The organizations conducting their unauthorized battles against anti-Semitism have conflated prejudice with violence. They have no clue how to fight the former and no interest in fighting the latter.
Prejudice isn't fought with Holocaust museum tours, but with dignity. The first line of defense against it is having enough self-respect not to offer atonement to bigots who have nothing but contempt for you. Unfortunately, too many Jews on the left and the right can be counted on to launch into militant defenses, asked or unasked, of bigots on their side and to do so by leveraging their own status as Jews.
And too many organizations are happy to whitewash trendy bigots while ignoring uncool supporters.
What the fight against anti-Semitism really needs is the ability to separate class anxieties about acceptance from real threats. And that won't be done by organizations like the ADL, whose class anxieties have transformed it into a generic leftist advocacy group with little interest in Jewish issues, or the rest of its organizational cohort whose priority is winning the acceptance of the urban upper class.
And that acceptance is premised on embracing the left-wing politics and anti-Semitism of that class. That's how fighting anti-Semitism to mute class anxieties perversely turns into embracing antisemitism.
Distinguishing between class anxieties and real threats doesn't require futile efforts to educate celebrities who like Farrakhan with Holocaust museum tours, but to educate Jews about dignity and self-respect. People who are less worried about acceptance by those it's not worth being accepted by are better able to deal with real threats to their physical existence instead of threats to their feelings.
Cancel culture is the product of people who don't have actual problems and spend all their time worrying about their feelings. Jews do have actual problems, including synagogue attacks by black nationalists and alt-right gunmen, Iranian nukes and the harassment of Jewish students on campus.
When we focus on real-world attacks, then the real problems of anti-Semitism also come into focus.
A people possessing its own dignity is able to stop chasing the affections of its enemies, whether in the Middle East or closer to home, and accept the affection of its friends even if they aren't trendy enough.
The Voice newspaper must apologise for its disastrous interview with Wiley that failed to distinguish between reporting on antisemitism and enabling it.
In his interview, Wiley doubled down on his previous social media comments, describing Jews as rich exploiters and slavers, using classic antisemitic tropes and generalising about an entire ethnic group following an apparent dispute with his management team.
But rather than challenge Wiley's views, the interviewer, Joel Campbell, suggested that there might be 'salient' points in Wiley's racist ranting and seemed to affirm the idea that the Jewish community has a 'stranglehold' on the black community. The article also failed convincingly to dispute Wiley's unfounded and antisemitic claims that Jews are rich exploiters and slavers.
The article's commentary was also unacceptable. "There is no way to put this all in one nutshell but the hypothesis that you need to get a Jewish lawyer in order to progress in the music business may be a complete fallacy (I haven't done the numbers, looking into the correlation in respect of who is and isn't successful with or without one), but yet it remains," Campbell wrote, adding: "I've never seen anyone Jewish refute or confirm this (maybe there was never a need felt to do so), but maybe, it's a discussion that needs to be had?"
The notion that artists from the black community require a Jewish lawyer to advance is not "a discussion that needs to be had". If anything, a discussion needs to be had about how The Voice could possibly have published such a disastrous article about such a sensitive topic. There is a difference between reporting on Wiley's antisemitism and enabling and amplifying it. The Voice's article was very much on the wrong side of that line.
Wiley had spent the last several days spewing antisemitic bile on social media before being locked out of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram following a global #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign and mass 48-hour social media boycott. Wiley's comments were condemned by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, politicians from across parties, celebrities and many others.
The antisemitic grime artist Wiley has given incendiary interviews to Sky News and The Voice Online.
Wiley has spent the last several days spewing antisemitic bile on social media before being locked out of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram following a global #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign and mass 48-hour social media boycott, in which Campaign Against Antisemitism participated.
Wiley's comments were condemned by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, politicians from across parties, celebrities and many others.
In his interviews, Wiley doubled down on his previous comments, describing Jews as rich exploiters and slavers, using classic antisemitic tropes and generalising about an entire ethnic group following an apparent dispute with his management team. Nevertheless, the intensity of Wiley's vitriol and some of the conspiracy theories he espoused indicate that these are longstanding beliefs that have incubated over time, rather than comments arising from the moment.
In a depressing passage in The Voice Online article, the interviewer explained that he had set out "to find out what had triggered [Wiley's] outburst and why he would make such sweeping generalisations against a community of people in such a scathing manner. These questions were not being posed from an ignorant perspective, some of the views espoused by Wiley are the great unsaid outside of the black community."
The notion that Wiley's views may be widespread in some communities is deeply concerning.
The writer went on to say: "Putting anything remotely near considered antisemitic to one side of course, in fact out the window in the bin, not too many seem prepared to vocalise their consternation for some of the recurring themes Wiley believes is the stranglehold one community seems to have over another in particular relation but not confined to, the music business."
Campaign Against Antisemitism's Online Monitoring and Investigations Unit is aware that Wiley, who has was finally banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram following worldwide outrage, is now uploading disturbing videos to a small Instagram account that appears to be new, and a YouTube channel with almost 250,000 followers.
The videos continue in the same vein as his previous videos and his recent interviews with Sky News and The Voice, a newspaper for the black community, in which he reaffirmed his belief in antisemitic conspiracy theories and bigoted stereotypes about Jews.
For example, in one of the new videos, Wiley demands that an unspecified "you", which appears from the context to refer to Jews in general, try taking his passport away so that Wiley can see quite how much power Jews have.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: "Facebook and Google, which own Instagram and YouTube, have been made aware of Wiley's latest attempts to use their platforms to broadcast his appalling views. We have discussed this with them and asked that they urgently close down his remaining accounts. Wiley seems to be on a quest to discredit himself even further and to persuade his audience to hate Jews and even to go to 'war' with Jews. His musical career is undoubtedly over, but we are concerned that his fans could be inspired to act on his hateful broadcasts. That is why we have asked social networks to take him off air, and reported Wiley to the police and intend to privately prosecute him should the authorities refuse to act."
The High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Miguel Moratinos, expressed his "dismay" on Tuesday over antisemitic views espoused on Facebook by Heshmat Khalifa, the head of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), which is Britain's biggest Muslim charity.
Khalifa resigned from IRW after The Times approached him last week and reported about his past remarks, including labeling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a "pimp son of the Jews" and calling Israeli authorities as "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs."
Additionally, Khalifa has called US-designated terrorist group Hamas "the purest resistance movement in modern history," and that designating it as such is "shameful disgrace to all Muslims."
In a statement confirming his resignation, IRW issued a "strong condemnation" of Khalifa's antisemitic posts and announced a review of its "processes for screening trustees and senior executives' social-media posts to ensure that this will not happen again."
"We reject and condemn terrorism and believe that all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism, are unacceptable," said IRW. "These values are fundamental to our organization, our donors and the people we serve."
In his statement, while Moratinos acknowledged IRW's statement, he reiterated that "it is imperative for civil society organizations and faith-based actors to exhibit a zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism and all forms of discrimination online and offline by putting in place effective measures."
Pennsylvania's governor and attorney general joined the growing number of calls Tuesday for Philadelphia's NAACP president to resign after he posted an anti-Semitic meme to social media last week.
Philadelphia's Jewish leaders also expressed outrage over the post and called for Rodney Muhammad's resignation throughout the weekend. Several city leaders urged him to apologize, while others said it called his leadership into question during a time when the organization's mission is vital.
Muhammad said in a statement late Monday that he removed the post when he was told the images had previously been distributed by white supremacists.
"I later learned that not only was the quote I used misattributed to the philosopher Francois Voltaire, but in fact, the quote and image had been used previously by white supremacists," he wrote. "I immediately removed both the quote and the offensive images. It was never my intention to offend anyone or cause any hurt."
A voicemail for the national spokesman of the NAACP was full Tuesday when The Associated Press tried to contact the organization for comment. A number for Muhammad was not answered Tuesday.
The Thursday post on Muhammad's Facebook page included photos of Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson and Nick Cannon, Black celebrities who recently posted anti-Semitic comments on social media, and the quote "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize," falsely attributed to French philosopher Voltaire. The quote originated with Kevin Strom, an American neo-Nazi. (Jackson and Cannon have both apologized.)
Below their photos is an image of a yarmulke-wearing man, using his hand to crush a group of people. The meme, known as "the Happy Merchant," is an anti-Semitic image used by extremists that the Anti-Defamation League says is commonly used by white supremacists.
Rodney Muhammad — president of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP civil rights organization — issued a fresh statement on Thursday morning that addressed the furor over his posting of crudely antisemitic material on social media.
Referring to his post on Facebook last weekend which showed celebrities Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson, and Nick Cannon ‐‐ all of whom recently made antisemitic statements ‐‐ alongside a grotesque antisemitic caricature, Muhammad said he regretted the offense he had caused.
