Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

LOS ANGELES (JTA) Another Jewish community has sustained a bloody attack that left Jews everywhere reeling. On Tuesday, a small enclave of Hasidic Jews in Jersey City, New Jerseyhad their worlds shaken and disrupted during a frightening siege. Schools were on lockdown, four people were murdered and people from around the Jewish world suddenly were on high alert yet again.

Whether overheard in adult conversations, picked up on radio or TV news broadcasts, or through word-of-mouth in the schoolyard, many of our children are undoubtedly aware of this truly horrific event.

In my line of work withProject Chai, the crisis intervention, trauma and bereavement department of Chai Lifeline, I have sadly encountered these situations all too frequently. From Pittsburgh to Poway to Jersey City, senseless anti-Semitism knows no bounds.

In the wake of this devastation in our community, we as parents, educators and community leaders must address the emotional and psychological impact such incidents can have on our children.

The following are some general guidelines for those of us asking What do we tell our children now?

Talkwiththem.

Do not assume children will speak up if they need to; be proactive. Ask them if they have heard about the event. Encourage them to dialogue with you about what they know, and what they do not know, at a level, pace and degree that is appropriate to their age and maturity. Respond to their questions, correct misinformation and provide reassurance about their safety.

Younger children need to know that they are safe and it is safe for them to voice their feelings.

Children need to ask their questions and be given short answers that satisfy and are sensible. Listen attentively when they share their views. Validate their concerns.

Ensure that your child is maintaining a regular routine.

Eating, sleeping, attending school and other responsibilities are important for growing minds (and for all of us). Structure is healing. Normalcy is soothing. Be patient and gentle, but help them return to regular functioning as soon as possible.

Offer encouragement.

A persons initial reactions will change with time, and it is helpful to point out to children that what they are now experiencing is a normal stage, and that they likely will have different thoughts, feelings and attitudes as the days pass. Be an open door for each child to speak with you and check in with them regularly. Do not assume that a childs silence means that they are not struggling. Do not pathologize and assume that a childs reactions are indicative of deeper problems.

Your job is not to act as judge and jury.

Your responsibility is to educate and support your child, not to editorialize about the crime. Assert to the pondering child that murder is wrong focusing less on the perpetrators of the crime and more on the concept of right and wrong. Refrain from offering your opinions about the perpetrators, which only serve to distract from the larger issues that may need your attention.

Steer clear of misleading, moralizing, disciplinary or judgmentally toned messages.

Now is not the moment to inspire or scold your child for their reactions, feelings or thoughts in any way. Now is the time to support and nurture them and console their fears and sadness. Stay focused on the present.

Give your children space to process.

Allow your children to have their own reactions, but aim to help them regulate their thoughts and behaviors. Offer them the opportunity to discuss their confusion with a trusted authority or mentor. You are there to guide them, to educate them, to encourage and inspire them.

Remember that the ways in which children are walked through a crisis or trauma will shape the ways in which they respond to subsequent life challenges. Your words, your demeanor, your honesty, your sincerity and your respectfulness can teach them resiliency and can equip them with tools and skills for coping and handling the stresses they will encounter later in life.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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What do we tell our children in the aftermath of the Jersey City shooting? - JTA News

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

Photo Credit: YouTube

{Originally posted to the Abu Yehuda website}

In Israel, we are familiar with the story. A couple of armed terrorists walk into a building and start shooting Jews. A pigua (terrorist attack). Americans are also beginning to become familiar with it as well, after piguim at synagogues in Pittsburgh and California, and now a Jewish market in Jersey city. Europe, too, has long since accustomed herself to such things.

In Israel we also have street attacks on Jews, sometimes with knives and sometimes with cars. In America the street attacks have mostly been with fists or bricks or bats, but unless something changes, the knives will come out soon, if they havent already.

Hardened as they may be to anti-Jewish violence, Israelis were shocked by Jersey City. Not so much by the attack, which was small by our standards with only three civilians and one police officer murdered, but by the response of the local community, captured in a video (here) which appears to show (I have reservations, discussed below) local residents blaming the Jews themselves for the attack, and expressing vicious hatred of them.

