Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

Alan Dershowitz Discusses Defending Israel on Campus at YUHSB Centennial / Straus Center Lecture

On April 25, Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, and Alan Dershowitz 55YUHS took the stage in Lamport Auditorium at Yeshiva Universitys Wilf Campus to discuss Anti-Zionism in the Academy: Israel and the Future of American Education.The lively discussion drew several hundred people and was part of the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy / Yeshiva University High School for Boys (YUHSB) Centennial Lecture Series and was co-sponsored by the Straus Center.

The event was something of a homecoming for Dershowitz,a graduate of YUHSB, who was clearly happy to be among friends and family and delighted to be working with Rabbi Soloveichik, whom he called his friend and mentor. In his introduction, Rabbi Josh Kahn, head of school at YUHSB,called Dershowitz the single-most visible defender of Israel and thanked him for coming to share his wisdom with us.

Responding to questions pitched to him by Rabbi Soloveichik, Dershowitz, who labeled himself a critical lover of Israel, mounted a hard-charging case against what he called the anti-Israel hard left in academia, timorous pro-Israel professionals fearful of retribution for voicing their support in public, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (which he lambasted for holding Israel to a moral double standard), political correctness and intolerance of free speech, and the lack of heartfelt support for Israel from the Obama administration.

In the place of these extremist arguments from the right and the left, Dershowitz called for making a balanced, nuanced, calibrated case forthe State of Israel, placinga premium on telling the truth, empirical evidence and atolerant regard for differing opinions.

However, he wanted the audience to know that evenin the midst ofmaking such a case, which American Jews have earned the right to do, we have to fight with every weapon available to us. Peace for the Jewish people and the nation state of the Jewish people can only come from strength economic strength, moral strength, political strengthand every kind of strength that we have has to be used in the interest of justice and the interest of supporting Israel. We should never be embarrassed about our strength. Taking a backseat is inconsistent with our obligations and inconsistent with what we have to do to defend Israel.

On a lighter note, he recalled his time at YUHSB (then called the Brooklyn Talmudical Academy, or BTA) with great fondness. At BTA, we were forced to think for ourselves how to reconcile what we learned in the morning and what we learned in the afternoon. He noted that after his struggles to succeed at BTA, all my other education was a snap. It was a remarkable place, a place where Zionism was in our hearts and souls. May Yeshiva University High School go on for hundreds of years more.

The evening ended with Dershowitz delivering a call to action: Fight, fight for Israel. Use your power, use your resources and never be embarrassed. We are on the side of justice, we are on the side of morality.

Additional YUHSB centennial year events will take place both on the YU campus and in other locations. For more information, go tocentennial.yuhsb.org.

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Confronting Anti-Zionism in The Academy - Yu News (blog)

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Posted By admin on April 28, 2017

The Spirit of Camp in the Heart of the City!

Join us at Castawayin NW Portland on April 22nd!

The Bash is a gala like no other! Come prepared to schmooze the night away with friends old and new. Expect a silent auction, games, fun, and lots of Campy-ness. But most importantly, you can rekindle the camp flame for yourself and, through your support, for generations of campers to come.

This event is our largest fundraiser of the year. Last year, thanks to our generous participants, donors and sponsors, we raised over $85,000 in the hopes of providing numerous children with the unmatched experience of a magical BB Camp summer. During the summer of 2016 alone, BB Camp provided $197,314 in financial aid! Were counting on you to help us expand our capacity for giving. We cant do it alone!

We look forward to seeing you in April! Your support is so greatly appreciated by us, and all of the children whose lives will be enriched by your generosity.

Want to make an even larger impact on generations of BB Campers to come? Become a BB Camp Bash sponsor!

Click here for Sponsorship Information Packet

Questions?Contact Jessica Benjamin 503.496.7445 jbenjamin@bbcamp.org

Assistant Director Sponsor Larry Holzman Rita & Bob Philip Shulman Family Foundation

Unit Head Sponsors

Counselor Sponsors Gorin Plastic Surgery & Medspa Michelle & Loren Koplan Stacey & Marshal Oller Irving Potter & Kyle Rotenberg

Counselor-in-Training Sponsors Joey Fishman & Mike Rosenberg Geffen Mesher Gevurtz Menashe Allison & Jason Kaufman The Newmark Family Pacific NW Properties Portland Manufacturing Joan Russo Saurini

Camper Sponsors Alfred J. Davis Company Dick & Cameron Davis Mia Birk & Glen Coblens Buckley Law P.C. Stan Rotenberg Cedar Sinai Park Lesley & Bob Glasgow J.D. Fulwiler & Co. Jordana & Ryan Levenick Wendy & Howard Liebreich Reliable Credit Lee & Becky Holzman Sold By Jen Jen Singer & Kevin Brown Susan & Stuart Shleifer Mary & Ken Unkeles Julia Waco & Bill Brenner

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B'nai B'rith Camp | BB Camp Bash

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Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

Three South Florida events in celebration of Holocaust survivors, Jews who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and Jews in medicine mark the month of May as Jewish American Heritage Month.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-23) will moderate a discussion of Jewish contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in a program titled "Standing Up in the South" on May 7 at 4 p.m. at Hallandale High School in Hallandale Beach.

Speakers and panelists in "Standing Up in the South" include U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-20), Civil Rights leader Annsheila Turkel and Former Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, Jr.

Dr. Sheldon Cherry will discuss the achievements of American Jews in medicine in his lecture titled "From Maimonides to South Beach: American Jews in Medicine" on May 7 at 2 p.m. at the Jewish Museum of Florida-Florida International University in Miami Beach.

South Florida Holocaust survivors and Jewish war veterans will share their testimonies with high school students on May 15 at 10 a.m. at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie. This JAHM event is not open to the public.

Wasserman Schultz organized the "Standing Up in the South" JAHM event to focus on the relations between African American and Jewish communities.

"Often referred to as the 'Golden Age' of African American and Jewish relations, some of the more pivotal moments occurred during the 20th century's Civil Rights movement," said Wasserman Schultz.

"It was a tremendously effective collaboration that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it's a moment that deserves a far brighter spotlight."

Wasserman Schultz added that the panelists will share their memories of the Civil Rights Movement and the collaboration of African Americans and Jews working together for civil rights.

"There is a long, wonderful and storied history between the two communities and this fight for civil rights is far from over," said Wasserman Schultz.

Turkel, a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and her late husband Leonard were among many Jews who joined African Americans at staged sit-in protests in Miami against segregation, according to their son Bruce Turkel.

"My parents were the first ones in the Deep South to stage a sit-in on April 29, 1959. Miami in the mid-1950s was a Jim Crow city. Blacks were restricted to living in three neighborhoods," wrote Turkel on his website bruceturkel.com in 2011.

For more information on the free JAHM event at Hallandale High School, 720 NW 9th Ave. in Hallandale Beach, call 954-845-1179.

