Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

Speaking to a British audience in 2017, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders declared that what [Jeremy] Corbyn has done with the Labor party is not dissimilar to were trying to do with the Democratic party. One can assume that Sanders meant only to convey that he wants to make the Democrats more socialist, not more anti-Semitic, but he has never offered any objection to Corbyns anti-Semitism, and one of his campaigns most visible surrogates, Linda Sarsour, would seem to fit right in with Labor, as Dominic Green writes:

Sarsour [recently represented] Sanderss campaign as a speaker at the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference. . . . Israel, she said, is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone elsea libel as equally likely to emerge from the mouths of Islamists as from the thumbs of white nationalists. Its impossible, Sarsour said, to oppose white supremacy in America and the idea of being in a state based on race and class without also opposing the existence of a Jewish state.

Naturally, this specious and defamatory linkage was affirmed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Naturally, when footage of Sarsours diatribe appeared online, she did her best to wriggle out of it with a statement about contextbut not one about AMPs official conference program, which called Zionism a disease intending to destroy the purity of al-Quds [Jerusalem].

Sanders alliance with Sarsour isnt just Magical Grandpa, [as some have nicknamed Corbyn], being sentimental about the kids who remind him of his radical youth. Like Jeremy Corbyns passion for Islamists, its a calculated attempt to catch votes, transform the party membership, and upend the centrist party managers. These tactics worked for Corbyn. But when Magical Grandpa shakes the tree, its not just money that falls out.

Read more at Spectator

More about: Anti-Semitism, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Labor Party (UK), Linda Sarsour

Visit link:
Will Bernie Sanders Lead the Democrats in the Direction of Britain's Labor PartyAnti-Semitism Included? - Mosaic

Category: Zionism | Comments Off on Will Bernie Sanders Lead the Democrats in the Direction of Britain’s Labor PartyAnti-Semitism Included? – Mosaic
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

By Melanie Phillips

In France, which is experiencing another surge of anti-Jewish attacks, the lower house of parliament has approved a draft resolution that calls hatred of Israel a form of anti-Semitism.

In Britain, after Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis made an unprecedented intervention into the general election campaign, warning that a new poison of anti-Semitism sanctioned from the top had taken root in the Labour Party, support for Labour actually increased. In four out of five opinion polls taken over the following few days, the partys rating rose by between two and five points.

Last week, two people were murdered and three others wounded in an Islamic terrorist attack in London. And over the past two weeks, there were four attacks on Jews in the streets of London.

These things are all linked.

The chief rabbi was right to say what he said because Jews have a duty to tell unpalatable truths and sound a cultural warning. Yet it is a dismal fact that drawing attention to anti-Semitism these days tends to produce even more of it. So although some decent voices have been heard expressing concern over Labours attitude to the Jews, most reaction to comments by Mirvis has been either indifference or support for the party against a charge that many think is bogus.

One reason is that much of the verbal Jew-baiting takes the form of anti-Zionism or Israel-bashing. And many dont recognize anti-Zionism as a form of Jew-hatred. They think anti-Semitism is a prejudice against Jews as people, whereas anti-Zionism and Israel-bashing are legitimate attacks on a political project.

Anti-Semitism, however, is not a prejudice like any other. It has unique characteristics applied to no other group, people or cause. Its an obsessional and unhinged narrative based entirely on lies; it accuses Jews of crimes of which they are not only innocent but the victims; it holds them to standards expected of no one else; it depicts them as a global conspiracy of unique malice and power.

Anti-Zionism has exactly the same unique characteristics directed against the collective Jew in Israel. It is furthermore an attack on Judaism itself, because the land of Israel is an inseparable element.

Of course, Jews remain Jews even if Israel is irrelevant to their lives. But just as the Sabbath is a keystone of Jewish religious belief even though many Jews dont observe it, the land of Israel is another such keystone.

Judaism is indivisibly composed of the people, the religion and the land. To attack the right of the people to the land is to attack Judaism itself.

The onslaught on Zionism and Israel has therefore legitimized and encouraged unambiguous anti-Semitism, with behavior of a malice and virulence directed at no other community.

When the Conservative health minister Matt Hancock tried at an election hustings to condemn Labour Party anti-Semitism, he was howled down with cries of Oh my God! and Shame on you! Liar!

The Labour Party put out an election video saying it would value people if they were Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, black, white, Asian, disabled, old, young, working-class or under 18. The one group it conspicuously failed to say it would value was the Jews.

Last week, a rabbi visiting London for a family wedding was badly beaten in the street by two men who shouted kill the Jews.

At the end of last month, three such incidents occurred in London within the same week. In the first, three Orthodox Jewish boys traveling on a London bus were assaulted by a passenger who punched one of them and threw their hats to the ground.

In the second, a man screamed Jews dont belong here! at an Orthodox Jewish couple on another London bus and showed them his middle finger, before pulling the man by his hood and the woman by her sheitel.

In the third, a Jewish family with two children on a London Tube train was harangued by a man with a stream of aggressive anti-Semitic abuse.

In that incident, captured on video, a hijab-clad Muslim passenger, Asma Shuweikh, remonstrated with the man. She was rightly praised for her courage, and it was indeed heartening to see such innate decency across the faiths.

Ms. Shuweikh said she herself had suffered bigoted abuse. All such prejudice is wrong and should be unreservedly condemned.

The fact is, though, that a disproportionate number of attacks on Jews in Britain are committed by Muslims. In 2018, a study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the Community Security Trust revealed that anti-Jewish and anti-Israel attitudes were two to four times higher among Muslims than the population in general.

Yet such criticisms of the Muslim world are all but silenced by the claim that they are Islamophobic.

The term Islamophobia is a weapon of holy war. Prejudice against other groups like Hindus or Sikhs is not labeled a phobia. Islamophobia was invented to mimic anti-Semitism, which is falsely viewed by Jew-haters as a means of immunizing Jews from criticism.

So Islamophobia takes the unique core attribute of anti-Semitismthat it is truly derangedand falsely labels any adverse comment about the Islamic world as a form of mental disorder in order to silence it.

Which is why the Islamic terrorist Usman Khan was able to carry out his murderous rampage last week in London.

For although he was a convicted terrorist who had been freed from jail under apparently strict terms of supervision, he had been allowed to attend a conference on prisoner rehabilitation (of all things) on the grounds that he had renounced his extremist Islamic views.

And that was largely because fear of Islamophobia has prevented the entire justice establishment from properly identifying the threat from fanatical Islamic belief.

Unfortunately, some Jewish leaders have themselves been slow to realize the threat posed by the term Islamophobia. In 2014, the Jewish Board of Deputies joined forces with the Muslim Council of Britain in condemning both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

Recently, the Board of Deputies appears to have modified its vocabulary by pledging instead to fight anti-Muslim hate. Yet the dangerous equation with anti-Semitism is still being made.

In comments made on BBC radio about Asma Shuweikhs welcome intervention, the former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, said of such abuse that Muslims suffer from this as much as Jews.

Thats just untrue. Jews suffer proportionately vastly more abuse and attacks than Muslims. Synagogues and Jewish schools have to be under guard and behind barbed wire, not mosques and madrassahs.

Said Rabbi Sacks: That we in Britain should still be talking about anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or racism at all, is deeply shocking.

But whats also shocking is the false equation of anti-Semitism with anti-Muslim abuse. Jews equate them in a misguided attempt to prove they arent claiming any particular status as victims.

This is a bad mistake. What people cant stand is the uniqueness of anti-Semitismand thats because they cant stand the uniqueness of the Jewish people. The refusal to acknowledge the uniqueness of Jew-hatred merely demonstrates precisely that Jew-hatred.

While anti-Semitism fails to be understood for what it isand while Islamophobia continues to intimidateneither attacks on Jews nor Islamist attacks on everyone else will be reduced.

Rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, Islamist attacks and the propaganda weapon of Islamophobia are all symptoms of a Western culture shuddering on the edge of self-destruction. And as ever in times of cultural turmoil, Jews find themselves the principal targets.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.

Read the rest here:
The West's lethal triple lock of Jewish hatred - The Jewish Star

Category: Zionism | Comments Off on The West’s lethal triple lock of Jewish hatred – The Jewish Star
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

The sense that Jews are not being listened toby Labour or by the wider populationdrove Stephen Pollard, the editor of The Jewish Chronicle, to publish a front-page editorial about Corbyn last month, addressed specifically to non-Jews. It ended: If this man is chosen as our next prime minister, the message will be stark: that our dismay that he could ever be elevated to a prominent role in British politics, and our fears of where that will lead, are irrelevant.

Pollard is a well-known right-wing commentator, so I put the accusation to him: It was no hardship for him to condemn Corbyn, given their very different political beliefs. Were not in the business of telling people how to vote, he replied, noting that he would be voting for the centrist Liberal Democrats. We were very careful simply to say: All we ask is, when you cast that vote, think about this thing. The response from readers, he said, was huge, and 95 percent positive.

