Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

Edited by: TJVNews.com

The Jewish Voice NY is endorsing and is urging our readers to vote for the ZOA Coalition (Slate #11) in the ongoing 2020 World Zionist Congress (WZC) elections. The ZOA Coalitions impressive record of real accomplishments, their work to spread the truth about the Jewish peoples rights to the land of Israel; and their inclusion of 27 of the strongest pro-Israel organizations, makes the ZOA Coalition well-deserving of our endorsement and our readers votes.

At the most recent World Zionist Congress, every single pro-Israel and pro-Jewish resolution was initiated by the ZOA Coalition. ZOA Coalition led the successful two-year battle to pass a broad anti-BDS resolution that includes combatting boycotts against Jews living in Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria. ZOA Coalition also initiated a WZO program to encourage buying Israeli products; and initiated and obtained passage of a vital resolution giving highest funding priority to rescuing and bringing to Israel Jews who are endangered by global antisemitism. ZOA Coalition is working to assuring that Jewish institutional funds are used to preserve the safety of the Jewish people.

The ZOA Coalition also initiated and obtained passage of resolutions: to establish a worldwide WZO program to teach about the Jewish peoples legal right to settle and re-establish the Jewish homeland; calling on Israels government to exercise its sovereignty over the Jordan Valley; condemning UNESCO for denying the Jewish peoples connection to Jewish sites in Jerusalem and Hebron; and requiring use of the proper names Judea and Samaria instead of the de-Judaized names.

ZOA Coalition has also been leading successful battles to defeat anti-Israel resolutions, including defeating an antisemitic resolution to label Israeli society as full of institutional racism.

The 27 wonderful activist organizations on the ZOA Coalition include: Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Aish HaTorah, Students Supporting Israel, Americans Against Antisemitism, NORPAC, Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI), the Lawfare Project, Hasbara Fellowships, Z Street, Chovevei Zion, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, American Friends of Likud, major Russian, Persian, Bukharian and Syrian-Jewish groups, the National Conference on Jewish Affairs, and more. (See VoteZOA.org for full list.)

The ZOA Coalition (slate #11) deserves all of our support. Voting only costs $5 or $7.50 (for election company costs). Please cast your vote today for the ZOA Coalition (Slate #11) via the link at VoteZOA.org or at ZionistElection.org. (Voting ends on March 11.)

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Jewish Voice NY Endorses the ZOA Coalition (Slate #11) in the Ongoing World Zionist Congress Elections - The Jewish Voice

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Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

The Berlin-based Humboldt University, which expelled Jewish academics and students during the Nazi-era, is slated on Wednesday to host an event with a pro-BDS academic who critics allege is antisemitic and has helped mainstream the delegitmization of Israel.The Humboldt University media spokesman Hans-Christoph Keller plans to moderate the panel titled Who is an antisemite a philosophical clarification of the concept. The HUs website lists a notice and registration for the Wednesday event with the anti-Israel academic Georg Meggle.In response to accusations that Keller and the event with Meggle stoke and tolerate modern antisemitism, Keller told the Post "cleary no." He added "The allegation of antisemitism is unfounded."Keller said "It must be within the scope of freedom of education in a democratic society to be possible on the basis of scientific arguments to discuss with each other in a fair balanced manner. Because this is not just the core of the scientific work processes, but also an important societal one and a task of every university."He refused to say if antisemitism is an opinion when asked.The Post also asked Keller if the HU is violating the mayor of Berlin's anti-BDS executive order, stating public facilities are banned from providing space to BDS. The HU receives public funds.BDS is an abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targeting the Jewish state.Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi hunter for the human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center and head of the organization's Jerusalem office, said: Why would would a respectable university give a platform to someone who supports BDS, which is a form of antisemitism, and any such lecture by a spokesman for that cause grants the legitimacy that this movement does not serve.Zuroff confirmed to the Post that the HU is making antisemitism politically and socially respectable.Amid rising antisemitism and violence against Jews in Berlin, the representative to combat antisemitism for Berlins Jewish community, Sigmount A. Knigsberg, told the Post that in connection with Meggle and the HU event: The modern hater of Jews no longer says that he is antisemite. Rather, he gives free rein to his antisemitism, in which he calls himself an anti-Zionist or critic of Israel, but means Jews.He added that An anti-Zionist denies the Jewish people what is granted to all other peoples: the right to self-determination. If that's not antisemitism, then what it?Alex Feuerherdt, an author of a book on UN-based antisemitism and leading German journalist writing on contemporary Jew-hatred, told the Post that "Georg Meggle has long been known for his negative attitude towards Israel. For example, 15 years ago he organized anti-Zionist lectures in Leipzig, where speakers with antisemitic positions were allowed to speak. "Meggle held an anti-Israel event with two antisemitic activists, one of whom, Hajo Meyer, has termed Israel a criminal state and equated the suffering of Palestinians to the persecution and mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust. The Dutch Jewish author Leon de Winter told the Post in 2011 that in Meyer's book about the "end of Judaism," an end he favors, he wrote that "the Jews' 'otherness,' like their dietary rules, caused antipathy already thousands of years ago.De Winter added that It is a fascinating and frightening way to survive he is still the Nazi prisoner he once was by completely internalizing the Nazis hatred.The Humboldt University student Henri Armke told the Post that "BDS and other antisemitic movements must not be able to get a place on campus or anywhere else. Therefore, some students will advise how they will react to Meggle's dangerous propaganda if this event is not canceled. That BDS, the current form of Dont buy from Jews!, the Nazi slogan, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, is given a stage, is a shame!"The Post sent a media query to Meggle who also teaches at the Cairo, Egypt branch of Leipzig University.