There are various factors contributing to the wave of violent Jew-hatred that has suddenly burst upon the world. Its not simple. There are several foci of infection that have festered independently as well as cross-fertilizing themselves, gaining new ideas, strategies, connections and adherents. There is the leftist/Arab Israel-focused thread which flourishes at the UN and in Europe, which grew from a seed planted by the KGB in the 1960s; there is the neo-Nazi thread which truly goes back to the original Nazis; there is the paleo-Catholic Christ-killer theme that Pope Paul VIs nostre aetate never succeeded to stamp out; there is the Quran-based Islamic version; there is the Christian Identity movement in the US; there is the Nation of Islams ideology, beginning with Elijah Muhammad and espoused today by Louis Farrakhan; and there are countless small groups with various forms of antisemitic thinking, including the Black Hebrew Israelites with which the Jersey City killers were associated.

And those are just off the top of my head. Seventy years or so after the Holocaust, the pressure from all of these antisemitic memes especially those connected with the Israel-Arab conflict broke through the taboo against public expression of antisemitism. It became possible to say openly that Jews were every bit as bad as Hitler thought they were, and that the best thing would be for them to disappear. At the same time, the example provided by the Palestinians, who showed that if you really hate Jews, you can murder them, made killing Jews a thinkable option for todays antisemites. Mix in a little social media to serve as a catalyst and medium for coordination, and here we are today.

So what can be done, say, in Jersey City?

First, Im not sure that the video is an accurate depiction of the mood of most of the non-Jewish community. There are some accounts (also here) that say that the Hasidic community got along well with the local, mostly black, residents, despite tensions about gentrification of the neighborhood. I dont entirely trust the video: it appears to be edited heavily, and none of the speakers responsible for the anti-Jewish remarks were visible. But still, I heard what I heard.

Lets assume that at least some local residents share the feelings expressed in the video. Should we try to educate them, to explain to them that their attitudes are wrong that the Satmar Hasidim who live in their neighborhood are people just like them, and dont deserve to be shot? That would be hard to do. They are not just like them, they dress differently, eat differently, speak a different language, educate their children differently, and of course practice a different and perhaps sinister religion. They stay aloof from the locals, which is often interpreted as they think they are better than we are (I am not speculating on whether this is a correct interpretation).

The secret to educating antisemites so that they will stop being antisemites remains undiscovered. What exactly do you say to someone to make them stop hating Jews? Teaching them about the Holocaust just gives them ideas.

It is also not possible to make the Hasidic Jews more appealing to non-Jews. Should we tell them to dress differently? To eat the same food? To send their children to public schools? To convert to Christianity or Islam? All this was tried before, with very unhappy results. Trying to change Jews in order to reduce antisemitism is a losing proposition; antisemites will always find a reason to hate them. This was true for Spanish Conversos in the 15th and 16th centuries, for Germans of the Mosaic Persuasion in the 19th, and probably will someday be true for the progressive Reform Jews of North America. The problem resides with the antisemites, not the Jews, and it cant be fixed by fixing the Jews.

But even if we cant eliminate antisemitism, there are things we can do to mitigate the current wave of antisemitic acts. One is to understand and act on the principle that although we cant guarantee that people will like Jews, we can force them to respect us, both as individual Jews in the diaspora and collectively in the State of Israel. In the diaspora, Jews should secure their institutions and arm themselves to the extent that the law permits. Self-defense training should be part of all Jewish education. Nobody is respected for being a victim.

The primary function of a state is to guarantee the security of its citizens. Insofar as we must depend on government, particularly when restrictive laws make self-defense difficult, then we have to demand that it does its job. When there is a crime wave targeting a specific sector of the population, police resources in that sector have to be increased. Jews ought to have enough political power in a place like New York City to insist that street violence against their fellow Jews, even if the perpetrators are black and Hispanic De Blasio voters, be suppressed. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Hudson County, New Jersey, where Jersey City is located.

Finally, if it turns out that diaspora Jewish communities cannot be defended or that their host governments do not care to do their part in doing so, there is the option of aliyah. This puts the Satmar Hasidim, who bitterly oppose the Jewish state, between a rock and a hard place. But that is their problem, not mine.

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Thoughts on the Jersey City Shooting - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

Our guide to plays and musicals coming to New York stages and a few last-chance picks of shows that are about to close. Our reviews of open shows are at nytimes.com/reviews/theater.

