to Pittsburgh, meet the local community and participate in the funerals of those killed in the attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message Saturday evening saying, “The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead. We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh.”

Opposition leaders like Avi Gabbay and Yair Lapid emphasized that although the attack took place in a Conservative synagogue, when Jews are targeted, the attacker is not looking at affiliations.

“If you are murdered for being Jewish, you are Jewish,” said Lapid, in a dig to those in Israel who do not recognize non-Orthodox Jewry as valid.

There is no Right or Left when determining how it’s possible in 21st Century America – built upon the foundations of religious freedom and equality for all, where Jews have enjoyed unprecedented opportunity and enjoy unlimited access to all forms of American society – that there are still people who are intent on completing Hitler’s Final Solution.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s horrendous attack, while the victims’ bodies were still warm and identities unknown, there were those who couldn’t restrain themselves from immediately pointing fingers.

Brendan O'Neill: The militarisation of anti-Semitism
And still people are downplaying the seriousness of anti-Semitism. Even now. Even following the worst attack on Jews in American history. Even after the slaughter of 11 mostly elderly Jews at a bris, the celebration of the birth of a child, at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

This time they are diminishing the scale and depth of anti-Semitism by pointing the finger of blame for the Pittsburgh massacre at President Donald Trump. No sooner had Robert Bowers allegedly executed his act of racist mass murder than anti-Trump commentators were describing it as the bloody offspring of Trump’s supposedly white-nationalist worldview and his divisive rhetoric.

This slaughter was the ‘inevitable result’ of ‘Trump’s vile nationalism’, said the Nation. Inevitable. ‘Trump didn’t pull the trigger on Jews in Pittsburgh, but he certainly prepped the shooter’, says a writer for Haaretz. Hateful violence like this is a consequence of Trump’s rhetoric, says British columnist Mehdi Hasan: ‘He preaches hate. He incites violence. He inspires attacks.’

This rush to blame Trump for a massacre of Jews is not only profoundly cynical, where the militarisation of anti-Semitism is pounced upon to the cheap, low end of scoring points against a politician people don’t like.

It also has the effect of whitewashing the true horror of anti-Semitism in the 21st-century West. It is in itself a form of apologism for the new anti-Semitism to the extent that it dehistoricises and depoliticises it by presenting it as little more than a function of the new right-wing populism.

It presents violent anti-Semitism as yet another thing unleashed, or at least intensified, by Trump and by the political turn of the past two years. And this dangerously distracts public attention – purposefully, I suspect – from the fact that anti-Semitism has been growing and becoming increasingly militarised for more than a decade now, among the left as well as the right and within Muslim communities, too.


  • Monday, October 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
This article from 1934 brings on a sense of deja vu:


Just like today, people were lecturing the Jews on how they need to act for their own good. If they act at all like a proud people who stand up to their enemies, then the enemies will get upset and it will be the Jews' fault.

It was all out of "love," though. Professor Cadbury had no doubt that he loved the Jewish people and only wanted the best for them. If only the Jews would listen to his sage advice, the Nazis would realize that they are making some innocent mistakes and will change their ways to good.

And if Israel would only make a few more concessions to the Palestinians, then they would suddenly become peaceful people and not demand anything more. 

Even though - for those willing to listen to them in their own languages - both the Nazi and Palestinian leaders say quite explicitly that they don't want compromise; they want total victory over their "oppressors."

I hate to draw analogies with Nazis, but this article sound exactly like so many op-eds and international diplomats today lecturing Israel on how to be more peaceful in the face of genocidal intentions. 

The analogy doesn't end there. The liberal Jews of the Reform Movement who hosted Cadbury were very sympathetic to his message. 


Just like today, liberal Jews are more willing to listen to the messages of their "friends" who rail against Israeli policies than to most Israelis themselves.

(h/t Bill Poser)





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  • Monday, October 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, issued formal condemnations of the attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday.

An official source at the Saudi foreign ministry announced the kingdom's "harsh condemnation" of the attack on the synagogue, stressing the Saudi authorities' rejection of such "criminal acts and their extremist ideology."

"The UAE extends its deepest sympathy to the families of loved ones affected by the unwarranted violence in Pittsburgh," said the UAE Embassy in Twitter, "We condemn hate-based violence against anyone because of their religion, race or beliefs."

The Jordanian government condemned the attack, calling it "terrorist", and expressed its condolences to the government and the American people and to the victims' families. Jordan also stressed its "firm position to condemn crimes of hatred and terrorism in all its forms and whatever their motives,",saying that "terrorism is a common enemy which threatens common human values."

Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Hafez expressed his full condemnation of the shooting, "based on Egypt's firm stance to reject all forms of terrorism, violence and extremism, including targeting places of worship."

Even Hamas condemned the shooting, saying it was a "cowardly terrorist act - and then he
"We, as Palestinians, as victims of Israeli terrorism, know the meaning of terrorism and its destructive effects."

You can say that. Because when five Jews were murdered in a synagogue in Jerusalem in 2014, Palestinians celebrated.

And  while Jordan officially condemned that attack, the Jordanian prime minister sent letters of condolence - to the families of the attackers!

No other Arab country, as far as I can tell, even pretended to be against that massacre in Jerusalem. Even though the victims were civilians. Even though it occurred on the west side of the Green Line.

Jordan's pretense to "condemn crimes of hatred and terrorism in all its forms and whatever their motives" rings especially hollow when that country continues to protect Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist proudly responsible for the Sbarro pizza shop bombing, and the kingdom refuses to extradite her to the US for the Americans murdered by her.

The Pittsburgh massacre is an excuse for Arab countries to pretend that they aren't antisemitic and that they are against terror. But since we see that they have nothing bad to say about the murder of Jews who are worshiping in synagogue in Israel, it is clear that these condemnations are for public relations purposes, and they really don't care.




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  • Monday, October 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
It is worthwhile to see how BDS has zero interest in academic freedom for yourself.



The American University of Beirut was proud to be hosting a major figure in moral philosophy, Jeff McMahan. But bigoted students disrupted the lecture because McMahan had lectured in Israel and is an (unpaid) adviser to Hebrew University.



McMahan, mild-mannered, said that he would be happy to address the students' concerns after his lecture, even saying that his position against the academic boycott of Israel makes sense in the context of his lecture on the ethics of war.

Students insisted on making their statements first, and the host (Arab) said that the way it works is that the guest lecturer gets to talk first, they can get to talk later, and "everyone gets the right to talk."  (around 5:00.) Immediately the students said "No!" at such an idea of everyone having the right to speak.

Some of the attendees objected to the interruption.

Soon the scene devolved into  pointless statements and meaningless chants (including "Death to Israel" in Arabic.)





At one point when the students were filing out McMahan said that it was very disappointing to him to see students act like a mob, which was responded to with more loud chants drowning him out.

BDSers consider this a great victory for their cause.

It is unclear whether McMahan was able to continue the lecture after the 15 minute interruption and walkout, but it appears he did.







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Sunday, October 28, 2018

  • Sunday, October 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today has a roundup of tweets of prominent Arab journalists and politicians, all bitterly complaining about Israel's national anthem being played in Abu Dhabi in the judo championships.




Some comments:

It is "a betrayal of Allah and his messenger."

It is "beyond normalization, which deserves condemnation."

"[Israelis] have protected their borders 70 years, may Allah take them out of their civilization...clear all the 'Zionists' and cleanse us of this abomination."

"Normalization:  to recognize the thief who stole your brother's house and expelled him and his family to the street, and you then open your house to him so he can steal from you and you and your family later."

"Teach your children that even if a sheikh of religion came and justified the normalization with the Zionists, it is still a betrayal. Teach them thateven if their ruler offers normalization, they betrayed their knowledge that the Zionist entity is illegal and rapes a sacred land."






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  • Sunday, October 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


The Democratic Party is sabotaging its Jewish constituency and, thereby, in some measure, punching itself in the face.

It has put American Jews -- who are traditionally among the most loyal Democrats  -- into the position of having to choose between a political party and our own families... our own people.

In 2008, I was part of the 80 percent of the American Jewish population who voted for Barack Obama. In 2012, I was not part of the 70 percent who did so. The main reason that I refused to vote for Obama in his second run for office was because I deeply resented his insistence that he had every right to tell Jews where we may, or may not, be allowed to live on our own ancestral homeland.

Despite the fact that President Trump is more supportive toward Israel than any president since Harry Truman, recent polling data shows that only 6 percent of American Jews are likely to vote for him for the 2020 presidency. This is despite the fact that Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is despite the fact that he is defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which literally teaches little "Palestinian" Arab kids to violently despise Jews. And it is despite the fact that Trump opposes Obama's "Iran deal" which assures a Persian bomb in what is now the short term.

My intention is not to make a broad argument for Donald Trump, nor is it to erect an argument for either the conservative movement or the Republican Party.