Of course, Labour is not the sole reason for rising Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism in Britain and elsewhere. Both the far right and Islamist extremists have carried out attacks on Jews in recent years. In 2015, a man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State conducted a siege of a kosher Paris supermarket. Last year, a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Of those jailed for threats against Berger, two had links to the far right.

Still, the background hum of anti-Jewish hatred means it is even more important to many British Jews that political parties are sensitive to their concerns. Its not the idea theres going to be cattle trucks or Nuremberg-type laws passed, Pollard said. His worry, he added, was that in Corbyn, Britain would have a prime minister whoat the most charitable levelcared so little about anti-Jewish racism.

The crisis is now so deep that it has become hard for British Jews to state publicly that they support the Labour Party. Survation found that although Jews voted 2 to 1 to remain in the European Union, 78 percent prefer a hard Brexit to a Corbyn government. The last four years have been grueling, Mason added. In your local party, you are constantly expected to justify the existence of anti-Semitism, told that youre a liar, youre not really Labour. Katz has had a similar experience. When he was standing for election in Hendon, North London, in 2017, he was subjected to anti-Semitic abuse on Twitterone user, purporting to be a Labour supporter, said the prospective Labour MP did not back Corbyn, and instead of Hendon, would represent Tel Aviv.

The partisan overtones make this debate even more toxic. Some left-wing Jews I spoke with said their voices, and their concerns, were being co-opted by the right, out of opportunism. They felt it was now hard to say that, despite its troubles, Labour was still the best choice at this electionand that other political parties had their own failings on race and racism. On November 22, Jonathan Lis, who is the deputy director of the think tank British Influence, wrote an article in The Guardian explaining why, as a Jewish person, he was voting Labour. Nobody can identify any specific policies or threats made by the Labour leadership against Jewish people, he wrote, adding that while Corbyn had been careless, it was an enormous leap to claim that he is personally antisemitic.

Continued here:
Why British Jews Are Worried by Jeremy Corbyn - The Atlantic

Category: Zionism | Comments Off on Why British Jews Are Worried by Jeremy Corbyn – The Atlantic
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

Good Wednesday morning!

At the White House, President Donald Trump will sign an executive order defining antisemitism prior to hosting two pre-Hanukkah receptions.Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to join both the afternoon and evening receptions. More below.

Tonight in D.C.,Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) will host theirannual joint Hanukkah reception at the Library of Congress.

In Israel,the finaldeadlinefor forming a government coalition will arrive at midnight local time. Deadlock between Likud and Blue and White makes it all but certain that the country is headed to an unprecedented third consecutive election in March.

Followingyesterdays reporton Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus campaign personnel, former pollster John McLaughlin tells JI: Its been a humbling honor to work for such a historic and successful leader over these past 15 years. The prime minister has had many advisors over the years. I was just happy to be on his team. He has made the world a safer and better place.

In Chicago, the Union for Reform Judaism is kicking off its four-daybiennial conferenceat the McCormick Place convention center.

First look:A new poll published this morning and conducted by New York-basedAmi Magazineshowsthat 91% of Orthodox Jews in the U.S. (with a 723-person sample size) think Trump shouldnt be impeached.

Received this from a friend? Subscribe to theDaily Kickoff.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order today that will formally adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Details:The measure, which penalizes colleges and universities under federal anti-discrimination laws if they tolerate antisemitic activities, comes in place of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, whichhad been stalledin Congress. The legislation would have applied the IHRA definition, which the State Department adopted in 2016, to the Department of Education. Trumps executive order applies the definition to the Department of Justices enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well.

Worth noting:The groundwork for the executive orderwas laid in 2004by Ken Marcus, at the time the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and reaffirmed in 2010 by Russlynn Ali, who held the same position in the Obama administration. In aletter to colleaguesat the time, Ali wrote, While Title VI does not cover discrimination based solely on religion, 14 groups that face discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics may not be denied protection under Title VI on the ground that they also share a common faith. Ali listed Jews, Muslims and Sikhs among the groups facing discrimination.

Behind the scenes:Wednesdays signing is the culmination of a multi-year effort led by an influential group of Democrats and a private equity businessman from New York. Five years ago, Apollo Global Management co-founder Marc Rowan visited then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Washington to discuss the rise of antisemitism. Attendees at the meeting included Reids chief of staff, David Krone, and super-lobbyist Norm Brownstein, a longtime Jewish community leader from Denver. Reid proposed the idea of pushing a wider adoption of the State Departments definition and Rowan, Krone and Brownstein spent the next five years building a coalition of organizations to push legislation through Congress. Reid himself continued to work on the issue even after leaving the Senate, includinghosting a town hall on antisemitismin Las Vegas earlier this year.

Multiple Tries:The bipartisan legislation, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016, which wasintroducedby Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Bob Casey (D-PA), passed the Senate on December 1, 2016 beforebeing blockedin the House by former Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the House Judiciary chair at the time. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA)reintroducedthe bill this past summer. In October, Collinsaccusedthe Democratic House majority of refusing to bring the legislation up for a vote because they cant seem to agree on condemning the rank antisemitism within their own party.

Plan B:We had come to the realization that the legislation was not going to pass the House, Krone explained, adding, It is what it is. So the group looked for Plan B and Rowan decided to approach Jared Kushner about the possibility of Trump signing an executive order. To their credit, they took action, Krone says of the White House.

Notable praise:There are a lot of people who were helpful along the way, but I have to give the president credit for getting this done, Krone acknowledged. While it is certainly unusual for a longtime Harry Reid confidant to praise Trump, according to Krone, the fight against anti-Semitism is too important to let partisanship play a role.

Read the full story here.

Reactionfrom the Jewish community to the new executive order was decidedly mixed. The Republican Jewish Coalitionextolledthe move, calling Trump the most pro-Jewish president in history. The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the federal adoption of IHRAs working definition of antisemitism. Jewish Democratic groupslambastedthe messenger, pointing to Trumps rhetoric and his recent comments at the Israeli-American Council conference on Saturday. Left-wing activists and civil rights organizations blasted the move as an infringement on First Amendment rights.

Wait and see:Others, including prominent members of Congress who were supportive of the legislation, told JI they are reserving judgment until they see the language of Trumps executive order.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tells JI:In a world of ambiguity, hate should be unambiguously rejected by all, and the IHRA working definition of antisemitism can help ADL has been on record supporting IHRAs working definition of antisemitism, and that is still the case. As it pertains to the full executive order, I am going to withhold commenting on the specifics until we see the exact language.

Welcomed goodwill:We are a deeply divided country, politically, Mark Weitzman, director of government affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Authority (IHRA) who introduced and guided the working definition through IHRA, noted in response to critics of the president. Thats why its important that this has significant bipartisan support. It says that no one should get a free pass when it comes to antisemitism, and at the same time, any good effort to fight [antisemitism]should beaccepted.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI)tweeted:We Jews like to argue. About Israel even. Actually, ESPECIALLY about Israel. So the idea that a college campus would have its views on Israel regulated by the federal Department of Education? Oy Gevalt.

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, pushed back against critics in an interview with JIs Jacob Kornbluh.[Trump] has done more for the American Jewish community than any other president, Brooks emphasized. It is very interesting to see how the leading heads of various Jewish organizations and activists who are infected with Trump derangement syndrome twist themselves all in a knot to try and explain how a president, who earlier this week they were accusing of trafficking in antisemitism, just did the most historic action to defend the Jewish community from antisemitism ever in history.

Pro-Israel, not pro-Jewish:Abe Foxman, director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, argued that this is part of Trumps pro-Israel agenda, not a significant pro-Jewish act, since a majority of freedom of speech violations are directed against Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus who are acting out their support of Israel. However, Foxman maintained that this action does not obviate the presidents flirting with serious classic antisemitic stereotypes about Jews and money, as he did recently in Florida.

J Streetcalledthe executive ordera cynical, harmful measure designed to suppress free speech on college campuses, not fight antisemitism. Many also expressed discomfort with the idea of classifying Judaism as a nationality: The specific intent here may be a worthy one, but effectively interpret Judaism as a nationality is the way Jews were discriminated against in the Soviet Union, not protected,tweetedRussian chess master and political activist Garry Kasparov. Othering is the term today, I believe.

Quite the timing:Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) published anop-edin theForwardyesterday titled We Must Hold Trump Accountable For Embracing Anti-Semitism, citing the presidents attacks on George Soros and his accusations that Jewish Democrats are disloyal.

The legal debate:Paul Clement, the former U.S. solicitor general,testified before Congress in 2017that the effort does not violate the First Amendment.

James Loeffler, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Virginia,explainedinThe Atlanticearlier this year why singling out American Jews for special protection could do more harm than good. Daniel Hemel, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School,pointed outthat the Supreme Court in a unanimous 1987 decision has already characterized Jews as a race and nationality.

Six people are dead after a violentrampageacross Jersey City yesterday that began at a cemetery and ended inside a kosher supermarket in the citys growing Hassidic neighborhood. Those killed included a police detective, the two suspects and three bystanders inside the market.