LONDON ASSURANCE at the Irish Repertory Theater (in previews; opens on Dec. 15). When the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault was barely out of his teens, he wrote a farce that tickled most of London. The Irish Rep, which has lovingly revived othere Boucicault Irish plays, revisits this 1841 tidbit about money, disguise and romance. Charlotte Moore directs a cast including Rachel Pickup as Lady Gay Spanker.212-727-2737, irishrep.org

SING STREET at New York Theater Workshop (in previews; opens on Dec. 16). John Carneys 2016 movie, which A. O. Scott described as an autobiographical tribute to Dublin, hair gel and the power of lip-syncing, arrives Off Broadway. The playwright Enda Walsh, who also adapted Carneys Once, joins the director Rebecca Taichman and the choreographer Sonya Tayeh for this story of a boy, a girl and a band. 212-460-5475, nytw.org

[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]

FIRES IN THE MIRROR at the Pershing Square Signature Center (closes on Dec. 22). Anna Deavere Smiths 1992 anatomization of the Crown Heights riots ends its run. In Saheem Alis revival, Deavere has handed the piece over to Michael Benjamin Washington, who performs verbatim monologues, based on interviews with African-Americans and Hasidic Jews as well as others. The piece still, Ben Brantley wrote, makes you catch your breath and shake your head in sorrow.212-244-7529, signaturetheatre.org

FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF at the Public Theater (closes on Dec. 15). Leah C. Gardiners ecstatic, anguished revival of Ntozake Shanges choreopoem reaches its end. Ben Brantley wrote that what is most pervasive in this production, which stars Jayme Lawson, Adrienne C. Moore and Okwui Okpokwasili, among others, is its sense of women talking to and being deeply invested in one another, as if in an eternal support group. 212-967-7555, publictheater.org

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Four Plays and Musicals to Go to in N.Y.C. This Weekend - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY Lawmakers representing Rockland County commended Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for signing legislation to regulate the process of conducting annual fire inspection reports for public and private schools.

Assembly Member Kenneth Zebrowski has been working on the issue for some time.

"Every school building, public and private, should be safe and up to code. Unfortunately, school inspection regulations have been untouched for decades, leading to an outdated process where some school buildings can be left un-inspected and unsafe," he said in an announcement sent out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office. "This bill overhauls the process to ensure every school is inspected, by only qualified individuals, with accountability and enforcement. I thank Governor Cuomo for his collaboration on these critical reforms."

The bill prohibits unqualified persons from conducting the inspection and requires schools to request inspection from the local fire department or certified fire inspector. The bill also provides schools with flexibility in meeting the public notice requirements associated with these inspections and eliminates the "hold harmless" provision which has allowed inspectors who made errors on an inspection reports to evade liability.

Poorly done or fraudulent fire inspections or the lack of them entirely have been a contentious issue in Rockland County. In 2016 New York state education department officials found many serious safety violations at the local schools they checked.

Firefighters warned that some private schools in the local Hasidic community were unsafe and the children were in danger. SEE: Fire Captain Says Local Yeshivas Unsafe: VIDEO.

At one point, a new group called the School Religious Freedom Coalition wrote to then-Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia informing her that the yeshivos would not be allowing Rockland inspectors into their buildings, Hamodia.com reported. They accused county officials of anti-Semitism. The yeshivas later permitted the inspectors in.

"School fire inspections keep our children safe and protect our first responders," said NY Senator David Carlucci. "Our new law will strengthen inspections by ensuring they are done in a timely manner by qualified individuals who are held liable when problems are not corrected."

While current law requires schools to submit an annual fire safety report which includes an inspection of school buildings, there is no recourse for schools who fail to do so. The bill clarifies the current power of the commissioner to deny the certificate of occupancy if a public school fails to correct deficiencies following an inspection. If a private school fails to comply with the requirement, the commissioner must inspect or request a local authority to inspect the building.

"The safety of our children is a top priority, and while school fire inspections are sometimes perceived as just another administrative requirement, the truth is that lives can be endangered if they aren't done right," Cuomo said. "This law will help ensure these inspections are handled by qualified and properly trained individuals, so that students are protected and avoidable tragedies are prevented."

