Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

Soon after the Six Day War, Rabbi Shubert Spero, prominent rabbi of the Young Israel of Cleveland, visited Jerusalem and met with Rabbi Yeshayahu Hadari, head of Yeshivat Hakotel, the rabbinic seminary built adjacent to the Western Wall. During the meeting, Rabbi Hadari gave Rabbi Spero some ashes that were discovered during excavations of the Temple Mount area, and which archeologists dated to the time of the destruction of the Second Temple.Ashes from the destruction of the Second Temple!Rabbi Hadari instructed Rabbi Spero to take the ashes to America and to use them for all weddings that he would perform there (it is customary to put some ashes on the forehead of a groom as he prepares for his wedding ceremony, as a reminder that his happiness cannot be complete in the face of our Temple having been burned to the ground). Rabbi Spero used these ashes for hundreds of weddings over the course of decades, connecting Diaspora Jews to their heritage in Jerusalem.Rabbi Spero and his wife moved to Israel 36 years ago and brought the ashes with him to use during family weddings. And last week, those special ashes were placed on my sons forehead, as he married Rabbi Speros great-granddaughter in Jerusalem.For 2,000 years our ancestors prayed for our national return to Jerusalem, and yearned for the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy that a time will come when brides and grooms will rejoice in the streets of Jerusalem. We as a family experienced the fulfillment of this prophecy last week, and Rabbi Spero was able to use those special ashes from the Temples destruction for a fourth generation (!), signifying that despite the destruction and all the persecution that we have experienced as a people, the Jewish people are alive and well.But there was another layer to this reality at this wedding.On September 9, 2003, Rabbi Speros son-in-law, Rabbi Dr. David Applebaum, took his 20-year-old daughter Naava to get some coffee on the night before her wedding, which was scheduled to take place at the Ramat Rahel hall in Jerusalem. A Palestinian terrorist blew himself up as the Applebaums were entering Caf Hillel in Jerusalems German Colony, and both were killed along with others.Despite this incomprehensible tragedy, the Spero family picked themselves up and continued moving forward contributing toward building the State of Israel and bringing more Jewish children to the Jewish state with many young girls now carrying the name Naava with pride. And last week the families with those young Naavas danced at the Ramat Rahel hall where Naava was supposed to get married, with a huppa made partially from Naavas wedding dress as the family celebrated the first wedding of its fourth generation in Israel. The Jewish people are alive and well.And this story goes even one step deeper. The speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, honored us with his presence at the wedding and recited two blessings during the ceremony. Before he recited the blessings, Edelstein told the audience that David Applebaum was one of the people who came to visit him and other refuseniks who were trapped in the Soviet Union. David brought them Hebrew books and taught them Torah. Yuli gave public thanks to Davids family for the role that David played in helping him and other refuseniks during those trying times.David Applebaum is no longer alive. But the people for whom he risked his life to teach Judaism in the Soviet Union are alive and well, thriving in Israel with one of his students serving in the third-highest position in the land.The Jewish people are alive and well.Just two days after the wedding, Israel assassinated Islamic Jihad leader Abu al-Ata, and was then subjected to two days of more than 400 rockets fired into its cities. Imagine: 400 rockets fired into the cities of any other country in the world would bring the entire country to a standstill and would certainly lead many to consider fleeing for a safer home. But Israelis stayed strong in the face of the attacks. An iconic picture showed mothers and their babies who were born in Ashkelons Barzilai Medical Centers underground bomb shelter during the bombardment. The Talmud teaches that the Messiahs birthday is the Ninth of Av, the Hebrew date on which both temples were destroyed. The commentaries explain that this does not mean that the person who will be the Messiah will be born on that actual date, but that the process of the final redemption began the moment the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were exiled from the Land of Israel. We are a people who do not lose hope and we build from our defeats, as the Bible says took place when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt: But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. (Exodus 1:12)The Jewish people are alive and well. And given our unique ability and divine blessing to turn ashes into joy, we can rest assured that we always will be alive and well. The writer was a member of the 19th Knesset.

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No Holds Barred: Jewish people are alive and well, the proof is in ashes - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

Photo Credit: Jewish Press

And Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to lament her (Bereishis 23:2).

Our Sages ask why the Torah uses a double expression: eulogize and lament. Moreover, it is usual for one to first cry and then, through ones tears, to eulogize the departed. If so, why does the Torah use the word eulogize before the word lament/cry?

The Doresh Tzion answers that the eulogy and crying were separate. First, Avraham extolled the departed neshamah of Sarah that could no longer fulfill mitzvos. Then he cried for the loss of this righteous woman whose merits protected the people of her generation.

The Chasam Sofer notes that the letters of hesped (eulogy) are the same as hefsed (loss), for when an individual is eulogized appropriately, the loss of his or her passing is more deeply felt.