In fact, I am not mounting an argument at all. I am merely asking a question. It is this:

Why is it that of all the constituencies of the Democratic Party only the Jewish minority is thought to be morally obligated to sacrifice the well-being of their own children in deference to that party and in deference to progressive-left ideology?

The answer to that question has two interrelated parts.

The first is in the rise of democratic socialism on the coattails of Bernie Sanders. The second is in the rise of "intersectionality theory" within the universities and among the activists.

Democratic socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Linda Sarsour are increasingly coming into prominence. These young up-and-comers tend to be friendly with the likes of racist Louis Farrakhan, much like some of their seniors in the party, and generally favor the hostile Arab majority against the Jewish minority in the Middle East.

They also tend to favor "intersectionality theory."

The fundamental idea behind "intersectionality" in practice is that the world is comprised of the oppressors and their oppressed. Thus the oppressed must join together in opposition to the oppressors who persecute them through "White Male Privilege" and cold, hard cash. They are presented as oppressed in a common fashion grounded in "white" imperial racism and various forms of gender-hate. It is for this reason that they connect Ferguson, Missouri to "Palestine" because they see their concerns about both as derived from the same malicious source... you.

Furthermore, intersectionality has created a loose hierarchy of oppression with Arab men, strangely enough, at the top. Arabs and Muslims and "people of color" and Gay people and transgender people and Black people are near the summit of the hierarchy.  White women have actually dropped a few rungs in recent years, presumably due to their unfortunate association with white men.

The oppressors are generally understood to be white people, the wealthy, and "Zionists." Much of the American-left considers the Jewish people to be all three. I like to say that we have hit the politically-correct trifecta!

{Good for us.}

But this leaves those American Jews who care about their brothers and sisters in the State of Israel in a serious political dilemma. Those of you who are American Jewish Democrats or "progressives" are essentially being told that you need to choose between the Jewish people and the Democratic Party and the political ideology that drives it. On the campuses, if Jewish students dare to stand up for themselves and their people, they are shouted down as Nazis and shunned by many of their peers.

The irony is that those doing the yelling and screaming like to think of themselves as the ideological children of Martin Luther King, Jr. who's foremost message was that we should judge people as individuals, not as representatives of an ethnicity or gender. Thus what we are witnessing in the rise of progressive-left intersectionality is an ironic insistence that the Jewish people cease to defend themselves in Israel out of moral consideration for minority groups. And, furthermore, we are to do so based on a blatantly hypocritical political ideology that has given up its fundamental liberal core as represented by Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, why not vote Republican?

At least it may teach the Democrats not to take the Jews for granted.






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From Ian:

John Podhoretz: The Slaughter in Pittsburgh
The shooter is to blame.

The synagogue in Pittsburgh is called the Tree of Life. The name is a translation into English of the Hebrew phrase etz chaim. We sing those words as the Torah is put away on every Shabbat. They are words from the Book of Proverbs: “She is a tree of life for those that cling to her and all who do are happy.” The “she” in that sentence is “wisdom,” and the verse that precedes it is especially poignant in light of what has happened: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Today the paths of peace were befouled by a monstrous anti-Semite who stormed the Tree of Life shouting something about Jews needing to die as he murdered and injured and then shot at some cops for good measure.

In every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. In a classic act of anti-Semitic violence, which is what this is, Jews hear the echoes of every violent anti-Semitic act that has preceded it in history. And we hear those echoes because they are there. That which motivates Jew-hatred today is what has motivated it from time immemorial—the poisonously attractive idea that Jews need to be extirpated because our existence is an offense or a threat to an existing larger order. The blessing of Jewish life in America is that this notion has largely been consigned to the dregs from which today’s human malignancy rose. Despite the fact that most hate crimes in America are aimed at Jews, the actual number is vanishingly small—especially compared to France, from which Jews are now fleeing, and England, whose Labour Party is in the hands of an actual Jew-hater.

Because we are obliged by the sickness of our political culture to analyze every despicable event in a manner designed to confirm our priors, we have already, mere hours after the barbarity, sunk into a nauseating discussion about how much blame to assign to the president for this unspeakable act. The obvious answer is: None. Donald Trump should be assigned no such blame, even if the shooter were the president of the Donald Trump Fan Club, because he pulled no trigger and committed no crime. Period. To do that, to assign blame, is to whitewash the crime itself and the criminal’s responsibility for it. He becomes a cultural robot, seized by an evil collective unconscious that drove him to his crimes.