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New NY Law Mandates Fire Inspections, Annual Reports From Schools - New City, NY Patch

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

ISRAEL ROSMAN SEEMS like someone you can trust. Some of that is his rekel, a long coat worn by Hasidic men that evokes a religious connection. But some of it is his round, kind face sporting round, wire-frame glasses, so that sometimes it seems like his whole face is the glasses and he is smiling shyly from far behind them, and he would like you to sit down right herehe pats the chair next to himwhile he explains whats going to happen next.

In October 2018, an Orthodox Jewish child with a rash and respiratory symptoms arrived at NYU Langone Healths Tisch Hospital, where Rosman works. Doctors in the emergency department, unsure of the specific cause of the symptoms, sent the child up to an inpatient unit with a diagnosis of viral syndrome and respiratory illness. The child moved through the hallways, potentially shedding virus particles near patients who had arrived for broken legs, upset stomachs, and chemotherapy treatments. No one knew the childs situation would soon become national news, so no one was especially alarmed. Then, on the treatment floor, an astute pediatrician recognized the distinctive rash. See it once and youll never forget it: measles.

Alejandro ErnestoAP

Measles is a big problem. Aggressively contagious, the virus can live in a room for two hours after a stricken person has coughed or sneezed in it. It would soon flash through the chronically undervaccinated Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. Hospital staff, worried about it spreading within the halls, called the New York City Department of Health. Staff made signs, set out face masks, began weekly meetings. Normally, eight rooms in the pediatric ward function under negative air pressure, but when the hospital realized there was an outbreak in the city, it converted every room in the pediatric ward to that status. This way, rogue virus particles could not escape into waiting rooms where vulnerable patients sat. The precautions steeled the institution against an epidemic.

Rosman was one of the staff members charged with talking to the families. Hed worked at NYU Langone for years as a community liaison, helping to orient Orthodox patients and their families within the medical system. Now he joined weekly meetings with a pediatric infectious-disease specialist. When parents came in, panicky and embarrassed, Rosman sat down with them and explained how not vaccinating led to disease. He explained that no one would be persecuted for bringing their sick children in. He quickly learned it was useless to berate people for their choices or even push them to get their shots immediately. His job, as he saw it, was to be a compassionate arm of the response, to say, Calm down. Whatever happens now, well take care of it.

Were on your side, he was saying. Weve been on your side the whole time.

SINCE ABOUT 2014, when nearly 150 cases of measles were traced back to Disneyland in California, articles about outbreaks have shown up in the news every year or so. They read about like this onefocused on progressive private institutions, such as Waldorf schools, or insular communities like Brooklyns Hasidic population or Minnesotas Somali-American community, because that is where the hot spots happen. The articles explain how anti-vaccine sentiment spreads in a community, how immunity rates drop below an acceptable threshold, and how diseases such as measles are dangerous to young children and people with compromised immune systems. People go online and rant about anti-vaxxers. And then the relevant health department gets everything under control and the epidemic ends.

Spencer PlattGetty Images

It would be reasonable to ask why you have to keep reading about these outbreaks at all. If they keep happening in isolated communities but the herd immunity in the rest of the country remains high, how, exactly, is measles going to affect you? Is measles even something you need to worry about? The answer is yes, but not for the reasons you might think.

Courtesy of the University of Washington

Vaccines exemplify a lot of the stuff we analyze when we look at how people distort health information, says Carl Bergstrom, Ph.D., who, along with professor Jevin West, Ph.D., offers a course at the University of Washington titled Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World. A few years ago, Bergstrom and West, both biology-trained research scientists, realized that their students were having a difficult time reasoning their way through the science that involved quantitative data, which suddenly seemed to include most science. We felt like, wow, learning to call bullshit on this stuff is sort of the most important skill, Bergstrom says.

If you were going to be blunt, you could call every one of the recent measles outbreaks an egregious failure of calling bullshit, a problem that is growing. Although anti-vaccine rhetoric has been around since the beginning of vaccines, only recently has it metastasized into a network of grassroots organizations, political groups, and Twitter opinion columnists that is increasingly difficult to sort through. In Brooklyn, the myths were spread by pamphlets created by an in-community group called PEACH (Parents Educating and Advocating for Childrens Health), which was started by a Hasidic mother who felt her concerns were being dismissed by doctors and found succor in online videos and disinformation. Most of the people Rosman met at the hospital hadnt even bought into the pamphlets that strongly. They had simply heard enough to have questions. They were confused.