Community shaken:Chabad[dot]orgidentifiedtwo of the dead as Leah Minda Ferencz, 33, who co-owned the store, and Moshe Deutsch, 24. The name of the third bystander has not yet been published. The supermarket adjoined a yeshiva and synagogue, and many members of the Jewish community watched the situation unfold in fear and confusion.

Timeline:Two gunmenopened fireat a cemetery in Jersey City shortly after noon on Tuesday, killing police Detective Joseph Seals. The gunmen then drove across the city and exchanged fire with police officers before storming inside the JC Kosher Supermarket on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where they remained barricaded for hours.

Ongoing investigation:The motives and goals of the two suspects remained unclear Tuesday night. The citys public safety director initially said that the incident was not considered a hate crime or terror-related. But later in the day, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fuloptweetedthat we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked. He did not elaborate on any alleged motivation.

Open Society Foundations President Patrick Gaspard described the conspiracy theories against George Soros for his activities in Ukraine as antisemitism in aninterviewwith CNNs Christiane Amanpour on Monday.

Exhibit A:Asked why Soros was Exhibit A for the allies of Trump, Gaspard explained that attacks on Soros were part of a long history of attacks not just against George Soros, but against figures like George Soros who have George Soros Jewish ancestry.

Its the worst kind of antisemitism, Gaspard continued. Regrettably, it is not a new thing, but its unfortunate to see it transmitted in the highest corridors of office and the most important office in the world.

Meanwhile,Fox Newswelcomedback contributor Joe diGenova less than a month after he used antisemitic tropes to criticize Soros. DiGenova, a conservative Trump supporter, appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight, the same show on which he previously claimed Soros controlled most of the State Department. Jewish groups and leaders, including the ADL,denouncedthe move after previously calling for Fox to cease inviting diGenova.

Irony: The Daily Beasthaspublished emailsshowing that while Fox News host Tucker Carlson has recently used his show to attack GOP donor Paul Singer for his political contributions, his digital media outletThe Daily Callerunsuccessfully courted Singers financial support over the course of four years.

Foreign Policys Sarah Wildman speaks to Stephen Pollard, editor of theJewish Chronicle, a popular British Jewish weekly, about Jeremy Corbyns turbulent relationship with the Jewish community.

Origin story:Corbyn had been one of that kind of tiny fringe of the Labour Party from the extreme, revolutionary socialist end that was never anywhere near any position of influence, Pollard said. You would see them if youd go to the Labour Party conference every year, for instance, you would see Jeremy Corbyn and his allies walking around with plastic bags full of leaflets to hand out to whoever they could find. And that was really the sum total of their influence they were a tiny, tiny coterie that no one took any notice of, especially when the new Labour crowd and Tony Blair took over. They were even less of any consequence.

Never saw it coming:It would have taken the most astonishing act of prediction to ever conceive that he would be in any position of influence in the Labour Party, let alone leader of the party. Its almost impossible to overstate the shock that happened in July 2015 when it emerged that he was ahead in the contest to succeed Ed Milliband.

Pollard recounts aninteractionbetween senior Labour MP Margaret Hodge and Corbyn last year, describing how Hodge, who in fact had the bravery, as it were, after one of these incidents with Jeremy Corbyn, to go up to him in the House of Commons and the exact words she used were, You are a recast antisemite and she called him that to his face, and she then faced disciplinary action, which was eventually dropped. Its a pretty torrid time. Its interesting that a lot of the hatred has been directed against female Jewish parliamentarians. There are plenty of male Jewish Labour MPs whove not had anything like the same vitriol directed at them. Now, thats because some of them call themselves Corbynites. But I think its also because theres a very deep strand of misogyny which seems to run alongside the antisemitism.

Listen to the full podcast here.

Bonus:In a Snapchatinterviewthis week, Corbyn was asked, If you could edit anything from your past, what would you change or tweak? His response: Choice of clothes at one time. Those bell-bottoms which we all thought were wonderful, my goodness.

Some 100 guests attended the 25th annual Latkes & Vodkas holiday party hosted by Steve Rabinowitz and Aaron Keyak at the Bluelight Strategies offices in Washington, D.C.

Menu:Three types of latkes, with 10 assorted toppings, and more than a dozen brands of vodka.

Spotted:Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Ken Marcus, William Daroff, Ken Weinstein, Hadar Susskind, Boris Zilberman, Rabbi Ken Cohen, Joanne Kenen, Gidon Feen, Lauren Markoe, Laurie Moskowitz, Shai Franklin, Josh Keating, Ezra Friedlander, Noam Neusner, Benji Krasna, David Roet, Dan Arbel, Rob Bassin, Jay Footlik, Sarah Arkin, Ron Kampeas, Joel Rubin, Amy Kaufman, Jennifer Packer, Jamie Kirchick, Alana Goodman, Corey Jacobson, Shayna Estulin, Matt Landini, Ben Spangenberg, Avigail Goldgraber, Laura Kelly, Matt Gold, Scott Siff, Rob Zucker, Lauren Strauss and Jon Meyer.

Ohr Torah Stone held its annual dinnerat the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan last night,celebratingRabbi Shlomo Riskin and featuring the spirited dedication of a Sefer Torah.

Attendees includedRabbi Kenneth Brander, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi, Jason Greenblatt, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, Rabbi Marc Schneier, Rabbi Ari Berman, and representatives of the Weiss, Straus, Lindenbaum and Beren families.

Cyber War: In The New York Times, Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi detail how Iranian authorities are dealing with a security breach that exposed the credit card information of close to 20% of the countrys population. ClearSky, a cybersecurity firm that became aware of the compromise, issued a warning to Israeli credit card companies to be on alert for an Iranian counterattack if Tehran blames it on hostile foreign powers. [NYTimes]

Behind the Lens: Kelefa Sanneh takes New Yorker readers up close and personal with the full-immersion filmmaking of brothers Josh and Benny Safdie and their latest film, Uncut Gems. The movie, set in Manhattans heavily Jewish diamond district, is partly based on their father Alberto, a Sephardic Jew who grew up in Italy and France before moving to New York and worked for a time on 47th Street. [NewYorker]

Pink Slip: Carl Icahns firm, Icahn Capital, announced layoffs in its New York offices months after the billionaire investor told staff he would relocate operations to Florida.

Moving Out: Ousted WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann is considering selling his penthouse on Irving Place in Manhattan.

Hollywood: Husband-and-wife authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have signed an exclusive content deal with CBS, which includes a Showtime adaptation of Chabons novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Violence in Europe: An Israeli student was beaten unconscious on the Paris Metro on Tuesday after he was overheard speaking Hebrew on the phone.

Parading Around: The UNESCO General Assembly is gathering this week in Colombia and will weigh stripping a Belgian parade of its World Heritage status over the events antisemitic floats.

Down Under: The first El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Australia is slated to take off in April 2020.

Words Matter: A 20-year-old man in Queens has been arrested and charged with aggravated harassment and menacing for threatening Jewish customers at a Costco on Long Island.

Cracking the Glass Ceiling: Michelle Farber is organizing the first large-scale Daf Yomi ceremony (Siyum HaShas) for women in Jerusalem next month with the goal of encouraging more women to engage in intensive Talmud study.

Move Over, Doughnuts: At Zak the Baker in Miami, Zak Stern is drawing inspiration from Jewish Latinos and introducing sweet fritters for Hanukkah, instead of the traditional jelly doughnuts.

One Bite: Barstool Sports David Portnoy is gearing up to open a pizzeria in Manhattans East Village.

Leon Black, Debra Black, Sharon Harel-Cohen and Sir Ronald Cohen attended Israels Academy Awards International Film Entry Incitementscreening at The Museum of Modern Art on Sunday in New York City.

In an interview with Variety, Dalia Rabin, daughter of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, discussed the film, which chronicled the days leading up to her fathers assassination.

U.S. Secretary of State in the Obama administration and former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry turns 76

Businessman and philanthropist who kept 3,000 employees on his payroll in 1995 when his companys factory burned down, Aaron Feuerstein turns 94 Glenview, Illinois resident, Marshall Wolf turns 86 Bethany, Connecticut resident, Stuart Paley turns 74 Professor of international economics at Princeton University, Gene Grossman turns 64 Speech language pathologist in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Joanne Ring turns 61 Best-selling author, she has published eleven novels including seven books in the series The Mommy-Track Mysteries, Ayelet Waldman turns 55 Partner in Pomerantz LLP where he leads the corporate governance litigation practice, he serves as a trustee of Manhattans Beit Rabban Day School, Gustavo F. Bruckner turns 52

Former member of the Knesset, Einat Wilf turns 49 Policy researcher at Rand Corporation and a special advisor on Israel with Rands Center for Middle East Public Policy, Shira Efron Ph.D. turns 41 Israeli poet and founder of the cultural group Ars Poetica, Adi Keissar turns 39 Chasidic rapper from Boston, Massachusetts, known as Nosson, Nathan Isaac Zand turns 38 Director of public affairs and marketing at Englewood (N.J.) Hospital and Medical Center, Michael Chananie turns 30 Criminal justice reporter for the Washington Examiner, Kelly Cohen turns 29 Reporter at Politico who covers lobbying and co-authors Politico Influence, Marianne LeVine turns 28 SVP of alternative investments at CAIS, Judah Schulman turns 28 Co-host of What A Day at Crooked Media, Gideon Resnick turns 27 CEO at D.C.-based Brown Strategy Group, Josh Brown turns 30 Perry Rosen

See the article here:

How Trump's executive order on antisemitism originated in Harry Reid's office - Jewish Insider

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on How Trump’s executive order on antisemitism originated in Harry Reid’s office – Jewish Insider
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

Photo Credit: Jewish Press

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) is perhaps the most important figure in the history of visual arts in America. Before him, photographs were considered items that capture moments in time and nothing more. Stieglitz changed that. As a virtuoso and visionary photographer; as a grand promoter of photography; as a discoverer and nurturer of great photographers and artists; as a publisher, patron, collector, gallery owner, and exhibition organizer; and as a catalyst and charismatic leader in the photographic and art worlds for over 30 years, Stieglitz elevated photographs into works of art.

