Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 16, 2022

Since its release by an anonymous creator in early June, the Mapping Project an illustrated web of purported connections between Massachusetts groups and the state of Israel has faced widespread denunciation by critics who said it represented a dangerous, antisemitic mapping of the states Jewish community that could leave organizations vulnerable to attack.

Now, a leading anti-hate organization the Anti-Defamation League wants the Mapping Project removed from its internet server, and it wants help from the government of Iceland in doing so.

The project displayed an online map of supposed connections between organizations that its authors said were supportive of Israel or had links to the Jewish nation.

What fell under that definition was broad: the map listed the names and addresses of Zionist leaders, politicians, financial groups and media companies, in addition to schools in towns with considerable Jewish populations, police departments that had no clear connection to Israel and the offices of local politicians.

Each of the entities which included synagogue groups and Jewish day schools could be disrupted and dismantled, the authors said.

Critics condemned the map as a dangerous and irresponsible, one that could expose those listed to harm. A leading international Palestinian advocacy group distanced itself from local supporters in Boston who published the map on social media.

The Mapping Project, designed by BDS Boston, is an illustrated web of purported connections between Jewish organizations, groups across Massachusetts that voiced support for the state of Israel, and other entities that had interacted with the Jewish nation.

Since its publishing, the online map has been removed from two different host servers, according to the Anti-Defamation League, one of the nations leading defenders of the Jewish community against hate.

The Anti-Defamation League said that the map now sits on a server located in Iceland. In a letter Wednesday to the nations Minister for Foreign Affairs, the organization asked that Icelandic officials intervene to help remove the Mapping Project from the server.

Writing to Minister Reykfjrd Gylfadttir, the Anti-Defamation League urged Iceland to take immediate action against the source of a threat to the Boston, Massachusetts-area Jewish community.

By both calling for the dismantling of Jewish institutions, including a high school and an arts group, simultaneously posting their addresses and contact information, the site serves as a call to action against dozens of Jewish institutions and individuals, Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote. While we deeply respect freedom of expression, this website crosses the line into specific threats against individuals and institutions.

The Anti-Defamation League, other Jewish groups and politicians across the ideological spectrum have spoken out against the map since its release.

In a joint statement, Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey said that at this moment of rising antisemitism, racist attacks, and political violence, this mapping of the Jewish community is dangerous and irresponsible.

New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, called the project an antisemitic and dangerous attack on the rights and freedoms of American Jews and said it would enflame antisemitic hate and violence locally and abroad.

This is just chilling to me, said Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat. It is tapping into millennia-old antisemitic tropes about nefarious Jewish wealth, control, conspiracy, media connections and political string-pulling.

Auchincloss represents an area of Greater Boston with a sizable Jewish community, including the city of Newton, where the police department and public school system were labeled on the Mapping Project.

To name names and keep lists, which has a very sinister history in Judaism, in terms of how we are targeted, is very irresponsible. [The group] needs to take this down and apologize, he said.

The map is currently hosted on the server of 1984 Hosting, an Icelandic company, the Anti-Defamation League said.

ADL has made 1984 Hosting aware of the threat, the organization said, but the company has not taken any action, despite the clear contravention of its terms of service.

We deeply regret the apparent lackadaisical attitude of Icelandic officials toward this threat to the Jewish community, the Anti-Defamation League continued, asking that Iceland take expeditious measures to prevent this website from being hosted.

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Antisemitic Boston Mapping Project now hosted on ... - masslive

Category: Anti-Defamation League
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