PEACH

Confusion around health information is nothing to be ashamed of. To fact-check every new health claimBacon is bad! Chocolate is good! Are you running enough? Are you running too much?youd have to have a biology degree, a statistics degree, and a detailed understanding of p-values, sample size, the peer-review process, and the way grants work. But information about vaccines is particularly fraught: In recent years, some people have tried to make the science confusing on purpose. Bergstrom calls it an agnotological campaign, which is a truly great phrase to throw around at your next presidential-debate party. Its the study of how people create uncertainty about scientific results where there really shouldnt be any, he says.

The real pioneers of agnotology, a term coined back in the trustworthy days of 1995, were the tobacco companies and the campaign to discredit doctors who claimed tobacco smoke was a carcinogen. (It is.)

The word refers to the purposeful spread of ignorance, untruths repeated so frequently and vehemently that they seem just as valid as real truths. You may recognize the strategy from advertising, Soviet propaganda, and such historical political moments as right now, all the time. Recent offenders include climate-change deniers and the folks whod have you believe that 5G wireless networks cause cell damage. (They dont.) The real threat these isolated measles outbreaks pose to most Americans isnt that you, a vaccinated person living far from an outbreak ZIP code, are likely to come down with spots. Its that the techniques of politics have come for your body. And if you dont have a trusted community member like Israel Rosman to lead you out of the darkness, youre on your own.

WITH THE ADVENT of deepfake video technologies and a continuing erosion of trust in public institutions, deciding whom or what to believe is only going to get harder. Its clear that most people could benefit from strengthening their bullshit-detecting abilities, but how?

Strategies anti-vaccine groups employ to bring people over to their cause are often similar to effective critical-thinking advice, in a fun-house-mirror sort of way. They like to invoke dusty counterculture slogans implying that youre being misled by powerful, shadowy forces: Follow the money. Look behind the curtain. Dont you want to discover the truth for yourself? It can destabilize people, like the old riddle about the one man who always lies and the other who always tells the truth. In some of these cases, the anti-vaccine people have a better narrative than the pro-vax people, says Valerie Reyna, Ph.D., a Cornell scientist whose research focuses on how we make decisions. Theyre actually answering the question why? How does this work? Why does this work this way? Why is this happening? Even if the information is bogus.

AP Images/Rich Pedroncelli

To figure out if its real, standard bullshit-detection principles apply: Trace claims back to their original sources; watch for emotional language, which is very rarely used in science; and consider plausibility. Vaccine threats, along with other widespread health hoaxes, often are catchall bogeymen, stand-ins for fears about toxins, impurity, government overreach, and random misfortune. Does it seem like one technology product or medical intervention couldnt possibly cause so many different problems? Maybe it doesnt.

A little cynicism is healthy. This is the country in which researchers kept penicillin from nearly 400 black men in a 40-year syphilis study. (Google syphilis and Tuskegee if youre not familiar.) Its also the country in which Martin Shkreli raised the price of an antiparasitic drug by more than 5,000 percent just to make money. You might be right not to entirely trust someone with something to sell, but problems occur when everything starts to seem suspicious or controlled by nefarious institutional entities. And the best way to protect yourself from that kind of magical thinking is by developing a strong base of information about a subject, not by Googling terms that confirm your suspicions, like vaccines and injury, but just by Googling the most basic vaccines.

Damian Dovarganes/AP/Shutterstock

For vaccines, information to look for might include how they create immunity in the body, why they were invented, and how long theyve been used. Its also worthwhile to learn about the diseases they prevent. For example: Did you know that measles can cause your immune system to forget for up to two years other diseases it has already fought, so children who get it are more likely to get sick again with something else? Doing basic research sounds like a lot of work, but many organizations, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have created easy-access pages and videos to make it all more digestible. Its actually key, says Reyna. When these decisions come around, [people] at least have some notion about whats plausible and whats not plausible.