Based on the early evidence, the shooter was not only consumed with a hatred of Jews but possessed a kind of sneering contempt for Trump on the grounds that Trump was basically a Jewish agent or a Jew-lover himself. Trump can only be blamed for the murderous Jew-killing actions of someone who thought of him that way by people who are so consumed by hatred of him that there is nothing they won’t blame him for.

Ben Shapiro: Why We Cling To The Tree Of Life
In that Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday morning, the Jew-hating murderer rushed into a room in which a brit milah was taking place: a circumcision ceremony, a ceremony as old as the Jewish people, a ceremony welcoming an eight-day-old child into the community of the Jews. In other parts of the synagogue, different minyanim were reading the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac on a mountain.

Why would Jews continue to inaugurate children into the most targeted community in human history? Jewish destiny may be inescapable, but why embrace that destiny? The members of the Tree of Life Synagogue were shot to death in a synagogue. So why continue to cluster in synagogues, fulfilling age-old commandments, the elderly passing down their traditions to infants?

Because, as the Tree of Life Synagogue’s name attests, the Torah – the Jewish destiny – is a “tree of life for all those who cling to it.” (Proverbs 3:18) And we are enjoined to choose life. That, after all, is the story of Abraham and Isaac: a story not of God asking Abraham to kill his son, but a story of God asking if Abraham is willing to place his son in mortal danger in service to God – and God’s grace in saving Isaac thanks to Abraham’s commitment. That is the story of the Jewish people. That is the story members of the Tree of Life Synagogue were reading as they died al kiddush Hashem, in the sanctification of God’s name.

And that is the story of our civilization. An attack on the Tree of Life is an attack on all of us – those of us who wish to imbue our own children with a sense of Godliness in a dark world, a sense of eternal value in a society eating away at itself. Inside the sanctuary, all was peaceful on the Sabbath -- until the gunshots rang out.

The only proper response is the same response Jews have given throughout time: to fight back. To stubbornly cling to that which stamps us with the image of God. To fight darkness with light, untruth with truth, and death with life.
Victor Rosenthal: Thoughts after a mass murder of Jews
I lived in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood for a few months when I was in grad school. It was a nice, safe, relatively friendly neighborhood.

Now it will be known as the site of the worst mass murder of Jews in US history.

Eleven are dead and numerous others wounded, including four responding police officers. The terrorist, Robert Bowers, as shown by this archive of social media posts, is apparently an obsessed Jew-hater, a Holocaust denier and a Nazi admirer. He appears to have become inflamed by the idea that liberal Jews were supporting uncontrolled immigration into the US (he mentions both Hispanics and Muslims), in particular the “migrant caravan” that is presently making its way through Mexico. Interestingly, Bowers criticized Donald Trump for being “a globalist, not a nationalist,” said that Trump was surrounded by Jews, and that he did not vote for him.

His decision to act seems to have been triggered by an event held in Pittsburgh by the HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), an organization that once brought Jewish refugees out of Europe, but now works to resettle refugees from Syria, Central America, and even Africans in Tel Aviv.

There have been various, mostly predictable, popular responses to this atrocious act. Many, if not most, miss the point. So here is what I think:

This is nothing new. Synagogues and other Jewish institutions around the world and in the US are attacked all the time. Attacks in the US have been carried out by both neo-Nazi and Islamic extremists, and their number has been increasing along with polarization and anger in the country.

Bowers was “ideologically insane.” One common theme among extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists is that Jews, especially George Soros, are trying to destroy the “white race” in America by introducing non-white immigrants. They will then take over (although they are already in charge by means of controlling politicians, even Trump), or they will somehow make a lot of money out of the collapse of the nation. Bowers seems to have believed some version of this. Social media seems to feed this kind of insanity, which often erupts into violence.

  • Sunday, October 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Israel won the gold medal in Abu Dhabi for judo.

One doesn't see the Hatikva played in an Arab country too often - or hearing it get applause.








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  • Sunday, October 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


The news from Gulf countries continues to astound:

Oman described Israel as an accepted Middle East state on Saturday, a day after hosting a surprise visit by its prime minister that Washington said could help regional peace efforts.

Oman is offering ideas to help Israel and the Palestinians to come together but is not acting as mediator, Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the sultanate’s minister responsible for foreign affairs, told a security summit in Bahrain.

“Israel is a state present in the region, and we all understand this,” bin Alawi said.

“The world is also aware of this fact. Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same (as others states) and also bear the same obligations.”