The Medrash tells us that while Sarah was alive, her home featured three constant miracles. The candles she lit on Erev Shabbos would remain lit until the following Erev Shabbos (indicating that her protection and merit didnt end after Shabbos); the challah she baked did not get stale or moldy all week (since Sarah was extremely careful in the laws of food); and the Cloud of Glory rested above her tent (creating a spiritually-charged atmosphere in it, representing the state of purity Sarah maintained).

When Sarah passed away, these miracles ceased, representing the loss of this great spiritual personage and leader. But the Talmud (Kiddushin 72b) states: When R Akiva died, Rebbi was born; when Rebbi died, R Yehuda was born; when R Yehuda died, Rava was born; and when Rava died, R Ashi was born. In other words, a tzaddik does not leave this world before an equally righteous person is born, as Koheles (1:5) states, The sun also rises and the sun also sets. Thus, when Rivkah married Yitzchak and entered his familys tent, the miracles all returned.

We learn in Tehillim (37:18), Hashem knows the days of the tzaddikim; their inheritance will be forever. The Medrash Rabbah comments that Hashem holds precious the years of tzaddikim and thus their heirs and students continue their legacy to preserve the memory of their great deeds.

An interesting responsa of the Rashbash discusses an episode in the life of the Ramban. Rabbeinu Yonah, the author of the Shaarei Teshuvah, had a daughter who married the Rambans son, Shlomo. After Rabbeinu Yonahs passing, his daughter gave birth to a baby boy. Since it was the custom in her locale for a grandson to be named after his paternal grandfather, the child should have been named Moshe, after the Ramban. The Rashbash, however, advised the couple to name the boy Yonah, citing the Talmuds statement that before a tzaddik dies, another tzaddik rises. The Rashbash explained that since the sun of Yonah had set, so to speak, a new Yonah should be named with the hope that he would be a future leader in Klal Yisrael.

Yankel was a petty thief and was constantly being caught by the police. When that would happen, he would run to the Baal Shem Tov, who would pray for him and somehow the incident would be either forgotten or forgiven. Since the amounts he pilfered were relatively small, this practice continued for many years.

One day, Yankel heard that a prince was coming to town and would be staying at the local inn. Here was a lifetime opportunity, Yankel thought to himself. He persuaded someone to leave one of the windows open, and Yankel successfully swiped the princes wallet and hit the jackpot.

However, since a prince had been robbed, it would have been a disgrace for the local community if the thief were not apprehended. Therefore, the local police planned to arrest Yankel, whom they immediately suspected. When Yankel got word of this, he quickly ran to the beis medrash of the Baal Shem Tov for his customary assistance.

Where is my rebbe? Yankel called out.

No one answered.

He kept repeating his question until finally one of the disciples told him that the Baal Shem Tov was niftar the previous day.

Didnt he leave someone as a replacement? asked Yankel.

The disciple gave him a name, and Yankel ran to his home. I need a beracha, he exclaimed, because I stole and the police are after me!

You transgressed the prohibition of stealing and you have the chutzpah to ask for a beracha?! You must be joking! said the disciple.

Distraught, Yankel ran to the kever of the Baal Shem Tov and cried bitterly until he was so exhausted that he fell asleep.

The Baal Shem Tov came to him in a dream and told him, Before I left this world, I appointed a new Rebbe for you because I knew you would need one. I will tell you a dvar Torah from Gan Eden that you should repeat to the Degel Machane Ephraim (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov).

Yankel ran to the Degel Machane Ephraim, repeated the dvar Torah he heard from the Baal Shem Tov, and the new Rebbe gave him a beracha. Subsequently the entire incident was forgotten. In addition, having heard Torah from Gan Eden, Yankel did complete teshuvah and never stole again.

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It's Never Over - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

FromCohen v. Cohen, decided Wednesday by a New York appellate court:

The parties were married on November 17, 2009. There are two children of the marriage, born in 2011 and 2013, respectively.

During the early years of the marriage, the parties practiced Satmar Hasidic Judaism. At a certain point, the defendant (hereinafter the father) became non-religious, although he continued to appear religious in his dress and customs. The parties separated [and divorced]. [The trial court] awarded the mother sole physical and legal custody of the children, with parental access to the father.

The father was directed to provide the children with exclusively kosher food and to make "all reasonable efforts to ensure that the children's appearance and conduct comply with the Hasidic' religious requirements of the [mother] and of the children's schools as they were raised while the children are in [his] physical custody." The court emphasized, however, that it was not mandating any specific mode of dress or religious practices for the father during his periods of parental access.