"I do regret the insult, pain and offense caused to all, particularly those of the Jewish community, by this unfortunate episode," Muhammad said, in a one-line statement carried by the local Fox News affiliate in Philadelphia.
Jewish organizations had been calling for Muhammad — a follower of the antisemitic Nation of Islam (NOI) led by Louis Farrakhan — to step down from his post with the NAACP. This week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro echoed the call, adding to the pressure on Muhammad.
The offending post on Facebook followed a largely ignored post on Twitter a few days earlier in which Muhammad raised the charge of deicide — the accusation that Jews are eternally culpable for the death of Jesus at the hands of the Romans — in a defense of Farrakhan's July 4 message that described Jews as "Satan."
Said Muhammad in a July 17 post: "The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke to millions on July 4th and what you don't hear are nearly 8 million people calling him antisemitic or a hate teacher. The Sahedrin (sic) shout to create mob psychology to crucify Jesus."
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke to millions on July 4th and what you don't hear are nearly 8 million people calling him antisemitic or a hate teacher. The Sahedrin shout to create mob psychology to crucify Jesus.@LouisFarrakhan #DeseanJackson
— Rodney Muhammad (@RodneyMuhammad7) July 17, 2020
Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced on Tuesday that an anti-Israel video was taken down from a Grade 10 online civics course.
"Very concerned that this offensive material was on a learning website. Working with @gilamartow, I immediately ordered it to be taken down (it was that day) & investigated to ensure it never happens again. We will not tolerate anti-Semtism [sic] in any form," he tweeted.
The Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's director of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, wrote a letter to Lecce, calling for the video to be removed.
The organization spoke last week with a parent whose son was required to watch a short video about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of an online summer course taken through the York Region District School Board (YRDSB).
When the parent complained to the YRDSB about misinformation and bias in the video, it was quickly removed from the course's online portal.
According to the video, "The current occupation of the Palestinian land by the Zionists have violated the human rights of the Palestinians. They have deprived the Palestinians of natural resources, such as water, and taking [sic] the majority of it for themselves. The Zionists that are granted these privileges are backed by the military. … This conflict continues to rage on because the Israelis continue to live as occupiers while the Palestinians live under occupation."
Baroness Deech has suggested the plan to build the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster has "descended into practices, unethical by Jewish or any standards" after new details emerged of discussions with Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick over the project.
Emails obtained by the JC as part of a Freedom of Information request shed new light on a telephone call between Mr Jenrick, the barrister Christopher Katkowski QC, who is advising on the proposal, and Lord Pickles, co-chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, last October.
The phone meeting on October 29 to discuss how to proceed came days before Lord Pickles announced on November 5 that Mr Jenrick's department had now taken control of the project. Ministerial guidance says once planning decisions are called in, "Privately made representations should not be entertained unless other parties have been given the chance to consider them and comment." The project had not been called in at the time of the call.
Last month Lord Pickles revealed to the JC that he had been visiting the Dachau concentration camp on the same day as the October meeting and did not take part in the discussions.
Emails from the Department for Communities seen by the JC confirm that Lord Pickles was alerted to the meeting three hours before it was due to take place, with Mr Jenrick's office inviting him to speak with Mr Katkowski QC and the Secretary of State "to discuss the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial."
People around the world found reason to rejoice this week after discovering that the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has finally been solved. In what's being labelled a, "like react for world peace", the decades long struggle for regional calm was finally resolved once and for all by a collegiate Students for Justice in Palestine Instagram post.
The post was similar to all other successful Instagrams in that it effectively airbrushed over reality, and made people believe in a Facetune lifestyle that's simply not possible. Despite not containing a single citation, the post was so alluring to people who've never been to the region that overnight hundreds of thousands of indignant keyboard warriors declared that Israel should be cancelled.
Despite not initially seeming any different from the SJP's other posts, this one reached its way to the UN General Assembly (UNGA), because they spend the whole time in meetings scrolling through Instagram anyway. And, after very little discussion, the UNGA decided that this post truly showed them the light, and that there must be peace in the region once and for all.
"Until now we didn't actually care about land rights in the Middle East" said one UNGA member. "But this insta story is really blowing up. I mean, over 4K likes?? I had no idea people wanted peace in the Middle East so badly. Also, the account assured me that nothing they said was anti-Semitic and I totally trust them on that."
Following the viral post the UNGA convened a meeting to hash out the SJP's demands. The first step to peace: banning Hillels from American campuses. That won't be contentious at all.
Take, for example, the recent article entitled "For Palestinian Police, Much to Lose if Israel Annexes West Bank Land." The point of the article is obvious: Halbfinger et al. are attempting to poison readers against the possibility that Israel would consider annexing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And while this might have previously been the topic of intense debate on the pages of the Times, the desired conclusion is now heavy-handedly imposed on readers in a simplistic tale of heroes and villains. Thus, there is no mention of the offers of statehood that have been repeatedly rejected by the Palestinians. Rather than affording readers with a variety of perspectives on the issue, the reporters present a cardboard character portrayal of Palestinian police as noble souls who risk their lives to protect Jews, only to be mocked and "scorned" by their own people as "collaborators" while treated with "highhandedness and disdain" by their Israeli overlords for whom they perform all the "dirty work." According to the melodramatic account that substitutes for news, the possible annexation of settlements would necessarily spell the total "collapse" of the "incipient [Palestinian] state, and "dash the dreams" of Palestinians. There is neither examination nor interviews with political experts about whether, why or how extending Jewish sovereignty to settlements in the West Bank would end the notion of a Palestinian state. It is presented as a given, not up for discussion or debate.
Instead, Palestinian police relay anecdotes about hurriedly complying with Israeli requests for assistance, even while Israeli officers callously hamper their ability to respond to urgent requests for help by Arabs; of Israeli officers who refuse them entry to areas where they are needed; of Israeli perpetrators who are freed, unprosecuted for crimes against Arabs; and of a Palestinian police officer who risked his own life to protect an Israeli from an angry mob of Palestinians, only to be shot at and wounded by an Israeli afterwards.
Missing from this tale of good guys vs. bad guys is anything that might detract from the hero and villain roles assigned by the reporters. Thus, readers are not told that members of the PA police force have been responsible for deadly attacks on Israelis. Among those who lost their lives at the hands of Palestinian police were Ben-Yosef Livnat (nephew of Israeli politician Limor Livnat) who was killed by a PA police officer shooting at a group of Jewish worshippers near Joseph's Tomb; Sgt. Ihab Khatib, an Arab-Druze non-commissioned military officer who was stabbed to death by a senior Palestinian police officer; Ayala Levy, Smadar Levy, Yaniv Levy and Lydia Marko who were killed when two Palestinian police officers fired at Israeli pedestrians near a crowded bus stop in Hadera; Yossi Tabaja, an Israeli border police officer was shot and killed by his Palestinian colleague from the PA police force while they were on a joint security patrol; Avraham Balhasan, Rose Boneh, Anya Bonder, Anat Darom, Viorel Octavian Florescu, Natalia Gamril, Yechezkel Isser Goldberg, Baruch Hondiashvili, Dana Itach, Mehbere Kifile, and Eli Zfira, were killed on a Jerusalem bus blown up by a PA police officer. It doesn't fit the narrative.
New York Times reporters apparently have very low regard for their readers' intellect, perhaps fearing they might not draw the desired conclusions if given the "unvarnished truth" and presented with a more complex picture of the situation. And so, the newspaper has done away with inconvenient editorial standards that allow readers the opportunity to deliberate, weigh different perspectives and draw their own conclusions. Instead, the New York Times offers their readers nothing more intellectually taxing than a comic book tale.
As noted earlier this week, the most recent version of a BBC six year-old backgrounder about the Gaza Strip opened by telling readers that the territory "is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and between 2007 and 2014 was ruled by the militant Islamist group Hamas".
BBC'S GAZA STRIP BACKGROUNDER CLAIMS HAMAS RULE ENDED SIX YEARS AGO
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint explaining that the Gaza Strip is not under PA control and that the supposed Hamas-Fatah deal of 2014 did not bring an end to Hamas rule.
The paragraph concerned now reads: "It is under the control of the militant Islamist group Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and ejected forces loyal to the then governing Palestinian Authority after a violent rift in 2007."
You do realize we have a nuclear sub that uses Xbox controllers, don't you?https://t.co/BQkFnw13d0
Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK have dropped by 13 percent in 2020 compared to the year before, likely due to COVID-19 lockdown regulations, but the 789 events reported between January and June still represent the third-highest number on record for that period, according to a study by a British watchdog group.