His comments followed a rare visit to Oman by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which came days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paid a three-day visit to the Gulf country. Both leaders met with Oman’s Sultan Qaboos.

“We are not saying that the road is now easy and paved with flowers, but our priority is to put an end to the conflict and move to a new world,” bin Alawi told the summit.

Oman is relying on the United States and efforts by President Donald Trump in working toward the “deal of the century” (Middle East peace), he added.

Bahrain’s foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa voiced support for Oman over the sultanate’s role in trying to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace, while Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said the kingdom believes the key to normalizing relations with Israel was the peace process.
For all the people who love to demonize Netanyahu as a warmonger, how do you explain that Israel has warmer relations with Arab states than at any time in its history?





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  • Sunday, October 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Over the weekend, 3 Israelis won bronze medals at the Abu Dhabi Judo Grand Slam. This was the first time they were allowed to compete under their own flag in Abu Dhabi; the International Judo Federation had temporarily suspended the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam after it refused to  acknowledge the nationality of the Israeli athletes last year.

On Friday night, the athletes welcomed the Shabbat along with Sports Minister Miri Regev who was the first Israeli minister to officially visit Abu Dhabi.




This was picked up by Palestinian Arab media. Al Resalah was disgusted by the scene, saying that the Jews had brought alcohol into the Muslim country for "so-called 'Holy Saturday'":


In all probability, the kiddush was made over grape juice, not wine. (Muslims are divided as to whether grape juice that is older than three days old is allowed under sharia law, but if it isn't fermented, it should be allowed at least theoretically.)


(h/t Yoel)




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If you’re blaming one person, one party, one movement for anti-Semitism, you really don’t understand the problem.
Jonathan Schanzer, Twitter


This past Shabbos a vicious Antisemite entered the Tree of Life Synagogue - where he shot and killed 11 Jews.

Photo
Tree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh. From their website

At issue is the spread of rabid Antisemitism, not only globally...


but now in the US
The attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday morning is the worst on worshiping Jewish people in American history, according to a Cincinnati professor and director of the American Jewish Archives.

"This is the first time in all American history that Jewish people apparently have been murdered while worshiping," said Gary Zola, who also teaches the American Jewish experience at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati [emphasis added].
The ADL has also described the "Pittsburgh shooting likely deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history" the deadliness of Antisemitism has now reached the level of Europe,  and he talks about the "Europeanization of American Jewry":
according to Joel Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism,
Relatively lax security at American synagogues “simultaneously impressed and worried me,” said Rubinfeld, who visits the United States frequently and whose community and country have seen several major deadly terrorist attacks in recent years.

“In Europe, the prospect of deadly expressions of anti-Semitism is a part of life that we grow up with,” said Rubinfeld, who was present at the Grand Synagogue of Brussels when a terrorist shot four people there on Rosh Hashanah of 1982, wounding two of them seriously and the other two lightly. “I used to think this was a fundamental difference to the United States, but no more.”

The Pittsburgh shooting “will be a turning point for American Jews, who will need to reevaluate the vulnerability of their institutions” Rubinfeld said. “I think we’ll see a Europeanization of American Jewry in this respect.”

Currently, Jewish institutions are guarded by soldiers toting machine guns in Belgium and France, among other European countries, making an attack like the one in Pittsburgh “quite difficult,” Rubinfeld said. [emphasis added]
Meanwhile, in New York City...


This is a sight we are used to seeing elsewhere.

In France

photo
French soldiers guard the entrance to a Paris synagogue. Source: Arutz Sheva. Credit: Serge Attal / Flash 90

In Denmark:

photo
Danish soldiers replace the police guard outside the Jewish Synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, on September 29, 2017. Source: The National. Credit: Mads Claus Rasmussen / Denmark OUT/AFP

In Great Britain:

photo
Protection: Thousands support calls for armed security outside Jewish buildings in the UK. Source: The Evening Standard. Credit: PA

Condemnations of the attack were not slow in coming.
Jews, of course, were among those condemning the attacks.

But just who were they condemning?

Here is just a sampling of whom some Jews held responsible for the murder of 11 Jews:

From The Forward, on the very same day:
o  What Has Trump Done To Us, America? by Jane Eisner, Editor-in-Chief of The Forward
o  How Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Hate Led To A Synagogue Shootingby Ari Ne'eman, described as a writer and activist
o  Will Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Be A Wakeup Call For Jews Who Enable Trump? by Ben Faulding, described as a writer and social activist

But Trump wasn't the only target.
Here are Tweets by Jews who blamed other Jews -- and some even suggested going after them:

Here is a tweet by Julia Ioffe, a correspondent for GQ:


Here is a tweet by a Rabbi Mivasair, who describes himself as "Active in peace, justice; 4 yrs in Israel-Palestine" -- in response to Naftali Bennett announcing he is traveling to Pittsburgh to show solidarity:



Here is a tweet by Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East analyst and negotiator in both Republican and Democratic Administrations, who is normally more level-headed.