The father contends that this provision is unconstitutional and not in the children's best interests, relying primarily on this Court's decision in Weisberger v. Weisberger. We disagree. InWeisberger, the [trial court] enforced a religious upbringing clause in the parties' separation agreement by ordering that, during any period of parental access or during any appearance at the children's schools, the mother "must practice full religious observance in accordance with the Hasidic practices of ultra Orthodoxy," or be relegated to supervised therapeutic visitation. On appeal, this Court determined that it was "wholly inappropriate to use supervised [parental access] as a tool to compel theplaintiff to comport herself in a particular religious manner." This Court held that the [trial court] had run afoul of constitutional limitations by compelling the mother to herself practice a religion, rather than merely directing her to provide the children with a religious upbringing (citingLee v Weisman (1992)).

Here, by contrast, the father was directed to make reasonable efforts to ensure the children's compliance with their religious requirements. The [trial court] expressly stated that it was not mandating any specific mode of dress or religious practices for the father during his periods of parental access.

New York courts will enforce clauses in custody agreements that provide for a specific religious upbringing for the children where the agreement is in the best interests of the children. In the absence of a written agreement, the custodial parent may determine the religious training of the children. Here, since the mother is the custodial parent entitled to determine the children's religious training, and since the children have consistently adhered to Hasidic practices throughout their lives, the Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in directing the father to provide the children with exclusively kosher food and to make all reasonable efforts to ensure the children's compliance with their religious requirements while they are in his physical custody (see Matter of Ervin R. v Phina R., 186 Misc 2d 384, 393 [Fam Ct, Kings County]).

We emphasize, as did the Supreme Court, that the defendant is not required, at any time, to himself comply with any religious practices. We further emphasize that the standard is one of reasonable efforts, not perfection, and we urge the parties to work together in the children's best interests to address any issues which may arise prior to seeking judicial intervention.

I'm skeptical of this analysis. First, it requires courts to police disputed questions of religious observance (e.g., what really are "'Hasidic' religious requirements," and what is a "reasonable effort[]" to comply with those requirements?).

Second, it does compel the father to enforce religious rules, including ones that he has renounced. Say, for instance, that the mother insist that one of the children not express religious views or even raise religious questions that Hasids perceive as blasphemous; the father would presumably have to enforce those prohibitions, even if he opposes them. Likewise, say that one of the children is a daughter (the record is unclear on that), and the mother insists that she follow Hasidic modesty rules, which the father now views as sexist and improper; he again would have to enforce those rules.

In an intact family, each parent is entitled to choose how strictly to enforce (or even whether to enforce) the other parent's religious principles while the children are in his or her care; of course, this might itself lead to a divorce, but not to governmental enforcement of one parent's will on the other parent. I don't think that a divorce should change that, at least with regard to what rules a parent enforces when the children are with that parent. (The matter might be different for permanent changes, such as medical care decisions, and I realize that some religious parents might feel that even a decision about what to eat or how to address may itself leave a permanent spiritual mark, but I don't think that civil courts should take cognizance of that.)

If the parties had expressly made an agreement about such matters, and the agreement didn't require a court to make religious decisions (for instance, if it provided for arbitration of what constitutes Hasidic observance by a Hasidic religious tribunal), then I think that agreement should be enforceable, like other contracts are enforceable.

But absent such an agreement, I don't think a court should step in, at least in the absence of serious evidence of real and likely harm to the children. And I don't think that simply raising children in a religion during a marriage should count as such an agreement; it's widely known that people often do change their minds about religions and about degree of religious observanceand about how to raise their childrenso it should take an express contract to waive that right.

In any event, though, I think many of our readers will find the case interesting, whether they agree with the court or with me (or with neither) on this.

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Noncustodial Parent Must Make Sure That Children Comply with Custodial Parent's Religion - Reason

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Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

Imagine growing up an ultra-Orthodox rabbi in the rigidly gender-segregated Hasidic community. When Abby Stein came out as transgender, she walked away from everything shed ever known. Now shes written a memoir about her experience. Will Pavia meets her

The Times,November 23 2019, 12:01am

When Abby Stein was a child, she did not know what a girls body looked like. She was convinced that she was one, that there had been a mistake at her birth, but there were not many places to turn for guidance.

She could look at her sisters, modestly wrapped as they were in the garb of Hasidic women. But she could not consult the lingerie advertisements in Good Housekeeping. Hers was a world without glossy magazines, television or the internet. When she imagined transitioning to female, she could not be precisely sure of what she would be getting herself into. I dont even think I knew the so-called biological differences between 98 per cent of boys and 98 per cent of girls, she says.

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Abby Stein: how the Becoming Eve author went from rabbi to trans woman - The Times

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Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

The Instagram account Humans of New York has long been a favorite account on the platform. The tales its random subjects tell range from relatable to ridiculous and nearly all of it, accompanied with candid photos of the subject, is endlessly interesting and entertaining.