Dr. Elvira Groezinger, the deputy representative of the Geman branch of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, appealed to the HU to cancel the event. She said "at the HU tomorrow, of all things, the BDS supporter and antisemite Georg Meggle is to discuss the freedom of science. Is this a preparatory event for the dismissal of students and teachers who reject this line?"

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German university hosts pro-BDS event with alleged antisemite - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

A week into the official unveiling of the Trump Administrations Deal of the Century, there is no lack of analysis of how this vision for peace to prosperity legitimizes Israels numerous crimes, while fulfilling the countrys aspirations for acceptance into the region. And as we denounce this vision, it must be emphasized that it does not propose much that is novel, as much as it merely sets up an official, contractual framework for transgressions that are already facts on the ground.

The annexation of Jerusalem and declaring it the capital of Israel, the denial of the Palestinian refugees Right of Return, Israels control of all Palestinian borders, including the Gaza Strips maritime borders, the annexation of West Bank settlements, Palestinian demilitarization, the setting up of regional alliances, and putting an end to BDS, are not a bold vision as much as a long-standing reality, which Trump wants Palestinians to officially agree to. (Or else what? Gaza is already unlivable, BDS criminalized, protestors in the Great March of Return are shot on sight, while refugees in the global diaspora are denied return). In other words, the plan does not propose apartheid, it seeks to formalize it.

And while analysts remain busy explaining the Deals many offensive details, Israel is moving full steam into annexing more land, and seizing more Palestinian homes.

Here in the US, the Deal of the Century has reinvigorated the discourse naming Israels practices as apartheidagain, nothing new, the analogy is at the basis of the 2005 call for BDS. And as we welcome these belated nods of acknowledgement, we must keep pushing the discourse towards a denunciation of the entire scope of the initial catastrophe that befell Palestinians last century, rather than its recent manifestations.

Al Nakba was more than apartheid. Yet many who fancy themselves progressive do not question the settler-colonial mindset behind their support of the two-state solution, which would preserve their beloved Israel as a Jewish state. I am thinking of groups such as J Street, the political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans, and IfNotNow, building a movement of Jews to end Israels occupation, who denounce only the 1967 occupation. And of course I have written about Bernie Sanders Zionism, even as I maintain that he is the best presidential candidate for Palestinians.

More than denouncing apartheid, it is time to acknowledge that Israel, in whatever form it has taken, or can take, would never have come into existence without European imperialism and settler-colonialism. If there was ever to be an Israel that is a Jewish state, in parts of what was once Palestine, that Israel could only happen through the initial expulsion, followed by the ongoing violation of the right of return of the Palestinian people to their homes, villages, towns and cities in pre-1967 Israel.

So this is a call for consistency: just as apartheid is wrong, a crime against humanity, so settler-colonialism is racism, which entails the dispossession and disenfranchisement of an indigenous people, so as to create an enclave of supremacyof whatever size. The Zionism of 1917, (Lord Balfours Declaration), of 1923 (Zeev Jabotinskys Iron Wall) and of 1948, that is, the early Zionism which laid the foundations for the new state of Israel, was no less murderous and violently separatist than the Zionism of todays Hebron occupiers.

Only weeks ago, progressive Zionists were appalled at the New York Times alarmist announcement (which was later proven unwarranted) that Trump would be issuing an executive order asserting that Judaism is a nationality, not just a religion. Yet if Judaism is not a nationality, then Jewish self-determination should not necessitate the trappings of a nation-state, especially one founded on stolen land, whose rightful owners remain refugees to this day.

Fifteen years since the call for BDS was issued, using South Africa as a model, there is finally broad acceptance amongst progressives that Israel is an apartheid state, not the vibrant democracy they had long assumed it to bealbeit with some post-1967 blemishes and flaws. That discursive change is important, as it is at the basis of the growing global solidarity with the Palestinian people. But we must not stop at that. We should not only push for a recognition of Israeli apartheid, we must demand the recognition that any Jewish Israeli state, whatever its boundaries within historic Palestine, is necessarily a settler-colonial state. And no form of settler-colonialism is progressive.

The modern nation-state of Israel, the one founded through an imperial declaration early in the twentieth century, was envisioned as an enclave of ethno-nationalist supremacy, achieved through the expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants of the land. The Deal of the Twenty-First Century cannot be a continuation of settler-colonialism. It must be the recognition that all settler-colonialism is wrong, and that todays facts on the ground necessitate the acceptance of one state, from the river to the sea, with equal rights for all.

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More than Apartheid - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

Its a courtroom trial, but it felt like a math class.

Wednesday saw expert testimony on racially segregated voting in the East Ramapo Central School District, a majority Orthodox suburban district that has been plagued by a battle over funding to the districts public schools.