Stieglitz published the seminal periodical Camera Work (1903-17) and operated prominent galleries where he not only exhibited photographs, but also introduced previously unknown modern European painters and sculptors to America, including Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, Czanne, and Duchamp. He also mentored and championed many American artists, including particularly his future wife, Georgia OKeeffe, who became his muse of sorts.

Stieglitz led what became known as the Pictorialist movement, which promoted photography as an art form similar to the traditional graphic arts of drawing and painting, but using a camera instead of a paintbrush. Indeed, the Pictorialists were known for the darkroom manipulation of their photographs, as they brought their own artistry and creativity to what would otherwise be a rote recording of a scene or subject.

But Stieglitz himself relied less upon elaborate re-touching than tapping natural effects, such as snow, steam, rain droplets, and reflected light, to create his images. Troubled by the rise of American power yet absorbed by it, and seeking to soften its apparent brutality by cloaking it in nature, he reimagined the cityscape in impressionist terms and established a novel aesthetic for urban photography, exhibiting a striking technical mastery of tone, texture, and atmospherics.

Stieglitz was born to German Jewish immigrants who settled in Hoboken (1849), became prosperous in America, and later moved to New York (1871). His father, Ephraim, who served three years as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, abandoned the traditional Orthodox faith of his family and became a devotee of Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of Reform Judaism in America.

Although his father characterized himself as a principled atheist, he continued to strongly identify as a Jew, bragging about being the only Jewish member of the prestigious Jockey Club. Changing and Americanizing his name to Edward, he was active in supporting Jewish institutions, including leading the fundraising effort to establish the Jewish Hospital (later renamed Mount Sinai).

Nonetheless, there is no evidence that he ever provided his son with any Jewish education, and Alfred and his siblings were taught to think of themselves as assimilated ex-Jews; in fact, Alfred was educated at a nondenominational school dedicated to turning its students into good Christians.

Alfred began his higher education at City College of New York, but, in 1881, when public support for anti-Semitism escalated at the College, particularly in the school newspaper, his parents moved the family to Berlin, where, ironically, they believed that their Jewish son could receive a quality education unencumbered by American anti-Semitism.

Alfred enrolled in the Technishe Hochschule, where he studied mechanical engineering before becoming enamored with photography and changing his attention to photochemistry. Returning to New York in 1890, he became a partner at the Photochrome Engraving Company; joined the society of amateur photographers; served as chief editor of the American Amateur Photographer (1893-96); and gained recognition for his stylistically unique photographs of New York City.

Like many German Jews at that time, Stieglitz was uncomfortable with his ethnicity, even identifying his Jewishness as that which was most vexing about himself the key to my impossible makeup and, like many Jewish artists at the turn of the 20th century sensitive to prevailing anti-Semitism, he did not want to call attention to his Jewishness and avoided contact with organized Jewry.

Historians and commentators manifest a distinctly mixed view of Stieglitzs place in the Jewish pantheon. For example, in Our America (1919), American Jewish author Waldo Frank, a close friend who knew him well, writes, Stieglitz is primarily the Jewish mystic. Suffering is his daily bread: sacrifice is his creed: failure is his beloved. A true Jew. When his fame began to spread, The American Hebrew wrote that he was a Jew who had arrived.

In dramatic contrast, Thomas Craven, a respected art critic, described him in 1935 as a Hoboken Jew [i.e., a person wholly without class] without knowledge of, or interest in, the historical American background. Many of Stieglitzs critics were unquestionably motivated by anti-Semitism; as but one stark example, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Gould Fletcher characterized Stieglitz as an eccentric Jewish photographer and berated him for using his Jewish persuasiveness in the service of metropolitan charlatanry.

Many leaders in American arts had adopted the emerging fascist view of abstract art as Jewish and degenerate, and high society generally blamed Stieglitzs brash Jewish behavior as responsible for his disruption of the comfortable and established artistic status quo.

As a sort of middle ground, the editor of My Faraway One characterizes Stieglitz as deeply assimilated, yet acutely aware of his identity and historical tragedy to come. Stieglitz wrote to OKeeffe in 1933 about that historical tragedy i.e., the Holocaust in October 1933 (with regard to news coming out of Germany): Every hour seems to bring the world closer & closer to an abyss.

Stieglitzs Jewish consciousness manifested itself in various ways. He took great pride at FDRs appointment of a Jew, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., as Secretary of the Treasury; in a November 16, 1933 letter to OKeeffe, he wrote: I see by the paper that Almas brother is to be head of the Treasury! Finally, a Jew (Morgenthaus sister was Alma Wertheim, who collected Stieglitzs work.)

In a correspondence to OKeeffe written a month later, he expresses strong support for Franks New Republic article Why Should the Jews Survive?, notwithstanding his keen embarrassment when Frank argued that the Jews should survive because they produce the likes of Einstein, Freud, Marx and Stieglitz. When he essentially left OKeeffe for Jewish photographer Dorothy Norman, he cited their shared German-Jewish heritage as one reason.

Although Stieglitz apparently never took an overtly Jewish photograph, he did occasionally seem to draw on Jewish themes as, for example, in The Steerage (1907), one of the only photographs he ever took of people in a group. Traveling first class with his first wife and daughter, he hated the ostentatious lap of luxury and, seeking a respite from what he characterized as the nouveaux riche socialites, he descended to steerage. Stunned by what he saw, he ran back to get his camera and returned to take the historic shot. For the rest of his life, he remained firm in his belief that The Steerage was his seminal and defining work and the single greatest photograph he ever took.

Considered by many to be the definitive representation of European immigrants arriving in America at the beginning of the 20th century, The Steerage captured what appears to be a man at the center of the photograph draped in a tallit. This long-held view, however, has been definitively debunked by the critics.

First, it turns out that when Stieglitz took the famous photograph, he was aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm II heading to Bremen and away from America, meaning that the photo could not be depicting Jewish immigrants coming to Ellis Island. Sadly, the passengers in the photo were most likely people denied entry to the United States and who were therefore forced to return home to Europe. A noted photography expert studying the light concluded that the shot was taken while the ship was in port in Plymouth, England. Second, the man wearing a tallit turns out to be, upon closer inspection, a woman draped in a striped cloak.

Nonetheless, the power of the photo endures, and the image remains important in Jewish history, reflecting Stieglitzs natural empathy for the wretched refuse of humanity and his kinship for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, who surely reminded him of his own German-Jewish immigrant roots.

Looking down into the steerage deck, the assimilated yet still Jewish Stieglitz was able to see both his past and the promise of his future as the son of Jewish immigrants who, no different than the teeming mass below him, had come to America seeking a better life for themselves and their families and manifesting their faith that hard work would enable them to attain that.

Moreover, in the quasi-autobiographical photograph, which marked a turning point in his career, he all but abandoned the idea of making photographs look like paintings; instead, he began to focus on straight photography, innovating a freeze the action in the moment approach to capture actual events as they were occurring.

Subsequently turning to more realist photography, he documented the rise of the industrialized American nation, including the problems inherent in increased urbanization and the development of modern commercial culture and its attendant changes in social behavior and norms. Although photojournalism had its origins in the Civil War, Stieglitz elevated it to a new and exciting artistic form, thereby becoming renowned as the father of photojournalism.