So then, to say that a subject of a Humans of New York post stands out is truly something. But thats exactly what this woman is: a standout. Her stories of stripping in New York City, in the 70s, for the mafia, are raunchy, honest, and entertaining as hell.

She was such a good subject that the Humans of New York account gave her three full posts! Theres not much to add, really. Youve just got to read these.

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My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting pregnant, then had me arrested when I tried to get my clothes. Then she fucked the head of parole to try to keep me in jail. She was some prime pussy back then. But the warden did some tests on me and found out I was smart, so I got a scholarship to go anywhere in New York. I chose the Fashion Institute of Technology, which I hated. But by that time I was already getting work making costumes for the strippers and porn stars in Times Square. All my friends were gay people, because they never judged me. All I did was gay bars: drag queen contests, Crisco Disco, I loved the whole scene. And I couldnt get enough of the costumes. My friend Paris used to sit at the bar and sell stolen clothes from Bergdorf and Lord and Taylors, back before they had sensor tags. So I had the best wardrobe: mink coats, 5 inch heels, stockings with seams up the back. I looked like a drag queen, honey. One night a Hasidic rabbi tried to pick me up because he thought I was a tranny. I had to tell him: Baby, this is real fish!

A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Nov 18, 2019 at 8:03am PST

My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting pregnant, then had me arrested when I tried to get my clothes. Then she fucked the head of parole to try to keep me in jail. She was some prime pussy back then. But the warden did some tests on me and found out I was smart, so I got a scholarship to go anywhere in New York. I chose the Fashion Institute of Technology, which I hated. But by that time I was already getting work making costumes for the strippers and porn stars in Times Square. All my friends were gay people, because they never judged me. All I did was gay bars: drag queen contests, Crisco Disco, I loved the whole scene. And I couldnt get enough of the costumes. My friend Paris used to sit at the bar and sell stolen clothes from Bergdorf and Lord and Taylors, back before they had sensor tags. So I had the best wardrobe: mink coats, 5 inch heels, stockings with seams up the back. I looked like a drag queen, honey. One night a Hasidic rabbi tried to pick me up because he thought I was a tranny. I had to tell him: Baby, this is real fish!

My stripper name was Tanqueray. Back in the seventies I was the only black girl making white girl money. I danced in so many mob clubs that I learned Italian. Black girls werent even allowed in some of these places. Nothing but guidos with their pinky rings and the one long fingernail they used for cocaine. I even did a full twenty minutes in the place they filmed Saturday Night Fever. But I made my real money on the road. Three grand on some trips. Every time Fort Dix had their pay day, theyd bring me in as a feature and call me Ms. Black Universe or some shit like that. I had this magic trick where Id put baby bottle tops on my nipples and squirt real milk, then Id pull a cherry out of my G-string and feed it to the guy in the front row. But I never used dildos on stage or any shit like that. Never fucked the booking agents. Never fucked the clients. In fact, one night after a show, I caught another dancer sneaking off to the Tate Hotel with our biggest tipper. Not allowed. So the next night we put a little itching powder in her G-string. Boy did she put on a show that night. Didnt see her again until The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds. So I guess she finally fucked the right one.

The scene was different back then. All the adult clubs were mob controlled. It all flowed up to some guy named Matty The Horse. Honestly the mob guys never bothered me. They were cool, and I liked how they dressed. They wore custom made suits. And they went to hair stylists, not barbers. These guys wouldnt even let you touch their hair when you were fucking them. Not that I ever fucked them. Because I never turned tricks. Well, except for one time. I took a job from this woman named Madame Blanche. She controlled all the high dollar prostitutes back then. She was like the Internet could get you anything you wanted. And all the powerful men came to her because she never talked. She set me up with a department store magnate who wanted a black girl dressed like a maid. I thought I could do it. But when I got to his hotel room, he wanted to spank me with a real belt. So that was it for me. I was done. But Madame Blanche set my best friend Vicki up with The President every time he came to New York. And dont you dare write his name cause I cant afford the lawyers. But hed always spend an hour with her. Hed send a car to pick her up, bring her to his hotel room, put a Secret Service agent in front of the door, and get this: all he ever did was eat her pussy!

This has taught me a lot but mostly that I would watch a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead version of Goodfellas with strippers in the tit(ha!)ular roles.

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70s-era NYC Stripper Tells Crazy X-Rated Tales of Dancing for the Mob - Rare.us

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Posted By admin on November 23, 2019

Memoirs offer a window into the most personal aspects of a persons life.

In their 2019 memoir Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story, for example, Jacob Tobia lays bare their journey, from coping with bullying to becoming a prominent nonbinary LGBTQ rights activist a story that Showtime is developing into a series, Variety reported today.