The case concerns East Ramapos at-large voting system, which a group of local residents, led by the NAACP, claims dilutes the votes of minority voters, giving the Orthodox community control over funding for public schools. The district, in Rockland County, N.Y., saw dramatic cuts to its public schools beginning in 2009, as its majority-Orthodox school board expanded state-mandated busing for a rapidly growing yeshiva student population.

The experts testimony hinged on the fundamentals of how to determine if whites are voting for their preferred candidates and minorities are voting for theirs. To do so, you need to use statistics like a pollster, from creating a probability distribution to estimating a persons race based on their last name and address.

If youre worried that the subject matter was dry and hard to understand, youre not alone. As Matthew Barreto, a professor of political science at UCLA, began explaining what a point estimate is shortly after the 9:30 a.m. start, the judge, Cathy Seibel, interjected.

Ive already lost you, she said. Barreto backed up to defining a confidence interval. Youre gonna have to start over, Seibel responded.

Yet these complex questions are at the very heart of this case, because they will help the judge decide whether the plaintiffs have met the legal standard for determining if the district must change its voting system. The plaintiffs are seeking a ward system, which they hope will help minority citizens of the school district get their candidates elected to the school board.

Despite being thrust back into math class, Seibel quickly regained her footing. When she correctly explained back one of Barretos points about interval overlap in a board election from 2017, Barreto leaned into the witness stand mic and said, A+.

Over the course of the day, Barreto, who researches voting patterns and consults for campaigns and other voting litigations, answered questions about several pieces of the NAACPs arguments.

One of the elements of Barretos testimony was about the racial estimates of names. Political scientists and pollsters use U.S. census data on which every citizen lists their own race to create broad estimates of how likely a last name is to correspond with a given race. A name like Washington is more likely to be black than Feldman, for example, while a name like Sanchez almost always indicates someone who identifies as Latinx.

Whats important to note is that theyre just probabilities: e.g., the name Feldman could be 90% white, 5% black and 5% Latinx.

Barreto used what he called a common social sciences practice to estimate the race for each voter in East Ramapo, based on two factors: their surname and their address. Then he used that data to estimate which school board candidates received the majority of white votes (and won) and which received the majority of black and Latinx votes (and lost).

A lawyer for the district, Randall Levine, tried to seize on apparent gaps in this approach. On the screen, he set up a list of voter names deemed obviously Jewish by Seibel and their estimated race.

Yom Tov Braun: 89% Asian. Tranie Goldmunzer: 92% black. Faigy Pinkasowitz: 79% Hispanic.

Wasnt this evidence, Levine asked Barreto, that his entire method might be flawed?

No, Barreto responded, because those racially mis-identified names are just a fraction of the entire voter list 209 out of 14,657 people, or just 2%.

Barreto explained that these Jewish people probably lived in census blocks with few other white people. Errors like these get balanced out over large populations, he said. For every white person estimated at 30% white and 70% black, theres probably a black person estimated at 70% white and 30% black, and so on. They add up to 100%, and cancel each other out.

Levine kept trying to press the subject, suggesting that Barreto was speculating that the racially mis-assigned name would ultimately cancel out with other mis-assigned names. But ultimately Seibel cut him off, and ended that line of questioning.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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If an algorithm thinks Hasidic Jews are black, is it wrong? Day 3 of East Ramapo trial - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. Lawyers on Monday presented starkly different perspectives on identity politics in a suburban New York school district, as a federal trial opened in a voting-rights case that caps more than a dozen years of battle over funding between Orthodox Jews and their mostly black and Latino neighbors.

The case concerns the East Ramapo Central School District, where a majority-Orthodox board has in recent years cut teachers, aides, and after-school programs rather than raise taxes as growing private-school enrollment swelled the state-mandated transportation budget. The district, which includes the Orthodox enclaves of Monsey and New Square as well as racially diverse Spring Valley and Hillcrest, now has about 9,000 students in public schools and 30,000 in yeshivas.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, which include the NAACP, accused the district of being run by the tyranny of the majority what Corey Calabrese of the firm Latham & Watkins called the white private-school community. The district board, she said, has been defined by indifference to the public schools and their black and Latino students, and accused it of using a secret slating process to elect candidates including some who are black or Latino who support private-school interests.

Arguing that the districts at-large voting system violates the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, Calabrese said that unless the district institutes geographically based ward system, the white community will always win.

But David Butler, a lawyer representing the school district, said the issue was not racial representation but policy differences, such as whether to raise taxes top make up for state budget cuts. He also accused his opponents of literally whitewashing the Hasidic community, saying bluntly: This case is about Orthodox Jews.

As for Calabreses accusation of a secret slating process, Butler said it was a grand conspiracy theory of a shadowy Orthodox cabal that controls elections, raising the specter of anti-Semitism.

The trial, in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., did not get underway in earnest until 4:30 p.m., delayed first by the Judge Cathy Seibels attendance at a colleagues funeral, then by her efforts to get the parties to negotiate a settlement. As journalists, spectators, lawyers and clients waited, the bailiff had to admonish the crowd to lower the volume multiple times. There were many jokes about cell-phone withdrawal, since no electronic devices are allowed in court.

With no settlement reached, the lawyers outlined the cases they plan to present over the next two weeks, calling as witnesses current and former members of the school board; failed candidates for the board; former teachers and students in the districts public schools; statisticians and demographers; and local activists.