This is from Franklin Foer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, who offers a prayer for the murdered Jews -- and then suggests going after other Jews.


Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of Truah, took the opportunity to tweet she agrees with Foer about shunning Jews who support Trump and even thanked him for the idea -- but then thought better of the idea and deleted the tweet, with neither comment or apology.


Here is a tweet from Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace which is responsible for so much of the anti-Jewish hatred that permeates college campuses.

Regardless of her motives, even she knew better:

The anti-Trump rhetoric has already reached fever pitch, so naturally, it feeds on tragedies like this.

We expect it.

But when a tragedy that should lead Jews to unite instead leads Jews to turn against other Jews, that is worse than a tragedy; it is a disaster.




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Saturday, October 27, 2018

From Ian:

Yelling ‘all Jews must die,’ gunman kills 8 at Pittsburgh synagogue
Eight people have been confirmed dead in a shooting on Saturday at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, according to CBS Pittsburgh.

The gunman is said to have yelled “All Jews must die” as he entered the Tree of Life Synagogue, a Conservative congregation, in the city and began firing, local media reported. He engaged in a shootout with responding police officers and barricaded himself inside the building before reportedly surrendering. He is said to be injured.

KDKA-TV, a local news stations, said its sources identified the suspect as Robert Bowers, a white male in his 40s. He is said to have written anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant conspiracies on Gab, an alt-right social network similar to Twitter. His last reported message read: “HIAS likes to bring invaders to kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

HIAS is an American-Jewish nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid to refugees and immigrants.

Bowers’ Gab bio read: “Jews are the children of Satan.”

An unknown number of people were also injured in the shooting, among them police officers, according to authorities.

The synagogue is located at the corner of Wilkins and Shady Avenues in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, about 10 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh. The neighborhood is heavily Jewish.
Netanyahu: ‘Heartbroken and appalled’ by Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday evening that he was ‘heartbroken and appalled by the murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue today,” in which eight people have been confirmed dead.

“The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead,” Netanyahu said in a video message. “We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh we stand together with the American people in the face of this horrendous antisemitic brutality and we all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.”

President Reuven Rivlin, as well as ministers and politicians from across the political spectrum, also responded with shock and outrage at the news of the mass shooting.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the events in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We are thinking of the families of those who were murdered and praying for the quick recovery of those who were injured” Rivlin said in a statement.

“I am sure that the law enforcement agencies and the legal authorities in the US will investigate this horrific event thoroughly and that justice will be served to the despicable murderer,” he added.
A shaken Pittsburgh Jewish community grapples with shooting tragedy
Michael Eisenberg was walking from his home in the leafy Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill Saturday morning to synagogue services to the Tree of Life Congregation, where he is a past president. Then his cellphone rang.

It was one of the synagogue’s vice presidents who works for the city’s emergency management. “He said he just got word that there’s an active shooter scene at Tree of Life,” Eisenberg told reporters. “‘Go up there and see if this is true.’ I only live a block away from the synagogue. I tried to get up Shady Avenue. There were police cars everywhere. There were guns drawn, rifles. It was surreal.”

Around 10 am local time, a gunman entered the Pittsburgh synagogue during Shabbat services and opened fire, killing multiple people and wounding three police officers. The suspect surrendered an hour later and was in custody by noon, according to the Associated Press.

Police warned neighborhood residents to stay indoors. The local broadcast station KDKA reported that officers confronted the gunman outside the synagogue. During the standoff, the suspect spoke multiple times about killing Jews, according to KDKA. “All Jews must die,” he yelled.

News of the tragedy immediately sparked national outrage. US President Donald Trump tweeted that the shooting was “far more devastating than originally thought.” He said he told the Pittsburgh mayor and Pennsylvania governor that “the Federal Government has been, and will be, with them all the way.”

Meanwhile, members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community were still processing the reality of nightmare they long prepared for but never thought would happen.

Eisenberg told a televised press gaggle outside the synagogue that, when he was president of Tree of Life, they collaborated with federal and local law enforcement for the possibility of an attack.
Synagogue shooter identified as 46 year-old Robert Bowers
The man responsible for Saturday's grisly shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue has been identified as 46-year-old Robert Bowers.