Another option: Find someone who has been to medical school, or at least is a health professional with academic bona fides, and dare to trust them again. NYU Langone isnt the first organization to successfully tackle a public-health crisis by bringing in a community member people felt they could trust. Public-health officials in Minnesota employed in-community experts when measles struck Somali-American groups there. It is a standard public-health strategy. While many time-strapped doctors could do a better job of listening and explaining their reasoning to their patients, there are still great doctors out there. Why not find one before you end up in the hospital?

These sources are among the best for reliable health information.

CLEVELAND CLINIC

This top hospital has a site that offers a comprehensive list of diseases and conditions with reliable facts on each. my.clevelandclinic.org

MAYO CLINIC

This highly-ranked hospital's site is known for explainers on diseases and conditions and proven ways to diagnose and treat them. mayoclinic.org

COCHRANE

Accepts no commercial funding; a collective of scientists that reviews research on various topics (including antibiotic use) and compiles it into reports. cochrane.org

MEDLINE PLUS

Run by the National Institutes of Health; known for its huge range of evidence-based information on diseases, conditions, and hot issues like measles. medlineplus.gov

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Part of the United Nations; clarifies how people around the world are affected by health concerns including measles. who.int/

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

Government funded; especially useful for information about disease outbreaks. cdc.gov

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The Measles Outbreak - Why Healthy People Should Worry - Men's Health

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

Highly credible sources tell YWN that investigators are now looking at a shooting incident of a Jewish-owned vehicle two weeks ago in connection with the terror attack in Jersey City.

The incident in question occurred on Route 1 and 9 exactly one week before the attack, when a Hasidic man who happens to be a Misaskim Volunteer noticed a U-haul van driving close to him in the area of Newark Airport.

Suddenly, the Jewish driver heard a smash and saw his passenger side window shattered. He figured something was thrown at his vehicle or a stone had jumped up from the highway. The U-haul exited the highway at the next exit, and the driver never reported the incident.

After the Jersey City terror attack, the man became concerned, and reached out to Rabbi Jack Meyer of the Misaskim Organization for assistance. Meyer in turn put the man in touch with the lead investigators of the terror attack.

On Monday, after searching his vehicle for a few hours, Detectives located a bullet in the roof of his vehicle.

The bullet was taken for forensics, and investigators believe this incident may be connected to the Jersey City attack.

Law enforcement are asking anyone with any information they think may assist them in the Jersey City investigation to please reach out to them immediately.

Additional information will be published when it becomes available to us.

(YWN World Headquarters NYC)

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Police Investigate Shooting Of Jewish-Owned Vehicle In NJ Possible Connected To Jersey City Terror - Yeshiva World News

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

When writing the history of the 20th century with the intention that the major and dramatic events of the century should be historically correctly described, one quickly comes to a result that differs significantly from the dominant and agenda-driven history writing that, among other things, characterizes what is being taught on the subject in school.

They Created a Bloody 20th Century is a solid and reshaping historical document that reveals, with the powerful source material, the driving forces and actors behind the greatest and bloodiest disasters of our time.

After reading Hans Myrebros book, one quickly realizes that the historical writing we have received through school, higher education and media, is largely a distortion.

Pia Hellertz, Fil.dr.

This book is a fantastic source of knowledge, elaborated with a simple and pedagogical narrative. The book has an obvious place in history teaching not only in high school but also at the university level.

Lasse Wilhelmsson, Author, Writer.

POLITICAL PARTY POLICY: We intentionally remove all references to political party affiliation when highlighting elected officials. We believe in judging actions taken by politicians and NOT what party they belong to. For the same reason, we are also advocates for removing reference to political party affiliation on all ballots nationwide.Read Full Policy Notice - Comment Policy

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ZIONISM: They Created A Bloody 20th Century - Veterans News Report