In the courtroom were about a dozen supporters of the public-school parents and failed candidates for the board who are suing the district alongside the NAACP and about 20 lawyers and support staff from Latham & Watkins, which is handling the plaintiffs case pro bono. Two lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union are also serving as counsel.

The district is being represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. According to a bond filing from April 2019, the district expends to spend at least $1 million on legal fees for the case.

Adjourning for the evening, Seibel told the parties that she expects them to continue settlement discussions, even though, following the opening arguments, each side has heard the other say terrible things about them.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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East Ramapo trial begins: The white community will always win vs. literally whitewashing Hasidic Jews - Forward

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Posted By admin on February 12, 2020

As reported in Jewish newspaper The Forward, the First Edition of the Yiddish translation of Harry Potter and the PhilosophersStone, comprising 1,000 copies, sold out within two days of publication, with orders coming in from theUnited States, Israel, Poland, Sweden, Morocco, Australia, and China. 1,000 copies may not sound like very many, given the typical stratospheric sales figures for books in the Potter franchise (over 500 millions copies in over 80 languages have been sold worldwide), but it has been unusual for Yiddish-language books from outside of the Hasidic community to sell more than a few hundred copies due to the limited market. According to publisher Niklas Olniansky of Sweden-based Olniansky Tekst,Its crazy, its hard to believe. We thought that we wouldnt be able to sell more than 1,000 copies of a non-Hasidic book.

The Harry Potter franchise is known for breaking records, and also breaking cultural and linguistic barriers, leading to a global community of diverse fans (shout out to Leaky readers) united by our love of the magicalworld created by J.K. Rowling. The Forward speculates that purchasers of the Yiddish edition include both native speakers and students of Yiddish, as well as collectors who simply want to own all available editions of the Potter books.

Translator Arun Viswanath told The Forward,Im an optimist by nature but even Ive been blown away by the enthusiasm. Im thrilled. It was Viswanaths wife, a Harry Potter fan, who encouraged him to translate the first book in the series into Yiddish. As a proponent of the language, he was eager for kids to be immersed in it as a first language, and his wife said, Do you really want to raise Yiddish-speaking kids in a world without Harry Potter in Yiddish? Viswanath spent two years translating Philosophers Stone (rendered Harry Potter un der filosofisher shteyn in Yiddish)and is now working on Chamber of Secrets (Heri Poter un di soydes-kamer).

Rowlings sophisticated wordplay, neologisms, British-specific vocabulary, and regional accents, make the series particularly challenging for a translator. Viswanath opted for a carefully-chosen mix of substituting English words with Yiddish equivalents, transliterating some words, and leaving others in their English form (Hufflepuff house is still Hufflepuff, although Griffyndor became Goldngrif and Ravenclaw is Robnkrel). You can read a detailed account of the translation challenges and process hereand read an excerpt here.

A second edition is forthcoming. You can order it here for $28, which includes shipping worldwide.

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You can now add Yiddish to the languages into which the Harry Potter books have been translated - The-Leaky-Cauldron.org - The Leaky Cauldron.org

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Posted By admin on February 11, 2020

the Mayor, the NYPD & cameras (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

In response to an increase in reported anti-Semitic hate crimes and violent attacks, New York City and State are simultaneously implementing a permanent increase in surveillance in several predominantly Orthodox Jewish communities.

The new surveillance technology -- including 100 new NYPD cameras and state-funded cameras and license plate readers -- comes after high-profile attacks in Jersey City and Monsey in the final weeks of 2019 and a multi-year increase in reported hate crimes, many of them anti-Semitic. Amid calls from Haredi leaders for a heightened police presence and a corresponding vow from government officials to protect the physical safety of Jews, a robust public response to growing anti-Semitism has particular resonance 75 years after the Holocaust.

But this specific response also shines a light on the movement toward mass surveillance by both government and private actors, still considered Orwellian by some but accepted as part of modern life by others. Civil rights advocates and other government watchdogs are questioning the proportionality of responding to contemporary fears with a permanent security apparatus that could have other applications now and in the future.

Speaking at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio affirmed the citys commitment to protect Jews.

We confront [anti-Semitism] by doing the things that so many nations never did. We take our police force, we take our security forces, and we put them in the Jewish community to protect our people. That is what we must always do, he said. He described the cold feeling of considering how few the non-Jews were who acted against the intolerance that foreshadowed genocide of 17 million people, including 6 million Jews.

The recent surge in anti-Semitism has faced lawmakers and residents with the question of what it means in the 21st century to stand with the Jewish community, especially those who are more easily identified as Jewish (either because they wear traditional attire or live in certain concentrated communities). In response, the city and state have each taken a combination of short- and long-term approaches, including education, reconciliation, and, most immediately, security.

According to NYPD data, anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 26 percent in 2019, and 86 percent between 2015 and 2019, doubling the rise in total hate crimes. The high concentration of violent incidents in December -- including a triple homicide at a kosher deli in Jersey City and a knife attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey -- have ignited calls to action at virtually every level of government.