The Thursday report was released by the Community Security Trust (CST), which has been keeping tabs on anti-Semitism in the UK since 1984.
The two months that saw the lowest number of recorded incidents, March and April, with 102 and 98 incidents, respectively, coincided with the period when coronavirus lockdown measures were most highly enforced, with religious institutions, schools, restaurants, and other venues closed. The regulations were relaxed in May, which saw a subsequent rise in anti-Semitic events, and the numbers continued to rise in June.
Despite the drop, the CST reported a continued trend of rising anti-Semitism in recent years. Five of the six months in the first half of 2020 saw over 100 recorded incidents – with the lowest month, May, only two short of that number. In contrast, monthly tallies by the CST only exceeded 100 on six occasions between January 2006 and December 2015.
The greater London and Manchester areas, which are home to the largest Jewish communities in the UK, saw 69 percent of the total incidents. At least one reported anti-Semitic event was recorded in 41 of the UK's 43 police regions in 2020, compared with 35 in 2019.
According to the CST, the pandemic also influenced the nature of anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2020. There were 10 reports of religious or educational online events being hijacked with anti-Semitic content or behavior. There were a further 26 episodes of pandemic-related anti-Semitism, including the propagation of conspiracy theories accusing Jews of inventing a coronavirus "hoax" or of creating and spreading the disease itself, or people simply expressing the hope that Jews catch the coronavirus and die.
The United Nations has named Spanish diplomat Miguel Ángel Moratinos, high representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), as its envoy tasked with monitoring antisemitism.
Moratinos, appointed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, will now be tasked with "enhancing a system-wide response" to combat global antisemitism – within an international body that has long been accused of anti-Israel bias.
"In his capacity as the United Nations focal point designated by the United Nations secretary-general to monitor antisemitism and enhance a system-wide response, the high representative underscores that the United Nations is fully engaged in combating antisemitism as well as all forms of discrimination and intolerance based on religion or belief," the UNAOC said Tuesday.
The alliance "promotes mutual respect, cultural diversity and religious pluralism, as well as strengthening interfaith dialogue across the faith spectrum in line with its motto 'Many Cultures, One Humanity,'" it added.
"In this context, the high representative stresses that countering hate speech and all forms of discrimination, including against Jews and all other communities, religious or otherwise, requires adopting a human rights-based approach."
The position mirrors similar roles in the EU, US, UK, Germany and France, positions that have been used to coordinate global efforts among governments and NGOs to take antisemitism head on.
New York Police stated that member of Shomrim, a Jewish neighborhood watch group, was attacked with a knife in Brooklyn late Wednesday evening while responding to a separate incident, according to the New York Post.
Shomrim, set up in Haredi communities across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, among others, have tasked themselves with combating vandalism, assaults, antisemitic attacks, burglary, etc. within these Jewish communities. However, they are unarmed and unable to make arrests.
The Jewish volunteer victim was cut below the knee and rushed to Maimonides Medical Center while in stable condition, according to the Post report.
Police claim that three of the four suspects were detained by officers, with the fourth still at large within the area.
The Post article notes that the man from the initial assault, to which the volunteer was responding to, left without medical intention and it is not particularly clear if was a physical altercation or just a verbal one.
Developing: @hatzalah and @BPShomrim are on scene on New Utrecht Avenue & 46th Street in Boro Park, for a #Shomrim member that was assaulted with a knife, the Shomrim member was transported to the hospital in stable condition, details to follow. pic.twitter.com/mkQHhNaGTx
The face masks aren't subtle: One is emblazoned with the famous photo of a Jewish mother and child, their hands raised, at Nazi gunpoint. Another shows an unmistakable image of a concentration camp crematorium.
The product description below the mother-and-child mask reads: "Another bold image that gets the point across without being overly offensive." It sells for $12.44.
Those masks, and others like them, are sold online at HolocaustFaceMasks.com. Other products on the site feature photos from Nazi rallies or a Japanese internment camp in the United States. A T-shirt sold on the site shows three pictures in numerical order: first, a generic face mask; second, a photo of Jews lining up to enter a ghetto; third, a photo of a Nazi concentration camp.
You probably get the point. But in case you don't, the website's founder explained his objective on the homepage. "Our goal here is to provide a reminder of what can happen when millions of people follow seemingly innocent 'orders' and 'rules,'" the site says. "In the times of the [H]olocaust people may not have had such a recent example of evil to keep them vigilant and weary [sic] of evil to come. We do."
The Swedish Academy has taken neo-nazi group Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) to court, alleging that the group may not quote works of classic Swedish literature on their website.
The Academy, which chooses Nobel Prize winners for literature, has argued that NMR's website "Nordfront" has violated section 51 of the Swedish Copyright Act by frequently quoting several Swedish Romantic-era poets.
Section 51 of the copyright law states that works whose copyright has expired and fallen into the public domain are protected against reproduction "in a way that violates the interests of spiritual cultivation", broadcaster SVT reports.
NMR, meanwhile, have argued that they have not distorted the classical works because they have simply reproduced them exactly and stated that the section of the copyright law does not apply.
They went on to say that the law is designed to prevent edited editions of existing works that may be shortened or distorted by publishers looking to make a profit. The Swedish Academy has been given until August 28th to respond to the counter-claim.
Biotech incubator FutuRx announced Tuesday that Leaps, the impact investment unit of pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG, will join it as an investor for incepting and incubating early-stage biotech companies.
Both Leaps by Bayer and FutuRx invest in paradigm-shifting technologies in the life sciences, aiming to change the world for the better.
FutuRx is the leading Israeli biotechnology incubator focused on innovative, early-stage therapeutic technologies, which has established 20 companies to date with longstanding investors Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Takeda Ventures, and OrbiMed Israel Partners. FutuRx also enjoys the backing of the Israeli Innovation Authority.
Leaps by Bayer leads impact investments into solutions to some of today's biggest challenges in health and agriculture.
Its portfolio includes more than 30 companies, all of which focus on potentially breakthrough technologies to overcome specific challenges, such as regenerating lost tissue function, reducing the environmental impact of farming, preventing or curing cancer, and others.
"We are very excited to have Leaps by Bayer join our investor group," FutuRx's CEO Dr. Kinneret Savitzky said.
"FutuRx and Leaps by Bayer share the objective to invest in scientific breakthroughs and enable the translation to novel therapies or even cures. Our portfolio companies benefit from the knowledge and support of our multinational pharma and VC partners at every step of the way towards reaching meaningful inflection points, and we are thrilled to bring into play Bayer's unique expertise and capabilities in the many therapeutic areas in which it is active."
In a video published on Thursday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry highlighted the role the Jewish state has played in the global fight against the coronavirus, noting the large number of countries that has received medical and technological aid from it.
"In the struggle against corona, there are no politics, no borders," Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi tweeted.
"Led by the Foreign Ministry, we have reached more than 15 countries on three continents with supplies of humanitarian aid including medical and technological equipment that will help in the global fight against corona," he noted.
An Israeli scientist has invented a mask that "seals" the face and, according to testing, blocks 99.25% of coronavirus-sized particles, he said.
Noam Gavriely helped the Israel Defense Forces develop gas masks during the Iraq War, and admits that his new product, ViriMASK, resembles some wartime protection devices and doesn't look attractive. But he said that in terms of protection, it offers a significant improvement over the N95 masks, which are meant to filter at least 95% of airborne particles, and are widely seen as the best currently available option.
Gavriely, ViriMASK CEO, told The Times of Israel: "Unlike other products, this is sealed all around the face, like gas masks and diving masks. And the filter is much more dense than the N95 mask and surgical masks, meaning that fewer particles penetrate."
He said this can give peace of mind to hospital workers and other medical professionals, including dentists, and others who are at a higher risk of being exposed to the coronavirus.
The mask straps around the head and covers the eyes, nose and mouth, meaning that all points currently believed to be channels for coronavirus infection are protected.
Nearly 1,000 Jews visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Thursday morning to mark the fast day of Tisha B'Av, which mourns the destruction of the two Jewish Temples that stood at the holy site.
About 10 of them were detained by police and taken out of the compound after praying in defiance of the rules at the site.
The contested compound today houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Jews are forbidden from praying there and face a host of other restrictions within the compound.
Located in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, the compound is revered by both Jews and Muslims, who call it Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary. Large numbers of Palestinians often gather at the site, especially for Friday prayers, and it has long been a flashpoint between Israelis and Palestinians.
Some 800 Jews entered the Temple Mount Thursday morning, with police breaking them up into groups of 20, which were admitted every several minutes.
More entered in the afternoon visitation hour between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m., bringing the total count to 978, according to Temple Mount activist groups.