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

FIDE ChessLast Wednesday, the international FIDE World Chess Grand Prix opened in Jerusalem, the first time this prestigious competition is being hosted in Israel. The Tournament Series Awards are worth a total of 800,000. The two first-place winners will receive a cash prize and will also have the opportunity to contend for the World Chess Championship in 2020. The global Kaspersky Lab is the sponsor of the World Chess Grand Prix. Among the guests who attended the festive opening event in the capital were: Noam Froimovici, CEO of Kaspersky Israel; Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the World Chess Federation; Ilya Merenzon, president of World Chess; Boris Gelfand, Israeli candidate in the competition and Israels leading chess player; and Costin Raiu, director, Global Research & Analysis Team at Kaspersky.The Future is HereLast Tuesday evening, NIS 12.5 million was raised for the establishment of Beilinson Hospital brain center and imaging system at a gala event titled The Future is Here. During the evening, Dana Azrieli received the Yakir award as the representative of the Azrieli Foundation, in recognition for donating funds to purchase two state-of-the-art MRIs, and to commemorate its long-standing assistance with the technological advancement of the hospital. Businessman Pinchas Cohen, chairman of the Friends Association of the Rabin Medical Center; Dr. Eitan Wirthheim, CEO of the Medical Center; and Orly Meskin, CEO of the Friends Association, welcomed the guests. New HOT dramaThe Zionist of America (ZOA) House held a festive launching of the new HOT drama called Hanispach. The event was attended by the star and creator of the series, Eli Ben David, together with his wife Elinor, the Israeli cultural attach in France, the series stars, as well as HOT CEO Tal Granot-Goldstein, who warmly welcomed the French Ambassador to Israel Eric Danon and his wife.United HatzalahLeaders of United Hatzalah hosted a gala evening and at the Avenue event complex in Airport City to raise NIS 12 million. The guests were welcomed by United Hatzalah President and Founder Eli Bir, Chairman Moshe Teitelbaum, and CEO Eli Pollak. The funds will go towards resources for new volunteers who will join the 6,000 medics, paramedics and doctors who already volunteer their time for the organization.Attending were: Mark Gerson, owner of the Gerson Lehrman Group; Ilana and Yair Hamburger; Matti Kochavi; Gil Sharetzky; Miri Pollak; and Alona and Eli Barkat.KPMGInternational accounting firm KPMG and Microsoft have signed a cooperation agreement to expand global collaboration. KPMG will invest $5 billion in digital transformation. The agreement between the two giant corporations was launched last week in Israel at the annual KPMG conference held at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds, in the presence of KPMG International Chairman Bill Thomas, Microsoft Israel CEO Ronit Atad, and KPMG Managing Partner in Israel Eran Shalev.Translated by Hannah Hochner.

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THE LOUNGE: FIDE, Hatzalah, the Zionist of America and more - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

Imagine a group of people who work to destroy Italy because, they claim, Italys origins are illegitimate. Imagine further that these people maintain that of all the countries in the world, only Italy doesnt deserve to exist. And then imagine that these people vigorously deny that they are anti-Italian. Would you believe them?

Now substitute Israel for Italy, and youll understand the dishonesty and absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionistthat is, against the existence of a Jewish statebut not anti-Semitic.

But that is precisely what anti-Zionists say. They argue that Israels existence is illegitimate. They dont believe this of any other country in the world, no matter how bloody its origins. And then they get offended when theyre accused of being anti-Semitic.

How can they make this argument?

First, they change the topic. They say its unfair to charge those who merely criticize Israel with being anti-Semitic. But criticism of Israel is fine. Denying Israels right to exist isnt. Anti-Zionism isnt criticism of Israel. Anti-Zionism is opposition to Israels existence.

Zionism is the name of the movement that advocates for the return of Jews to their historic homeland. Over the past 3,000 years, there were only two independent states located in what is called Israel. Both were Jewish states, and invaders destroyed both. No Arab or Muslim or any other country ever existed in that land, which was only named Palestine by the Romans to remove all memory of the Jewish state they destroyed in the year 70.

Second, anti-Zionists claim they cant be anti-Jewish because Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. Thats equally false. It is the same as saying Italy has nothing to do with being Italian.

Judaism has alwaysalwaysconsisted of three components: God, Torah and Israel. If Israel isnt part of Judaism, neither is the Bible or God.

Third, anti-Zionists claim that Judaism is only a religion; therefore, Jews are only members of a religion, not a nation. But the Jews are called a nation more than a hundred times in the Bible. That is why there can be irreligious, secular and even atheist Jewsbecause Jews are not only a religion. They are also a people, or a nation. There are no atheist Christians because Christianity is only a religion.

Fourth, the anti-Zionists claim that Israel is illegitimate because it is racist. This is the fraudulent charge Israel-haters and America-haters make against two of the least racist societies in the world. Half of Israels Jews are not even white, and anyone, of any race or ethnicity, can become a Jew.