In January, de Blasio reported the NYPD would be installing 100 new police cameras in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park -- three neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations -- as part of an effort to prevent and punish hate crimes. Days later, in response to the Monsey attack, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he was directing up to $680,000 in state funds for security cameras and license plate readers in Monsey and New Square, two Orthodox Jewish enclaves in Rockland County (the Monsey attacker was tracked to Manhattan and caught partially using a license plate reader).

An attack on the Jewish community is an attack on all New Yorkers. These new security cameras will increase the NYPDs visibility into these neighborhoods, and help our officers on the ground keep New Yorkers safe, de Blasio said in a statement. One hundred and fifty additional police officers are now patrolling those streets, he said.

This new technology will enhance security in vulnerable communities and serve as a deterrent for future attackers, Cuomo said on January 13 when he allocated new funding to harden surveillance in the two hamlets. He also deployed more state police to patrol in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout New York.

Representatives of Cuomo and de Blasio, both Democrats, told Gotham Gazette the new cameras and license plate readers would be permanent.

Asked by email whether there were plans to review the need for cameras in the future, like in the event of a downturn in anti-Semitic violence, mayoral spokesperson Olivia Lapeyrolerie wrote, these cameras will be permanent.

A spokesperson for the state police responded: License plate readers (LPRs) are permanent installations that are employed by a number of state and local police and public safety agencies all over the state. A spokesperson for Cuomo later clarified that the same is true of the additional security cameras.

While leaders of Orthodox Jewish communities have praised the measures, the permanent increase of government surveillance, especially in faith-based communities, has raised flags for civil liberties watchdogs.

We shouldnt engage in the business of dispensing with our privacy and security in some ways in order to gain a measure of comfort in others, said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, in an interview with Gotham Gazette.

"I think we always need to balance the use of technology and government monitoring in a way that respects people's civil liberties, said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, responding to a question at an unrelated press conference Tuesday. He said the city should avoid doing anything in a dragnet-type of way, which we have seen happen in this country."

"But at this moment in time, I do think it's appropriate that we should be using our resources to protect neighborhoods across New York City that have been targeted with anti-Semitic violence and I am proud that the City of New York are taking those steps." he added.

A response to rising anti-Semitism -- mostly measured by an upswing in reported hate-motivated vandalism, with several violent assaults -- the efforts are also part of a decades-long proliferation of video surveillance, both from government and private entities, which has accelerated since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Security cameras are now ubiquitous throughout the city, forming a network of NYPD and private devices, which are often used to conduct police business whether involving counterterrorism or not. The mayor recently visited the new Homelessness Joint Command Center in Lower Manhattan, where multiple city agencies now monitor homeless people living on the street using dozens of police cameras in an effort to reach unsheltered New Yorkers more quickly.

Surveillance as SecurityCivil liberties advocates have for years raised alarms about the dearth of information about how the cameras are used, especially by the police. With the expansion of artificial intelligence and biometric surveillance, like facial recognition technology, new questions arise about the power to monitor individuals and groups.

Civil rights advocates are concerned about the potential for abuse.

There are significant unanswered questions that have to be asked in conjunction with the mounting of a massive video surveillance network in any community, Lieberman said.

She listed examples: What happens to the footage that is captured on video? Who has access? How long is it stored? Is it shared? Is it safeguarded in any way? And what kind of security is in place to protect against the wrongful use of this footage?

This is important because whatever benefits are anticipated, video surveillance doesnt just capture the images of people who want to be on camera or who are engaged in wrongdoing. It captures everybody who goes by, and that is probably hundreds of thousands of people a month, Lieberman added.

"It's something that the city of New York should be mindful of when we are putting in technology like this, how often do we check and see if it's necessary to be there? Do we want it to be there for 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, Johnson said Tuesday.

While civil rights concerns are being played out in public debate, Orthodox Jewish leaders on the ground are seeking guarantees for their communities protection by the city and state.

The handful of people who have criticized the increased police presence within the Orthodox Jewish community, guess what, they dont live in those communities. So I laugh at that, said David Greenfield, who formerly represented Borough Park in the City Council, in a recent interview on the Max & Murphy podcast. People want more police presence, they want more safety, they want more visibility, they want more deterrence and more of an ability for the police to respond quickly to these crimes that are happening.

Asked whether the de Blasio administration believed mass surveillance was necessary for keeping all New Yorkers safe, and whether that is the direction the city as a whole is moving, Lapeyrolerie said that ship has already sailed: There are security cameras all over the City whether operated by the NYPD, MTA or private buildings.

Other Approaches to Rising Anti-SemitismHate crimes rose 20 percent from 2018 to 2019 and anti-Semitic ones rose 26 percent even as crime in other categories fell, the NYPD reported this January. Of the 428 hate crimes reported in 2019, 234 of them were considered anti-Semitic. A vast majority of those hate crimes are categorized as aggravated harassment, including the drawing of swastikas, which were up by 55 incidents from 2018 to 2019, according to Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri.

At the state level, statistics released by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services show that anti-Jewish hate crimes, either against a person or property, have remained relatively flat since 2013, increasing less than five percent from 2017 to 2018, the last year data is available.