Footage from the Temple Mount showed members of one of the groups bowing on the ground, saying aloud the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael," and being taken away by police. To maintain the status quo, Jews are forbidden from praying at the site.
When Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders in 1099, the Jews took the lead in defending the city and were the last to fall, according to Gilo of Paris, a 12th-century poet. Muslim historian Ibn al-Qalanisi says that the Jews of the city fled to the Cave Synagogue, where the Crusaders burned them alive, a story corroborated by the 12th-century Arab writer Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi.
Archaeologist Dan Bahat, who excavated and researched the Western Wall tunnels, thinks that he has discovered the location of the Cave Synagogue "in the area of Warren's Gate," one of four gates that led from the Western Wall to the Temple Mount. "For hundreds of years, it was the center of Jewish life in Jerusalem, but the Crusaders...wiped out the city's Jewish community, blocked off the gate, and turned the synagogue into a cistern."
Documents from the Cairo Geniza from the 11th century include a request sent in 1035 by Shlomo Ben Yehuda, head of the Jerusalem yeshiva, to Rabbi Ephraim in Cairo, asking for help in rebuilding the Cave Synagogue, which had collapsed in an earthquake in 1033.
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Liran Levi reports for Walla News. He tweeted a video from Ofer Prison, presumably from an illegal mobile phone, that ended up on TikTok:
The person with the grapes is Akram Hamed, the Fatah spokesman for the prison.
Now, which looks worse - this prison or your college dorm?
(h/t Yoel)
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Asa Winstanley calls himself an "investigative journalist" for Electronic Intifada. But of course he is nothing of the kind - he is an anti-Israel propagandist.
Einat Wilf's tweet referred to a Haaretz article from 2018 about how the Zionist population of Israel before 1948 closely mirrored the areas where Jews had drained the swamps and killed the mosquitoes that caused malaria. Wilf's point is that Jews did not displace Arabs, only mosquitoes.
There is no way that Winstanley could have misinterpreted the tweet to mean that Wilf was calling Arabs mosquitoes.
And after he made his ridiculous accusation, even people who are sympathetic to his anti-Israel viewpoint pointed out that he was wrong this time.
But hours later, this erstwhile "journalist" didn't acknowledge his mistake.
Because it wasn't a mistake. It was Goebbels-type propaganda, adding to the ever growing list of fake Zionist quotes we've seen over the years.
The anti-Israel crowd does not give a damn about little things like the truth. They have a crusade to wage to destroy Israel. Winstanley knows that his antisemitic fans will believe anything he says, so he'll say anything.
The real question is why anyone ever takes his "reporting" seriously when he is a proven liar?
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I will not be blogging or tweeting Wednesday night and Thursday until after 1 PM EDT in observance of Tisha B'Av.
May this be the last year that Tisha B'Av is a fast day.
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Western ideologies generally include a parable about villainous Jews. Because this is a set of ideas that sees itself as a political critique, the parable doesn't come, as past versions have, from Scripture (in the case of Christianity), or from economic theory (as it did in Marxism), or pseudo-scientific racial doctrines (National Socialism). It comes from the news—specifically, from the mythology that I saw being constructed as a reporter a decade ago. A strange antagonism to something called "Israel" came up if you went to a Women's March against Donald Trump in New York, or protested violence against African Americans in Ferguson, Missouri, or joined the Dyke March in Chicago, or presented an academic paper at the American Studies Association. It appears in the platform of Black Lives Matter from 2016, in left-wing politics in Britain and France, and in gender studies courses at California colleges.
These diverse applications are unique, if not entirely unprecedented, for a news story. But they make sense if we understand the Israel story as a kind of sacred template that can be used to explain many different situations. A good example became visible this spring in the wake of the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis: the myth that Israel trains American police officers in the same methods of brutality that killed Floyd, and which are deployed more generally against people of color. This conspiracy theory has been promoted as factual by (among many others) senior journalists, members of the British Labour Party, and, in early July, by the biggest Lutheran denomination in America.
That last detail supports the idea that new religions are never completely removed from the old ones. Indeed, the unique power of the Israel story is the way it takes the central preoccupation of the new thought system—the inequality of white Western power versus nonwhite Third World innocence—and projects it onto a setting already loaded with religious resonance. If you're looking for a parable about human inequality, places called Jerusalem or Bethlehem are potent in ways that can't be rivaled by Xinjiang or Laayoune, or Minneapolis.
A good illustration of this merger came in the form of a speech given to a convention of the Episcopal church in 2018 by a Massachusetts bishop who described atrocities she claimed to have personally witnessed in Israel. She described the murder of an innocent 15-year-old Palestinian by Jewish soldiers—"they shot him in the back four times, he fell on the ground and they shot him another six"—and the aggressive handcuffing by soldiers of a 3-year-old Palestinian boy whose ball rolled off the Temple Mount.
It later turned out that the bishop hadn't seen any such thing, and she apologized profusely. But in a religious mindset, the question isn't whether a story happened. The question is whether a story can mobilize believers to achieve good. If the answer is yes, the story is "true."
This kind of thinking has now bled into newsrooms and university departments, precisely the bodies that are supposed to be engaged in observation and reasoned debate. If important parts of the press and the academy are beginning to sound like ministries, it's happening at a time when religion and quasi-religion are on the rise everywhere—not just on the progressive left but also on the right, and not only in the West. Some of these trends are evident in Israel, too. As we speak, as if to symbolize the moment, the Hagia Sophia is being changed from a public museum back into a mosque—though in Istanbul, at least, the conversion is being done in the open.
Americans are experiencing a summer of discontent in a way that exceeds any in living memory. The nation is divided not just along political lines but seems increasingly immersed in something much more dangerous – a culture war in which both sides truly believe that not only will a triumph by their opponents bring ruin, but that the very existence of the republic and American democracy is at stake.
That's why both Jews and non-Jews need to pause this week and consider the lessons that the observance of Tisha B'Av: the day on the Hebrew calendar that marks the destruction of both ancient holy temples in Jerusalem, as well as many other catastrophes of Jewish history. The day of fasting and reflection, which begins this year on the evening of July 29, is not observed by most non-Orthodox Jews and generally considered too depressing to have become part of secular American Jewish culture, which prefers holidays that follow a model that runs along the lines of "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat."
But if there was ever a year when its lessons were needed by Americans of all faiths, it is 2020.
Tradition teaches us that the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE occurred because of "sinat hinam" – senseless or baseless hatred—that undermined Jewish resistance during the siege of Jerusalem and great revolt against the forces of the Roman Empire.
A war that pitted the forces of a small nation against the world's only superpower wasn't going to have a happy ending, no matter how united the defenders of Jerusalem had been. But the rabbis who subsequently reconstituted Jewish faith emphasized the way that the Jewish rebels were divided into competing factions within Jerusalem's walls. In the civil war that raged inside the doomed city, a Zealot faction destroyed food supplies that could have prolonged resistance. Their self-destructive behavior made the task of Roman conquest that much easier and provided Jewish history with a lesson of what not to do to survive in a hostile world.
It's an important lesson, but not one that most Jews – or non-Jews for that matter – find easy to follow.
The political lines dividing Americans are starker than at any moment in living memory. It's not just that Republicans and Democrats disagree about the issues. Most of the supporters of President Donald Trump and most of those who support his opponents seem unprepared to credit each other with good intentions, period.
For those of us that are children of Holocaust survivors, we know well the hell our parents went through to survive. They hid, had no food, no clothes, no medical attention, and no help. They were cramped in hiding places with no fresh air and couldn' t make a sound or Nazis would kill them. It lasted a lot longer than this will last, some for up to 4 or 5 years. They lost their education, their souls, their youth. There were no supermarkets,no cell phones, no radios and no outside interference.
What we can compare with deadly accuracy is 1933 Nazi Germany and the inaction of our Jewish leadership and the Stockholm Syndrome response of many liberal Jews in the face of rising, hateful antisemitism.
Just as then when the voices of the leadership might have made a difference, but was barely heard, today most liberal leaders and clergy prefer to be politically correct and support our enemies.
Had Hitler conquered America or the area that is now Israel but was then the British Mandate, no Jews would have been left alive. That means many of those reading this article would never have been born.
What is it that left liberal and progressive Jews do not understand? When I hear the rabid antisemitic lies on videos and social media, I sense that another Hitler is coming - while you are sleeping, not 'woke,' dreaming about meeting the demands of the antisemitic Black Lives Matter.
Cogwar 8 Years on: BLM BDS & the Wokeocracy
In 2012 Prof Richard Landes said "Its not every generation that gets to defend a civilisation" and he advised that silence is not an option. In view of the extraordinary events since January 2020 when he was last in London, Campaign4Truth asked him how we have done in these 8 years: Have we been silent?