Plus, 1 of 5 Israelis isnt a Jew. And these Israeli citizens, mostly Arab Muslims, have the same rights as Jewish Israelis.

As for Israels control of the West Bank, that has nothing to do with race. Israel doesnt control the West Bank because Palestinians are of another racebut because Palestinians and their Arab allies tried to destroy Israel in 1967, and they lost the war. Palestinians have rejected offers to found their own state on five separate occasions since 1947. Thats the only reason they dont have their own state. And why have they always rejected building a Palestinian state? Because they have always been more interested in destroying the Jewish state.

Finally, the anti-Zionists claim that Israels origins are illegitimate. Of all the worlds 200-plus countries, the only country anti-Zionists declare illegitimate is also the only Jewish one. Thats pretty much all you need to know about their motives. Why, for example, dont they make this claim about Pakistan? In 1947, nine months before the establishment of Israel, India was partitioned into a Muslim statePakistan, and a Hindu stateIndia.

Unlike Israel, Pakistan had never existed before. Unlike Israels founding, which created about 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands and about 700,000 Arab refugees from what became Israel, the founding of Pakistan created about 7 million Muslim refugees from India and about 7 million Hindu refugees from Pakistan. And while the highest estimate of Arab deaths in the fighting that took place when Israel was established is 10,000, the number of deaths as a result of Pakistans creation is around 1 million.

So why is Israels legitimacy challenged while Pakistans isnt? There is only one answer: Israel is the one Jewish state.

Of course, not all anti-Zionists hate all Jews. But if you seek to destroy Italy, you dont have to hate every Italian to be anti-Italian. If you seek to destroy the one Jewish state, you dont have to hate every Jew to be an anti-Semite.

Im Dennis Prager.

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Video: If You Hate Israel, You're No Friend of the Jews - Patriot Post

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Posted By admin on December 18, 2019

Rabbi Rafi Peretz

Noam Rivkin Fanton, Flash 90

Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz, chairman of the Jewish Home party, pushed back against Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich's (National Union) demand to hold party primaries.

The two parties have run as a joint list since 2013, and currently there is a demand to unite the joint list into a true single-faction party. MK Ayelet Shaked, formerly of the joint Jewish Home-National Union list and then of the New Right party, also supports the idea of holding open primaries. Shaked led the joint list when it joined a "technical bloc" with the New Right party prior to the September 2019 elections, and polls show that if the Jewish Home party held open primaries, she would win the top spot.

As a result, the Jewish Home party has begun claiming that the push for primaries is intended to unseat Rabbi Peretz.

In recent days, Rabbi Peretz has come out against Shaked, claiming that she nearly destroyed Religious Zionism's political representation by creating the New Right party with Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, and that she failed to win the chair of any party prior to the previous elections, but insists on trying again, at the expense of the Jewish Home.

"How is there even a thought to bring Ayelet back? If I had brought seven Knesset seats at the head of a Religious Zionist list, they would kick me out, criticize me," Israel Hayom quoted Rabbi Peretz as saying in closed conversations with those close to him. "She's acting as if nothing happened. How can it be that just a year ago they nearly destroyed Religious Zionism, and yet despite this she received a prize - leading the list - and she failed, and now she wants the top spot again? I was living a clam quiet life and they brought me in to save things, we did good work the first time, we brought in five Knesset seats, six with Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, and now she's starting everything over? Does she have no self-respect?"

"Does she want to come back to the Jewish Home? Happily. She can join the list and run when the time comes. Why under the sun should she be at the head?

"It's a shame that she and Smotrich are working together to hurt me," he added. "In the end it harms Religious Zionism and the entire nationalist camp."

Israel Hayom quoted Shaked as responding that "Rabbi Rafi, who is currently bringing one percent in the polls, should not talk about seven Knesset seats. In addition, a political leader has nothing to fear from primaries. A democratic process is not ousting. His party's Central Committee is demanding primaries. He needs to answer to them about why he's refusing."

Rabbi Peretz has rejected all suggestions on uniting the parties, Israel Hayom noted, despite the fact that all the others in his party support the move.

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Peretz: I gave in to Shaked, and now she's undermining me - Arutz Sheva

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