In addition to the new security technology and deployment of state police patrols, Cuomo has made $45 million available in security grants up to $50,000 for certain faith-based institutions, like schools and community centers ($25 million has already funded 500 projects since the start of the program in 2017, according to a press release). The governor has proposed another $25 million in his executive budget for next fiscal year, which would be available to a larger list of institutions, including houses of worship. He has also proposed designating certain hate crimes as acts of domestic terrorism, more school curriculum on diversity and tolerance, and expanding the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City to help facilitate school and other visits.

In New York City, the NYPD increased patrols and installed spotlights in some Brooklyn neighborhoods, and created the new Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism unit to investigate organized hate groups. In September, de Blasio launched the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, which is already rolling out programming. The mayor is also launching inter-community safety coalitions, and directing the Department of Education to develop hate crime awareness programming, according to a recent press release.

And in the face of rising hate crimes, Cuomo, de Blasio, and others across the political spectrum have proposed revisiting bail reforms passed by the state Legislature in 2019. Those calls have been characterized by many as fear-mongering and based on tenuous connections, largely unsupported by NYPD data.

How Involved are Communities?Lapeyrolerie said the citys first 30 new cameras will be deployed by March based on NYPDs security analysis, which would include looking at sites with frequent incidents of graffiti, for example. According to a press release, the remaining 70 cameras will be installed with the input of community members.

We are finalizing what our community engagement process will look like, but will endeavor to ensure the process is inclusive, Lapeyrolerie said.

Two weeks after announcing the new cameras, the mayors office announced the formation of three anti-hate crime neighborhood safety coalitions, operating in the same neighborhoods, modelled on other anti-violence programs in the city. When asked, Lapeyrolerie did not say whether these coalitions would be involved in placing the remaining 70 cameras.

The state is less forthcoming with information about where exactly the new tech will be and what it will monitor. Information on location strategy will not be divulged as it is a police matter, the state police spokesperson wrote.

Wherever they are located, its clear the license plate readers have the capacity to capture broad swaths of information. According to a press release from the governors office, This technology automatically captures all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date, and time. The data, which includes photographs of the vehicle, is then uploaded to a central server and relayed to police agencies across a wide area.

In terms of access to NYPD footage, department spokesperson Al Baker told Gotham Gazette the NYPD stores footage for 30 days unless video is required as part of an investigation and video access is permission-based. He did not provide details on how to gain permission and who has the ability to grant it. In terms of safeguards for the wrongful use of footage, Baker wrote in an email: Internal NYPD access is controlled by user permissions, with footage watermarked with the permitted users name.

While they may help, it is hard to prove cameras deter hate crimes, but they may make it easier for police to catch perpetrators. The NYPD does not have a particularly high arrest rate for hate crimes, at just over 40 percent, as Gotham Gazette previously reported.

Whatever their potential value, advocates want to see protections accompany the use of police surveillance technologies.

The fear is legitimate that between government and private surveillance, our lives are an open book there for the picking...because the safeguards are so absent, Lieberman said.

"I think that for people who believe that, Well, if you havent done anything wrong what do you have to hide? -- all we have to do is take a look at the corruption at the highest levels of government to know that we all have enormous cause for concern when a combination of government and private actors is tracking our every move," she said.

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Posted By admin on February 11, 2020

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders looks on during a press conference at his New Hampshire campaign headquarters on February 6, 2020 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

WASHINGTON (JTA) Bernie Sanders said that his Jewishness is one of the two main factors that shaped his outlook.

The Vermont senator, appearing on a CNN town hall for Democratic presidential candidates broadcast Thursday from New Hampshire, was asked by a local woman about his Jewish identity.

It impacts me very profoundly, he said. When I try to think about the views that I came to hold there are two factors. One I grew up in a family that didnt have a lot of moneyand the second one is being Jewish.

Sanders recalled as a child reading big picture books of World War II and tears were rolling down my cheeks as he learned the fate of Jews. He also remembered seeing Holocaust survivors in his Brooklyn neighborhood with numbers tattooed on their arms, and a recent visit to his fathers hometown in Poland, where locals took him and his brother to a site where Nazis committed a mass murder of Jews.

Much of Sanders extended family perished in the Holocaust.

He said the experiences shaped his views particularly in opposing President Donald Trump and the racial division he said Trump promoted.

Sanders, 78, was long reluctant to discuss his Jewish upbringing but began to open up well into his 2016 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination when he became the first Jewish candidate to win major-party nominating contests.

He has made his Jewish identity a central factor of his 2020 campaign, although he has also drawn criticism for agreeing to have as surrogates like activist Linda Sarsour and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who have been accused of peddling anti-Semitic myths.

New Hampshires primary, the second nominating contest, takes place next Tuesday. Iowa caucuses, which took place on Monday, have yet to declare an outcome, but Sanders appears tied in the lead with former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

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Posted By admin on February 10, 2020

A Las Vegas man who allegedly wanted to attack a synagogue and an LGBTQ bar pleaded guilty Monday to possessing bomb-making components, federal authorities said.

Conor Climo, 23, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the U.S. Attorneys Office in Nevada said in a statement.

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He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 14.

Climo was arrested in August, after allegedly talking with members of a white supremacist group about setting fire to a synagogue and making Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices.

Federal authorities said he admitted to the online conversations with Feuerkrieg Division, an offshoot of the white supremacist extremist group Atomwaffen Division.

Climo also allegedly told FBI agents that he wanted to assemble an eight-member sniper platoon for the attack.

The U.S. Attorneys Office said Climo also admitted to conducting surveillance on a bar in downtown Las Vegas that he believed catered to LGBTQ patrons.

During a search of Climo's house, FBI agents found parts that could be assembled into a bomb, oxidizing agents that could be used for fuel and hand-drawn schematics, the office said. Authorities also seized two rifles an AR-15 and a bolt-action.

A lawyer for Climo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News, based in California.

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Posted By admin on February 10, 2020

Sometimes, when Katrina Hertzberg sees a visibly Jewish person in her neighborhood in Nyack, N.Y. a woman wearing a wig, say, or a man in a black suit and hat she thinks to herself, Oh my God, are we next?

She wonders whether her area of Rockland County, N.Y., is next to receive an influx of Hasidic neighbors, which she worries could mean lots of disruptive changes and new construction housing, yeshivas, synagogues.

But then, Hertzberg, 74, who runs an after-school program, said, she remembers her own familys Orthodox roots. I transpose my grandmothers face onto that person, she said.

In Rockland County, N.Y., a diverse string of suburbs about an hour from Manhattan, non-Orthodox Jews have frequently joined with their non-Jewish neighbors in resisting the Hasidic communitys rapid growth over the past 30 years, citing concerns about strains on public services and overdevelopment. But rising anti-Semitism in the last few years, especially a recent series of violent attacks against the visibly Orthodox, has left Jews like Hertzberg feeling caught in the middle.

They may not agree with the Hasidic worlds practices or lifestyle, but they understand that hatred of Jews especially when it shows up close to home, as when a man with a machete attacked Jews at a Hanukkah party in the Rockland hamlet of Monsey is something that should unite the whole community.

Rabbi Craig Scheff, who has served the Orangetown Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Rockland County, for 25 years, said that when area residents criticize the Hasidic communitys insular culture or exercise of power in local politics, it sometimes feels like theyre indicting all Jews. Thats where the tension with us lies, on the one hand being defenders, on the other seeing certain realities that make this dynamic difficult, he said.

With the memory of the Monsey attack still fresh, a trial is starting Monday in U.S. District Court over the electoral process for the school board of East Ramapo Central School District. The districts board has long been controlled by members who have served the interests of the Orthodox community, which sends their children to private yeshivas. Local liberal Jewish activists, along with the Orthodox community and civil rights advocates, will be monitoring the two-week trial closely, seeing it as a kind of proxy for the sociological battle that has been unfolding there over the past 15 years.

Rockland was once a hub for Reform and Conservative Jews, whose observance may be restricted to the high holidays or include regular synagogue attendance, but who generally do not dress or live much differently from their non-Jewish neighbors. But in the last two decades the Hasidic Jewish community in Rockland has more than doubled to at least about 50,000 people, experts estimate, out of about 325,000 total residents in the county. Meanwhile the non-Orthodox Jewish community has shrunk, and synagogue membership decreased by as much as half in some synagogues, according to the most recent community survey, from 2015.

The trial concerns a long-running battle over funding of the public schools and control of the school board in East Ramapo. The district itself now serves significantly more Jewish private-school students than public-school students 30,000 to about 9,000. The Jewish private schools are growing, with 2019 enrollment up more than 70% from 10 years earlier, according to OJPAC, an Orthodox advocacy group. The district includes villages like Monsey, Kaser and New Square, all of which are more than 90% Hasidic, as well as more racially diverse towns like Spring Valley, Hillcrest and Chestnut Ridge.

The nine-member board is elected not by geography but at-large across the district, and by 2009 was majority Orthodox. Since then, the board has cut funding to public schools while increasing funding for busing and special education. Between 2009 and 2012, the board cut hundreds of teachers, aides and support staff, including all social workers; eliminated summer school; and cut extra-curricular activities and athletic offerings by half.

According to board members, these actions were taken in response to dwindling funding from the state, whose formula for determining how much state money a district receives, they have said, unfairly penalizes East Ramapo for having such a high proportion of private school students. During the years when the cuts were made, the district received considerably less money from the state than most other districts. The cuts also helped the district fund the expansion of busing systems and special education for private-school students something they are legally mandated to prioritize ahead of extracurricular school programs.

Hertzberg, along with her friends and several Reform and Conservative rabbis in the county, felt this was wrong. They helped form groups to advocate for public-school students, such as Rockland Clergy for Social Justice. And the attention they shone on the issue as well as coverage by national media outlets like the podcast This American Life and New York Magazine led to lawsuits against the board, including the one going to trial Monday brought by the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The plaintiffs argue that the system to elect school-board members disenfranchises black and Latino voters. In a county that is heavily segregated primarily because Hasidic Jews generally want to live in enclaves close to their schools and synagogues they argue that a ward voting system, in which each of the nine seats is tied to a specific geographic area, would better represent the different interests. Civil-rights groups have used similar litigation for decades to help minority communities elect their preferred candidates to white-controlled city councils and school boards.

The East Ramapo board, which is the defendant in the suit and is being represented by the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, denies that there are any barriers to electing black and Latino candidates, and argues that board elections have reflected only genuine policy differences among voters not identity politics.