Bowers reportedly yelled "All Jews must die" during the attack. Before entering the synagogue, Bowers tweeted that "I can't wait while my people are getting slaughtered....I'm going in". Bower's social media was rife with anti-Semitic comments.

Over 80 people were in the building during the shooting, which happened during a Jewish circumcision ceremony. Eight people were killed and three police officers were injured. Bowers later surrendered to law enforcement.

The attack was condemned by President Trump, who tweeted that he is "Watching the events unfolding in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement on the scene. People in the Squirrel Hill area should remain sheltered. Looks like multiple fatalities. Beware of active shooter. God Bless All!"

Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett condemned Saturday's grisly shooting, tweeting that "The State of Israel and the Israeli government received with shock and pain the reports of the terrible attack on the Jewish community in Pittsburgh. We anxiously follow the reports and pray that the event will end soon."
Hamas fires 30 rockets at Israel's south, IDF strikes 80 targets in Gaza
Thirty Hamas rockets were fired on Israel and 10 were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, IDF Spokesperson reported. Two rockets fell in the Gaza Strip and 18 landed in open areas.

Sirens sounded 11 times in the area over Friday night and Saturday morning. Following the sirens, medics and MDA paramedics gave medical treatment to seven victims at the site. A 53-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy were in very mild condition after being injured on the limbs while running to a bomb shelter.

According to reports received during the night, the IDF attacked 80 targets in Gaza.

Palestinians reported attacks by the Israeli Air Force in the south of Rafah and at Hamas' naval base west to Gaza City. An explosion was heard in Khan Yunis.

In Gaza, Hamas headquarters were evacuated in anticipation of another attack by the Air Force.

"The IDF has acted with force against terrorist activity and is determined to defend the residents of Israel and will continue to act in their defense," the IDF Spokesman said.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, threatened Israel in a statement, "Al-Qassam is ready to strike at all of occupied Palestine with thousands of missiles if the campaign begins."

  • Saturday, October 27, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I'm reading various account and commentaries of the horrific shooting and massacre of Jews in synagogue in Pittsburgh today, and everyone is putting up their own political spin on the event. It is expected - and disgusting.

The suspect didn't target Jews because of "occupation" or because he was a Trump supporter (he wasn't) or because he had access to guns or because any Jews did anything to him personally. He is just an antisemite who is not sophisticated enough to couch his hate in terms like "anti-Zionist" or "anti-capitalist" or "pro-justice" or any other of the dozens of terms used nowadays to make Jew-hatred a little more palatable.

There are more crimes targeting Jews in America than crimes targeting all other religions combined. There is no common thread - the far-Left hates Jews, the far-Right hates Jews. Muslim Jew-hatred is "understood" and downpedaled by the Left. And people will be gleeful that today's murderer identifies with the far-Right, just as the Right will disavow their role in emboldening the hate on their side.

Antisemitism is not like other hates. There is no logic behind it, no justification for it. Jews aren't allowed to be in "our country" but are not allowed to be in their own country either.  Assimilated Jews are as much targeted as religious Jews. Jews are vilified by extremists of all stripes.

Stop using this massacre as an excuse to pin this on ideological and political enemies. Every group has Jew-hatred associated with them in one way or another. If you truly care about Jew-hatred, root out antisemitism from among the groups that you identify with.

Don't pretend it isn't there....because it is.




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Friday, October 26, 2018

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How the West has created antisemitism denial
Among Democrats, it is commonplace to compare US President Donald Trump to Hitler and the Republicans to Nazis.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price produced an ad for the mid-term Congressional elections next month in which he compared Trump to Hitler.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Democratic Representative Yvette Clarke stood in front of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Manhattan and declared: “We are standing in front of a building that has become the headquarters for the Gestapo of the United States of America.”

Even Jewish Democrats are guilty of this. Democratic Representative Stephen Cohen was forced to apologize after he likened the Republicans’ promotion of healthcare policy to the propaganda of Hitler’s henchman Joseph Goebbels.

If everyone’s a Nazi, the real Nazis stop being uniquely evil. They become instead Everyman. Thus the Holocaust is traduced, bad people get a free pass and the innocent are demonized.

The impulse behind Holocaust education and memorializing was noble and understandable. But it missed something crucial.