* * * * *

With OKeeffe away painting in New Mexico, for which she had come to develop great affection and where she spent increasing time away from her husband, Stieglitz writes this August 17, 1938 correspondence to his childhood friend, American painter Frank Simon Herrmann (Sime) (only the first and last pages are exhibited):

When your letter arrived I immediately addressed an envelope to you. Laziness & procrastination I abhor yet I seem to be afflicted with both. Naturally I was shocked to hear that you were not painting [,] proof positive that physical disabilities were getting the better of you. I can see nearly any one else ill before picturing you as down even if only relatively so. I do hope you are painting once more meaning thereby that you are yourself again. I do feel like a fool myself sitting here day in and out doing nothing. Georgia got away a week ago & is once more in her country [New Mexico]. Her arm still bothers her & she has not yet started painting. I have no desire to photograph yet it is getting on my nerves to be without my camera or cameras. Its awful this being indecently young in spirit but otherwise ripe for the scrap-heap. We have certainly lived and neither has a kick coming unless the kick coming to us for not having lived still harder or worked harder I receive most pathetic letters from Eilshemius. Have been swapping letters with him for some years. He hasnt been out of his room for years. I doubt his receiving but a bagatelle for his paintings. The dealers have to look out for themselves & theirs & Co! Same old story. Ag & Herbert arrived yesterday

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stieglitz had essentially ceased taking photographs in 1937, and in 1938, the year of this letter, he experienced serious heart problems, necessitating the convalescence he mentions. Over the next eight years, additional heart attacks weakened him, the last one taking his life. It is interesting to note that in 1938 when his wifes arm still bother[ed] her & she ha[d] not yet started painting, as Stieglitz writes in our letter OKeeffe painted one of her most famous works, Rams Head, Blue Morning Glory.

Herrmann (1866-1942), the person to whom this letter was addressed, was best known in Germany where he spent most of his career, but he actually grew up with Stieglitz on the same East 65th Street block in Manhattan. The two studied in Germany at about the same time, took vacations together, exchanged letters, and were lifelong friends.

He created work that embraced Beaux-Arts Academic Realism to Impressionism to the New Objectivity, and he was a founding member of two important groups of the German avant-garde centered in Munich: the Munich Secessionist Group (SEMA), which included his friend, Paul Klee, and the New Secession of German Artists, led by Wassily Kandinsky.

The pathetic Eilshemius referred to in the letter by Stieglitz is Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864-1941), an American painter. Trained at the Art Students League of New York and Paris Acadmie Julian, his supporters included Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse, but he never achieved the success he desired and, after a severely critical reception of his 1921 show, he almost completely gave up painting.

After sustaining serious injury in an auto accident six years earlier in 1932, he became a recluse (he hasnt been out of his room for years), quickly ate through his family fortune, and died a pauper (I doubt his receiving but a bagatelle for his paintings).

Finally, the letter mentions Stieglitzs sister Ag Agnes Stieglitz Engelhard and his brother in-law George Herbert Engelhard.

Read this article:

The Jewish Side Of Alfred Stieglitz - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on The Jewish Side Of Alfred Stieglitz – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

William Shakespeares playTwelfth Nightis probably his most enduring and popular comedy. At one point, the unfortunateMalvoliodiscovers a letter he thinks has been written byCountess Olivia, with whom he is besotted.

But the letter is a forgery, containing information that leads Malvolio to behave out of character, much to the amusement of those who forged it.

Yet as with so many other Shakespearean peripherals, the fake letter contains a remarkable line which remains one of Shakespeares best-known quotes: Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.

Those who achieve greatness often defy advance prediction. Such a man was the late RabbiEleazar Menachem Man Shach, whose 18th yahrtzeit we commemorated last month.

December 11, 2019 11:15 am

A Lithuanian-born yeshiva-trained scholar lucky enough to emerge from Nazi-overrun Europe, in 1940 he settled in Palestine where he struggled to find income as a yeshiva teacher, despite his previous experience running a significant yeshiva in Europe.

He was eventually hired to teach at Ponevezh, a remarkable institution created by the legendary Ponevezher Rav, RabbiYosef Shlomo Kahaneman. Rabbi Shach proved very popular with students, although he was initially overshadowed by his colleague RabbiShmuel Rozovsky, a masterful pedagogue whose clarity and scholarship made him the undisputed superstar Talmud lecturer at the yeshiva.

In retrospect, Rabbi Shach was typical of many rabbis like him who had survived the Holocaust qualified, competent, pious, a scholar, and deeply committed to the cause of reestablishing the world that had been destroyed.

And just like most of these rabbinic colleagues, including those who had excelled in Europe, Rabbi Shach struggled to succeed in the post-war Jewish world, amidst an atmosphere where old-world Judaism seemed very much in decline. Making a living was difficult, and incidental concerns, among them ideological leadership, were remote considerations, if they were considerations at all.

But in contrast to others, in the early-1970s, with the passing or decline of the older generation of rabbis who took on leadership roles after the Holocaust, Rabbi Shach emerged as the preeminent spokesperson for the non-Zionist Orthodox Jewish community, who chose active if cautious cooperation with the State of Israel as its modus operandi.

For over a quarter of a century, he presided over this community his pronouncements treated as holy law by hundreds of thousands of acolytes in Israel and across the world.

Despite his humble origins, and despite the lack of exceptional credentials by any objective criteria, Rabbi Shach became one of the most outstanding leaders this community has ever had, unmatched by anyone since he faded into the background in the mid-1990s (he passed away in 2001 at the age of 102).

Obituariespublished after he died give the impression of an implacable, one-dimensional ideologue: a zealot who repeatedly led his followers into ideological battles; a fiery leader who was uncompromising in his opposition to the liberal values of secular Israeli society.

The truth, however, is far more nuanced, and it unlocks the secret of Rabbi Shachs incredible appeal as a leader who inspired such devoted and sustained admiration, even beyond the strictly Orthodox community.

My latefather took me to see Rabbi Shach several times when I studied at a yeshiva in Israel during the late 1980s; I have a photo of one of those visits on display in my office.

I was only in my teens, but even so I was struck by Rabbi Shachs incredibly gentle nature and profound humility; he met us at the door as we arrived, and escorted us back when we left, despite being extremely elderly and having attendants to do it for him.

But what left the greatest impression was a speech Rabbi Shach gave on October 9, 1988, to thousands of people atBinyanei Haumain Jerusalem.

Elections for Israels 12th Knesset were scheduled for November 1, and Rabbi Shach requested a gathering of the faithful for him to share an important message in anticipation of the polls.

His speech that day (you can watch ithere on YouTube), if read as a dry text, appears harsh and unforgiving: Torah-true Jews needed to understand that their influence had to be asserted on Israeli society-at-large; ingrained secularism had turned Israels youth into the antithesis of Jewish values; the very future of Judaism and the Jewish nation was in danger unless those who cared about Torah and traditional Jewish law seized the moment and turned things around.

Rabbi Shachs biting criticism of modern Israel was merciless, contemptuous, and disdainful.

But the text of his speech belies the mode of its delivery. As Rabbi Shach began to describe the worst aspects of Israeli societys embrace of secular values, he started to weep uncontrollably, his voice cracking with emotion. My heart breaks within me, he cried, to see how our nations holiness is being consumed by evil.

It was not about politics or censure; he was engaged in a battle to preserve the heritage of the Jewish people. Those who had abandoned tradition were not objects of hate, rather they were the misguided results of skewered priorities, souls ripe for reignition, if only his followers would take up the challenge and reignite them.

Remarkably, this powerful message is utterly consistent with Rabbi Shachs interpretation of a curious Midrash on ParshatVayishlach. The Midrash attributes thetragedy of Jacobs daughterDinahs kidnapping by Shechem to his not having given Dinah to Esau as a wife, instead hiding her in a box so that Esau wouldnt see her.

Had Jacob allowed Esau to marry Dinah, says the Midrash, perhaps Esau would have repented from his sinful ways.

Many commentaries query this idea: does the Midrash seriously believe Jacob was wrong to protect his daughter from Esau?

Rabbi Shach dismisses this notion.On the contrary, he says, Jacob did the right thing. Rather, the Midrash is taking Jacob to task for not being regretful that he had to hide his daughter. Just for a moment Jacob should have paused to consider his brothers depressed spiritual condition that forced him to hide her, and felt a moment of sadness.

We, who benefit from the incredible warmth and depth of Jewish tradition, should never forget that those who lack what we have are not others but brothers and their lack of Judaism must never be treated merely as an excuse to criticize. Instead, it should remind us that as members of our family, their reduced involvement in Jewish life is a terrible scar.

It was this visceral feeling of sorrow that elevated Rabbi Shach above his rabbinic peers, and the reason why greatness was thrust upon him.

Rabbi Pini Dunner is the senior spiritual leader of the Beverly Hills Synagogue.

Here is the original post:

Parshat Vayishlach: The Secret of Greatness - Algemeiner

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on Parshat Vayishlach: The Secret of Greatness – Algemeiner
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

Thismonth marks my firstyear on council,and its been an honor to serve my beloved community. AlthoughFullerton has faced many tough issues and hard decisions, we havebrought our city forward with our accomplishments.I look forward to serving my community in years to come.

Balanced BudgetDelivering a balanced budget for the City of Fullerton was a priority of mine prior to running for council. This year, we approved a stronger reserve with an additional $5.5 million towards road improvements, and reduced community center fees with a rental fee discount for veterans.

Strategic Planning

In 2019, our strategic plan priorities included approving a more equitable and sustainable water rate structure, as well as heavily investing in our water pipes, sewer, and roadway structures throughout the city.

Implementing strong solutions for our homelessness crisis has been a goal for all cities in Orange County. Fullerton incorporated a safe parking program, a partnership in two regional navigation centers in which we broke ground, a recuperative center, and a task force to advise on further solutions. We also approved a rental assistance program for low income seniors living in mobile parks.