Whether theyre written by the successful celebrities we already admire or ordinary people whove encountered and overcome extraordinary circumstances, memoirs remind us we are not isolated in our hopes, desires, dreams and struggles, but rather, connected. This National Memoir Writing Month, heres a primer on some of the most notable queer memoirs from the last few years.

Intimate partner violence, which can include physical, emotional and psychological abuse, affects more than 12 million people each year, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Yet despite the prevalence of this serious issue, such violence remains a taboo topic. Carmen Maria Machado tackles this stigma in In the Dream House, a harrowing memoir about the abuse she endured at the hands of a partner in graduate school. While the work is technically a memoir, it also incorporates elements of romance, science fiction, westerns, etc. But the memoirs genre-bending form is only one way in which Machado who also penned Her Body and Other Parts unsettles the reader in this story when it comes to reclaiming the parts of yourself that have grown most alien.

Jonathan Van Ness rose to fame as the optimistic grooming expert on Netflixs Queer Eye in 2018. Now, hes taking readers on a journey through the triumphs and trials of his life in his vulnerable Over the Top. In it, Van Ness shares the difficulties hes overcome and still grapples with, including childhood sexual abuse, depression, drug use and an HIV-positive diagnosis. Van Ness told NBCs TODAY Show he hopes he can make others feel less alone with his memoir. I think it is really important for me to speak about things I talk about in this book, so I think it was the right thing to do, he said.

Cyrus Grace Dunham, Lena Dunhams younger sibling, provides an intimate portrait of gender, queerness and desire in A Year Without a Name. Dunham writes about his gender transition and the uncertainty that accompanied it. Dunham told Them that he wanted to provide an alternative story to those often seen in more palatable trans narratives distributed to the public by expressing the doubt he still grapples with post-transition.

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It felt important to me to try to communicate my ambivalence and hesitations around those themes, Cyrus told Them. Any time I reached a point in writing where I felt like I was better, I would just go back to a place of extreme doubt again. I think thats something that a lot of trans people deal with.

In, How We Fight for Our Lives, award-winning poet Saeed Jones writes about growing up in the South as a black, gay man and grappling with the complexities of his identity. The memoir, which was released in October, unfolds through a series of vignettes following Jones as he navigates the relationships in his life and ultimately claims ownership and autonomy of himself.

Activist and Oscar-winning gay filmmaker Dustin Lance Black chronicles how he and his deeply conservative Mormon mother found common ground in the midst of great idealogical conflict. Black, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Milk, came out to his mother when he was 21. His mother responded that being gay was a sinful choice, but through the course of the memoir which stretches from the steps of the Supreme Court to San Antonio, Texas Black and his mother manage to heal their fractured relationship.

Abby Stein is thought to be the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community. Stein chronicles her experience her memoir Becoming Eve, which was released Nov. 12. Stein said she always felt different but concurrently faced pressures to keep her identity secret and to follow the more traditional path: living as a man, getting married and becoming a rabbi. In her memoir, she shares the experience of sneaking onto the internet for the very first time in 2011 in a mall bathroom. There, she discovered what the word transgender meant. In her memoir, Stein also lays out the journey of coming out to her religious family.

At the end of the day, I am who I am today, of which I am very proud and happy and comfortable, because of the sum total of my experiences, Stein told TODAY.

Edie Windsor gained international acclaim after she sued the U.S. government in an attempt to achieve federal recognition for her marriage to Thea Spyer, her partner for more than 40 years. The Supreme Court ruled in Windsors favor in the landmark case that paved the way for marriage equality in the U.S.

In the posthumously released A Wild and Precious Life, which Windsor began writing before she died in 2017 and which was completed by Joshua Lyon, Windsor chronicles how she became a gay icon. From participating in Greenwich Villages underground gay scene during the 1950s to becoming a trailblazing leader at IBM, Windsors story fighting for what she believed in is one that will leave readers inspired.

As a child, Jacob Tobia was often called a sissy because of their penchant for glitter and Barbies. Now, the gender nonconfirming artist has reclaimed the term in their book Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story. In this candid guidebook, Tobia offers their story of transforming from a shy, closeted gender noncomforming child to a proud genderqueer activist, and, in doing so, reflects on the limitations of the gender binary. And today, Variety reported that Showtime is developing a dramedy of the same name based on the memoir.

In Boy Erased, Garrad Conley tells a haunting account about his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that forced him to undertake conversion therapy. After Conley was outed as gay in college, he was given a choice: be disowned or go through complete conversion therapy a practice widely discredited as ineffective and harmful by medical practioners. Conley recounts his participation in the months-long program in this 2016 memoir, with the hope of spreading awareness about the psychological warfare inflicted on those subjected to the practice. Boy Erased was adapted into a 2018 film, starring Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman.