In his lecture, Cherry will site the contributions of many American Jews in medical research and practice, including Nobel Prize winners Richard Axel (2004), Julius Axelrod (1970), Stanley Cohen (1986) Gerti Cohen (1947), Joseph Goldstein (1985), among many others.

"There is a focal point to the lecture that attendees will learn, such as why 32% of the Nobel Prize winners are Jewish," said Cherry.

"What I hope attendees will learn about is the contributions of American Jews in medicine, who are overwhelmingly offspring of immigrants."

Cherry is known primarily for his numerous papers in reproductive medicine. He is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Florida International University Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami.

For more information on the free JAHM event at Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, 301 Washington Ave. in Miami Beach, call 305-672-5044 or go to http://www.jmof.fiu.edu

The JAHM event focusing on Holocaust survivors and Jewish War Veterans marks the second consecutive year that the survivors and war veterans will jointly share their testimonies to high school students.

Jewish American Heritage Month is celebrated during the month of May as an annual celebration and recognition of Jewish Americans for their achievements and contributions in the United States.

Wasserman Schultz is credited, along with late Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) and the Jewish Museum of Florida, with founding the annual JAHM celebrations, beginning in 2006.

To learn more about Jewish American Heritage Month, go to http://www.jewishamericanheritagemonth.us.

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South Florida events to mark Jewish American Heritage Month - Sun Sentinel

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Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

Welcome to the first edition of Soul Searching, a new series about how the most secular generation in history is changing the face of religion.

David A.M. Wilensky had always hated wearing a kippah. By the time he reached his late twenties, he was as Jewish as everhe still went to shul, worked at a Jewish newspaper in the Bay Area, had lots of Jewish friendsbut the ritual of the skull cap never made sense to him. He despised walking into a Conservative synagogue and being told he wasnt dressed correctly. Plus, it seemed sexist. The whole thing bothered me, he says.

That all changed on November 9, when Donald Trumps election seemed to confirm that the blossoming hate against minorities during his campaign wasnt just a bad dream. Wilensky was horrified when he scrolled through whywereafraid.com, a Tumblr that had been cataloguing hate incidents of all kinds during and after the election. For days, he watched the site obsessively: A Muslim psychology student grabbed by her hijab and yanked backward. A woman pumping gas with liberal bumper stickers told that she should be grabbed by the pussy. Reports of swastikas drawn on sidewalks and dorm rooms.

That week, he decided to make his minority status visible by wearing a kippah every day, in solidarity with other targeted groups. The spate of anti-Semitism suddenly made me feel different from other Americans in a new way, he says. Or actually, an old waybut we hadnt been put in a position of feeling it yet.

Between the bomb threats to Jewish centers and the graffiti swastikas and the vandalized Jewish cemeteries and Sean Spicers multiple Holocaust gaffes and known anti-Semite Steve Bannons close (albeit fraught) relationship with the president, Jews are one of the myriad groups who feel targeted by the Trump administration and its supporters. Its startled and shaken many young Jews whove never experienced this sentiment before, and in fact grew up rolling our eyes at parents and grandparents who, in the shadow of the Holocaust, seemed overly vigilant about prejudice.

Hate crime numbers are notoriously hard to pin down, but organizations have been making an effort to track them since Trump was voted into office. After the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center started soliciting reports online of hate incidents across the country for the first time. Out of the 1,863 incidents reported through March, 244 were of anti-Semitic hate. Our sense is that its a significant increase, says deputy legal director David Dinielli, whose job it is to pay attention to these things. The Anti-Defamation League puts that number even higher, at 380 self-reported anti-Semitic incidents from January to March, an 86% increase compared to incidents recorded by the organization in the same months in 2016.

Its not our imagination: Anti-Semitism is making a comeback.

The hate toward Jews so far has manifested in vandalism and harassment rather than discriminatory policies and executive orders. And unless we are very religious or decide to come out like Wilensky did, Jewish people can usually pass as non-Jewish in America. But the resurgence of anti-Semitic rhetoric is noticeable.

It feels awful to acknowledge that, right now, fear is reasonable, and necessary, and real, Zan Romonoff wrote in Buzzfeed last month.

Not every young Jew feels afraid, exactlyat least not in the way, say, Muslims or undocumented immigrants feel afraid. Ever the guilt-ridden overthinkers, progressive young Jews like me who consider themselves allies to more marginalized people are now left wondering how we should feel. Is this a time of genuine physical threat, or does our vulnerability pale in comparison to more obvious scapegoats? Do Jews of color and LGBTQ Jews feel like one identity makes them more of a target than the other? Are we victims or allies, or both?

While some of us certainly feel less safe, theres also just a pervasive feeling of being less mainstream. In more than two dozen interviews since the election with Jews under 40 across the country, I heard the phrase I feel more Jewish over and over.

One 32-year-old woman feels more aware of my Jewish identity now, in New York City, than I did as the only Jewish kid in my rural upstate school 20 years ago. Haley Arden Moss, a secular Jewish doctor who moved from the East Coast to North Carolina just a few months before the election, feels like being Jewish is now suddenly part of my identity in a way it wasnt before. One weekend in January, she considered going to synagogue to make friends and meet liberal, cool people, whereas theres no way I would ever think about doing that in New York City. She was already feeling like a fish out of water as a Jew in the South, but now that the Trump era has arrived, shes craving community. Theres safety in numbers, and comfort in shorthand.

I also feel like the other in a way Ive never felt, even though Im as secular as one can be. And while the hate unnerves me, right now feeling distinct from white America isnt so bad. I find myself doing little things differently: I made latkes multiple times for Hanukkah, Im getting fewer blowouts, Im even more interested in dating Jewish guys. But it has also moved me to engage more in social justice, which I consider just as much a part of my Ashkenazi New York heritage as Passover or the Torahprobably more.

I could never imagine being called a dirty Jew, like my dad had been by a WASP-y classmate in the 1950s. (He says its the only time he ever punched someone.) For the vast majority of the progressive Jews I spoke to, anti-Semitism was abstract growing up, even outside of places like New York or Miami or Boston. There may have been curiosity, even some sideways comments, but outright hate speech and prejudice seemed like a moment in history that had passed us by. My friends and I bristled against older Jews hypersensitivity and rebelled against it; cries of anti-Semitism always struck me as alarmist.

Later, we saw accusations of anti-Semitism lobbed at Jews who criticized Zionism. That conflation seems almost quaint now. Aaron Wagener, a senior at Swarthmore and a member of the colleges Hillel chapter, was freaked out when swastikas were found drawn in the bathroom of the campus library in late November. To think that he had been called anti-Semitic and a self-hating Jew by Zionist alums when he had advocated for a more open Hillel policy on speakers who were critical of Israel. Now there was real anti-Semitism, coming from people who actually hated Jews. With one election, the goalposts had moved.

Of course, not all American Jews are feeling like outsiders. Twenty-four percent of us voted for Trump. Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, is one of the presidents closest advisors. The Zionist Organization of America invited Steve Bannon to speak at its gala in November (amid public outcry, he didnt show).