This was the need to teach the world about Jewish history in both the land of Israel and the Diaspora; to teach the world what it has done to the Jews over the course of recorded time; to teach the world how Judaism itself embodies a unique and unbreakable connection between the people, the religion and the land.

Judaism lies at the heart of western values. Yet it has been misrepresented and demonized by Christianity, Islam and secularism. It is that continuing ignorance and bigotry over Judaism itself which fuels the demonization of Israel, the misreading of the Holocaust and the return of open antisemitism.

In a culture framed by Holocaust memorializing, the West has itself become the avatar of antisemitism denial.
Caroline Glick: What was Rabin’s legacy?
In his speech before the Knesset, Rabin detailed his view of where things would lead. He did not believe that the end result of the Oslo process would be the establishment of a Palestinian state, much less a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital in control of all or the vast majority of the land in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Rabin not only opposed any compromise on sole Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem: He called for extending Israeli sovereignty to Ma’aleh Adumim and Givat Ze’ev, two major Israeli communities in Judea just north of the city.

He also called for extending Israeli sovereignty to Gush Etzion and other major Israeli communities south of Jerusalem, and for building settlement blocs throughout Judea and Samaria. He committed to take no action to curtail the expansion of Israeli communities, and specifically ruled out any construction freeze in those communities throughout the interim period. He also praised the Israeli communities in Gaza, signaling strongly that they would never be forsaken.

Rabin said that Israel’s eastern border would remain the Jordan Valley in perpetuity and defined the frontier in the broadest possible terms.

In short, depending on how you interpret his phrasing, Rabin was either expressing his support for Netanyahu’s vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state, or for Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s plan to apply Israeli sovereignty to all of Area C.

Either way, Rabin’s actual vision tells us something important about how the Left’s draconian restrictions on freedom of speech have harmed Israel. By shunting aside what Rabin actually stood for, and reinventing him as a leftist ideologue, the Left has cheapened and distorted the true significance of what he stood for while preventing Israel from correcting his mistakes and building on his successes.

Liberation, Not Colonization, Motivated the Creation of the Jewish State
If your child came home from college and said she was challenged by a classmate who claimed that Palestine is Arab land stolen by the Jews, could you provide her with a response?

For the 400 years before World War I, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, so it was owned by the Turks, not by the Arabs, let alone by the Arabs of Palestine. There was never a country called Palestine ruled by its own Arab inhabitants.

The original Zionists came to Palestine without the backing of any imperialist or colonialist power. They bought the land on which they settled.

Colonialism didn't bring Britain to Palestine. It conquered the land in World War I not from the Arabs but from Turkey, which had joined Britain's enemies in the war. The Arabs in Palestine fought for Turkey against Britain. The land was enemy territory.

Supporting Zionism appealed to Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Lord Balfour and other officials not just on strategic grounds, but also for moral reasons. They sympathized with the Jewish national cause. Zionism was an answer to the historical Jewish question, a way to remedy some of the harm shamefully done to the Jewish people over history.

And it would give Jews an opportunity to normalize their place in the world, by building up a national center and a refuge, a country in their ancient homeland where they could become the majority and enjoy self-determination as a people.

In 1919, the first Palestinian Congress declared that Palestine had never been divided from Syria and that Palestinians and Syrians were one people. Palestine's Arabs were not viewed by their own leaders as a separate nation.

  • Friday, October 26, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Today, Israel announced that PM Netanyahu had made a "secret visit" to Oman to meet  Sultan Qaboos  and discuss regional issues.

It was covered pretty extensively in Oman's media:



Notably, Mahmoud Abbas also visited the Sultan earlier this week.


Oman released a statement about the two visits, saying "The visit of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to the Sultanate (October 21-23) and the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister, and His Majesty the Sultan’s audience to both of them have many positive implications about the role of the Sultanate in serving peace through dialogue, whether in the case of the Palestinian issue or in the case of Yemen, Libya and other Arab and regional issues. It reflects a deep faith in peace and efforts for stability and prosperity in all countries and people of the region and their aspiration for a better future."

But Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party doesn't see it that way.

Mohamed Shtayyeh, Fatah Central Committee spokesman, said sadly, "Normalization has begun and the Arab peace initiative ended. The system of values and Arab political and social contracts also collapsed. And we have no one but ourselves. "

At the same time, Fatah also condemned the UAE and Qatar for hosting Israeli athletes at international competitions.

The Arab world is changing, yet the Palestinian leaders are still acting as if the Arab world is still fully behind them and will be ashamed to be within a hundred miles of an Israeli.

They are more afraid of the Trump peace plan than ever.








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