While you wait for Megan Rapinoe to release her book, settle in with the memoir of retired U.S. soccer icon Abby Wambach. Called an inspiration and badass by President Obama, Wambach is not only a world-class athlete, but an activist for equal rights. In Forward, Wambach records how she went from joining an all-boys soccer team at age seven, to becoming the highest goal scorer male or female in the history of soccer by age 35.

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Gwen Aviles writes for NBC News' Latino, Out, BLK and Asian America verticals.

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10 LGBTQ memoirs to read for National Memoir Writing Month - NBCNews.com

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Posted By admin on November 22, 2019

By Marcy Oster

JTA Sacha Baron Cohen will be honored by the Anti-Defamation League for his vision, imagination and creativity.

Cohen, who most recently portrayed the late Israeli spy Eli Cohen in a Netflix series, will receive the International Leadership Award during the civil rights organizations Never is Now summit on anti-Semitism and hate. The summit will be held Thursday in New York City.

The actor, comedian and director, whose political satire films include Borat and The Dictator, will deliver a keynote address.

Baron Cohen has used humor and satire to expose peoples inherent biases by depicting racists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, Islamophobes and others as deeply flawed, ordinary people whose prejudices are, ultimately, laughable, the ADL said in a statement. As a celebrity and public figure, hes not shied away from taking on tough subjects off-screen, having recently spoken out about the failure of social media companies to adequately address the rampant racism, anti-Semitism and hate on their platforms.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in the statement that Cohens characters help to expose how common prejudices are in our society and our world.

Theres many ways to combat prejudice, and anti-bias education, exposure and awareness are important tools. But there are other, more unorthodox ways to fight hate, Greenblatt said. Sachas hilarious characters fall into that latter category. They push envelopes. They cross boundaries. They evoke stereotypes and tropes, but for comedic effect.

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Sacha Baron Cohen to be Honored by ADL Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on November 22, 2019

DOBBS: John Solomon reported back in March and I want to get this right that [former US embassy official] George Kent had pressured Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation into AntAC, the anti-corruption action center that George Soros group sponsored. This is a complicated deal here. And it seems that he wanted to keep an investigation of Ukrainian corruption with limits on it, even as he answered questions today. Your thoughts, Joe?

DIGENOVA: Well, theres no doubt that George Soros controls a very large part of the career Foreign Service at the United States State Department. He also controls the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for NGOs, work with NGOs. That was very evident in Ukraine. Kent was part of that. He was a very big protector of Soros. His testimony today showed this kind of stern, sort of discomfort with not being included in certain discussions. But the truth is George Soros had a daily opportunity to tell the State Department through [former State Department official] Victoria Nuland what to do in the Ukraine. And he ran it, Soros ran it. He corrupted FBI officials, he corrupted Foreign Service officers. And the bottom line is this: George Soros wants to run Ukraine, and hes doing everything he can, to use every lever of the United States government to make that happenfor business interests, not for good government

The argument here hinges on AntAC, the anti-corruption group Dobbs invoked in his question, which received roughly 17 percent of its funding through 2018 from Soros Open Society Foundations. In March, then-Ukrainian prosecutor-general Yuri Lutsenko told Solomon that he was handed a list by then-US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch of several individuals that Ukraine should not prosecute, including a founder of AntAC and two lawmakers supportive of its anti-corruption efforts. Shortly before Lutsenko took office, the prosecutor-generals office was investigating whether $4.4 million in US aid had been misused by various recipients, including AntAC. As Solomon detailed it in the Hill, the supposed do-not-prosecute list looked like an Obama administration effort to shield Soros.

Kent, in his capacity as the US embassys deputy chief of mission, told the prosecutor-generals office in a letter that the United States had no concerns that its grant money had been misused and did not see any grounds for the investigation of AntAC. Solomon portrayed Kents letter as the US embassy meddling in Ukrainian law enforcement matters, but Kent dismissed this view in closed-door testimony last month. The accusations were completely without merit, Kent said, adding that his critics in the Ukrainian prosecutors office fundamentally misunderstood how our assistance is administered.

The probe into AntAC was later dropped due to a lack of evidence. More importantly, the central conceit of the storythat Yovanovitch instructed Lutsenko not to prosecute various individualswas retracted. Lutsenko eventually acknowledged to a Ukrainian news outlet that she never gave him a list of names.

On Tuesday, Kurt Volker, who until recently was the Trump administrations special representative for Ukraine negotiations, testified that he told Giuliani in July that Lutsenko was not credible and was acting in a self-serving capacity. According to Volker, Giuliani repliedthat he had already come to the same conclusion. Lutsenkos claims have nevertheless taken on a life of their own and are frequently invoked in the right-wing media as an example of Soros influence over the State Department and intelligence agencies.