I fought to make economic development a priority for our city government, because a strong economy means better services for residents. At my urging, the city created a dedicated staff position focused on economic development and assisting local businesses. This renewed focus has already brought more job opportunities to our city, including bringing the countys first regional job fair to Fullerton!

Public safety is one of the leading priorities in our city. Accomplishment of 2019 include increased park lighting, adequate and additional stop signs, speed control solutions, and emergency response training in Spanish. In addition, we purchased a new fire engine and new emergency gear. Also, our Police Department received an improved pay package to tackle our officer shortage, as well as additional funding to maintain strong police community outreach and more neighborhood patrolling.

This year, I advocated and embraced our cultural diversity with raising the Pride Flag during pride month, recognizing Arab American Heritage Month, encouraging Muslim and Jewish participation in our invocations, bringing back holiday decorations, and approvingapproving the restoration of our Lemon Bridge Murals that celebrate our citys Latino heritage.

Early in the year, I was appointed to serve as a representative for Fullerton on the Orange County Water District. I advocated and successfully created a working group to tackle water issues in our countys disadvantaged communities. The results of this group include securing a grant for our water wells in Fullerton and support for water education programs for schools in low income areas.

Ive made a strong effort to improve engagement and resident access to local government. I have maintained my social media updates, hosted and attended over two dozen community meetings, started an educational panel series and attended many community events in support of the non profits in our city.

There still is plenty to do on many fronts and Im looking forward to the rest of my term so together we can make Fullerton the best it can be for all of us.

For more information and updates, follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

Grab this Headline Animator

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published The National Arab American Times newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club Peter Lisagor Awards for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named Best Ethnic American Columnist by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Click here to send Ray Hanania email.

Here is the original post:

Ahmad Zahra commemorates achievements of first year in office - The Arab Daily News

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on Ahmad Zahra commemorates achievements of first year in office – The Arab Daily News
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 12, 2019

Do you know what the meaning of the Israeli flag is? . It is white with two blue lines. The two lines represent two rivers, and in between is Israel. The rivers are the Nile and the Euphrates.

Yasser Arafat,Interview with Playboy, September 1988.

It may seem ridiculous, but across the Middle East, people widely give this claim credence. Israel, a country which has given away great swathes of land for peace, and sometimes not even for that, clearly has no desire to swell to the extent that it reaches two rivers many hundreds of miles apart. So what is the real story behind the Israeli flag?

In reality, the Israeli flag was only adopted on 28th October 1948, five months after the establishment of the State of Israel. Such was the atmosphere at the time a war was ongoing and there were more pressing tasks to attend to than the design of the flag of the newly-founded Israel.

On June 8th, 1948 Israels Provisional Government published a newspaper announcement to invite citizens to submit proposals for the nascent states emblem and flag. The announcement stipulated that the Israeli flags colors must be light blue and white, with a Star of David or seven stars (in gold or some other color) in the middle.

The contest attracted widespread attention, and the Emblem and Flag Committee received numerous suggestions from citizens from all sectors of the population. After going through the various entries, the committee drew up a shortlist of two proposals to be formally adopted as the official flag of Israel. Just over a month after announcing the competition, on July 11 1948, the government selected a design by the graphic artist Otto Wallisch, consisting of two blue stripes, and between them, a white stripe adorned with seven stars of David in whitish gold (or yellow).

That should have been that. But it wasnt.

Rather than accept the governments proposal, the Provisional Council of State rejected it and proceeded to assemble a separate committee of its own to come up with the designs of both the emblem and flag of Israel.

After consulting representatives of Diaspora Jewish communities, the committee decided on July 28, 1948 to adopt the Zionist flag as the State of Israels official flag.

Toward the end of the 19th century, numerous Jewish organizations adopted flags featuring the colors blue and white, together with six-sided stars, pairs of stripes, and other features such as words like Zion and Maccabee. The first such flag recorded was created by Israel Belkind, the founder of the Zionist Bilu movement, who escaped after a wave of pogroms and antisemitic laws in Czarist Russia. His variant is very similar to the contemporary design, with a blue Star of David featuring in the center, but unlike the single blue stripes along the top and bottom of the Israeli flag, his design had two above and two below the Star of David.

Six years later, ahead of the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, the Zionist Flag was created at the behest of David Wolfson, who served as Theodor Herzls deputy. This version had the single stripes which appear on the Israeli flag, but had a number of differences six small stars featured at each corner of the Star of David, with another star directly above it. Together, these stars were meant to recall the seven-hour work day Herzl wrote about in his publication The Jewish State. In addition, a lion featured in the middle of the Star of David.

The flag proposed by Herzl featured a clear Star of David, but he did not describe it in those terms. Herewith my design for our flag. white field; seven golden stars. Six of those stars are in formation in the center of the flag, forming together a larger star the Star of David.

As the Zionist movement grew, so did the need for its own symbols and identity. Seeing that Herzls proposal was gaining little traction, David Wolffsohn (18561914), aLithuanian businessman and second president of the Zionist Organization, wrote:

At the behest of our leader Herzl, I came to Basle to make preparations for the Zionist Congress. Among many other problems that occupied me then was one that contained something of the essence of the Jewish problem. What flag would we hang in the Congress Hall? Then an idea struck me. We have a flagand it is blue and white. Thetalith(prayer shawl) with which we wrap ourselves when we pray: that is our symbol. Let us take thisTalithfrom its bag and unroll it before the eyes of Israel and the eyes of all nations. So I ordered a blue and white flag with the Shield of David painted upon it. That is how the national flag, that flew over Congress Hall, came into being.

When the Congress was held, a very similar design was brought by Morris Harris, a member of New York Hovevei Zion, who made a banner with materials from his awning shop and the help of his mother. The flag was made with two blue stripes and a large blue Star of David in the center, all using the colors blue and white, and became known as theFlag of Zion. The design was accepted as the official Zionist flag at the Second Zionist Congress held in Switzerland in 1898, and it was this design that the committee referred to in July 1948 when the prototype Israeli flag was advanced.

Exactly three months after the committees decision, on October 28, the Provisional Council accepted the design. Henceforth, the Zionist flag has represented Israel as its national flag. The following year, in May 1949, the first Knesset passed the Flag and Emblem Law.

More than just a tour: Join our Premier Mission to Israel.

A number of elements are common to a range of designs seen before the adoption of the flag of Israel in 1948: Words recalling the Jewish peoples heritage: a single star or a group of stars; the colors blue, white and gold; and horizontal stripes.

The elements set out by provisional governments committee derived from the flag of the World Zionist Organization, which consisted of two light blue stripes with a Star of David set in between.

The Blue and White StripesWhile exactly which colors represented the Jewish people and Jewish kingdoms of millennia ago remain unknown, it is clear that the color known as techelet referred to in ancient sources was one of significance for the Jews.

Highly prized by ancient Mediterranean civilizations and mentioned 49 times in the Hebrew Bible, techelet was produced from a dye extracted from marine snails indigenous to the Mediterranean region. It was used in the clothing of the High Priest, the tapestries in the Tabernacle, and to color the tzitzit (tassles) affixed to the corners of four-cornered rectangular garments, known as tallit, traditionally worn by Jewish males over the age of thirteen.

Following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the specifics regarding the source of the dye were lost, and for over 1,400 years thereafter, the vast majority of Jews have attached on plain white tassles to their prayer shawls, rather than use the wrong type of dye.

The majority opinion in mainstream Judaism considers the techelet referred to by various sources as being a variant of the colour blue, with shades from midnight, to blue as the midday sky mentioned. Although researchers believe that the real color is actually closer to Tyre Purple, a sky color blue came to be regarded as the closest approximation of the rare shade.

Regardless of the exact rendition of the prized techelet color, it is beyond dispute that by the year 1864, Jews would regularly sport white Tallit shawls with blue stripes, and it was from these garments that Jewish writer Ludwig August von Frankl of Bohemia took his cue when writing his paper The Colors of the Land of Judah. In it, von Frankl suggested that the Jewish peoples national colors should be sky blue and white:

These are the colours of the beloved country, blue and white are the colours of Judah; White is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendours of the firmament.

Approximately a century later, as Zionist and Jewish organizations started forming and creating symbols, emblems and flags with which to identify themselves, the colors blue and white were almost ubiquitous.

The Star of DavidThe six-pointed star known as the Star of David (or Shield of David) seen in the various prototypes was based on Theodor Herzls proposal that the Zionist flag be adorned with six or seven stars symbolizing seven daily hours of work.

Although named after David, there is no record of the star bearing any connection to the famous King David. Indeed, the six-pointed star now universally understood to represent the Jewish people only came to signify them much later. Originally, stars of various shapes were regarded by Jewish mystics as having special attributes which led to their being adopted as amulets and in religious art and literature, but were not used as a sign of Jewish identity.