Many liberal Jews in the area, including 10 liberal rabbis and East Ramapo activists who spoke to the Forward, say they support the NAACPs position, but are also concerned about how easily criticism of the Orthodox population growth and political influence can turn into anti-Semitism.

Discussions about the school board in official public meetings have included anti-Semitic rhetoric, such as that claims Jews only care about money, in reference to the boards repeated decisions to cut public-school funds rather than raise taxes to help cover district costs. In August, an ad released by the countys Republican party, widely condemned as anti-Semitic, tied the school board and issues of overdevelopment to a planned takeover by a Hasidic politician and his Ramapo bloc.

Scheff, the Conservative rabbi, said that the ad was a turning point for many non-Orthodox Jews in recognizing that such rhetoric may become a danger to all Jews.

People share with me that on the one hand, they want to battle the anti-Semitic overtones of the public battle that takes place, he said, and on the other, they want to engage their Hasidic neighbors and ask, Why arent you doing more to help people understand why you do what you do?

Liberal Jewish opposition to the school board coalesced with the creation of Rockland Clergy for Social Justice,which was established in 2013 to advocate on behalf of East Ramapo public schools. The group has lobbied New York State lawmakers in Albany and county officials to establish a permanent fiscal monitor for the district, as was done in 2014 in Lakewood, N.J., another heavily Orthodox area where an Orthodox school board was accused of draining public-school resources to pay for busing for private yeshivas.

It was really hard as a community rabbi to feel like I was a Jew speaking out against what other Jews were doing, said Rabbi Adam Baldachin, a co-founder of the social-justice group, who worked at Montebello Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Suffern, from 2013 to 2016.

Baldachin said that one of the first things the group did was have meetings for non-Orthodox Jews to process their frustration and ambivalence about the district conflict.

The majority of people basically said that it was hard for them to read the news of school cuts, he said, and see that the terrible things that were happening to these kids were being caused by a part of the Jewish community.

Among non-Orthodox Jews, advocates for the schools said they have tried to manage antipathy towards Hasidic Jews by bringing historical perspective and nuance to the conversation. They remind people that tuition for yeshivas, like any private school, is expensive, and that Hasidic families therefore might find it particularly hard to support tax increases to help the public schools.

Instead of placing all the blame for the decline of the East Ramapo schools on the Hasidic community as a whole, these Reform and Conservative rabbis said they have encouraged their congregants to pressure other elected officials, such as local representatives to the state legislature, to increase funding to the district and establish a permanent monitor with veto power over its board.

What we are struggling to work through is really having conversations that are not focused on the Hasidic community, but understanding that its a group of communities, and that were talking about individuals, said Rabbi Benjamin Sharff, of The Reform Temple of Rockland, who is also active with the social-justice group.

Sharff said that these distinctions are crucial, because painting the community with a broad brush can give fuel to anti-Semites.

As much as we might be concerned or upset by whats going on, he said, theres a right way to have a conversation to come up with meaningful solutions, and a wrong way, which empowers people who would seek to do us all harm.

Compared to other areas with large Hasidic populations, leaders in Rockland said there are solid connections in Rockland between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. Secular Jewish residents said they have strong relationships with their Hasidic neighbors. The local Jewish Community Centers preschool program almost always has Hasidic children enrolled alongside those without yarmulkes.

Gerri Kurland, an educator at the JCC, studies Torah and Talmud in an Orthodox womens group, and said it has inspired her to deepen her personal relationship with God. But she and others said that in these person-to-person relationships between non-Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, the thorny issue of the school district rarely, if ever, is broached.

Also, non-Orthodox Jews said that they have been disappointed that, as they have tried to stand in solidarity with Hasidic Jews against anti-Semitism targeting them, few Hasidic Jews have participated in the pluralistic efforts.

After the attack in Monsey, in which a mentally ill man barged into a rabbis house and injured five people with a machete, non-Orthodox Jews organized a unity event at the Jewish Community Center, and carpooled to New York City to participate in Januarys huge No Hate, No Fear march across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We take kol Yisrael areivim zeh ba zeh all of Israel is responsible for one another very seriously, said Rabbi Paula Mack Drill of the Orangetown Jewish Center, who is on the leadership committee of Rockland Clergy for Social Justice.

Neither the JCC nor the march in Brooklyn had more than a few Hasidic Jews in attendance. Reform and Conservative Jews in Rockland found that enormously frustrating, Drill said, and have seen that as a missed opportunity, or evidence that Hasidic Jews are not interested in the kind of Jewish unity that liberal Jews seek.

Baldachin said that while he was in Rockland County, he tried to establish dialogues with his counterparts in the Hasidic world, but failed repeatedly.

Rivkie Feiner, an Orthodox businesswoman and life-long Monsey resident, said that it has been difficult for the Hasidic world to open up for conversation about East Ramapo even with other Jews because they have felt unfairly attacked in so many public forums over the East Ramapo school-funding fights.

Their dialogue is just to come and scream at us about how weve ruined the county, she said.

Many non-Orthodox Jews in Rockland said they are doubtful that the two communities will be able to reconcile anytime soon, regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Thats a great challenge of today, Baldachin said, to hold onto multiple truths, to be able to support one community on one day, and be critical of them on another day.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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