The current controversy about replacing the statues of Confederate generals and other racist and problematic figures is hardly new. In 2013, Georgia removed the 12-foot high statue of demagogue Tom Watson from its state capitol.
Early on in his political career, Watson was deemed "a tolerant Populist." But by 1913-1915 — when he led the campaign to lynch Jewish factory owner Leo Frank for the molestation-murder of Atlanta factory girl Mary Phagan — he was an all-purpose bigot against Catholics, Jews, and African-Americans. Frank was innocent and Georgia's governor had just commuted his sentence. But Watson made sure that Frank was murdered and swung from a tree.
Watson died in 1922, soon after his election to the US Senate. But Watson's statue was not dedicated until 1932.
After an ineffectual, anti-Watson campaign lasting years, finally, in 2013, then-governor Nathan Deal decided to relocate the Watson statue to a nearby state-owned park. The move won applause from both Jews and African-Americans. There also followed legislation authorizing a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. to be erected.
Why was 2013 chosen for the uprooting of Watson's monument? Because that was exactly 100 years since Leo Frank's false conviction — an event seared in the collective memory of Atlanta's Jewish community. The Frank case also had spillover effects straining Black-Jewish relations, because the only other suspect in Mary Phagan's murder was an African-American janitor, Jim Conley, coached by the police to testify against Frank. According to a later deathbed confession by a witness (and echoing suspicions at the time), it was Conley who killed the girl.
On Monday at 9 a.m., along with thousands of others, I joined a 48-hour boycott of Twitter following the actions of a rapper I must admit never having heard of.
Richard Cowie, aka Wiley, received the Music of Black Origin award for best male artist in 2013 and was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) medal in 2018. These career landmarks passed me by, but his antisemitism did not.
I don't know why he would compare Jews to the Ku Klux Klan. I don't pretend to understand what motivated him to suggest Jews were "at war" with Black people and "would do anything to ruin a black mans [sic] life."
The tirade spoke volumes; it was a diatribe of Jew hatred. I don't want to hear his explanation or his apology. But I do expect Twitter to keep him from using its platform to peddle these views to his almost half a million followers.
Instead, I was shocked to see that the tweets remained online for 12 hours. Then Twitter appeared to act, taking his account down for a few hours and removing some of the offending tweets, only for the account to spring back to life to spew forth more hate.
Now Twitter has imposed a seven-day ban. Wow! If that is what Twitter thinks makes a measured response to anti-Semitism or any kind of hate speech, then we are living in parallel universes.
Let's be clear: Twitter's 12-hour period of inaction is not a small matter. This company has algorithms that spot trends and red flags dangerous content. It has monitoring teams that should have spotted this and taken action. Given the company's capabilities, the 12 hours of delay were unacceptable.
So why only a 48-hour boycott? The answer is simple. The #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign has focused huge attention on the responsibility of social media platforms to get their houses in order. We use Twitter because we love it, sharing news, reaction, jokes and gifs with friends and followers, and expect the company to maintain a space free from the vilest forms of hate.
A Twitter official on Wednesday said that the tweets in which Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei calls for Israel's destruction do not violate the company's rules against hate speech, and indicated that they are considered mere "foreign policy saber-rattling."
"We have an approach toward leaders that says that direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on military-economic issues are generally not in violation of our rules," Ylwa Pettersson, Twitter's head policy for the Nordic countries and Israel, told the Knesset's Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, via video-conference.
She was responding to a question by pro-Israel activist Arsen Ostrovsky, who had asked why Twitter attached a special label to a recent tweet by US President Donald Trump noting that it violated the company's rules, while the Iranian leaders' many tweets about his wish for Israel to be destroyed are left untouched.
On May 29, Twitter for the first time attached a warning label to Trump's tweet about the riots that broke out in the US following the killing of George Floyd.
"I just want to fine-tune [Ostrovsky's] question: Calling for genocide on Twitter is okay, but commenting on the political situation in certain countries is not okay?" asked MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh, who was leading the discussion.
I kid you not! At Knesset hearing on Antisemitism, @Twitter rep tells me they flag @realDonaldTrump because it serves 'public conversation', but not Iran's @khamenei_ir call for GENOCIDE, which passes for acceptable 'commentary on political issues of the day'. cc. @CotlerWunshpic.twitter.com/AXwjkrvlql
After years of internal divisions over anti-Semitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, British Jews of all stripes and their supporters united this week in the face of an anti-Jewish tirade on Twitter and Instagram from an unexpected and challenging source: a Black rapper decorated by the Queen.
The tactic chosen to protest Twitter's lax response to the stream of abuse unleashed last week on Friday and Saturday by the rapper Wiley was a 48-hour self-imposed Twitter silence from Monday to Wednesday under the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate. While there was some disagreement over the particular campaign, the political fault lines that had divided communities and families appear to be fading.
The reappearance of reasoned dialogue between community groups previously at loggerheads over a similar matter — years of alleged systemic anti-Semitism in the Labour Party — was striking. British Jews have not found perfect harmony, but they are at least singing a similar tune.
While some questioned why the campaign seemed tougher than responses to anti-Semitic posts by white Jew-haters, the boycott drew support from major figures across a broad spectrum of British arts, music and politics. Local household names included former England football captain Gary Lineker — who has 7 million followers — actresses Dawn French and Kathy Burke, singer Billy Bragg, "Veep" and "The Thick of It" creator Armando Ianucci, and broadcasters Martin Lewis and James O'Brien.
"If there's even the slightest chance that this gesture can influence the companies concerned to stem the tide of ignorant lies, conspiracy theories and violent hatred that they allow to flood social media and feed prejudice daily, then how could I not join in?" well-known actor Jason Isaacs told The Times of Israel.
"Anti-Semitism, like racism, sexism, homophobia and every other shade of hatred needs to be stamped out as early as possible before the weeds take over the garden," said Isaacs, who has appeared in "Harry Potter," "Star Trek," "Dig" and "The OA."
Wiley's tirade, accompanied by the white supremacist hashtag #JewishPrivilege, came after the British Jewish community lent wide support for the UK's Black Lives Matter movement. Many feared this might be undone by the outburst.
The boycott was started by Tracy-Ann Oberman, an actress and outspoken critic of anti-Jewish hate speech. It was directed at Twitter for failing to take quick, decisive action against Wiley, rather than a personal attack on the rapper himself that could be misinterpreted as Jews piling onto a Black celebrity. On Tuesday, Wiley's personal accounts on Facebook and Instagram were deleted for violating the terms of service.
Well-known survivors of the Holocaust from around the world began a new online campaign on Wednesday to urge Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remove Holocaust denial posts from the social media platform.
The campaign was organized by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), which advocates and secures compensation and social services funding for Holocaust survivors around the world. In the first-ever digital campaign driven by Holocaust survivors, the message to Zuckerberg will be "Holocaust denial posts on Facebook are hate speech and must be removed!"
Beginning July 29, each day – every day – a recorded message from the final generation of Holocaust survivors to Zuckerberg will be posted on Facebook, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and other social media platforms, such as Twitter.
"They are calling us liars," one survivor will say in a recorded message. "We aren't liars. We are witnesses."
While there have been many calls and efforts to remove hate speech from Facebook, Holocaust denial has not been removed because Zuckerberg refuses to classify it as hate speech. The Claims Conference has argued that Holocaust denial is intentional and therefore a violation of Facebook's own community standards.
Notable survivors include Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, Anne Frank's stepsister Eve Schloss, Kristallnacht survivor Charlotte Knobloch and Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent, the head of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
"Most of my family was murdered, as well as many of my friends," said Kent in his recorded message to Zuckerberg. "You must know that Holocaust denial is nothing short of hate dialogue. There is no denying it."
Twitter permanently suspended influential British rapper Wiley on Wednesday after he posted a slew of anti-Semitic comments on the platform, and other social media, in the past week.
The company had come under heavy fire, particularly from UK Jews, for not taking quick and decisive action against the musician.
Twitter said it had conducted an investigation and determined Wiley's tweets violated its policy against hateful conduct.
In a statement, Twitter apologized for not acting sooner and vowed to take a stand against anti-Semitism in the future.
"Let us be clear: hateful conduct has absolutely no place on our service and we strongly condemn anti-Semitism," a Twitter spokesperson told The Times of Israel. "We are sorry we did not move faster and are continuing to assess the situation internally.
"We deeply respect the concerns shared by the Jewish community and online safety advocates, and we will continue to work closely with government, NGOs, civil society partners and our industry peers to tackle anti-Semitism on Twitter," the statement said.
Twitter previously temporarily barred Wiley, whose name is Richard Kylea Cowie, and left his other tweets visible.