Over the centuries, Jews came to be associated with pentagrams and hexagrams in various places across Europe. By the seventeenth century, the Star of David was seen flying from the main city synagogue in Prague in recognition of the Jewish effort in repelling invaders from the city. Around this time it was also being used in Budapest too, and over the following centuries its use spread all over Europe to decorate synagogues and religious objects. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Star of David regularly featured on the badges of Jewish organizations, unions, and even sports teams.

As a result of these historical processes, by the beginning of the twentieth century, both the Star of David and stripes of blue on a white background had become widely-accepted symbols of the Jewish people.

Whether or not one is religious, traditions and history are of importance in the national identity of all countries around the world. Israel is no different and the tallit is a national symbol of the Jewish people. That, and no more than that, is the reason why the Israeli flag features parallel stripes.

Learned something new here? Please take a moment to share this article on social media!

More than just a tour: Join our Premier Mission to Israel.

See the original post:

What Does the Israeli Flag Really Represent? - Honestreporting.com

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on What Does the Israeli Flag Really Represent? – Honestreporting.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 11, 2019

(JTA) For many Jews around the world, theres probably no love lost for 2019.

As the year draws to a close, the Jewish community continues to grapple with the continued rise of global anti-Semitism one major community in Europe is facing the possible election as prime minister of a man who many Jews consider an anti-Semite. And Israel is caught in the grip of political paralysis following two fruitless elections (with a prime minister facing prosecution for corruption).

Meanwhile, with a U.S. presidential election looming next year that is sure to be bitterly contested, theres little reason to think were in for a smoother ride in 2020.

These are the Jewish stories that most captured our attention in 2019 and whose reverberations are likely to be felt well into the next ride around the sun.

The Poway synagogue shooting

Police vehicles gather around the synagogue where a shooting took place in Poway, Calif., April 27, 2019. (Xinhua/ via Getty Images)

In April, on the last day of Passover, a gunman opened fire at a Chabad synagogue in the San Diego suburb of Poway, killing one person and injuring three. The accused gunman told a 911 dispatcher that he did it because Jewish people are destroying the white race.

The Poway attack shook the American Jewish community, which was still reeling from the shooting attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 worshippers at Shabbat services. As the one-year anniversary of the shooting approached in October, the community held a number of memorial events that made it clear the aftershocks were still being felt.

I live with Oct. 27 every minute of every hour of every day, and I will for the rest of my life, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said.

Two killed in Yom Kippur attack on German synagogue

A man views a makeshift memorial at the entrance to the synagogue in Halle, Germany, Oct. 10, 2019. (Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

As 51 people gathered for Yom Kippur services in the German city of Halle, Stephan Balliet, clad in combat gear and wearing a head-mounted camera, tried to blast his way inside. When the synagogues fortified doors kept him out, he turned and shot Jana Lange, who had reprimanded him for making too much noise. Then Balliet proceeded to a nearby kebab shop, where he shot and killed a man identified only as Kevin S. Balliet later told police he was motivated by anti-Semitism.

Worshippers remained in the synagogue for hours before they were evacuated by police to a nearby hospital, where they continued their holiday services.

It was intense and emotional, one participant said.

The shooting sent shock waves through the tiny Jewish community of Halle, which numbers about 500 people. It also sparked outrage from leaders of German Jewry, who demanded to know why the synagogue was left unguarded on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called the failure scandalous, and said if police had been present they could have disarmed the gunman before he harmed anyone.

Israelis vote twice and still dont have a prime minister

Blue and White party chairmen Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid during a faction meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Nov. 18, 2019. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israeli politics are a hot mess right now.

In April, national elections resulted in a tie between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus Likud party and his principal challenger, the Blue and White party led by former general Benny Gantz. Netanyahu failed to form a government, so Israelis went back to the polls in September and again delivered no clear winner: 33 seats for Blue and White, 32 for Likud. First Netanyahu tried to form a government, then Gantz. Neither succeeded.

Israel has now entered uncharted territory: It appears headed for a third election, likely to take place in early March. The only thing Israelis probably agree on right now is how unpalatable another election will be.

Heres an explainer on how we got here.

Netanyahu faces corruption charges

Benjamin Netanyahu, seen on Nov. 12, 2019, is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be indicted. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

As if the Israeli political situation wasnt complicated enough, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted in November on multiple charges of corruption, including bribery and breach of public trust.

The most serious case alleges that Netanyahu traded political favors to the largest shareholder of the telecommunications giant Bezeq in exchange for favorable news coverage. Netanyahu also was accused of accepting gifts totaling $200,000 from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan in exchange for political assistance, and of seeking positive coverage from the daily newspaper Yediot Acharonot in exchange for advancing a law that would have hurt a competitor.

Netanyahu has decried the indictment as a witch hunt and an attempted coup. He has 30 days to seek immunity from prosecution in the Knesset, his countrys parliament.

Hate crimes against Jews are spiking

Orthodox Jewish men walk past security vehicles in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, Feb. 27, 2019. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Around the world, law enforcement and community organizations found that hate crimes continued to rise, with Jews often the most common targets.

In April, the Anti-Defamation League reported that 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents occurred in 2018, the third-highest tally in the four decades the ADL has been conducting annual audits. In July, the Canadian government reported that Jews were the most targeted minority group for the third straight year, even as hate crimes against other groups fell. And in August, the British Jewish communitys anti-Semitism watchdog reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever in the first six months of 2019.

In Brooklyn, a series of violent attacks against visibly Jewish victims caused particular alarm. Three were reported in one week in August alone. The situation led the city to create a new Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes and install Devorah Lauter, a former ADL official, at its helm.

Israel becomes a wedge issue

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks at a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., July 25, 2019. (Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

This year saw serious cracks in what has long been a cherished feature of the U.S.-Israel relationship: bipartisanship.

In February, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., came under fire for a series of controversial tweets, including one charging falsely that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pays politicians to be pro-Israel. Omar drew quick rebukes from leading Democrats and subsequently apologized. The following month, President Donald Trump piled on, calling the Democrats the anti-Jewish party. In August, Trump upped the ante, saying that anyone who voted for a Democrat was guilty of disloyalty, a comment that drew condemnation from critics who said it evoked classic anti-Semitic tropes.

Meanwhile, Democratic politicians were trending leftward on Israel, with several of the leading candidates for the presidential nomination saying they were prepared to use American aid as leverage to pressure Israel. The shifting center of gravity on Israel prompted pushback from the partys so-called moderate wing and prompted the creation of a new organization, the Democratic Majority for Israel, dedicated to cultivating support for the Jewish state in the party.

With a sure-to-be-nasty presidential election looming in 2020, both sides were preparing to spend heavily on the Israel issue. The Republican Jewish Coalition announced a $10 million ad campaign painting the Democrats as a shanda Yiddish for disgrace in part because of their position on Israel. Democratic groups pushed back with an ad blitz of their own.

British Jews unnerved by Corbyn candidacy

British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the University of Lancaster, Nov. 15, 2019. (Anthony Devlin/Getty Images)

With the United Kingdom facing an enormously consequential election that could well determine the future of its membership in the European Union, British Jews were facing a momentous choice of their own. The Labour Party, long the political home of a majority of Britains Jews, is led by Jeremy Corbyn, who has been long been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism.

Concern over Corbyn reached a fever pitch in the months prior to the Dec. 12 vote. In early November, Britains oldest Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, published a front-page editorial pleading with Britons not to support Corbyn, noting a recent poll suggesting that approximately half of Jews would consider emigrating if he were elected. Weeks later, in an unprecedented intervention, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote of British Jewrys justified anxiety at the prospect of a Corbyn premiership in a Times of London op-ed, warning that the very soul of our nation is at stake.

Corbyns record of actions that unnerved British Jews is long and well-documented. He once defended a London mural showing bankers playing monopoly on the backs of dark-skinned people that was widely seen as anti-Semitic, said Zionists have no sense of irony and described the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah as friends.

He has passionately argued that there is no place for anti-Semitism in his party, but recently apologized for everything thats happened in Labour over the past few years.

Heres more on how the election could affect Jews.

The #MeToo movement hits the Jewish community

Sheila Katz, now vice president of Hillel International, accused Michael Steinhardt of sexual harassment. (Courtesy of Katz/Getty Images)

Michael Steinhardt, the Jewish megadonor who helped found Birthright Israel and supports a wide range of Jewish institutions, was accused of a pattern of propositioning and sexually inappropriate remarks to women.

According to an investigation by The New York Times and ProPublica, the journalism nonprofit, seven women alleged that Steinhardt made sexual requests of them while they were seeking his financial support. Steinhardt denied the accusations, but acknowledged a pattern of comments that were boorish, disrespectful, and just plain dumb.

In the wake of the accusations, the organized Jewish communitys longtime focus on encouraging endogamy and child rearing long among Steinhardts favored philanthropic objectives drew increasing scrutiny.

A measles outbreak hits the Orthodox community

A sign warns of measles in the Orthodox Jewish community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, April 10, 2019. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A measles outbreak that began with a trickle in haredi Orthodox communities in Israel and New York last year exploded into a full-on public health crisis in 2019. Hundreds of cases were reported in New York and thousands in Israel.