Many progressive Jews have found themselves aghast at their conservative counterparts who stay silent or dole out excuses for Trump and his supporters. Dvora, a 26-year-old Hasidic mother living in Borough Park, Brooklyn, is surrounded by them. In recent years, Dvora has gone through a secular feminist awakening (she declined to use her real name because she is not yet out to her community). She did not support Trump, but her husband did, and so did her neighbors and her colleagues. She finds it all so hypocritical.

I remember [my community] being so vigilant during the Obama administration, not voting for people because they were supposedly anti-Semitic, she says. Now during the Trump administration, whos doing way, way worse things, theyll find ways to justify it.

Dvora grew up with this very strong narrative that everyone was out to get us. Whenever a Jew from her conservative community clashed with law enforcement, she says, people would blame it on anti-Semitism. And yet, I never experienced it, she says. The hypervigilance really bothered me. I started to think anti-Semitism was a myth.

Now, when its plainly happening, she says her community scrambles to explain that Trump didnt mean it. They say Spicer didnt know. They say they dont care because Trump is good for Israel, hell Make America Great Again. Im just like, How could you? I find it inexplicable.

The paranoia that once felt like a political calculus for conservative Jews has now become a more universal part of the Jewish American experience. Ive started to read into small things, imperceptible things, probably innocent things, in the way my elders often did. When I was traveling in Texas last month, a hotel clerk in the tiny town of Big Spring commented on my unusual last name. Its Jewish, I told her. Oh! she exclaimed. We dont get many Jewish people around here. I obsessed over that interaction for days.

When I got back to New York, I spotted a swastika chalked onto the ground on the first night of Passover. I became despondent, then irate, then I Instagrammed it and told a bunch of people about it. Before the election, I probably would have only taken note for a few moments and moved on. Then again, it might not have been there in the first place.

The next day, I was unexpectedly invited to the most Jewish Passover Ive ever experienced. The singing and reading and eating lasted beyond midnight on a Tuesday. Even though I could have left at any timeI barely knew most of the people thereI didnt. I still had zero affinity to the Haggadahs Lord our God, king of the universe. But I felt very Jewish, and that felt kinda good.

Developing a stronger affinity to my roots, while feeling an inkling of the vulnerability others feel, has also made me a more empathetic ally. Many people I spoke with acknowledged Jews relative privilege; most American Jews are light-skinned, and their income and education levels are higher than any other religious group. One of my friends felt truly sick when, during Thanksgiving last year, her aunt remarked, Thank goodness we dont look Jewish or Hispanic. We can blend in and no one will bother us.

For Jews of color, assimilation isnt an option; they may be able to hide their Jewishness, but theyll always be reminded that theyre outsiders. Hannah Sultan, a founding member of the Jews of Color Caucus of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, is also half-Mexican and has an Arab last name, which she says makes her feel more exposed than her Jewish identity. Sultan says its always been a mistake to rely on Jews ability to mainstreamthis new rise in anti-Semitism shows the false comfort of assimilating into whiteness. Combating the sinister consequences of assimilation are precisely why David A.M. Wilensky decided to start wearing a kippah, making visible something that was already there, but hidden.

As Jews, weve seen what happens when people make the mistake of looking for protection in cooperation with fascism, says Adam Greenberg, a 28-year-old political organizer living in Bostonlike when the Jewish ghetto police colluded with the Nazis during World War II, in some cases helping to undermine resistance movements, only to meet the same fate as their Jewish neighbors. Or the way certain upwardly mobile American Jews, more and more divorced from their working-class labor movement roots, start to identify with the One Percent. Instead, Jews need to be the first line of defense, Greenberg says. We should use our privilege to ally with more disenfranchised minorities rather than cozying up to power.

This renewed sense of allyship is possible in the modern era in a way it wasnt historically, says Barbara Epstein, a professor emeritus at UC Santa Cruz who studies social movements and the Jewish resistance to fascism during World War II. Under Hitler and Stalin, for example, targeted groups barely knew about each other. LGBTQ people werent public about their identity. There was no free press, let alone the internet. On the other hand, the United States is so multicultural and theres an attack on so many different groups right now, it would be surprising if a rise in political activism wasnt accompanied by this moment, Epstein says. Not only that, we have the history of fascism in our heads as a framework.

And Jews in particular have long been key players in civil rights, feminist, and labor struggles, often alongside people who cant easily assimilate. There are various theories as to why Jews, particularly the ones from Eastern Europe and the United States in the past century, historically lean to the left and make good allies. Maybe its because of the Jewish concept of tikkun olamrepair of the worlda sense of universalism not found in, say, the Bible. Or perhaps its because weve always been an international people, with no center and no army. It might be connected to Jews tradition of intellectualism, which many theorize was sparked by being barred from owning land in Catholic feudal Europe, therefore steering them to become literate artisans and merchants.

Whatever the reason, this moment has made me more politically active, which in turn makes me feel like more of a Jew. Or maybe its the other way around.

In February, I went to a rally outside Brooklyns Borough Hall with thousands of Yemeni bodega owners protesting Trumps Muslim ban. They were waving American flags and chanting USA! USA! in between speakers and prayers. It gave me shivers to watch this group of people, whod been actively rejected by their government, be so patriotic. The square was ringed by non-Muslims, mostly white Brooklynites like me. I saw an Orthodox man with a tall hat and a long beard holding a sign that said, Love your Muslim neighbor. I felt a connection with the bodega ownersa group of mostly young men who, like many of my ancestors, had been targeted for their religion.

Still, there was something eerie about that USA! chant, the same refrain of drunken frat boys celebrating bin Ladens death, the same subtle tool of racist intimidation wielded at high school sporting events. It belied an intense and wholly understandable desire to be accepted, the same way my great-grandparents on the Lower East Side wanted to be accepted, the same way everyone does. It reminded me of the peril of that desire, too. Acceptance never lasts forever.

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Fighting Trump-Era Hate Has Made Us More Jewish. Or Is It the Other Way Around? - Fusion

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Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

By Cassie Miller

January 20 Donald J. Trump is sworn in as the 45th president. His inauguration speech paints a bleak picture of an American landscape wracked by carnage. The school system, he claims, leaves children deprived of all knowledge despite being flush with cash. Middle-class wealth, he says, has been ripped away and redistributed all across the world. He promises to place America first a slogan associated with the America First Committee, an anti-Semitic, isolationist group that emerged in 1940 to prevent American involvement in World War II.

January 20 David Duke, the neo-Nazi and former Klan leader, tweets, We did it! Congratulations to Donald J. Trump President of the United States of America!

January 20 Trump names John Gore as deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Gore defended the University of North Carolina against an ACLU lawsuit challenging a state law banning transgender people from using bathrooms conforming to their gender identity. He has also defended controversial Republican redistricting plans enacted after the 2010 census in Florida, New York and South Carolina.

January 22 The White House announces that two former Breitbart reporters will join the administration. Julia Hahn is appointed special assistant to the president, working under her former boss, Stephen K. Bannon. Sebastian Gorka, who served as Breitbarts national security editor, is appointed deputy assistant to the president.

January 24 During an interview on The David Pakman Show, white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, who coined the phrase alt-right, argues that Trump is a white nationalist, so to speak. He is alt-right whether he likes it or not.

January 25 Trump signs two executive orders pertaining to immigration and border security. One instructs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, build detention facilities near the Mexican border, and immediately take steps to construct a border wall. The second order notes that the administration will prioritize deportation of immigrants who have been charged with any criminal offense but not necessarily convicted or who in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security. It also targets so-called sanctuary cities by ensuring that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds.

January 27 Trump releases a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that neglects to mention the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. When pressed, the White House refuses to offer an apology or addendum, insisting that many groups suffered. Holocaust denial is alive and well in the highest office of the White House, responded Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt. White nationalist leader Richard Spencer called it the de-Judaification of the Holocaust.

January 27 Trump signs an executive order barring citizens from the majority-Muslim countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days. The order also indefinitely suspends the entry of Syrian refugees. Trump claims the order is not a Muslim ban, but during the campaign he had called for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. A federal court subsequently blocks the order, and the governments request for its reinstatement is ultimately denied.

January 27 Trump tweets that at least 3 million votes in the presidential election were cast illegally. The White House is unable to provide any evidence to back up the claim.

January 28 In a White House directive, Trump gives chief strategist Bannon a seat on the National Security Councils principals committee and demotes the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While previous political advisers to presidents had regularly observed NSC meetings, the decision to give Bannon a seat on the principals committee is unprecedented.

February 2 Reutersreports that the Trump administration plans to rename the Countering Violent Extremist program Countering Islamic Extremism or Countering Radical Islamic Extremism. The program will focus solely on terrorism carried out by Muslims rather than include terrorism by domestic extremists associated with the radical right. Yes, this is real life. Our memes are real life. Donald Trump is setting us free, the white supremacist Andrew Anglin writes in response. It just couldnt get any better than this, I am telling myself. But I know that it is just going to keep getting better.

February 2 Kellyanne Conway defends Trumps Muslim ban executive order by citing a Bowling Green massacre committed by two Iraqi refugees. The supposed massacre never occurred.

February 8 The U.S. Senate confirms Jeff Sessions as attorney general. More than 1,000 legal scholars previously signed a letter expressing concern that Sessions views had not changed since 1986, when he was denied confirmation as a federal district judge in Alabama after accusations of having made racist remarks. Sessions also has strong ties to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim extremist groups.

February 13 Lucian Wintrich, a writer for the Gateway Pundit who is well known for blatant misogyny, attends his first press briefing after being given White House press credentials. Wintrichs inclusion in the White House press corps gives the alt-right outlet new access to the highest levels of government.

February 13 National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn is fired. The administration says he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about discussing the Obama administrations sanctions against Russia in a phone call with the Russian ambassador in late December. Flynn has long been associated with anti-Muslim extremist groups, particularly ACT! for America.

Former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn

February 14 Kellyanne Conway tweets Love you back in response to a white nationalist Twitter account that had praised her. The account had previously tweeted anti-Semitic and racist posts, frequently using the hashtags #WhiteIdentity and #WhiteGenocide.

February 17 In a tweet, Trump refers to the news media as the enemy of the American People! He repeats the attack days later at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The phrase enemy of the people has troubling historical roots: Stalin used it to refer to his ideological enemies.

February 17 The first DREAMer an immigrant meant to be protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is deported to Mexico. Juan Manuel Montes, 23, had left his wallet and identification in his friends car when he was approached by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. He was not allowed to retrieve his documents and, despite his active DACA status, was deported only hours later. Montes was brought to the United States at age 9.

February 18 At a rally in Florida, Trump describes an imagined terrorist attack in Sweden. The night before, Fox News aired a segment dubiously linking violence in Sweden to recent Muslim immigration. Trump apparently misunderstood the report to mean a terrorist attack had occurred.

February 18 Trump spends time at Mar-a-Lago with radio host Michael Savage. The conspiracy theorist has a long history of bigotry and has suggested that Muslim immigrants come to the United States to stab people in the street, jump the curb with a car and run them over. Savage has also claimed that Obama was using immigration to destroy this country through genocide. Trump appeared on Savages radio show throughout his presidential campaign.

February 22 In a joint statement, the Departments of Justice and Education rescind protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms and other public school facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

February 27 The DOJ announces that it is withdrawing its claim that Texas enacted a 2011 voter ID law with racially discriminatory intent. The DOJs original objection to the law was filed by the Obama administration in 2013, and alleged that the law discriminated against minority voters who lacked the necessary ID.

February 28 In his first address to Congress, Trump announces that he has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office (VOICE). The agency is tasked with producing monthly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States, an apparent effort to link immigration and criminality in the mind of the public. A robust body of research, however, shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crime than native-born American citizens.

March 1 In an NPR interview, Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to Trump who has close ties to anti-Semitic groups in Hungary, refuses to say whether Trump believes that Islam is a religion as opposed to a purely political ideology. This is not a theological seminary, he tells the interviewer, were talking about national security and the totalitarian ideologies that drive the groups that threaten America.

March 4 Trump tweets that former President Obama had his wires tapped before the election. The FBI disputes the claim, and no evidence emerges to support it.

March 6 Trump introduces a new executive order blocking citizens from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the country for 90 days, exempting permanent residents and current visa holders. It removes Iraq from the list of countries in the original ban and replaces the original indefinite suspension of Syrian refugees with a 120-day freeze. U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson blocks the order before it can take effect, concluding that it was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion.

March 7 Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Trump adviser associated with an anti-immigrant hate group, meets with Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an anti-Muslim activist who was convicted of hate speech in her native Austria in 2011. At their meetings, Sabaditsch-Wolff repeats racist tropes, claiming that the refugee crisis in Europe has increased rates of crime and sexual assault and led to the establishment of lawless no-go zones.

President Trump with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach

March 13 The U.S. State Department announces it has named Lisa Correnti as a delegate to the U.N.s Commission on the Status of Women. Correnti is executive vice president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), which is listed by the SPLC as an anti-LGBT hate group. Austin Ruse, the groups founder, has offered support for laws criminalizing LGBT people and said in 2014 that the hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities should all be taken out and shot.

March 16 Trump releases a partial 2018 budget proposal that marks a shift in DOJ priorities. The department plans to eliminate $700 million in spending for outdated programs while bulking up funding in areas that target the worst of the worst criminal organizations and drug traffickers. It also asks for $80 million to hire additional immigration judges to bolster and more efficiently adjudicate removal proceedings.

March 20 Pursuant to an executive order, DHS releases the first installment of a weekly list of crimes perpetrated by immigrants. Andrea Pitzer, an expert on concentration camps, notes that the list is eerily reminiscent of lists of Jewish crimes published in the Nazi press.

March 21 Brigitte Gabriel, the leader of the nations largest anti-Muslim hate group, ACT! for America, visits with White House legislative staff. Gabriel has spent her career condemning the cancer of Islam, which she once described as a natural threat to the civilized people of the world. She told Australian Jewish News in 2007, Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.

ACT For America's Brigitte Gabriel visits the White House

March 24 Roger Severino, a staffer at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, is appointed director of the Office of Civil Rights for the Department of Health and Human Services. When the office issued a rule banning discrimination against transgender patients last year, Severino co-authored a critique published by the Heritage Foundation that called the new regulation a threat to the religious liberty of health care professionals.

March 26 Violence breaks out at pro-Trump rallies held over the weekend, echoing similar outbreaks at campaign rallies, including one during which Trump exhorted supporters to beat the hell out of protesters.

March 27 Trump rescinds the Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order, which required companies contracting with the federal government to demonstrate compliance with federal laws, including those prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

April 1 Former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann characterizes the Trump presidency as a divine intervention that represents a reprieve from immorality. Her comment comes during an interview on the Understanding the Times radio program alongside Philip Haney, a former DHS officer whose recent book outlines the governments submission to Jihad under Obama.

April 3 Sessions orders the DOJ to review all of its reform agreements with local police departments. These include a consent decree with the Baltimore police and a decree still being pursued with Chicago. Both were intended to remedy systemic misconduct. Sessions previously said he had not read the Obama-era DOJ reports documenting racial disparities in policing practices in Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri. He has suggested that the DOJ would not open any new civil rights investigations of police departments under his watch.

April 4 Donald Trump Jr., the presidents son, says in a tweet that Mike Cernovich, a right-wing social media provocateur, deserves a Pulitzer Prize for a blog post reporting that Obamas national security adviser, Susan Rice, requested information on Trump associates who appeared in foreign surveillance intelligence reports. Cernovich gained an online following through advice aimed at teaching men to cultivate dominance. He has written that date rape doesnt exist and that women want to be tamed. Cernovich promoted claims that Hillary Clinton suffered from a grave neurological condition as well as the Pizza-gate conspiracy theory that Democratic officials were running a child sex ring from a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant.

April 6 The Daily Beast reports that Bannon called Trumps son-in-law and trusted adviser, Jared Kushner, a cuck and a globalist. Both are terms popularized by the alt-right. The former refers to conservatives who have submitted to multiculturalism and liberalism. The latter is used to describe opponents of nationalism and contains anti-Semitic undertones. Kushner is Jewish.

April 6 Anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel has dinner alongside the president at his Mar-a-Lago resort. While dining, Trump carries out at an air strike against Syria.

April 6 After learning of the strike on Syria, Trumps alt-right supporters turn on him. Breitbart News explodes in negative comments and rabid alt-right Trump supporters including Paul Joseph Watson of InfoWars, social media personality Mike Cernovich, and far-right political commentator Ann Coulter quickly criticize Trump for betraying his pledge to put America first. Im officially OFF the Trump train, Watson tweets.

April 7 Trump nominates Mark E. Green, a retired Army officer and member of the Tennessee Senate, as secretary of the Army. Green has criticized federal legislation that protects LGBT individuals against discrimination in workplaces and businesses, and once referred to being transgender as a disease.

April 7 Vice President Mike Pence speaks to the Family Research Council an anti-LGBT hate group during a surprise visit to an event held for the groups supporters in Washington, D.C.

April 8 According to The Washington Post, Sessions has signaled that he will revive the war on drugs by appointing Steven H. Cook, a Knoxville-based federal prosecutor, to one of the top advisory positions in the DOJ. Cook has been a strong proponent of mandatory minimum sentencing, increasing drug prosecutions, and layering charges to increase the severity of sentences all prosecutorial tools developed during the drug war that disproportionately harmed minorities. Though crime rates have trended downward over the last four decades, Sessions has argued that there are clear warning signs like the first gusts of wind before a summer storm that this progress is now at risk, thereby justifying his moves to halt criminal justice reform.

April 11 Sessions releases a memo directing federal prosecutors to bring more felony charges against undocumented immigrants. Theyre instructed to tag on charges for identity theft and document fraud whenever possible. The memo also states that the DOJ will hire 50 immigration judges this year and 75 next year to supplement the 275 immigration judges currently serving. Be forewarned, Sessions says during a speech in Nogales, Arizona, This is a new era. This is the Trump era.

April 13 The New York Times reports that the Trump administration intends to pare regulations that protect immigrants detained in jails. Less-burdensome contracts are designed to encourage law enforcement officials to open beds in local facilities before new detention centers can be built to accommodate the administrations intensified deportation efforts.

April 13 After Sessions rescinds a 2016 DOJ memo that ended the use of private prisons within the federal system, the private prison corporation GEO Group announces it has signed a $110 million contract to build a 1,000-bed immigrant detention center in Conroe, Texas. Sessions argues that the Obama-era moratorium enacted after a DOJ study found private prisons to be less safe than those operated by the Bureau of Prisons impaired the Bureaus ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.

April 14 The Trump administration announces it will keep White House visitor logs a secret. The records will not be available to the public until five years after Trump leaves office.

April 14 Betsy DeVos picks Candice Jackson to serve as the deputy assistant secretary for the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights. As an undergraduate at Stanford, Jackson complained that she experienced discrimination because she was white. She also helped edit a book by an economist who criticized the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

April 14 The DOJ drops a lawsuit against North Carolina over a bill that required transgender people to use public bathrooms that match the gender listed on their birth certificate. The DOJ claims to have dropped the suit because North Carolina repealed the original law, but its replacement kept many of its provisions in place. Municipalities are now prohibited from passing their own anti-discrimination ordinances.

April 14 In response to a suit filed by three protesters he attacked at a 2016 Trump rally in Louisville, Alvin Bamberger, a 75-year-old veteran, files a countersuit alleging he attacked them at the urging and inspiring of the future president. Three days later, Matthew Heimbach, the leader of the white supremacist Traditionalist Youth Network, who is also being sued by the three plaintiffs for assault, files his own countersuit. Heimbach claims he acted pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and any liability must be shifted to one or both of them.

April 15 Far-right extremists hold a pro-Trump rally in Berkeley, California, where they clash with anti-fascist counter-protestors. Eleven people are injured and six hospitalized. Nathan Domingo, founder of a student-oriented white-nationalist group, Identity Evropa, is filmed punching a young woman in the face. Afterward, a member of the alt-right group Proud Boys, the organizers of the rally, call it an enormous victory!

April 18 In a speech at George Washington University, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly tells lawmakers critical of his departments heavy-handed approach to immigration and drug enforcement to either find the courage and skills to change the laws or shut up. He repeatedly chides detractors for underestimating ever-present dangers. While youre binge-watching Mad Men on Netflix, TSA is stopping an actual mad man with a loaded gun from boarding a flight to Disney World, he said. We are under attack from criminals who think their greed justifies raping young girls at knifepoint, dealing poison to our youth, or killing just for fun. The threats are relentless.

April 18 After news emerges that the first DREAMer has been deported by federal agents, U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa tweets a photo of a beer with the caption Border Patrol, this ones for you. King previously made statements criticizing immigrants, tweeting We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies.

April 19 Trump hosts former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and musicians Kid Rock and Ted Nugent at the White House. In 2012, Nugent described Obama as a gangster and subhuman mongrel. The same year, he attracted the Secret Services attention when he said, If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. In 2016, he called for Obama and Hillary Clinton to be tried for treason and hung.

April 21 The DOJ sends letters to officials in Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, New York City, Miami-Dade County, Milwaukee County, Cook County, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations to warn that their federal justice program funding may be in jeopardy if they fail to prove theyre complying with immigration enforcement. Many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime, an accompanying press release states. It cites gang murder after gang murder in New York City as the predictable consequence of the citys soft on crime stance, though a reduction in gang-related shootings helped drive the citys murder rate to historic lows in the last several years.

April 21 During an interview with The Associated Press, Trump calls Marine Le Pen, the French National Front presidential candidate who ran a campaign attacking immigrants and Muslims, the strongest election contender. Trump also said a recent Paris terrorist attack that targeted police and resulted in one officers death will probably help the far-right Le Pens election bid.

April 23 During a speech to the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump recounts that the Holocaust the darkest chapter of human history resulted in the death of 6 million Jews at the hands of Nazis. For white supremacists, Trumps remarks signal that he has abandoned their cause. You remember when he gave the Holocaust Day message that didnt include the Jews? neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin writes the next day on the Daily Stormer, before claiming that the president has become a hostage of the Jews, and he is doing their bidding.

April 23 While discussing possible funding sources for Trumps border wall on ABCs This Week, Sessions suggests the structure could be paid for by reducing tax credits that go to mostly Mexicans. The 2011 report Sessions appears to reference a study showing that $4.2 billion in tax credits went to people who were not authorized to work in the United States but had children who were U.S. citizens, and made no reference to the nationality of the tax credits recipients.

April 24 Trump hosts a White House reception for far-right members of the media, whom Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggests were neglected by the previous administration. Attendees include reporters from Breitbart News, One America News Network, Daily Caller, The Washington Free Beacon, and Christian Broadcasting Network. According to Charlie Spiering, the Breitbart White House correspondent, Trump answered the reporters policy questions for more than half an hour.

April 24 The Anti-Defamation League reports that anti-Semitic incidents rose 86% during the first quarter of 2017 as compared to the same period the previous year. The increase is part of a longer trend that gained steam after the November election. Many of the perpetrators invoked the name of the president.

April 25 A federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocks Trumps executive order that aimed to withhold federal funding to sanctuary cities, marking the third time a judge has blocked one of Trumps executive orders.

April 25 The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports that the number of anti-Muslim profiling incidents carried out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection have increased 1,035% thus far in 2017 as compared to the same period in 2016. The 193 incidents recorded this year exceed all incidents in the past three years combined.

April 26 Trump signs the Education Federalism Executive Order directing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to examine whether federal regulations interfere with state and local control of the nations schools.

Image Credit: AP Images

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100 Days in Trump's America - Southern Poverty Law Center

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Posted By admin on April 28, 2017

Drew Petersen recently awarded the 2017 American Pianists Award is coming back to Temple Avodat Shalom.

The last time he visited, in 2014, the now 23-year-old highlighted the River Edge synagogues Selichot program. This time, hell be there for Yom Yerushalayim.

So how does the acclaimed performer who has performed solo, concerto, and chamber music recitals in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and was a top prizewinner in the Leeds International Piano Competition, Hilton Head International Piano Competition, Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition, and the New York Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition come to be participating in a program commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in June 1967?

No, Im not Jewish, but I have visited Israel, Mr. Petersen said. Ive been lucky to have had a lot of Jewish friends. Some of them brought me to Israel, where I played a recital in Tel Aviv and then went to Jerusalem. It really was a moving experience as a Christian.

Im Armenian, and Ive found over the years that a lot of our Armenian and Jewish histories are very similar, he continued. I can certainly sympathize and understand many aspects of the Jewish culture and faith. Basically, he said, It feels like such a small world, especially in the Middle East. Everything is very connected. For example, he explained, it was fascinating to him to learn about Jerusalems Armenian quarter.

That connection, he finds, is enhanced by music. Music in general is a tool, whether Jewish, or Israeli, or Western European, the bulk of my repertoire. Great art has a way of expressing universal truths and connecting all of us to each other.

Still, to paraphrase a well-worn phrase about politics, in the end, all connections are local.

Mr. Petersen, who grew up in Oradell and continues to live there, began piano lessons when he was 5. Now a masters student at Julliard, he will graduate next month. Its a crazy life, he said, noting that after winning the American Pianists Award he had to go on a media tour. His parents are the most supportive people, he said, and its nice to be home.

According to Mr. Petersen, he got to be the River Edge synagogues pianist on call because his neighbor and longtime family friend Connie Schnoll founder of the synagogues Schnoll Music Fund heard me playing when I was growing up and admired my playing. She wanted me to play more in New Jersey, closer to home, and share my artistry locally. She was very well connected to the temple and was able to convince them to bring me here twice to share some of my music with them. I feel really privileged to share my passion with others.

The May 23 program will contain works by both Israeli composers and American composers of Jewish heritage. Naomi Lewin, a former WQXR commentator, will provide narration between the pieces.

Israel is one of the younger nations on the planet, Mr. Petersen said, and works by Israeli composers tend to be more contemporary. In addition, he said, many of the really quite well known composers of the early and mid-1920s were Jews, such as Gershwin and Copeland. He is not sure yet whose work he will include in his program, but there will be an eclectic grouping of them, featuring both the musical works and commentary on the composers themselves and the historical background of their pieces.

In order to have listeners enjoy his work, I have to enjoy it and be inspired, Mr. Petersen said. Thats what motivates me. Ive been working with the rabbi the synagogues Paul Jacobson over the past few months to come up with a concept for the program. We regularly discuss what our thoughts are and what were going to do. Its a partnership, a real collaboration.

I am fortunate to have these opportunities to explore Judaism and Israel. Its as much a learning experience as a performance. It makes me really happy to be constantly learning.

For his part, Rabbi Jacobson is very excited about the program and the opportunity to work with Mr. Petersen again. While the program is still in formation, the evening may include selections by Paul ben Haim, Alexander Boskovich, Yehezkel Braun, Marc Lavery, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Aaron Copeland. The rabbi said that his young guest brings to the evening a warmth, genuineness, passion, and willingness to lend that presence in a positive way.

Rabbi Jacobson has been doing some research on the composers. I found out that Copeland was raised in a Conservative Jewish family, he said. I didnt know he had that background. He pointed out as well that the piano that will be used at the program is being donated by Forte Piano in Paramus, and the entire evening is being subsidized by the Schnoll Music Fund, which was set up so that the congregation can have events such as this.

Rabbi Jacobson has worked with the Princeton-born Ms. Lewin before. Ms. Lewin, a former host of weekday afternoon music on WQXR and of the podcast Conducting Business, has produced intermission features for Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and music programs and feature stories for NPR. She also has been an emcee, host, and moderator for concerts, galas, and other events. And as a singer and actress, she continues to appear onstage and to give talks on operas.

Asked whether the Yom Yerushalayim program might be seen as a political statement about a unified Jersalem, given the political climate today, Rabbi Jacobson said, We cant celebrate or commemorate Jerusalem without it being a political statement. But playing music creates space for people to appreciate that in their own right. It allows them to acknowledge different views.

Music can allow people to celebrate Israel and Jerusalem and acknowledge the significance of the day while leading them to have their own opinions, he said; indeed, Its more effective for being a musical program than strictly a verbalized one.

The program is important, Rabbi Jacobson added. If our Jewish community is not standing with Israel with what we see in the world then people wont stand with us. Weve seen this from the beginning of time.

Who: Pianist Drew Petersen

What: Will perform a program to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Yom Yerushalayim

When: On Tuesday, May 23, at7:30 p.m.

Where: At Temple Avodat Shalom, 385 Howland Avenue, River Edge

Cost: $10 per person

Doors open at 7 p.m. Refreshmentsto follow

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Celebrating Yom Yerushalayim with music - The Jewish Standard

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Posted By admin on April 28, 2017

February 27, 2017 file photo showstoppled and damaged headstones on ground at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia; the Anti-Defamation League found an increase in cases of anti-Semitic intimidation and vandalism in 2016, evidence that anti-Jewish bias intensified during the election

Jacqueline Larma, AP

NEW YORK -- The Anti-Defamation League found an increase in cases of anti-Semitic intimidation and vandalism last year, evidence that anti-Jewish bias intensified during the election.

The Jewish civil rights group found 1,266 cases of anti-Semitic harassment last year, compared to 941 in 2015 and 912 in 2014. The increase continued into the first three months of this year, with reports of 541 incidents compared to 291 in the same period the year before, according to the ADL data released Monday.

The preliminary 2017 numbers include a wave of more than 150 bomb threats that started in January against Jewish community centers and day schools. Authorities arrested an Israeli Jewish hacker who they said was behind the harassment. The ADL insists those threats should still be considered anti-Semitic since Jews were the target. During the same period, a former journalist in St. Louis was also charged with threatening Jewish organizations as part of a bizarre campaign to intimidate his former girlfriend. But authorities believe the Israeli man is primarily responsible.

Even without those bomb threats, the number of anti-Jewish incidents this January, February and March in the report would be higher than the year before.

The FBI compiles annual hate-crime statistics, but the 2016 numbers arent expected to be released until the end of this year. The ADL tally includes a much broader array of incidents, such as distribution of hateful materials, threats, slurs, intimidation and vandalism, along with physical assaults. The organization says its researchers evaluate reports from individuals, community leaders and law enforcement.

This latest compilation includes only a few cases of online harassment - incidents that led to on the ground intimidation - so that the organization can continue making year-to-year comparisons of ADL data going back to the groups first report in 1979, before the internet and social media were so broadly used, according to Oren Segal, director of the ADL Center on Extremism.

Anti-Semitic harassment in the U.S. has been at historic lows in recent years, according to the organization. In some prior years, the number of incidents surpassed 1,500 or 2,000, Segal said. But the recent uptick has fueled anxiety among American Jews during a period of emboldened expressions of white-supremacism and white-nationalism during the presidential election. Last week, a Jewish woman sued the founder of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, accusing the publisher of orchestrating a barrage of anti-Semitic messages from anonymous internet trolls starting last December.

I think the pace in which the incidents are happening, the speed at which the spike is occurring, I think the historic low is a thing of the past, Segal said.

The report linked 34 cases last year to the presidential race, including graffiti found in Denver last May that said Kill the Jews, Vote Trump. ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt was among the most vocal Jewish leaders pressing Donald Trump, as a candidate and president, to do more to combat anti-Semitism, including among his supporters. Critics, in the Jewish community and elsewhere, said partisanship was behind such pressure on Mr. Trump. In February, Mr. Trump opened his address to Congress with a strong condemnation of recent cases of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries.

On college campuses last year, the number of reports of anti-Semitic incidents remained about the same compared to the previous year, the ADL said. Many of the schools have been roiled in recent years by protests over Israeli policies toward Palestinians. However, the organization saw an increase in the number of reports of harassment against Jewish school children from elementary age through high school.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Report seen as evidence presidential election hiked anti-Semitism in US - CBS News

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Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

The Anti-Defamation League will host its inaugural WALK Against Hate, an event designed to promote diversity and inclusion in the Las Vegas Valley, from 9 to 11 a.m. Sunday, April 30 at Springs Preserve, 333 S. Valley View Blvd.

The family-oriented, multi-cultural event, co-chaired by Melina Gluck and Adam Petrasich, will feature appearances by local officials, including Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman; the drumline from Desert Oasis High School; performances by Social CirKISH, Culture Shock and Jassen Allen.

For more information on creating a team or sponsorship opportunities, visit http://www.WALKAgainstHateLV.com.

Who: Melina Gluck, Co-Chair, ADL Associate Board Member Adam Petrasich, Co-Chair, ADL Glass Leadership Institute Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman Brittney from KOMP 92.3

What: The inaugural WALK Against Hate, an event designed to promote diversity and inclusion in the Las Vegas Valley

When: Sunday, April 30, 2017 9 -11 a.m.

Where: Springs Preserve, 333 S. Valley View Blvd.

Photo Op: Las Vegas families walking through the Springs Preserve in support of diversity. Performances by Social CirKISH Culture Shock, Desert Oasis High School drumline and Jassen Allen

About The Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was founded in 1913 to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Now the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all through information, education, legislation, and advocacy. The ADL has evolved into an international organization dedicated to standing up for the rights of all groups.

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The Anti-Defamation League Announces the First Annual Walk Against Hate Set for April 30 - Nevada Business Magazine (press release)

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Posted By simmons on April 28, 2017

Its officialthe election of Donald Trump to the White House has precipitated a marked increase in anti-Semitism in the United States. A new report published by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based civil-rights organization that monitors anti-Semitic activity across the country, finds that such incidents (vandalism, harassment, or assault) were up one-third in 2016, and have spiked 86% in the first quarter of 2017the fledgling months of the Trump administration.

Of the 1,266 acts targeting Jews and Jewish institutions in 2016, nearly 30% occurred after Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in November. The surge carried over into the first months of this year, with the ADL reporting 541 incidents, putting 2017 on track for more than 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents.

The Trump administration has been clumsy in addressing is evident resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiments, to say the least. Although the president acknowledged the spike in February, calling it horrible and painful, a few days earlier he rebuked a Jewish reporter for raising questions about it during a press conference a few days prior. He followed up in March with comments expressing skepticism toward the extent of anti-Semitic incidents. Press secretary Sean Spicer certainly didnt help matters earlier this month (Apr. 2016) with his bungled comments regarding the Holocaust and Adolf Hitlers use of gas chambers.

The administration is committed to tamping out prejudice and anti-Semitism anywhere it is found, Spicer assured reporters earlier this week. But the ADLs report remains damning, especially when viewed alongside the undeniable rise of global anti-Semitism hand-in-hand with hard-right populism. Anti-Jewish sentiments are at a new high in Europe, where xenophobic political parties like Frances National Front, Germanys Alternative fr Deutschland, and Polands Law and Justice party have gained significant traction. All have brushed up against Holocaust revisionism and anti-Semitic outbursts in their ranks. In France, Marine Le Pen, daughter of Frances most notorious anti-Semite, will face off against Emmanuel Macron in a run-off election come May.

The ADL agrees the problem is symptomatic of such broader shifts, at least in the US. These incidents need to be seen in the context of a general resurgence of white supremacist activity in the United States, Oren Segal, director of the organizations Center on Extremism, said in a statement. Extremists and anti-Semites feel emboldened and are using technology in new ways to spread their hatred and to impact the Jewish community on and off line.

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Report: The link between the election of Donald Trump and resurgent anti-Semitism is now undeniable - Quartz

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Posted By admin on April 25, 2017

Zionism in the age of Trump: it is becoming increasingly clear to more people that the Israeli states officially defined ideology is, at its very core, an anti-Jewish one.

It sounds counter-intuitive. How can the Jewish State or the Zionist movement be anti-Semitic? But several of US President Donald Trumps appointments have made it clearer than ever. He leads the most pro-Israel US administration in history, even while appointing key figures with anti-Semitic ties as his most important advisers.

Much has been made of chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, who before joining the Trump team ran Breitbart News which Bannon described as a platform for the alt-right. The so-called alt-right is little more than neo-Nazism dressed up in suits and Pepe the frog memes.

This month it had been reported that Bannon may be on his way out of the White House after being sidelined by Trump for falling out with his son-in-law. That remains to be seen. But Trumps pro-Israel and anti-Jewish appointments go further.

The figurehead of the so-called alt-right is Richard Spencer, so famously punched in the face by an anti-fascist during the Trump inauguration in January. An email obtained by The Electronic Intifada in February showed that a senior Trump advisor used to work directly with Spencer when the pair were at Duke University a decade ago.

Read:New UK anti-Semitism definition includes criticism of Israel

The advisor, Stephen Miller, played a central role in authoring Trumps failed attempt to ban nationals of seven predominantly-Muslim countries from the US the so-called Muslim Ban. Spencer denies being a neo-Nazi, and calls his advocacy for a peaceful ethnic cleansing of non-white people from the US a kind of white Zionism.

The links go further.

Last month the Jewish Daily Forward published an important investigative article on Sebastian Gorka, President Trumps top counter-terrorism advisor. The publication uncovered extremely convincing evidence that Gorka had sworn allegiance to, and is still an ongoing member of, a Hungarian far-right group which historically collaborated with the Nazi Holocaust in eastern Europe.

The group, Vitezi Rend, is virulently anti-Semitic, and was established as a loyalist group by hard-right Hungarian leader Miklos Horthy, whose regime collaborated with the Nazis including by deporting hundreds of thousands of Jews into Nazi hands.

While Gorka was not even alive in the days of Hitler, it is highly disturbing that he would belong to an organisation with such a history. Indeed, as late as 2007, when he tried and failed to break into Hungarian politics, he appeared on Hungarian TV to defend the formation (by two other far-right parties) of a fascist-style militia. The so-called Hungarian Guard was banned by Hungarian courts two years later, after it was implicated in anti-Roma violence including the killing of a five-year-old.

Arent protests about anti-Semitism occasionally manifestations of white privilege?

Gorka himself has basically ignored these revelations. He did not reply to the Forwards requests for comment. His only defence, such as it was, has been to issue a weasel-worded video statement to Breitbart News, in which he justified publicly wearing a medal often associated with Hungarian Nazi collaborators, as a mark of remembrance for his anti-Communist father. Omitted from the video was any mention of the fact that his father was also part of the anti-Semitic Vitezi Rend.

And what has the reaction of Gorkas defenders been? To clarify his full support for Israel! They do not deny his membership of an anti-Semitic group. Zionist Organization of America president Mort Klein claimed that, Dr. Gorka is a proud American patriot and fighter against radical Islamic terrorism, and a faithful friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. It is such disturbing associations as these that have long led Jewish anti-Zionists to conclude that Zionism is itself anti-Semitic.

Both Palestinian and Jewish forms of anti-Zionism are as old as Zionism itself. Indeed, until the Nazi Holocaust wiped out most of Europes Jews, most Jews were anti-Zionists. Jews were not won over to Zionism by argument and debate: most of Europes Jews (the majority of whom were anti-Zionist) were physically destroyed by European anti-Semitisms most horrific historical expression: the Nazi regime.

Meanwhile, most committed Zionists were, of course, in Palestine establishing their colonial entity, which would ultimately expel the vast majority of the Palestinian people in 1948. And as Ken Livingstone correctly if controversially stated last year, the German Zionist movement even directly collaborated with the Nazi regimes earlier 1930s project of deporting German Jews to Palestine. Palestinian-American history professor, Joseph Massad, made the history of all this clear in his seminal 2013 column, The Last of the Semites.

Miko Peled: From Israeli Zionist to Palestinian defender

Zionist extremists were so outraged at Massads definition of Zionism as ultimately an expression of European anti-Semitism, that they successfully pressured Al Jazeera English to delete the essay from its website. After The Electronic Intifada exposed this censorship and reposted the essay, the website reversed its decision and reposted it (Al Jazeera would go on to delete another controversial Massad piece in 2014).

Re-reading Massads essay now is to witness just how much it has stood the test of the last four years. It does not contain new information so much as newly revealed information, and an incisive political and historical analysis. But as Massad himself makes clear, it is something that has always been clear to Palestinians.

As he wrote:

The Palestinian people and the few surviving anti-Zionist Jewsare, as the last of the Semites, the heirs of the pre-WWII Jewish and Palestinian struggles against anti-Semitism and its Zionist colonial manifestation. It is their resistance that stands in the way of a complete victory for European anti-Semitism in the Middle East and the world at large.

Anti-Zionist Jews may now be in a minority in the West, but in recent years they have been an ever-growing and substantial voice. The most recent comprehensive poll of British Jews views on the subject suggests the figure could be as high as 41 per cent: 31 per cent state they do not describe themselves as Zionist, with a further 10 per cent unsure.

Zionism and European anti-Semitism have a unity of cause: to remove European Jews from their home nations and compel them to become colonists in occupied Palestine. We need to resist both.

What about anti-Semitism in Israel?

Nablus city residents commemorated the 2002 Israeli invasion by showcasing a photo exhibition of the martyrs and those wounded during the invasion.

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Zionism is anti-Semitism - Middle East Monitor

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