On Friday, Wiley posted a stream anti-Semitic tweets that included claims of connections between the Jewish community and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as repeated tropes about Jews and money.
Twitter has permanently deleted antisemitic performer Wiley's account. They did so following discussions with Campaign Against Antisemitism under immense pressure amid a worldwide 48-hour boycott of Twitter under the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate.
Last night, Campaign Against Antisemitism went to Twitter's London headquarters to shine a light on the company after it failed so spectacularly to address racist incitement on its platform.
Numerous examples of antisemitic tweets were projected onto Twitter's building in an effort to embarrass Twitter into cleaning up the mess that it has enabled and allowed to fester online.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: "Following discussions with Campaign Against Antisemitism, during which we made clear that the beginning of their path to building faith would be the removal of Wiley's account, this morning Twitter has finally listened. The closure of Wiley's account is too little too late, but it is at least a start for this deeply irresponsible social network.
"After Twitter's abysmal response to blatant anti-Jewish incitement on its platform, last night we decided to literally shine a light on the company and project onto its London headquarters some of the hateful tweets that Twitter permits on its platform.
"From their pitiful responses to the hate spewed daily on their platforms, it is evident that social media companies will stop at nothing to make a profit. It is time for these deeply damaging and irresponsible companies to be held accountable for the hatred they help to spread."
Last night we paid a visit to Twitter's London headquarters to shine a light on racism.
In a broad-ranging interview on Judaism, actor Seth Rogen said the reason for Israel's existence "makes no sense," and the notion of a Jewish homeland to safeguard the Jewish people was comparable to putting them in a blender. Rogen also said antisemitism today was "pervasive and prevalent."
Rogen, in conversation with Marc Maron on his hour-long "WTF" podcast on Monday, grew up in Jewish day schools in Vancouver.
Macron prefaced the show with the disclaimer, "If you don't like Jews, you're gonna get triggered" and said it was the "Jewiest talk" he had ever had on his show.
"If you meet a Jewish person in America, they're probably here because someone tried to kill their grandparents not that long ago," Rogan said.
The left-wing actor and comedian went on to denounce the idea of Jewish state in Israel and said a "better strategy" after the Holocaust would have been to ensure that Jews are spread out all over the world and not concentrated in one place. "You don't keep all your Jews in one basket," he said.
"It makes no sense whatsoever," he added.
"It would be nice to live somewhere which was not a part of Christian apocalyptic prophecy," he said, "maybe settle somewhere the Christians don't think you'll have to die in order for the Apocalypse [to occur]."
Macron concurred, saying Christians had a "ridiculous vision" they needed Jews in order to fulfill but that in the long run they weren't "gunning for us."
The 38-year-old said there was no way he would ever live in Israel.
"To me it just seems an antiquated thought process," Rogen said. "If it is for religious reasons, I don't agree with it, because I think religion is silly. If it is for truly the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because again, you don't keep something you're trying to preserve all in one place — especially when that place is proven to be pretty volatile, you know? 'I'm trying to keep all these things safe, I'm gonna put them in my blender and hope that that's the best place… that'll do it.'"
A leaked email from a senior Corbyn ally in Labour Party headquarters shows that he recognised that a controversial leaked report about the Party's handling of antisemitism was misleading and that there may be adverse consequences following its dissemination.
Thomas Gardiner, who resigned a few weeks ago as Labour's Director of Governance and Legal, is reported to have sent an email on 11th April to the Party's General-Secretary saying that the report on Labour's handling of antisemitism ought not to be circulated because emails and WhatsApp messages from Party staffers had been "presented selectively and without their true context in order to give a misleading picture."
An unredacted version of the 851-page report was nevertheless leaked, giving rise to potential date breach claims that may cost the Labour Party millions of pounds in legal costs.
In his email, Mr Gardiner expressed concern that the report would "lay false blame" on him, that searches of staffers' email accounts, including his own, were "not authorised" and "improper" and that use of confidential WhatsApp messages represented "a clear and unacceptable breach of confidence," adding: "Further, these messages are presented selectively and without their true context in order to give a misleading picture."
Although the report had by then been leaked, Mr Gardiner said "I realise it will not be helpful not to further use the report, given that it has apparently been leaked in a previous version, but I must register this formal objection."
The report, which Campaign Against Antisemitism described at the time as "a desperate last-ditch attempt to deflect and discredit allegations of antisemitism", was originally compiled for submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). On advice from Labour's lawyers, the Party has not submitted the report to the EHRC.
Disgraced former Labour MP Chris Williamson has today launched a crowdfunding appeal to take on a fierce enemy of the left – the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Williamson, who stood as an Independent in the last election, losing the seat and his deposit, has resorted to appealing for donations after learning he has been named in the EHRC's Draft Report into the Labour Party's handling of antisemitism. He wants to take legal action "about this and other matters"…
In a bizarre appeal video, Williamson promises to fight the EHRC which, he alleges, "appears determined to smear our movement". Any leftover money from the fundraiser will be put into a 'fighting fund', with Williamson explaining in interesting language…
"The fighting fund's already supported activists with legal costs and defended people who've been smeared by the Israel Lobby."
He's already raised over £5,000. Pales in comparison to Jeremy Corbyn's £300,000…
Panorama's John Ware has today confirmed he will sue the pro-Corbyn lobby group Jewish Voice for Labour for libel over comments made in relation to last year's programme "Is Labour Antisemitic". Action will also be taken against founder member Naomi Wimbourne-Idrissi, who said Ware had a "terrible record of Islamophobia, far-right politics" and falsely claimed the BBC had had to "apologise" for his journalism. Ware has said the question of whether he is to sue Corbyn personally for defamation is still with his lawyers. The bigger question, however, is whether Jeremy will share any of the £300,000 raised for his legal defence with JVL…
Jeremy Corbyn has deleted a past tweet exchange with the grime artist Wiley, who has become embroiled in controversy over an extended antisemitic rant.
Wiley, whose real name is Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., appears to have shown support for the former Labour leader, who thanked him for his endorsement.
However, with Wiley now at the centre of his own antisemitism scandal, Mr Corbyn, whose tenure as Labour leader was marked by the Party's institutional antisemitism, has apparently deleted the tweet, but has not issued any statement explaining why or condemning Wiley's antisemitism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: "Jeremy Corbyn has not found time to express a shred of solidarity with the Jewish community even as #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate became Twitter's top trending hashtag, but he has found time to cover his own tracks. Mr Corbyn's deletion of his positive Twitter exchange with Wiley without any statement condemning his antisemitism suggests that he is acting purely out of self-interest to try to protect the shards of his shattered reputation as a supposed 'anti-racist'."
Campaign Against Antisemitism recently called for Mr Corbyn to be suspended from Labour after he made a conspiratorial statement about a legal settlement reached between Labour and former staffers turned whistleblowers.
Mr Corbyn has a long history of antisemitism controversies implicating him directly, and over 57,000 people signed our petition denouncing him as an antisemite and declaring him "unfit to hold any public office."
On July 24th, the Guardian published an article based on an exclusive by The Times that revealed antisemitic Facebook posts by a trustee of Britain's largest Muslim charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW). Though the Guardian piece, by their Jerusalem correspondent Oliver Holmes, was largely unproblematic, the wording in the second paragraph caught our eye: In Facebook posts published in 2014 and 2015, the trustee, Heshmat Khalifa, called Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a "pimp son of the Jews" and labelled Israeli authorities as "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs".
The Guardian claim that the Arabic Facebook post by Khalifa – who resigned from IRW after The Times' revelations – merely referred to "Israeli authorities" as "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs" differs from the translation by The Times, and nearly every media outlet which covered the story. These outlets reported that the IRW trustee labelled "Jews" as "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs", not merely "Israeli authorities".
The only outlet other than the Guardian to translate it as "Israeli authorities" that we found was 5 Pillars – the Islamist news site whose editors have repeatedly legitimised extremism and engaged in antisemitism.
More than 60 German and Israeli academics have signed a letter addressed to Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, complaining that criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians was being "suppressed" by concerns over antisemitism and eviscerating the German government's antisemitism commissioner for allegedly promoting "right-wing populist Israeli voices."
The letter — whose signatories include former Knesset Deputy Speaker Prof. Naomi Chazan and the prominent historians Dr. Wolfgang Benz and Prof. Moshe Zimmermann — emphasized that the writers' concern was "particularly great where this tendency is linked to political and financial support for the antisemitism commissioner."
The commissioner, Felix Klein, was appointed as Germany's first official tasked with combating antisemitism in 2018, in the midst of a dramatic escalation in outrages targeting the country's Jewish community.