In public, Giuliani would go on to embellish the tale further, suggesting in late September on several news shows that Soros somehow masterminded the federal investigation into Manaforts illicit lobbying for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Manafort was convicted in August 2018 of tax and bank fraud related to this lobbying and sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

In his media appearances, Giuliani has described AntAC as Soros NGO and falsely claimed it developed all of the dirty information that ended up being a false document that was created in order to incriminate Manafort. The document Giuliani seems to be referencing is the so-called black ledger, which listed secret payments to Manafort for off-the-books consulting work related to Ukraine. But AntAC did not produce that information and wasnt responsible for publicizing the document. Artem Sytnyk, director of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine, and Serhiy Leshchenko, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, first disclosed the information, parts of which have since been verified by the Associated Press and other outlets. My desire to expose Manaforts doings was motivated by the desire for justice, Leshchenko wrote in a September op-ed in the Washington Post. Neither Hillary Clinton, nor Joe Biden, nor John Podesta, nor George Soros asked me to publish the information from the black ledger.

In September, as Giuliani was promoting the baseless view that Soros was steering a plot to bring down Trump, Soros camp issued a denial.Short answer is no, Soros was not somehow involved in cooking up charges against Trump in Ukraine, spokesperson Michael Vachon told the Daily Beast.

The implication, moreover, that AntAC is simply a tool for Soros to accrue power or wage political war on Trump is absurd. Soros was far from AntACs only donor. According to Daria Kaleniuk, the groups cofounder, it has also received funding from the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and more than 500 Ukrainians, among others.

Ukraine,of course, is not the only country where Soros has engaged in philanthropy. For decades, he has sponsored anti-corruption efforts across Central and Eastern Europe, including in his homeland of Hungary and in Russia, before his foundation was banned there in 2015. Soros Ukraine work is consistent with work hes done elsewhere in the region, Emily Tamkin, a freelance reporter who is writing a book about Soros, told me.

Soros name has become so toxic in Republican circles that lobbyistsrepresenting clients from Guatemala, Albania, and other countrieshave taken to linking US diplomats they dislike to Soros. The Daily Beastreported last week that the attacks are tailor-made to Trumps idiosyncratic sensibilities.Fiona Hill, formerly a senior official onTrumps National Security Council, was accused by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone of being a Soros mole. During her public testimony on Thursday, Hill called the anti-Soros conspiracy theories an absolute outrage and compared them to the notorious, anti-Semitic propaganda known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Tamkin told me that for decades, critics have impugned Soros efforts to promote democracy in Europe, but that these more recent criticisms have entered the realm of deeply anti-Semtic make-believe.

He has funded work throughout the world. He does know different world leaders. All of that is true, she said. Thats different from him running the State Department, which is he is not doing.

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The George Soros Conspiracy Theory at the Heart of the Ukraine Scandal - Mother Jones

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Posted By admin on November 22, 2019

JERUSALEM, Israel - A new report released Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reveals just how bad anti-Semitism is getting in eastern and central Europe.

The survey shows that about one in four Europeans holds "pernicious and pervasive" anti-Semitic attitudes towards Jews. The findings are based on a poll of 28 countries between April and June 2019 in eastern and western Europe, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil.

Researchers found that while the level of anti-Semitism in western Europe appears to remain constant, eastern Europe is becoming increasingly more hostile to Jews.

"It is deeply concerning that approximately one in four Europeans harbor the types of anti-Semitic beliefs that have endured since before the Holocaust," said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. "These findings serve as a powerful wake-up call that much work remains to be done to educate broad swaths of the populations in many of these countries to reject bigotry, in addition to addressing the pressing security needs where violent incidents are rising."

The most common anti-Semitic tropes found in eastern and central Europe are the stereotypes of "Jewish power" over the economy and "dual loyalty." Many people surveyed also believe that Jews talk too much about the horrors of the Holocaust.

The countries with the highest level of anti-Semitic beliefs are Poland, Ukraine, and Hungary, where more than 40% of the respondents in each country expressing negative attitudes towards Jews.

While classic far right-anti-Semitism appears to be a growing trend in Europe, the new Boycotts, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement is struggling to gain popularity.

"Across all the countries surveyed except for South Africa support for the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the State of Israel was found to be extremely low. In most European countries, support for the boycott of Israel was less than 15 percent," according to the ADL.

German lawmakers outright condemned BDS as anti-Semitic in a resolution earlier this year.

But German Ambassador to Israel Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer admits that anti-Semitism is still a problem in her country.

"We are now witnessing, let me say, a new wave of anti-Semitism in Germany Europe," Wasum-Rainer told attendees of the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Jerusalem Thursday.

"We consider any anti-Semitic incident as targeting the Jews and non-Jews of Europe," she continued. "There is zero tolerance for racism, anti-Semitism, and hatred in Germany."

One way Germany is combating this rise is by pushing to criminalize "hate speech" and anti-Semitism on and offline.

Frederik Rogge, Charg d'Affaires of the French Embassy in Israel, said France takes anti-Semitism seriously and is working to defeat it before it gets worse.

"At the highest level of the French state our position is absolutely clear that we need to fight against anti-Semitism and that the French Jewish population is apart of the French nation," Rogge said at the conference.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe revealed last year that there was a 69 percent increase in documented anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2018.

While figures "had been down for two years, the number of these acts increased by more than 69 percent in the first nine months of 2018," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Like Germany, France is working to combat anti-Semitism on the internet, but it is also focusing on educating students about the history and dangers of this type of bigotry.

"Not to remain indifferent is to educate young generations to respect each other. As of mid-November, at the Ministry of National Education, a national team will be constantly available to participate in schools in support of any teacher facing anti-Semitism," Philippe said at the time.

Paul Packer, Chairman of United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, says he is busy to combat anti-Semitism in America. While the US is still one of the safest places for Jews, American Jews are seriously concerned about anti-Semitism in the US.

Nearly 9 in 10 American Jews say anti-Semitism is a problem in the US, according to a new landmark survey from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Packer told the Jerusalem Post conference attendees that the US is tackling anti-Semitism head-on.

"When the United States says and means that we're not going to stand for it, we're not going to stand for it," he said. "We expect all of our allies to stand by it as well."

"We stand with Israel and the Jewish state when we say 'never again' and 'never forget.'"

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'Deeply Concerning': 25% of Europeans Have Anti-Semitic Beliefs and it's Getting Worse - CBN News

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Posted By admin on November 22, 2019

An Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and slashed in a suburb near New York City on Wednesday morning, steps away from a local synagogue, and left bleeding on the ground, the police said.

The local police department said the attack was under investigation and declined to say whether they believed it was a hate crime.

Michael B. Specht, town supervisor of the suburb, Ramapo, which is in Rockland County, just north of Manhattan, said: Its certainly a possibility the attack was a hate crime.

The stabbing was an anomaly in the town, Mr. Specht said, adding, In the larger picture, its hard not to think about other attacks on people in the Jewish community.

Police Chief Brad R. Weidel did not rule out that possibility at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon but was not, at that moment, willing to say that this is a hate crime.

Could it be a hate crime? Of course, he said, but noted that the police had a legal obligation to meet before making that determination.

Rockland County has more than 320,000 residents, according to census figures from 2018. More than 31 percent of those residents are Jewish, according to the state, which also says that Rockland has the largest Jewish population, per capita, of any county in the country.

Police officials gave few details about the attack, saying that information was still being gathered. The victim, who was walking to the synagogue, was approached from behind early on Wednesday and attacked by at least one person, the police said.

At about 5:49 a.m., officers responded to a call at Howard Drive in Monsey, which is within the town of Ramapo, and found the victim with multiple wounds.

It was a vicious, violent attack, Chief Weidel said.

The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was taken to Westchester Medical Center, the police said. Mr. Specht said he was in critical condition.

Chief Weidel said the police were reviewing video from the nearby area but declined to release a description of any suspects. He said he needed time to confirm the details before releasing it publicly.

Aron Hershkowitz, a manager at the Toshnad Heichel Torah Utfila, said the attack was captured on two of the synagogues 40 surveillance cameras.

Mr. Hershkowitz said footage from the cameras showed a vehicle stopping near a man walking toward the synagogue. Then, he says, someone hopped out from the driver side of the vehicle and attacked the person, who was beaten for a few minutes and left on the ground.

Minutes after the attack, Mr. Hershkowitz said a person came into the synagogue to alert them about the man on the ground, which prompted him to call 911.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement that he was sending members of the State Police Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation and examine all potential motives, including whether the attack may have been motivated by anti-Semitism.

Mr. Specht said additional police patrols would be added throughout the area in response to the incident.

In 2016, the last year figures were available online, eight hate crimes were committed in Rockland County, three of which were reported by the police in Ramapo.

State Senator David Carlucci, whose district includes Ramapo, said in a statement, This act of violence is horrific and not reflective of our peaceful community.

A $10,000 reward is being offered by the Anti-Defamation League in exchange for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the attack. In a statement, Evan R. Bernstein, the New York and New Jersey regional director of the organization, called the attack truly horrifying.

Mr. Bernstein said that people needed to condemn the attack and also work as a community to stem the tide of hatred and violence.

Michael Gold contributed reporting.

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Man Is Stabbed and Slashed Steps Away From a Synagogue in New York - The New York Times

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