New York officials took aggressive measures to contain the outbreak, declaring a public health emergency and ordering that unvaccinated people living in four heavily Orthodox Zip codes in Brooklyn be vaccinated or pay fines up to $1,000. The state also banned religious exemptions for vaccines and at least 10 Jewish schools in New York City were shuttered for admitting unvaccinated students.

At least three fatalities were attributed to the disease in Israel, one of them a 43-year-old El Al flight attendant who contracted the disease on a flight from New York. By September, New York had declared the epidemic over.

Tiffany Haddish has a bat mitzvah

Rabbi Susan Silverman, left, with Tiffany Haddish at Haddishs bat mitzvah at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Dec. 3, 2019. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)

Tiffany Haddishs breakthrough year may have been 2017, when the 40-year-old actress and comedian starred in the successful comedy Girls Trip and released her memoir, The Last Black Unicorn. But 2019 was her Jewish breakout year.

Haddish, who only learned she was Jewish in her 20s when she met her Eritrean Jewish father, released a Netflix special, Black Mitzvah, in December on the same day she celebrated her bat mitzvah, with Sarah Silvermans rabbi sister presiding. She also sang Hava Nagila on The Tonight Show in the same week.

Something that I feel like a lot of African-Americans have been stripped of is their history, Haddish said. A lot of us dont know [our] origin. We dont know what our origin story is because that was taken from us. And it talks about that in the Torah. I think its so powerful.

See original here:

The top 10 Jewish stories of 2019 - JTA News

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month, Synagogue | Comments Off on The top 10 Jewish stories of 2019 – JTA News
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 11, 2019

What do trans women gamers, Jewish journalists, academics of color, and feminist writers have in common? All of them could find themselves targets of coordinated harassment campaigns simply because they have a presence online.

Take the story of Trista (all names have been changed to protect privacy), a trans woman gamer. When she began streaming her games on Twitch, bands of harassers arrived en masse to jam up her channel with what she called low effort, hateful memes. Another woman gamer was called an eBeggar, the misogynistic gaming equivalent of gold diggers. On 4Chan, where harassers organized their attacks, posters organized raids of SJWs (or social justice warriors) against gamers like Trista, planning to post many swasticas [sic] and hurl ableist insults to threaten and belittle them.

Or take the story of Keith, a white Jewish man, comedian, and media professional. After criticizing neo-Nazis and the alt-right in his comedy, he found himself the target of anti-Semitic attacks from users of the website 4Chan. Harassers found his image online and vandalized it in racist and anti-Semitic ways, depicting him with darkened skin covered in sores, an enlarged nose, and altered hair. They drew on old tropeswhite supremacist ideas that Jews cannot be considered white, are identifiable by their facial features, and are uncleanin an attempt to insult him.

These are just two examples from an original study we conducted with the Anti-Defamation League in 2019, titled The Trolls are Organized and Everyones a Target. We set out to understand how these campaigns happen and what its like to be on the receiving end of coordinated harassment. While several recent studies have quantified the problem of online harassment, including studies by Amnesty International, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Pew Research Center, as anthropologists of technology, we wanted to hear directly from individuals who had been affected by harassment. Our study involved 15 in-depth ethnographic interviews and an extensive review of previous research, all focused on understanding the experience of harassment and how it was shaped by the identity of the targeted individual. In line with previous studies, we found that cyberharassment severely affects women and people of color, particularly trans women and women of color.

Building on previous research, we found that the nature of online harassment has changed with the advent and spread of networked technologies such as social media. Harassers have new ways to interfere with the lives of their targets and to follow them wherever they go online. Study participants told us again and again about harassers high degree of collaboration and persistence. Each person we spoke to had been the target of repeated, sustained harassment, often across multiple platforms.

Each person we spoke to had been the target of repeated, sustained harassment, often across multiple platforms.

We call these types of campaigns networked harassment in the report. Targets receive barrages of hateful messages on Twitter, Facebook, Medium, via chat or messaging tools, in their live stream on Discord or Twitch, and through email. At the same time, if they own a business, like one Jewish woman we spoke to, they might receive false and defamatory online reviews on Google, Yelp, and even GlassDoor. Occasionally, online messaging escalates to in-person stalking or confrontations.

Because most of our respondents work in professional and knowledge work fields such as academia, media, gaming, nonprofits, business, or law, many relied on digital tools and spaces to build professional reputations and find work. Online harassment thus directly threatened their livelihoods and employability.

But while these people were inundated with horrifying, demeaning messages, they did not necessarily take the abuse passively. About half of the people we spoke to had documented how harassers targeted them. They and their friends took screenshots of tweets when they appeared on Twitter to keep a record of what was said by which accounts. Many but not all of the accounts responsible were anonymous or obviously created only to harass unsuspecting victims. In some cases, a public figureoften with many times the number of online followers as the targeted individualwould mock the target on social media, triggering hundreds or thousands of followers to pile on insults. Targeted individuals sometimes went so far as to systematically record the waves of harassment in spreadsheets. Even though targets were active in documenting and requesting responses from the companies hosting such behavior, such efforts often had little tangible effect.

The spreadsheets and screenshots revealed that often different accounts would use nearly identical language, suggesting that a single individual or group had coordinated behind the scenes. Some people who were targeted found evidence that attacks had been planned on sites like the anonymous 4chan message board, where attackers would post screenshots and archived links of conversations about who to target and how to do it. Often, these documents were submitted to platforms as evidence that offending accounts should be shut down, but platform companies rarely complied or responded in a timely fashion.

Although everyone we spoke with used the available reporting tools, none felt doing so led to adequate resolution.

Many targeted individuals responded to their harassment by withdrawing from social media, like Trista, the gamer described earlier, and Naomi, a professor and writer. Naomi was targeted for nine months after far-right websites like Breitbart covered her work, triggering waves of rape and death threats on Twitter and Instagram. Although everyone we spoke with used the available reporting tools, none felt doing so led to adequate resolution. Platforms such as Twitch or Twitter cant stop the harassment campaigns on their own. Even when these companies block or ban users from their service, they cant prevent harassers from finding their targets on other platforms.

Some people, such as Charles, a Latino academic, or Barbara, a Jewish businesswoman, felt unsafe enough to reach out to law enforcement. Yet local law enforcement were largely ill equipped to help because the harassment took place online. Most perpetrators were savvy enough to avoid explicit or specific threats to physical safety that would have been more likely to prompt law enforcement involvement (for instance, saying I hope you die rather than I want to kill you). On rare occasions, however, harassers would move from online to offline. For example, one white woman academic received threatening letters mailed to her new home only days after moving in. Another was stalked in person at her workplace, and building security acted as a protective layer between her and her would-be attackers.

Our findings build on over a decade of research on trolling, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and other forms of online harassment and abuse. Researchers such asLisa Nakamura pioneered studies of how old prejudices appear anew in digital worlds. Recent work by Ruha Benjamin, Safiya Noble, Simone Browne, and many others show how prejudice is not just replicated on but built into new technology platforms. Our research, like previous studies, shows that perpetrators punch down. In other words, harassers target people with less social power and visibility than they have: young people, women, people of color, trans women, and disabled people. Trolling and harassment campaigns have long featured extremist and white supremacist themes.

So then what is to be done? In our report, we recommended three main areas for overhauling responses to cyberharassment and numerous ways to achieve them.

The personal, social, and material harms our participants experienced have real consequences for who can participate in public life.

First, platform companies must improve moderation tools and user control over profiles, pages, and accounts. They should consider formalizing practices targeted individuals already use, such as distributing moderation among trusted friends. Moderation and filtering tools should be strengthened, with referral-site filtering to prevent coordinated attacks from a single site, like 4Chan, and more stringent blocking to stop abusive individuals from viewing the activity of their targets.

Second, platforms can improve the abuse reporting process by adding transparent means to track abuse claims. They should also improve staffing and response time for existing reporting systems. Our research participants reported waiting weeks or months for responses from some platforms, which is simply unacceptable.

Third, platforms need to cooperate in preventing and responding to multiplatform harassment. This approach requires including targets of harassment, especially from marginalized and targeted groups, in the design processes and engineering oversight. For example, common standards and API-based tools could offer possibilities for blocking abusers across multiple platforms or sharing information across company safety teams. Platforms can prioritize user safety by hiring diverse designers and training technical staff to have a more rigorous understanding of how power, identity, and hate operate in society in online spaces and beyond.

Online harassment is ultimately about trying to control what kind of people are visible and have a voice in public arenas. The personal, social, and material harms our participants experienced have real consequences for who can participate in public life. Current laws and regulations allow digital platforms to avoid responsibility for content produced by users, but digital media companies must truly listen to their users, especially those from marginalized and frequently targeted communities, and follow in good faith any future regulations that limit hate speech and increase platform responsibility for abuse. And if online spaces are truly going to support democracy, justice, and equality, change must happen soon.

Read more from the original source:
The trolls are teaming upand tech platforms aren't doing enough to stop them - Fast Company

Category: Anti-Defamation League | Comments Off on The trolls are teaming upand tech platforms aren’t doing enough to stop them – Fast Company
Tags: