Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 19, 2017

When Marc Levine and Richard Bloom were sworn into office on Dec. 3, 2012, they became the only Jewish members of the state Assembly. Now, two terms later, theyre part of a thriving 16-member California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

The group, which formed the nations first legislative Jewish caucus in 2014, is growing in influence as its membership expands. It currently includes all 13 Jewish lawmakers at the Capitol plus three allies.

The 16-member body has become a powerful advocate in Sacramento on matters of specific interest to Jews such as support for Israel and opposition to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel and on universal issues such as supporting immigrants and the underprivileged that appeal to the Jewish sense of civil rights and tikkun olam.

This is a different era than post-World War II, when Jews were less likely to be in front of issues as Jews, said Levine, a Democrat who represents Marin and southern Sonoma counties and serves as the Jewish caucus chair. Fundamentally, I believe there is a Jewish ethic that informs me as a policymaker today. My Jewish identity and my sense of social justice inform my policymaking.

A caucus is a group of legislators or political party members who bond due to common interests or background and form a group that advances their causes. On its website, the California Jewish caucus states its mission is to be a Jewish voice for justice, equality and progress as well as promote the interests of its members and advocate on behalf of the Jewish community.

The caucus includes eight members from the Assembly and eight from the Senate. Jeff Stone, a senator representing parts of Riverside County, is the lone Republican in the group, and three of the legislators, officially designated associate members, are not Jewish.

One of the strengths of the Jewish caucus is that its very diverse, said Sen. Scott Wiener, a former San Francisco supervisor. He represents the states 11th District, which includes his hometown city and regions to its south. In terms of giving more voice to our issues, having that formal caucus really helps and it helps getting people elected. Having organized Jewish leadership brings us a certain strength.

Levine said a 2016 bill opposing BDS sponsored by Bloom, of Santa Monica, is a good example of how the caucus can be a powerful tool in guiding legislation.

The bill, which went through extensive rewriting before it passed both houses and was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, bars California from contracting with businesses that engage in discriminatory conduct due to a boycott of Israel or any other nation.

Theres strength in numbers. That bill took an arduous path, so we needed to work together as a caucus to talk about it, Levine said. Working as a caucus was very helpful because it wasnt a lonely author in the wilderness.

Campus climate is also a big issue for caucus members, who have met with UC President Janet Napolitano and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block to talk about anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses around California.

Assemblymember Jose Medina, who represents parts of Riverside County, is one of the caucus three associate members. He said he worked with Rabbi Suzanne Singer of Temple Beth El in Riverside to put together a meeting with UC Riverside officials over concerns about a class with an anti-Israel slant being taught there.

I think the caucus does make a difference, Medina said. No matter what issues weve taken on whether it be anti-boycott of Israel or meeting with the prime minister of Israel or talking about campus climate I think all of us are stronger when we speak as a caucus.

The group sponsored a 2015 bill authored by former senator and caucus co-founder Marty Block that established the month of May as Jewish American Heritage Month; helped secure $2 million to train teachers to build safe and respectful schools in a program implemented by the Museum of Tolerance; and led 40 legislators and community leaders in condemning a swastika display in a Sacramento neighborhood.

When President Donald Trump issued his initial executive order blocking refugees from entering the United States in late January, the caucus was quick to send out a statement condemning the move and comparing it to American rejection of many Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

The Jewish community is a social justice community, Wiener said in an interview at the Capitol. I was raised, as were many Jews, with a sense of social justice. We do not live in a silo whether its civil rights or helping refugees today, the Jewish community engages. Its the philosophy of our religion and our culture, and also its our history.

The group annually honors Holocaust survivors, children of survivors and concentration camp liberators from throughout California with a memorial program on the Assembly floor. The ceremony is set for April 24 this year.

The Jewish body also joins with other legislative ethnic caucuses, such as the 27-member California Latino Legislative Caucus, to support issues of mutual concern.

We can find common ground with our colleagues on universal issues, Levine said. We also can be there when they need support, and they can be there for us when we need support. This is heightened in the age of Trump. Our friends need us more now, and we need our friends as much as ever.

For non-legislative organizations that advocate on issues of interest to Jews, the caucus is a crucial ally. The Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, which calls itself the largest single-state coalition of Jewish organizations in the nation, represents Jewish federations, Jewish community relations councils and other Jewish community groups.

In lobbying legislators and forming alliances with them, JPAC has focused on issues such as health care funding for low-income seniors, the California-Israel relationship, Holocaust-era insurance claim issues and public education.

It definitely is extremely helpful to JPAC we have a very close relationship with the Jewish caucus, said Julie Zeisler, the groups executive director. Were very fortunate that we have a group of elected officials in the Legislature looking out for the interests of the Jewish community. It is really nice to have champions in the Legislature to work with, she said.

I think it would be important [to have the caucus] under any presidential administration, but I think it is especially important now given the threats against JCCs and the rise in hate crimes against groups around the nation.

Like Medina, the other two non-Jewish members of the caucus, all Assembly members, not only were drawn to the group because of affinity with its positions, but also because they have Jewish family connections. Adrin Nazarian and Blanca Rubio, both Democrats, represent, respectively, the central San Fernando Valley and a swath of L.A. County that includes West Covina.

I am born and still am a Catholic, but my two children are Jewish and grew up in the Riverside temple, Medina said. My ex-wife and I raised them as Jews and they went to religious school and did their bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah. My daughter was very involved in Hillel at USC and did Birthright and a year of study in yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Thus, I was kind of naturally attracted to the Jewish caucus, said Medina, a 2012 electee who also is a member of the Latino caucus. I think strongly [caucuses] are more important now, because I think it is very important we stand up to the hate I see coming out of Washington, D.C.

Nazarian, a Tehran native of Armenian heritage who is the first Iranian American to serve in the California Legislature, is Orthodox Christian and didnt know until he was a senior in college that his paternal great-grandmother had been Jewish.

When I started talking to some of my Assembly colleagues about my heritage, they sort of adopted me and asked me to join [the Jewish caucus], Nazarian said. Some of my mentors in life have been Jewish friends who have not only helped me but have taught me invaluable lessons in life. An elderly Israeli woman helped us quite a bit in our transition to the United States.

Nazarian said hes also proud that groups such as the Jewish caucus can serve as a role model for teens and college students. The lesson? People working together for a common cause.

And theres always been a personal connection, he added. Armenians and Jews have vast diasporas. The struggle of maintaining your identity, the issue of ensuring the past of our heritage is passed on. And given that we are diaspora communities, the families are always focusing on education and making sure the next generation does better.

Rubio, a native of Mexico, discovered about 10 years ago during genetic testing by a cousin that she had Jewish ancestors dating back to the 1500s. Rubio, who is Catholic, said she played a dreidel-like game (tomo toda) with a six-sided top as a child in Mexico without realizing it was something of a Jewish thing.

When we did the genealogy, it all made sense, she said. So when I joined the Legislature [three months ago], I saw there was a Jewish caucus and I realized I didnt know that much about my history. I wanted to contribute my perception. Theres a whole bunch of people who dont practice, but its part of our lineage.

In addition to Levine and Wiener, there are three other Bay Area legislators, all Democrats, in the caucus: Assemblymembers Marc Berman (whose district covers the Palo Alto area and the San Mateo County coastside) and Tony Thurmond (Hercules to Berkeley to Piedmont and a small part of North Oakland), and Sen. Steve Glazer (Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties).

Levine had his bar mitzvah at Congregation Bnai Shalom in Walnut Creek and was a member of United Synagogue Youth. He now belongs to Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon and has two kids in Hebrew school there. While doing an interview in his Capitol office, he briefly interrupted the chat to take a call from his wife asking if hed be able to drive his son to Hebrew school the following day.

The caucus, which held a retreat three months ago at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, supported four candidates for legislative spots in 2016 two in the Assembly and two in the Senate and all four won.

The growth of the caucus has been organic, Levine said. We do have a political action committee. When there are good Jewish candidates, we want to be able to support them.

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Posted By admin on March 19, 2017

On the weekend before his January 9 swearing in ceremony, Eric Greitens, soon to become governor of Missouri, called up United Hebrew Congregation, a Reform synagogue in St. Louis. He asked to attend Shabbat service, and was honored with a special role in the ceremony, and a blessing from the clergy.

Its hardly unusual for any Jewish community to show such respect to one of their own who has reached high office, but Greitens himself is unusual: Hes a Republican from a community known for its stalwart support for Democrats since President Theodore Roosevelt occupied the White House.

He would have known that very few of the congregants voted for him or for Donald Trump in the November election. Even the bat-mitzvah girls speech, according to Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg, had a liberal tone. But regardless of his politics, this was a very special moment of pride to have the first Jewish governor, Rosenberg said. One member of the community approached Greitens during the typical celebratory light meal after services and told him he never believed hed live to see a Jewish governor in the state.

And if pundits and Republican strategists are right, Greitens may provide his home states Jewish community with even more reasons for pride. Hes on every Republican future leadership watch list and has never been shy about his ultimate goal.

When we did the What I Want to Be When I Grow Up unit, Erics answer was President, his kindergarten teacher Anne Richardson told St. Louis Magazine. Years later, hed repeat this aspiration to a college professor.

Hes got the right resume. Hes been a Rhodes scholar, a decorated warrior and a civic leader. Greitens whod never run for office before his bid for the governors job and boasts about his outsider status has shown great political nimbleness as he works toward his childhood goal. He spent his time earning accolades outside politics and so carries no baggage from statehouse or city council. And when he decided to pull the trigger and run, he combined in his public profile the right amounts of conservatism, gun-loving patriotism and fiscal responsibility, alienating neither moderates nor extremists.

Indeed, the finesse with which Greitens handles his Jewishness is a prime example of his political skill. It could have been a liability. After all, Jewish faith functioned as a public embarrassment in Missouri as recently as 2015. Tom Schweich, a rival Republican candidate for governor, [committed suicide] http://forward.com/news/215584/missouri-republican-tom-schweich-commits-suicide-a/) in February of that year shortly after claiming one of his rivals has planned a whisper campaign about his Jewish heritage. Scweich, who was Christian, had a Jewish grandfather.

Yet Greitens, fully and openly Jewish, won the Republican primary with 35% of the vote, and then beat the Democratic candidate 51% to 45%. And when, early in his governorship, vandals attacked over 200 gravestones at the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery in St. Louis, he skillfully acknowledged his background by emphasizing its more universal values.

Getty Images

Vice President Mike Pence helping clean-up efforts at a vandalized Jewish cemetery in St. Louis.

As many of you know, I am Jewish, Greitens, told a crowd of hundreds of volunteers who gathered to clean up and restore the toppled headstones, and in Judaism we have a concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the world. He thanked the volunteers for doing their part. Vice President Mike Pence rolled up his sleeves alongside Greitens to join the restoration effort.

For many in the Missouri Jewish community, which is estimated at 100,000, this was their formative experience with Greitens, a governor who was virtually unknown to most a year ago and who had no involvement in the states politics.

What happened at the cemetery catapulted our relationship with him, said Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St Louis. I was so impressed with him and with the way he showed his involvement.

The Missouri cemetery vandalism marked a turning point in Americas response to the wave of post-election anti-Semitic threats and attacks. National media carried photos of Greitens and Pence raking the grounds of the desecrated cemetery; President Trump broke his silence on the issue and spoke out, and an outpouring of help from Muslim and Christian community members sent a strong message of unity in face of the anti-Semitic attacks. Greitens chose to stress these moments, focusing on the communitys heartwarming response, rather than on the incident itself.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Greitens came to the race for governorship with what St. Louis Magazine called a superhero resume, including the All-USA academic team in high school, Duke University, Rhodes and Truman scholarships, a PhD from Oxford, and to top it all off - decorated service as a Navy SEAL.

Hes also a widely praised author and thinker. In 2014, Fortune Magazine included Greitens on its list of the Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders citing Mission Continues, the not-for-profit organization he established to help post-9/11 veterans.

Growing up, Greitens family attended Bnai El Congregation, one of St. Louiss oldest Reform synagogues, which recently merged with another synagogue due to dwindling membership.

In his book Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life Greitens devotes a chapter to the Jewish idea of the Sabbath, preaching for the idea of taking a day off, whether religious or not. What matters most is that you find time to stop, he wrote.

Yet running for office, Greitenss Jewish faith was somehow hardly a campaign issue, for him or his rivals.

In fact, many well-informed people were surprised to find out after the elections that he is Jewish, said political scientist Terry Smith from Missouris Columbia College, noting that he didnt think Greitenss faith would have been an impediment to his election even if Greitens had discussed it more.

Greitens married Sheena Chestnut in 2009 in Spokane, Washington, after his first marriage ended in divorce. She is similarly accomplished and has similar interests: She graduated from Stanford and was a Marshall scholar, earning a masters degree in international relations from the University of Oxford in England. She went on to do a PhD in political science at Harvard. They have two children.

To be sure, it didnt make sense for Greitens to woo fellow Missouri Jews by making an issue of his Jewishness. Like the bat mitzvah girl, most of them probably dont share his politics, and there arent very many of them.

Once a Democrat, Greitens ran as a moderate Republican. In a 2015 Fox News article he explained that as he got older, he no longer believed in the liberal ideas hed grown up with. He even came to believe many famous liberals were hypocrites.

He focused his candidacy on issues relating to taxes, ethics and on his character, a chance for Greitens to showcase his stellar resume especially his military service. Navy SEALS are revered across the United States for their strength, discipline and skill, and Greitens emphasized this aspect of his background with television ads that received national attention.

One of them showcases Greitenss biceps, strong jaw and easy way with an assault rifle as he stands on a dirt road, promising viewers that hes their man, if they want an outsider conservative. Then he dons a pair of protective glasses and squeezes off a few rounds, out of the frame and presumably into the woods.

The people of Missouri found a lot to like in this handsome warrior-scholar.

The most common reaction people had in the state of Missouri when I told them that I was Jewish was that they gave me a bear hug, Greitens recalled last month, speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas.

Greitenss main strategic question throughout the campaign was the question of the exact distance he needed to keep from controversial presidential candidate Donald Trump. He found the answer by focusing on fiscal issues. Greitens ran on a platform of lowering government spending, fighting entitlements and battling state unions. One of his first actions as governor was to make Missouri a right to work state, a euphemism for legislation aimed at weakening unions by barring them from forcing members to pay dues.

But Greitens also understood the importance of staying on Donald Trumps good side. Like many other Republicans Greitens made sure to distance himself from Trumps offensive comments on women, describing them as wrong and disgusting but at the same time vowing he was still behind the Republican candidate.

Greitenss office did not respond to the Forwards requests to interview the governor for this article.

As governor, Greitens is facing his most significant political challenges yet. Now that the outsider is in the Jefferson City governors mansion, unions and Democrats are up in arms over his anti-union legislation and are seeking a reversal. Meanwhile, the local press is keeping Greitenss feet to the fire after it learned that the candidate who ran on a platform of ethics and clean government will not disclose names of his donors.

He enjoys a rare political opportunity to advance his agenda, with Republicans holding super-majorities in the state legislating bodies, but Missourians arent sure yet what this agenda is. Like the highest-profile outsider in the land, Greitens might find it easier to run as a renegade than to turn his candidacy into policy. He used to be a Democrat, now hes making conservative noises, but I think hes a bit of a maverick, said Smith.

But in Republican circles, Greitens is still enjoying his honeymoon.

Fox News Sunday recently chose him as its power player of the week noting his outsider qualities, which, as proven in Trumps race to the top, are valuable in winning the hearts and votes of Republicans.

Will Greitens Jewish faith become an issue if he decides to seek higher office? Experts say this issue has already been settled. Weve been there and done that, said Jeffrey Gurock, a professor of American Jewish history at Yeshiva University.

Its hard to speculate what things will be like five or ten years from now, but dont we have the example of Joe Lieberman? He noted that in Liebermans run for vice president in 2000 and his presidential run four years later, his faith was not an issue. Nor was it an issue for Bernie Sanders, who got close to winning the Democratic nomination last year.

Greitens also caught the attention of Jewish Republicans, vying for a fresh face with no ties to the fringe right wing. Major donors such as Sheldon Adelson and Steve Cohen contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign, increasing his out-of-state funding.

After Greitenss speech at the RJC conference last month, a major Jewish Republican donor walked over to the press area to make sure reporters listened to the governors address dedicated to the recent spate of anti-Semitism in his state.

Thats our guy, he said, youll be hearing about him.

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman

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Eric Greitens, Missouri's First Jewish Governor, Is Eyeing The White House - Forward

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Posted By simmons on March 19, 2017

For years, rooting for Team Israel meant cheering forthe countrys national soccer, basketball or Olympic teams. But this month, thanks to their surprising success at the World Baseball Classic (WBC), when sports fans talk about Team Israel, they mean baseball.

Played every four years since 2006, The World Baseball Classic (WBC) is an international baseball tournament modeled after the FIFA World Cup. Professional players from the major leagues around the world, including Major League Baseball (MLB), also take part.

This year wasthe first time Israel had qualified for the tournament.

SEE ALSO: The Top 10 Israeli Startups Changing The World Of Sports

Odds of Israel winning: 200 1

Before this years WBC began, American Sportsnetwork ESPN considered Team Israel, ranked 41st in the world, to be the biggest underdog in the 16 team tournament.Theyeven went so faras referring to them as the Jamaican bobsled team of the WBC.Israels odds to win the WBC were set at 200-1, before the tournament started. But, as Team Israel began to win games at the WBC, the teams scrappy performance began being described as a Cinderella story and a David vs. Goliath tale.

In the first round of the WBC, Israel stunned the baseball world by winning Pool A with a 3-0 record to advance to the last eight. Team Israel, which is built around MLB-affiliated Jewish Americans, defeated South Korea, Chinese Taipei and then the Netherlands in Seoul before surprising Cuba in its first game in the last eight in Tokyo, to improve their overall record to 4-0.

However, a 12-2 loss to the Netherlands on Monday complicated Israels situation. On Wednesday, in a must-win game for Israel, Japan and Israel were tied at 0-0 for five innings until the Japanese team scored five runs in the sixth inning, a deficit which the Israeli team was not able to come back from. The 8-3 defeat to Japan sealed Team Israelsfate and ended their hopes ofadvancing to the final round of the WBC in Los Angeles.

On the positive side,the top three from each pool automatically qualify for the 2021 WBC, so thanks to their success this year, Team Israel has already locked up a spot to compete in the next WBC in 2021.

Team Israel: Jewish players from all over the world

Under WBC rules, any player eligible to be a citizen of a country is entitled to play for that countrys baseball team, even if the player has not obtained citizenship.Israels Law of Return gives anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent, or who is married to a Jew, the right to return to Israel and to be an Israeli citizen.The WBC rules thus allow non-Israeli citizens of Jewish heritage to play for Team Israel.

We had to hunt far and wide and find the best guys who could potentially be eligible, Peter Kurz, president of the Israel Association of Baseball, told USA Today Sports. Many of theplayers have had some major-league experience, with virtually all being Americans of Jewish heritage.

Israels roster included 20 MLB-affiliated minor leaguers, making up 86percent of the team, more than any other team in the qualifiers, even before including recent Major Leaguers Craig Breslow (an 11-year MLB veteran), Ike Davis, Sam Fuld, Josh Satin, catcher Ryan Lavarnway, former 15-year MLB veteran All Star pitcher Jason Marquis, Cody Decker, Nate Freiman, and Josh Zeid.

The teams oldest player was pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, 37, who grew up in Israel and lives in New York.Lipetz is also the only player on the team with no MLB affiliation.Team Israels youngest player was pitcher Dean Kremer, 20, a Californian drafted by the Dodgers whose parents are Israeli expatriates.

SEE ALSO:Replay Technologies freeD To Deliver Real-Time 3D Sports Replays To Mobile Devices

A visit to Israel

Playing for Israel is the last thing I thought I would be doing, Ty Kelly, a utility player in the New York Mets farm system, said in an interview. And there is nothing I would rather be doing. It really does have a deep meaning.

Kelly was part of a group of players to visit Israel in January on a promotional tour aimed at increasing baseball awareness and boosting the number of players from its current level of around 1,000.

When we went to Israel we saw the pride they have in their country, Kelly said. To be able to give the people another outlet to express that pride, by supporting a team in a sport that Israel has never been known for, it just feels really cool.

Mascot: The Mensch on the Bench

Cody Decker brought the teams mascot with him to Asia from the United States for the WBC. The mascot is Mensch on the Bench, a five-foot-tall plush stuffed toy that looks a bit like a rabbi or Hasidic Jew with a long beard and mustache who is wearing a tallit (prayer shawl)and holding a candle.Mensch, in Yiddish, means a person of integrity or honor.

Decker said he tried getting the mascot a first-class ticket,but that didnt work, so he was put in a duffel bag and checked. The mascot proved to be a big hit, and the team takeshim everywhere they go. He has his own locker, sits on Team Israels bench in the dugout during every game, and even sat alongside Decker at a press conference in South Korea.

Hes a mascot, hes a friend, hes a teammate, hes a borderline deity to our team, Decker explained in arecent interview.He brings a lot to the table.He had his own locker, and we even gave him offerings: Manischewitz, gelt, and gefilte fish.

Team Israels Manager Jerry Weinstein added: Hes on the team. Everybody brings something to the team, and certainly The Mensch is a unifying factor for the ball club.Pitcher Gabe Cramer added: The Mensch on the Bench is a symbol we can rally around as a team. We are proud to be Jewish, but we know how to make and take a joke, something Jews have a long history of doing. The Mensch is a great way to have fun in the dugout while reminding us of why were here and who were representing.

Making a difference in Israel

Team Isreals manager Weinstein is also hopeful that the teams display will help the growth of baseball in Israel.

My hope is that by virtue of playing in the World Baseball Championship and doing well it heightens awareness worldwide, but especially in Israel, so it can get more government support, build fields, hire staff, he said.

Theres a lot of American Jews that follow baseball and maybe they will sign up to support and donate money so that we can grow the program in Israel so the next time a manager sits in front of you, hell be talking about Israeli national players playing in the WBC. Not a group of American Jewish players who are identifying or connected to Israel. But players that were born in the State of Israel and compete in this tournament.

Inspiring Jewish-Americankids to play ball

I think that there are Jewish kids in the United States that maybe wouldnt play baseball, but as a result of seeing this Jewish team, who are made up mostly of Americans, they will, he said. I think everybody has recognized what they have done and I think that will inspire all young kids, but especially young Israelis and young Jewish kids in the United States.

Photos and Video: WBC Israel

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Bringing Pride To The Tribe: How Team Israel Hit It Out Of The Ballpark At World Baseball Classic - NoCamels - Israeli Innovation News (press release)...

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Posted By admin on March 17, 2017

On March 8, women abstained from work as part of the International Women's Strike a grassroots feminist movement aimed at bringing attention "to the current social, legal, political, moral and verbal violence experienced by contemporary women at various latitudes." But these positive goals were distorted by the inclusion of anti-Israel rhetoric in the platform of the IWS.

There are many countries and movements throughout the world that treat women as second-class citizens: Israel is not among them. Yet this platform singles out for condemnation only Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people. There is a word for applying a double standard to Jews. That word is anti-Semitism.

It is a tragedy that this women's movement which has done so much good in refocusing attention on important women's issues in the United States from gender violence, to reproductive rights and equal pay has now moved away from its central mission and gone out of its way to single out one foreign nation by calling for the "decolonization of Palestine." Not of Tibet. Not of Kurdistan. Not of Ukraine. Not of Cyprus. Only Palestine.

The platform, which is published on IWS' website under the headline "Antiracist and Anti-imperialist Feminism" also says: "we want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine." No mention is made of the walls that imprison gays in Iran, dissidents in China, feminists in Gaza or Kurds in Turkey. Only the walls erected by Israel.

Criticizing Israel's settlement and occupation policies is fair game. But singling out Israel for "decolonization" when it has repeatedly offered to end the occupation and to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza; and when other countries continue to colonize, can be explained in no other way than applying a double standard to Jews and their state.

Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American who helped organize the Women's March on Washington in January, responded to criticism of the anti-Israel plank appearing in a feminist platform. In an interview with The Nation, Sarsour said the following:

"When you talk about feminism you're talking about the rights of all women and their families to live in dignity, peace, and security. It's about giving women access to health care and other basic rights. And Israel is a country that continues to occupy territories in Palestine, has people under siege at checkpoints we have women who have babies on checkpoints because they're not able to get to hospitals [in time]. It just doesn't make any sense for someone to say, 'Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?' There can't be in feminism. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There's just no way around it."

Sarsour was responding directly to an op-ed published by Emily Shire, the politics editor of the online newsite Bustle. In her piece published in the New York Times, Shire asked why, increasingly, women have to choose between their Zionism and feminism. Shire wrote:

"My prime concern is not that people hold this view of Israel. Rather, I find it troubling that embracing such a view is considered an essential part of an event that is supposed to unite feminists. I am happy to debate Middle East politics or listen to critiques of Israeli policies. But why should criticism of Israel be key to feminism in 2017?"

Also from the Washington Examiner

Nevada senator joins Sens. Susan Collins and Rand Paul in saying they oppose the legislation.

03/17/17 1:55 PM

Israel, like every country including our own, is far from perfect and I and other supporters of Israel have been critical of its flaws but its commitment to gender equality can be traced back to its Declaration of Independence, which states that Israel "will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex." As the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel's legal guarantee of rights has meant that women play crucial roles in all aspects of Israeli society. It elected the first woman head of government in history Golda Meir who was not related to a male political leader. There is no legitimate reason for singling Israel out for condemnation, as the platform does, based on a denial of "basic rights" to women.

Sarsour presents a catch-22. Under her own all-or-nothing criteria, she herself cannot be pro-Palestinian and a feminist because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas treat women and gays far worse than Israel does.

If Sarsour was concerned with addressing structural causes of all female oppression, she would mention the status of women in the PA-controlled West Bank where just a few months ago the names and photos of female candidates for the municipal elections were omitted, referring to the women instead as "wife of" or "sister of." Sarsour would also call out the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the police are a law unto themselves who act as judge, jury and executioner of those who speak out against their oppression and misogyny. She would condemn the tolerance, if not acceptance, by so many Muslim countries of the "honor killings" and genital mutilation of women.

Instead the IWS platform exploits the feminist cause in order to delegitimize and demonize only one nation: that of the Jewish people.

Nor does Sarsour address the fact that one of the organizers of the strike, Rasmea Odeh, was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison by an Israeli military court for her role in a 1969 terror attack, which killed two university students and injured nine others, including several women, at a supermarket in Jerusalem. Odeh was later freed in a prisoner exchange but a subsequent case against her in the United States is ongoing.

Also from the Washington Examiner

George Conway will lead the division, which represents the federal government in the courts in legal battles.

03/17/17 1:46 PM

This double standard is reflective of a broader trend in hard-left politics. Increasingly, groups such as Black Lives Matter, MoveOn, Code Pink and Occupy Wall Street have embraced intersectionality a radical academic theory, which holds that all forms of social oppression are inexorably linked as an underpinning to their anti-Israel activism. This type of selective ideological packaging has left liberal supporters of Israel in an increasingly uncomfortable position. On the one hand, they care deeply about causes such as women's rights, criminal justice reform, income inequality, environmental protection and LGBT rights. On the other, they find themselves excluded from the groups that advance those very causes unless they agree to delegitimize Israel and denounce Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish People.

Addressing the structural causes of sexism in the United States will take more than reproaching Israel it will require far-reaching legislative and grassroots action. By morphing the discussion about women's rights into a polemic against Israel, the IWS makes progress of the feminist cause even more difficult. All decent people should continue to fight for the absolute equal status of women in society. But we must not be forced to become complicit in the promotion of anti-Israel bigotry as a pre-condition for supporting the broader feminist movement.

The real choice to be made now by all those who care about the feminist cause is whether to allow Sarsour and her radical anti-Israel allies to hijack the movement in support of their own bigoted views. The alternative is to maintain feminism's focus on key issues that pertain to women and to call out countries and movements according to how seriously they violate women's rights, rather than singling out the one Jewish democracy Israel.

Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of "Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law" and "Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for the Unaroused Voter." This article was previously published by the Gatestone Institute.

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Posted By simmons on March 17, 2017

Instead of firmly speaking out against the more than 190 anti-Semitic threats and attacks over the past few weeks, Netanyahu has decided to throwthe American Jewish community under the bus of right-wing Israeli fanaticism.

By David Sarna Galdi

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, March 16, 2017. (Marc Israel Sellem/Flash90)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week told a delegation led by Reform Movement head Rabbi Rick Jacobs what it wanted to hear that he was attuned to their concerns. But Netanyahus shocking silence during the recent wave of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States was far louder than his words.

Netanyahu, who just a couple of years ago declared that he represents the entire Jewish people, failed to show any support whatsoever for American Jewry during more than 190 anti-Semitic threats and attacks in six weeks.

How should U.S. Jews make sense of this non-sequitur?

Jews growing up in America in the second half of the 20th century were taught a very simple equation: Israel = Judaism. When American Jews sent their hard-earned dollars to the Jewish state, they believed that Israel was in a reciprocal way an embodiment of their values and, more importantly, their guardian.

After the Holocaust, Israel was naturally viewed as the guarantor of the common Jewish future, having absorbedhundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees and legally enshrining automatic citizenship for any Jew, no questions asked. Leaders of the fledgling state like David Ben Gurion, themselves born in the diaspora, were explicit about Israels connection to the great Jewry of the United States, to whom Israel owes so much. In 1960, Moshe Dayan put it quite plainly when he argued, in Canada, that his government should not only represent the people of Israel, but the interests of all Jews.

The metaphorical umbilical cord connecting the Jewish diaspora with the Zionist State was expressed when Menachem Begin viciously protested 1951 reparation negotiations with post-war Germany. Tremendous financial benefit to Israel, he argued, did not trump the collective self-respect, not of only Israelis, but of all Jews. The ultimately successful reparations deal was unique, argues Ofer Aderet in Haaretz, because although it was signed between two countries, it also encompassed a third party the Jewish People.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Minister Ariel Sharon (photo: Saar Yaacov, Government Press Office / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

However, the idea that a Jewish state could be trusted to represent the entire Jewish people has always been tenuous. After herself escaping Nazi Germany and working for Zionist causes, Hannah Arendt supported a Jewish national revival but argued that politics were destroying the integrity of the original Zionist idea. She worried that an exclusively Jewish Palestine, would eventually separate itself from a larger body of world Jewry and in its isolation, develop into an entirely new people.

The lost narrative of early Jewish opposition to political Zionism is beyond the scope of this short article; it must suffice to say that Arendts doubts echoed those of a litany of Jewish leaders and thinkers like Lucien Wolf, Claude Montefiore, Israel Abrahams, Simon Dubnow, Congressman Julius Kahn, Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem and many others who held doubts as to whether political Zionism had Judaisms best interest in mind and feared the consequences of ethnic Jewish hegemony over another people.

Will a Jewish nation save the Jews? asked Rabbi Israel Mattuck, a leader of British Jewry between the two world wars. It may save a small number of them; it may well destroy all the rest.

Fifty years since the height of diaspora euphoria after the Six Day War the idealistic, abstract Zionism of many U.S. Jews has fermented into what can be called at best, melancholy Zionism. A recent Pew Research Center Study found that only 35 percent of American Jews aged 18-50 believed that caring about Israel is an essential part of their Jewish identity. Israel isnt a brand some American Jews want to identify with, admitted Liran Avisar, the CEO of Masa Israel.

Globally plugged-in young American Jews who protest for refugee rights and attend LGBT weddings face jarring headlines about Israels idolization of a soldier convicted of the manslaughter of an incapacitated Palestinian, laws legalizing theft of Palestinian land and discriminating against Muslim prayer, large-scale demolition of Israeli Bedouin communities, and the exclusion of egalitarian prayer from Judaisms most holy communal space. Though Netanyahu wants to force Palestinians to announce, on-all-fours, that Israel is Jewish, its uncertain whether a 21st century American Jew would concede as much.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., February 15, 2017. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

How are American Jews to understand the Israeli prime ministers actions, which breathe new life into the dry bones of historical doubts of Israels concern for Judaism at large? Is his cozying up toanti-Semitic Evangelical preachers and the most offensive U.S. president in memory at the expense of U.S. Jews a return to the Negation of the Diaspora theory? Or is it the crystallization of a new, frightening brand of Zionism so distorted from the past that it can only be called, Alt-Zionism a rabid dog wagged by its extremist, Jewish fundamentalist tail? The current governmentsAlt-Zionism demonizes the press, decapitates the Israeli Supreme Court, rids the Knesset of Arab representation, passes unjust laws that threaten to turn Israel into a pariah apartheid state, and has no need for any diaspora Jewry that doesnt fund the Judaization of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Driving a wedge between Israel and U.S. Jewry while threatening their already wilting symbiosis is corrupt on a profound, Big-History scale. A country where Jews are safe is imperative. A world without the Jewish diaspora, however, is unthinkable.

Benjamin Netanyahu fancies himself a historically significant leader, a kind of Jewish Winston Churchill; he has gone on record repeatedly about his deep admiration for the British prime minister who risked isolation and unpopularity before World War II rather than negotiate with Nazi Germany. But Netanyahu, in throwing the American Jewish community under the bus of right-wing Israeli fanaticism, has proven himself to be more of a Marshal Ptain.

David Sarna Galdi is a former editor at Haaretz newspaper. He works for a nonprofit organization in Tel Aviv.

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Posted By admin on March 17, 2017

Rod Such The Electronic Intifada 15 March 2017

State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel, Thomas Surez, Olive Branch Press (2017)

Israels propaganda playbook attempts to reframe the Palestinian liberation struggle as a question of terror, not territory. Thanks to a dutiful media, this effort to portray Palestinians as terrorists has had significant traction among some demographics.

But how did terrorism originate in Palestine and what was its outcome, both historically and today?

Thomas Surez sheds much new light on those questions in State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel. He does this largely by mining previously neglected declassified documents from the British National Archives, covering the period of the British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948).

Surezs principal thesis is that Zionist terrorism ultimately dictated the course of events during the Mandate, and it is Israeli state terrorism that continues to dictate events today.

The author cautions that while he unequivocally condemns Palestinian terrorism against civilians, he recognizes that some were driven to extreme measures due to an asymmetry in power and in reaction to attempts to subjugate the Palestinian people and expropriate their resources, land and labor.

Zionist terrorism aimed to prevent Palestinian Arabs from exercising their right to self-determination, Surez argues, and when an aggressor encounters resistance, it can hardly use self-defense as a justification for its own acts of violence. Otherwise, Surez writes, all aggression would self-justify.

Surez is not a professional historian. However, State of Terror has drawn praise from such figures as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who on the book cover calls it a tour de force and the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence employed by the Zionist movement both before and after Israels creation. Indeed, Surezs scholarship is impressive and the book includes nearly 700 endnotes consisting mainly of original sources.

At its best, State of Terror is an insightful meditation on history. This is apparent especially in the opening chapters that cover the period leading up to the British Mandate and the issuance of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which Britain decreed a national home for Jews in Palestine.

Surez offers a penetrating analysis of the roots of Zionist ideology, showing not only its racist underpinnings and colonialist attitudes toward Arabs but also its attempt to exercise political, religious and cultural hegemony over the Jewish people. In a sense Surez exposes political Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism and a kind of totalitarianism.

The Zionist mistreatment of Jews is a sub theme that runs throughout Surezs narrative. Early Zionist leaders tried to depict Jews as a race and nationality, rather than a people of faith and ethnic identity. Zionist leaders such as David Ben-Gurion also maintained that Jews were obliged to settle in Palestine.

Surez cites an early opponent of Zionism, the English Jewish journalist and historian Lucien Wolf who condemned Zionism as a comprehensive capitulation to the calumnies of the anti-Semites that would set back the Jewish struggle for equality in their home countries.

In support of this claim, Wolf notes that Arthur James Balfour, who was foreign secretary at the time of the declaration that bears his name, appears to have been motivated to promise a national home for Jews by classic anti-Semitism: as prime minister in 1905, Balfour had attempted to block Jewish refugees escaping Czarist Russias pogroms from immigrating to Britain, viewing them as an undoubted evil.

Surez makes the dramatic claim that most victims of the targeted assassinations carried out by Zionist paramilitaries in Mandate Palestine were Jews, in part because these militias identified British Jewish soldiers and police as traitors. This was the case even during the Second World War when Britain was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Nazi Germany.

State of Terror asserts that most acts of terrorism were directed at Palestinian Arab civilians. Both the Labor and Revisionist wings of Zionism engaged in terrorism and often colluded with each other in carrying out terrorist attacks, which escalated following the end of the Second World War, culminating famously in the King David Hotel attack in July 1946 that killed 41 Palestinian Arabs, 28 Brits, 17 Jews, 2 Armenians, 1 Russian and 1 Egyptian.

Surez maintains that the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 was largely a capitulation to this terrorism. Here his conclusion differs somewhat from that of other historians, including Tom Segev, who argues in One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (1999) that the exhausted and bankrupt British Empire was intent on leaving Palestine regardless of Zionist terrorism.

In Segevs account the British departure was a foregone conclusion, and the terrorism of both the Labor Zionist and Revisionist-led militias represented a competition between them for control of the state that would soon be established.

The British were not the real enemy, Segev writes, the Arabs were.

The numerous acts of terrorism against Palestinian civilians during the Nakba of 1947-1949, such as the massacre at Deir Yassin, figure prominently in Surezs concluding chapters.

With the creation of Israel in 1948 paramilitary terrorism transformed itself into official state terrorism.

Surez calls out the Orwellian newsspeak that statehood seemingly confers on acts of terrorism by contrasting the reaction of world opinion to Deir Yassin in April 1948 with the bloodier mass murder that occurred in the village of al-Dawayima in October 1948 after Israel had declared statehood.

That massacre, estimated at 145 people by the village mukhtar (chief), was regarded largely as a military operation at the time, according to Surez, although recent scholarship has more accurately described it as an example of state terrorism.

Surez devotes considerable attention to Zionist efforts to thwart Holocaust survivors from immigrating to countries other than Palestine and the kidnapping of young Jewish survivors from foster homes in Europe and their transfer to Palestine. In this, he relies heavily on Yosef Grodzinskys groundbreaking In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II (2004).

Surez also recounts the false-flag terrorism in Egypt designed to win US support for Israel. Famous at the time, but largely forgotten since, Israels Unit 131 carried out terrorist bombings against civilian targets in Alexandria and Cairo, mainly cinemas frequented by US and British citizens, in what a Central Intelligence Agency bulletin, declassified in 2005, described as a bungled false-flag operation.

He also includes the shameful blaming of Holocaust survivors by Israeli and Zionist officials for acts of collective punishment carried out in secret by Israeli military forces, such as the massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya in 1953, led by Unit 101 under the command of Ariel Sharon.

State of Terror is a comprehensive guide to Zionist and Israeli state terrorism and one that sheds valuable light on todays situation.

As Surez concludes: Terrorism is the only means through which an indigenous population can be subjugated, dehumanized and displaced. This, stripped of all baggage, is the reality of todays Israel-Palestine conflict.

Rod Such is a former editor for World Book and Encarta encyclopedias. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and is active with the Occupation-Free Portland campaign.

How interesting to learn that Arthur Balfour, so venerated for issuing the proclamation that bears his name, found Jewish refugees such a source of concern that he advocated banning them from entry to Britain, and referred to their potential presence as an "undoubted evil". Antisemitism and Zionism, then as now, were expedient allies.

Suarez' book will certainly contribute to a better understanding of the roots of the Zionist state. I hope sales are robust.

"Surez makes the dramatic claim that 'most victims' of the targeted assassinations carried out by Zionist paramilitaries in Mandate Palestine were Jews... "State of Terror asserts that most acts of terrorism were directed at Palestinian Arab civilians."

If these statements aren't contradictory, I hope someone will explain why.

The reviewer appears to refer to two distinct periods, in the first instance that of the Mandate, while in the second he's discussing the Nakba and the formation of the Jewish State. In addition, the targeted assassinations were directed against uncooperative Jews during the phase of Zionist consolidation- 1930s and 40s. That's one form of terrorism, if you will. Given the Zionist doctrine of separation, it would have been tactically difficult to carry out this sort of attack on Palestinian leaders. The colonists didn't have the necessary proximity, access or reliable information. On the other hand, wholesale slaughter of Palestinian villages is a feature of the actual state-building process, which depended on mass expulsion of the indigenous population. So basically, we're seeing two successive phases of Zionist terrorism. The choice of victim reflects stages in a process.

Ilan Pappe called Thomas Suarez' book a "tour de force". A careful reading STATE OF TERROR is an absolute requirement for everyone interested in Palestine. Why has it taken so long for EI to review this essential work?!!

The thanks should not go to Rod Such but to Mr. Suarez for his landmark work.

----Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

Rod Such writes:

"At its best, 'State of Terror' is an insightful meditation on history."

I strongly dissent. It is no "meditation" whatsoever. It IS history.

Such, like so many of us, seems to hesitate aghast at the horror of the reality, of how we have all been manipulated by blood, by hate. It is raw. It is no" meditation" at all. It says so much about where we Jews have indeed come from, not what Israel and other Zionists want us to believe.

"Know thyself!"

----Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

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Posted By admin on March 17, 2017

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Not surprisingly, the ADL was no outlier. Another legendary Jewish group, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society,almost just as quickly did precisely the same thing. Ironic isnt it? Groups that routinely accuse the GOP Presidential nominee of fostering anti-Semitism are the very first to condemn him for trying to keep Jew haters from entering the United States, either as refugees or immigrants.

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Liberal Jewish Congressman Ted Deutsch(D-FL) responded to the proposal by claiming Jews were repelled by Trumps suggestion and accusing him of inflaming anti-semitism.

Making matters worse; todays Jew hatred is deadlier than ever. Both thepervasiveness and shockingvirulence of anti-Semitism in the Muslim and Arab world is so pronounced that the drafters of the Pew 2011 Global Attitudes Survey tried to bury their own findings; at least 96% of respondents in every Muslim majority nation surveyed expressed either unfavorable or very unfavorable attitudes toward Jews.

Is this our generations way or proving ourselves more virtuous than the one we were raised to condemn forabetting the Holocaust? Championing the ingathering of peoples from lands redolent with open support for the destruction of the State of Israel and the annihilation of every Jew in it? Thats our answer? Thebest way to reduce anti-Semitismin the United States is to import, as HillaryClinton proposes, more than half a million almost certain anti-semites tolive in theUnited States?

Todays Jew haters know from experience that the road to legitimizing their anti-Semitism lies not in taming their Jew hatred, but in increasing it. The more blatantly anti-Semitic bile these groups spew,especially about Israel, the more outreach the debilitated mainstream Jewish world will seek to conduct. To them, it is only the overt criticism of left wing and Muslim Jew hatred that can be openly condemned.

Left wing anti-Israel Jewish groups like J-Street and the the New Israel Fund oppose sanctions against terror states like Iran but support them against Israel. They oppose boycotts against all countries except Israel, while supporting all the anti-Israel resolutions at the UN. They accuse pro-Israel politicians like Ted Cruz and Mike Pence of being anti-Semites because they support and defend a strong Israel and Jewish religious liberty rights at home.

Sadly, for most American Jews, liberalism is much more than an element of Judaism, it is their Judaism, and hence their religion. Jews, quipped Norman Podhoretz, founder of Commentary Magazine and author of the 2009 Book Why are Jews Liberals,Insofar as they know anything about the Hebrew prophets, think they are high dollarfundraisers for the Democratic party.

Despite it all, most American Jews still believe the absurd proposition that liberalism and the Democrat party are the very extensions of Judaism itself. If that was true, Orthodox Jews, being the most knowledgeable about Judaism, would be the most liberal, which of course, they are not. They are the most conservative.

Time and again on issue after issue, whenever the values of Judaism conflict with the more important values of liberalism, its always the Jewish values that need to make way. In thiscase, the Jewish value of fighting anti-Semitism must give way to the value of labelling as anti-semitic everythingDonald Trump proposes. Get it?

To too many liberal Jews, the very purpose of Judaism is now wholly subordinate to the causeof liberalism. Judaisms purpose is no longer to stand alone, but rather to provide support to what ever the liberal ethos of the day happens to be even if itmeans bringingmore antisemites to our shores.

Anymore it seems, the only way tobea good liberal Jew requires sacrificing clearly identifiable Jewish self interest all to prove continued support for the gauzy cause of an ever changing greater good.

As American Jews move farther to the left, they grow not only less attached to Israel butincreasingly hostile to it.Things have become soOrwellian inside the mainstream liberal Jewish world that the way only way to prove you are pro-Israel is to become anti-Israel. The debilitating impact this is having insidethe older, more established institutions of the American Jewish community is profound. As the well-funded, anti-Israel Jewish left grows in size and scope, the older establishment institutions are either marginalized orsimply taken over altogether.

By far the largest and most important of all communal Jewish organizations, the United Jewish Appeal, recentlyelected to lead itsNew York affiliate Aliza Doctoroff, an open supporter of the notorious New Israel Fund, which is a major sponsor of the anti-Semitic BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement that seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through demonization, delegitimization and economic strangulation.

That the ADL and other Jewish groups should accuse Donald Trump of anti-semitism for suggesting we try andprevent moreantisemitesfrom coming to this country must haveGeorge Orwell spinning in his grave at record speed.

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Posted By admin on March 17, 2017

Anti-Defamation League National Director Jonathan Greenblatt . (photo credit:Courtesy)

NEW YORK The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday urged the UN to immediately recall a UN agencys hostile and biased that accuses Israel of being an apartheid regime.

The 74-page document, published by the UNs Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on Wednesday, points a finger at Israel for racial discrimination toward Palestinians.

Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole, the report states.

This was the first time a UN body had clearly made the charge, angering Israeli officials who compared the report to the Third Reichs wildly antisemitic Der Sturmer newspaper.

Rather than provide constructive analysis about Israeli policy in the West Bank, this report is rife with outrageous accusations of criminality and apartheid practices, and reflects the biased agenda of the authors, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said on Thursday. This report does not meet any reasonable standard of judiciousness or constructive analysis about Israeli policy or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The ADL praised the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for distancing itself from the report.

A spokesman for the UN chief said on Wednesday that the report was released without any consultation with the United Nations Secretariat, and that as it stands, it does not reflect the views of the secretary- general.

Both Israels Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon and his US counterpart, Nikki Haley, had called on the secretary-general to make this clear.

ESCWA, headquartered in Beirut, is composed of 18 Arab states in Western Asia and aims to support economic and social development in member states, according to its website. The report was prepared at the request of member states.

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Posted By admin on March 15, 2017

NEW YORK Two weeks ago the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour started a fundraising campaign to help restore the graves at a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery damaged by vandalism. The Jewish community there and across the country generally welcomed the effort wildly successful, as it turned out as a lovely moment in interfaith solidarity.

Its sad that its happening in the midst of tragedy, but its a beautiful gesture, Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis told the Forward.

Gratitude like Rosenbergs largely drowned out the voices, mostly from the Right, of those who charged that Sarsours efforts were a cynical attempt to distract critics from her support for the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement that many Jewish groups see as nothing less than an effort to delegitimize and dismantle Israel.

A basic principle of coalition building of civil society, in fact is putting aside disagreements on specific issues to work together on the things you can agree on. In this case, Jews and Muslims have a mutual self-interest in standing up to bigotry, even if they disagree on some major issues.

If Sarsour accepts this principle, its not clear from her role as an architect of International Womens Strike USA, the grassroots feminist movement that organized events around the world on International Womens Day. In addition to calling for gender equality, an end to racial and sexual violence, and protection of reproductive rights, the groups platform includes a plank For an Antiracist and Anti-imperialist Feminism that demands the decolonization of Palestine.

We want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine, the platform continues.

(It is important to note that Palestine is mentioned twice in the brief platform; leaving aside Trumps Mexico wall, no other country or people is specifically singled out as a cause to be embraced or a target for activism not India or any one of 49 nations that dont criminalize marital rape; not Pakistan, where just one-quarter of women are in the labor force; not Mali, where adult womens literacy is only 29 percent.)

This week, Sarsour responded to a critic who asked why activists need to check their Zionism at the door when signing on to a feminist platform.

I identify as a Zionist because I support Israels right to exist as a Jewish state, Emily Shire wrote in The New York Times. I am happy to debate Middle East politics or listen to critiques of Israeli policies. But why should criticism of Israel be key to feminism in 2017?

Asked by The Nation to respond to Shire, Sarsour was unequivocal: If by Zionist you mean someone who doesnt accept the platforms singular focus on Israel, then no, you can be a Zionist or a feminist, but you cant be both.

It just doesnt make any sense for someone to say, Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement? There cant be in feminism, Sarsour said. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. Theres just no way around it.

Sarsour cant seem to imagine a movement in which activists might disagree on certain issues but can work together on others. In the name of intersectionality, she is willing to lose useful allies who cannot sign on to every plank of her platform.

In her remarks, Sarsour also alleged that Palestinian-American women hesitate to get involved in social justice causes because they fear becoming an immediate target of the right wing and right-wing Zionists. Indeed, she has often been accused of having ties to Hamas, on fairly wispy evidence.

But Sarsour also focuses on right-wing Zionists at the exclusion of all others. She doesnt leave room for Israelis who might share her social justice agenda, not only when it comes to feminism but to Palestinian women as well. First she raises Palestine as literally the only global cause worth mentioning. Then she offers a false choice between supporting Israel and feminism.

Such thinking seems infectious. Writing about the Shire-Sarsour debate in New York magazine, Eric Levitz explained, To a Palestinian woman in the West Bank, no issue may appear more central to her liberation than the end of the Israeli occupation. To a Zionist woman in Tel Aviv whose family tree lost branches to Hitler and then to Hamas no issue may seem less relevant to her interests. The feminist movement has no choice but to represent one woman, and not the other.

Really? No choice? Because I can point to Israeli women who have lost family members in the Holocaust and to terrorism, and who care deeply about womens and all peoples rights in both countries.

Like members of the Parents Circle, a group of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost relatives to terror and violence but still work together on coexistence. Or the Coalition of Women for Peace, an Israeli feminist organization founded in 2000 following the outbreak of the second intifada. The women who belong are committed to ending the occupation and creating a more just society, while enhancing womens inclusion and participation in the public discourse, according to its mission statement.

Or Women Wage Peace, who two years ago led a protest march from northern Israel to Jerusalem to demand that Israel restart the peace process with the Palestinians. WWP describes itself as above the political and religious divide, seeking to do something that Sarsour insists doesnt make any sense: creating allies among people who disagree.

Members of all three groups might happily sign on to the Womens Strike platform or they might bristle at how the platform aims to alienate Israelis and their supporters by making Palestine its only specific nationalist cause.

The Womens Strike platform is not just asking followers to criticize Israel, but to do so in terms insisted upon by Sarsour and the BDS movement: Israel as a colonialist and racist enterprise. Theres no mention of peace, only of a de-colonization of a Palestine whose borders are never specified because, one suspects, the BDS movement cannot bring itself to recognize Israels right to exist. There is no room in the coalition for the Israeli left, right or center who wants women on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide to enjoy full rights, but who believes with good reason that the platforms framing of the conflict is a recipe for eternal violence.

According to the Womens Strike platform, We celebrate the diversity of the many social groups that have come together for the International Womens Strike. We come from many political traditions but are united around the following common principles.

Like the Black Lives Matter platform issued last year, however, the Womens Strike version seems engineered to specifically exclude one social group: supporters of Israel who do not buy into a one-sided condemnation of Israel, who believe it doesnt deserve to be singled out among all the conflicts in which men and women have been oppressed, marginalized or exploited and who dont accept that the only solution worthy of discussion is the one that leaves no room for a Jewish state.

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Posted By simmons on March 15, 2017

Palestinian-American women in social justice movements cannot be as visible as other women because they're the target of attacks from 'right-wing Zionists,' the activist says.

Liberal American Jews, many of whom are involved in causes for gender and racial justice, have recently found themselves alienated by those movements stances on Israel.

That conflict was seen last year when a platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians and called it an apartheid state. The platform drew ire from Jewish groups who had previously expressed support for BLMs goals of racial justice.

Now the same conflict is playing out with feminist groups whose cause has gained steam since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. A platform for the U.S. affiliate of the International Womens Strike a grassroots feminist movement that organized events around the world last Wednesday calls for the decolonization of Palestine.

Responding Monday to critics of the Palestine plank in a platform devoted to womens rights, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, an organizer of Januarys Womens March on Washington who also helped plan the Womens Strike, came forth with a harsh message: feminism and Zionism simply dont go together.

In an interview with The Nation, Sarsour said those who identify as Zionist cannot be feminist because they are ignoring the rights of Palestinian women.

It just doesnt make any sense for someone to say, Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement? There cant be in feminism. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. Theres just no way around it, Sarsour said.

Sarsour also said that Palestinian-American women in social justice movements cannot be as visible as other women because they are the target of unspecified attacks from right-wing Zionists.

The fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of Palestinian women organizing, but not all of them are visible. And Ill tell you why, Sarsour said. Youve probably seen that any visible Palestinian-American woman who is at the forefront of any social-justice movement is an immediate target of the right wing and right-wing Zionists. They will go to any extreme to criminalize us and to engage in alternative facts, to sew together a narrative that does not exist.

Sarsour was responding directly to criticism of the platforms statement on Israel by Emily Shire, the politics editor of the womens news site Bustle. Shire wrote about her dilemma as a Zionist feminist in a New York Times op-ed published March 7.

I find it troubling that embracing such a view is considered an essential part of an event that is supposed to unite feminists, she wrote. I am happy to debate Middle East politics or listen to critiques of Israeli policies. But why should criticism of Israel be key to feminism in 2017?

Shire also criticized the strike for the involvement of Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian woman convicted and sentenced by an Israeli military court in 1970 to life in prison for her role in two bombing attacks, including one in 1969 that killed two Israelis. Odeh was among the eight authors of an op-ed in The Guardian announcing the movement. She confessed to planting the bomb, though in recent years has claimed that the confession was given under torture, which is disputed by Israeli officials.

While the fairness of Ms. Odehs conviction is debated, the fact that she was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was categorized as a terrorist organization by the State Department, is not, Shire wrote.

Sarsour was in the Jewish media spotlight last month for quite different reasons. Following the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery outside St. Louis, she and another Muslim activist, Tarek El-Messidi, organized a fundraiser for the repair of the burial site. They managed to raise over $160,000, far exceeding their $20,000 goal.

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Linda Sarsour: Zionism and Feminism Are Incompatible - Haaretz

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