While Klein has focused primarily on the role of far-right agitators, he has occasionally clashed with adversaries of Israel on the left, who were angered by his support for legislation passed by the German parliament in May 2019 that designated as antisemitic the global campaign to subject Israel to boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
In May this year, Klein was similarly vilified after he commented that the comparison of the Jewish state with the former racist white-minority regime in South Africa was a familiar antisemitic trope.
The July 24 letter to Merkel made specific mention of Klein's alleged backing for a publication by Arye Sharuz Shalicar — a German-born Israeli — in which a German academic, Reiner Bernstein, was referred to as a "Jew-hater." A court action by Bernstein against Shalicar for slander collapsed last month when a Berlin court ruled that the Israeli had engaged in a "permissible expression of opinion."
Tensions remain high in the North after the IDF thwarted a possible attack by the Hezbollah terrorist militia on Monday along the border with Lebanon. A Hezbollah cell, which numbered between three and five operatives, crossed the border several meters into Israeli territory and was identified by the IDF, which opened fire with machine guns and tank shells. Hezbollah has denied launching an operation against Israel.
The above paragraph is an example of straight news, without opining or commentary. Contrast that with this:
Please note the missing 'terrorist' in this Reuters Facebook post. This isn't merely an oversight. The complete article doesn't include the term 'terrorist' or 'militant.' Omitting this basic fact about Hezbollah denies news readers access to crucial information about its history, modus operandi, and connection to one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism.
Hezbollah: part-military, part-political, all terrorist This is the United Nations General Assembly's definition of terrorism: Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
Governments around the world have created lists of organizations they designate as terrorists. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization in eighteen countries, while its military wing is designated as such by the European Union. In late June, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on the EU to designate both the political and military wings as a terrorist group.
The British government reaffirmed its support for Holocaust-era property restitution in Poland as well as other countries, the House of Lords stated during session on Tuesday.
"We are in regular conversation with the Polish Government on the restitution of property seized during the Nazi occupation," said Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development. "The UK post-Holocaust issues envoy, my noble friend Lord Pickles, is working with the US and other parties to call on Poland to pass legislation to provide restitution to provide restitution of, or compensation for, private property."
In April, Poland's parliament sent draft legislation aimed at blocking restitution of property lost or stolen during the Holocaust to a committee, even as the country's ruling party voiced opposition to it.
The draft states: "It is forbidden to take any actions aimed at satisfying claims regarding heirless property, including negotiations, entering into settlements, recognizing claims and actions relating to heirless property, consenting to mediation, directing parties to mediation or payment of cash benefits."
It also states that Nazi Germany, not Poland, is responsible for what happened in Poland when it was occupied by Germany.
The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party said on Wednesday that it does not support the draft because it is "unnecessary," but it was introduced to parliament because it garnered 200,000 signatures – well above the 100,000 needed to do so.
Poland is, according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization, the only major European nation without laws regulating the restitution of private property – or possessions that belonged to individuals but ended up in the hands of the Polish state or other parties after the Holocaust.
Lord Ahmad intends to raise this issue during his first meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister.
Days after a small corner of the internet erupted with criticism of how the Metropolitan Museum of Art labeled a Jewish ritual object in its collection, the New York museum has quietly revised the description.
Where its website had previously called the tefillin — the leather boxes and straps used in prayer by observant Jews — an "amulet," it now refers to them by the word "phylactery."
A photo of the piece in the collection looks unmistakably like one piece of tefillin, the leather boxes and straps used in prayer by observant Jews. A shin, the Hebrew letter on the portion of tefillin that goes on the head, can be seen in the picture.
Twitter users had challenged the amulet label after an automated account that shares pictures of items in the museum's holding posted one of the tefillin, which is part of the Islamic art collection. Some called the museum's labeling anti-Semitic because it did not reflect the Jewish nature of the item.
The new label does not indicate that the item, which is not on display publicly, is used by Jews. The museum obtained the item in 1962 and says it likely originated in sixth century Egypt.
She was one of the Arab world's most revered singers, praised by Bob Dylan and sampled by Beyonce: the late Egyptian legend Umm Kulthum seems worthy of having a street named in her honor.
But when that street is in Israel, a country she condemned while championing the Palestinian cause, a decision to honor the vocalist branded "the Star of the East," has triggered controversy.
Haifa — Israel's third largest city, where roughly 10 percent of its 300,000 residents are Arab — decided earlier this month to honor the woman whose deep, resonant voice was also adored by many Jews.
The decision highlights the diversity of the city, "which represents a model of coexistence between Arabs and Jews," Haifa Mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem said.
Umm Kulthum, who died aged 76 in 1975, performed in Haifa in the 1930s when the city was in British-mandated Palestine before Israel's creation in 1948.
Haifa councilor Raja Zaatreh said honoring Umm Kulthum is an appropriate way of recognizing the "presence and roots" of Israel's Arab community, which regularly complains of discrimination.
About 9,000 years ago, the site of Atlit Yam was home to a vibrant village, where several houses, as well as a ritual place stood. A few centuries later, the area was submerged by the sea and today is located about 500 meters off the coast of northern Israel. Among the remains of buildings as well as of animals, plants and even several individuals, marine archaeologists identified a number of circular installations made of heated mud bricks. As a group of Israeli scholars from the Department of Maritime Civilizations and the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and the Israel Antiquities Authority found out, those ancient artifacts offer a key to understand how prehistoric populations in Israel evolved in ancient times, becoming more and more skillful and proficient in using the environment surrounding them.
"In the Neolithic period, we start seeing the first sedentary settlements and the appearance of bricks is deeply connected to this phenomenon," Isaac Ogloblin Ramírez, a PhD student and the lead author of the paper recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, told The Jerusalem Post.
If at the beginning of the Neolithic era, bricks were simply dried out in the sun, as ancient populations developed pyro-technologies, the artifacts started to be fired, which increased their resistance to the point of allowing them to survive for millennia under the sea.
For the study, the researchers considered bricks found in sites from different periods, both submerged and not. Underwater survey and collection of samples for analysis was conducted with the assistance of the Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa.
Eighty percent of American Jews have absolutely no idea what Judaism is. You see them on TV. You read them in some publications. Sometimes they say that they are motivated by their "Jewish values." In reality, the vast majority of them would not know real Judaism if it were placed on their laps, served on their plates, or sung to them on their iPods. Sadly, they do not know how to read a sentence in the Talmud. Sadly, they have no clue what happens in most of the Jewish calendar year. Indeed, a large chunk of those "Jews" who tell pollsters that they are Jewish in fact are not even Jewish altogether.
There is a world of difference between a Ben Shapiro, a Jeff Jacoby, and a Dennis Prager on the one hand, and a Bernie Sanders and a George Soros on the other. Bernie Sanders is a Communist who ran away from Black people in Brooklyn to live in lily-white Vermont, and who ran away from Judaism in Brooklyn to live in Vermont. George Soros had a greater connection to Jews, allegedly helping his adoptive Nazi father register property the Nazis seized from Jews. As Soros told Steve Kroft on CBS's "Sixty Minutes," if he had not kept the ledgers for the Nazi, then someone else would have.
These people embarrass me. And that embarrassment is amplified by the reality that such Leftists and Jewish no-nothings influence the news to determine which rabbis get quoted, which understanding of Judaism gets disseminated and transmitted in America. I am a Senior Rabbinic Fellow at Coalition of Jewish Values, which numbers more than 1,000 Orthodox rabbis. I recently concluded spending six years on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, which numbers 1,000 rabbis. Those two rabbinic bodies have some membership overlap, but not much.
There is yet another mainstream Orthodox rabbinic body to our right, Agudath Israel. We 2,000-plus Orthodox rabbis in America way-outnumber the rabbis of the "reform" and "conservative" movements, which basically have become branches of the ACLU, but the secular or non-Jewish reader never would know it.
We 2,000-plus Orthodox rabbis in America observe the laws, practices, and customs of Judaism — observing the Sabbath as prescribed, observing kosher laws, and much else. We are pro-life and rarely can allow an abortion under Torah law. We see a world of only two genders because that is what the Torah tells us, that G-d created Adam and Eve, male and female He created them. And so it goes with the marriages that we perform.
But the mainstream media black us out. We don't exist. None of the 2,000-plus of us — not to mention the millions of American Orthodox Jewish laity whom we guide as our flocks. None suppress us more than the Leftists who identify as Jews — who sometimes are and sometimes are not even Jewish but say they are.
Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, William H. Seward, visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 1871. He writes the following in his book, Travels Around the World:
For centuries (we do not know how many) the Turkish rulers have allowed the oppressed and exiled Jews the privilege of gathering at the foot of this wall one day in every week, and pouring out their lamentations over the fall of their beloved city, and praying for its restoration to the Lord, who promised, in giving its name, that he would 'be there.'
The Jewish sabbath being on Saturday, and beginning at sunset on Friday, the weekly wail of the Jews under the wall takes place on Friday, and is a preparation for the rest and worship of the day which they are commanded to 'keep holy.' The small rectangular open plaza serves for the gathering of the whole remnant of the Jewish nation in Jerusalem. Here, whether it rains or shines, they come together at an early hour, old and young, men, women, and little children – the poor and the rich, in their best costumes, discordant as the diverse nations from which they come.
They are attended by their rabbis, each bringing the carefully-preserved and elaborately-bound text of the book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, either in their respective languages, or in the original Hebrew. For many hours they pour forth their complaints, reading and reciting the poetic language of the prophet, beating their hands against the wall, and bathing the stones with their kisses and tears. It is no mere formal ceremony.
Jews mourn for the destruction of the Temples year-round, as Seward witnessed at the Western Wall in 1871. But there is one day in the Jewish calendar – the ninth of the month of Av – in which mourning over the Temples is the exclusive focus of Jews worldwide.
In 586 BCE on this date, the First Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar. In 70 CE on the same date, the Second Temple, refurbished by Herod the Great, was destroyed by the Romans led by Titus. One can see the Arch of Titus in Rome today which shows images of Roman soldiers pillaging the Temple and looting its ritual vessels. Both Temples sat on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the exact spot where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque currently sit.
During the 2,000 years of exile, no matter where they were around the world and not matter what horrific persecution they were experiencing, Jews have commemorated the destruction of the Temples on Tisha B'av in a uniquely Jewish way – fasting, introspecting, and reciting sad prayers while sitting on low chairs or on the floor. They also prayed for a return to Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple on a daily basis and at their wedding ceremonies they broke a glass, declaring that their happiness cannot be complete as long as the Temple sits in ruins.
The international media often portrays Jews who seek to pray on the Temple Mount as radicals, trouble-makers, and even militants, seeking to create tension between Jews and Muslims. First and foremost, this is inaccurate. Jews simply seek the right to pray on the site where their Temples once stood. There is no reason for this to be seen as interference with Muslim worship which takes place in the same area. Second, the Jewish Temple itself was not a place for only Jews to worship.
Against the background of the Jordanian condemnation of Israel for work carried out by Israel on the southern extension of the Western Wall and the Muslim denial of the Jewish connection to the Western Wall, Nadav Shragai, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center, published this collection of forgotten and lesser-known facts about the Western Wall, which Muslims are trying to deny.
- After the destruction of the Temple, Jews prayed on the Temple Mount, on the Mount of Olives, at the eastern and southern walls, and finally – when Jerusalem was reopened – Jews returned to the Western Wall, which is closest in proximity to the Holy of Holies. - The current place of worship at the Western Wall was established after an earthquake in 1546, which collapsed a row of buildings leaning against the Western Wall and cleared a short prayer alley for Jews, used with the approval of the Ottoman authorities. - The central synagogue of the Jews in Jerusalem, "The Cave," was located inside the Western Wall tunnels for many years, until the city fell to the Crusaders in 1099. - The Jewish scholar, Yitzhak Yehezkiel Yehuda, collected dozens of testimonies of Jewish prayers throughout many points in time, beginning in 950 CE. They were submitted to the 1930 British Western Wall Commission, testifying to the Jewish connection to the place. - A valuable new study prepared by Dr. Aryeh Kimelman reveals that in parallel with the prayers at the Western Wall "alley," which later expanded to become the Western Wall Plaza, Jews prayed at various points along the entire length of the wall, for example, near the Cotton Merchants' Gate, Council Gate, and Iron Gate. - Muslims today deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, as well as reject any Jewish connection to the Western Wall. They claim that the entire area of the Temple Mount is "part of al-Aqsa." - After 1967, the Muslims expanded the definition of "al-Aqsa" beyond just the southern mosque on the Mount and applied it to the entire compound and its walls. - During the 19 years of occupying east Jerusalem, Jordan violated a commitment to allow Jews to pray at the Western Wall.
As we approach #TishaBAv, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar which begins tonight, here is a short message about the relevance of this Fast specifically during the coronavirus pandemic -> https://t.co/358fhF6GKi. I wish you all a tzom kal, a meaningful Fast. #9Av#Jerusalem
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On Monday there was a "security incident" on our northern border. I am not going to try to explain it, because I have no idea of what actually happened. First reports were that Hezbollah fighters had crossed the border in the Shebaa Farms area at the foot of Har Dov, and fired an antitank missile at a Merkava tank. The missile was said to have missed, and IDF soldiers returned fire, killing four of the enemy. Lebanese sources, on the other hand, said that that several Israelis were killed.
Then it was reported that none of the Hezbollah fighters had been hit, and that no missile was fired. The story was that they had infiltrated into Israel (apparently the border fence is not continuous in the area), were detected, and driven back by IDF fire. Artillery fire and Israeli aircraft, as well as explosions, were seen in the area.
Hezbollah claimed that they had not crossed the border and had not fired any missile. The background is that a couple of weeks ago a Hezbollah operative was killed when Israel bombed an ammunition dump some 15 km. south of Damascus. Several Iranian and Syrian personnel were killed as well. Israel sent a message to Hassan Nasrallah saying that the Hezbollah operative's killing was unintentional. But Nasrallah has promised that every Hezbollah casualty, wherever it occurs, will be avenged. So the IDF has been expecting and preparing for Hezbollah to retaliate.
Monday's incident was supposed to be that retaliation. But Nasrallah has said no, the debt is still unpaid (though the mother of the man killed in Syria gave out sweets in honor of the operation). Another similar incident happened on the border last August. Again Hezbollah owed the IDF a debt of violence after its personnel had been killed by an Israeli strike in Syria. Several antitank missiles were fired at an IDF APC, and troops were seen evacuating apparently wounded soldiers from it. But it turned out that the vehicle had been empty. Apparently the idea was to convince Hezbollah that they had succeeded in getting their revenge.
All this makes me uneasy. It seems as though we are trying to prevent escalation by exhibiting weakness, rather than strength. Think about the statement that the death of the Hezbollah fighter in Syria was "unintentional." That ammunition dump was most likely bombed because it contained equipment being sent from Iran to Lebanon to enable Hezbollah to convert its tens of thousands of rockets to precision-guided munitions, able to strike within a few meters of a selected target. Everyone understands that such weapons are game-changers. The goal of Hezbollah's buildup, financed and supplied from Iran, is to kill Jews and destroy our state. Does it make sense that we should in effect apologize for killing someone involved in that project? The same strategy seems to be applied in Gaza. Hamas is allowed to fire barrages of hundreds of rockets at towns and cities in Israel; we try to knock them away (so far, pretty successfully) with our anti-missile systems. Then we punish Hamas by carefully targeting empty Hamas facilities in the Strip. If we killed anyone, then they would need to retaliate, and this way we prevent escalation while at the same time make them pay a price.
There is a problem on several levels here, which should be evident to anyone:
On the level of deterrence, the message we are sending is, "go ahead, try to hurt us, nothing much will happen if you fail." And the natural result of this is that they are encouraged to keep trying.
On the psychological level, we are telling them – and ourselves – that we are targets. Shooting at Jews is acceptable. We have come to believe this ourselves. If we didn't, we would respond more strongly.
Finally, on the level of honor, our failure to respond harshly to attempted murder is a sign that we are too weak to defend our own lives and property. In a Mideastern culture in which personal, family, clan, and national honor are almost tangible, someone who can't defend what he has doesn't deserve to keep it.
The appropriate response to maximize deterrence, self-respect, and honor is to always respond to attempts to hurt you with greater, even disproportionately greater, force. This is an elementary schoolyard lesson for dealing with bullies that kids of my generation learned quickly. The youthful Ariel Sharon understood this when he commanded Unit 101. Today, our leaders seem to have forgotten.
The strategy our leaders have chosen is to avoid escalation at all costs, even when it damages deterrence. They continue to kick the can down the road, perhaps in the hopes that war can be avoided until Iran self-destructs and Hezbollah withers away. In any case, they hope that whatever bad things might happen, it will be after their term as PM or Chief of Staff is finished.
Unfortunately, the long term application of this strategy has left us in a situation in which we are deterred by Hezbollah, rather than the opposite. They have the initiative, and can turn the pressure on and off at will. We are demoralized, despite the fact that we are objectively stronger than our enemies. And as a nation without national honor, we are held in contempt by allies and enemies alike.
This is not an easy thing to turn around. Our enemies have been conditioned to expect certain behavior. We need to teach them otherwise, which won't happen overnight. But we have to try. Miscalculations on either side might lead us into war; but continued weakness will almost certainly do so.
