Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

QUEENS, NY A group of neighbors are making a self-described "plea of passion" to worldwide Art Deco enthusiasts, asking for help saving remnants of a historic-theater-turned-synagogue that's slated for demolition.

Built in 1939 and named after that year's World's Fair centerpiece, the Trylon Theater in Rego Park is one of several Queens Boulevard buildings that developers plan to demolish to build a 15-story luxury building.

The proposal has aroused complaints from neighbors and politicians alike since its inception, but a group of neighborhood preservationists have been among the most outspoken critics (as is often the case with new development). A petition to preserve the "landmarks" and stop the demolition has raised over 4,200 signatures.

Now, with demolition all-but certain, the preservation-minded neighbors are taking a different tack, attempting to raise $80,000 to save the facade of the theater.

"I am making a plea of passion, asking the help of my fellow Art Deco enthusiasts across the globe," wrote Evan Boccardi, who has organized a GoFundMe with other neighbors on behalf of the Hail-Mary effort. "If anyone here could find it in their hearts to just donate a dollar or two, we can preserve the facade of this theatre for future generations."

The fundraiser has raised $3,576 of its $80,000 goal so far.

If the goal is reached, the developer agreed to hire Demolition Depot, a demolition company known for its preservation efforts, Boccardi said on the fundraising page. The demolition company will store the stonework and pay for protective supplies, he wrote.

"[Demolition Depot] have agreed to take action to save the beautiful Art Deco stonework that has faced Queens Boulevard for over 80 years," the fundraiser reads. "They have saved many facades, and have the expertise to save this one as well."

As proposed, the luxury building requires zoning changes, meaning the developer needs approval through the city's lengthy land use review process known as ULURP before construction can begin.

During that public review process, both the Community Board and Borough President issued advisory, non-binding votes against the luxury building, in part on the basis that it lacked enough affordable units.

In January, though, Council Member Lynn Schulman helped broker a deal with the developer to bring lower income affordable housing to the building.

The developer also said it could try to include more preservation-focused design elements in the building during a March committee meeting the final step in the ULURP process before the forthcoming City Council vote.

That vote typically falls in line with the vote of the member who represents the district; Schulman hasn't gone as far as saying that she supports the project, but has (repeatedly) spoken about it in a positive way.

"I'm pleased that we've made some progress, the most substantial of which is the agreement to add deeper affordable housing opportunities to the project," she said.

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A Plea Of Passion: Locals Try To Raise $80K To Save Theater Facade - Patch

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

Saturday's massacre in Buffalo, New York, is the latest mass shooting in which authorities say the suspect was motivated by hate.The suspected shooter, an 18-year-old white man, shot and killed 10 people and injured three others at a supermarket in a predominantly Black area, authorities said. Eleven of the victims are Black."We'll be aggressive in our pursuit of anyone who subscribes to the ideals professed by other white supremacists and how there's a feeding frenzy on social media platforms where hate festers more hate," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday.Investigators in the case have found evidence indicating "racial animosity," Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn said during a Saturday news conference. The FBI says it is investigating the incident as a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism.The attack comes amid surging levels of hate crimes across the country. An FBI report published last year found U.S. hate crime reports in 2020 rose to the highest level in 12 years. Also in 2020, the Department of Homeland Security warned white supremacists were likely to remain the most "persistent and lethal threat" in the country.Here are other high-profile massacres in recent years that authorities have said were fueled by hate.A shooter 'hated the Jewish community and Muslim community'John T. Earnest admitted to a shooting at a San Diego area synagogue that left one person dead and three others injured in 2019. In December, Earnest was sentenced to a second life sentence after pleading guilty to a 113-count indictment that included hate crime and weapons violations.He was armed with an AR-15 style rifle when he entered the crowded Chabad of Poway synagogue and began shooting. He also admitted to setting fire to a mosque in nearby Escondido several weeks before the shooting."The defendant targeted his victims because he hated the Jewish community and Muslim community," Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, previously said."The defendant and his hatred have been silenced. He will spend the rest of his days and die in prison, while he languishes behind bars," Grossman said.The deadliest attack on Latinos in modern US historyPatrick Crusius, the man accused of killing 23 people and injuring nearly two dozen others in a 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart store, was indicted on dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death and hate crimes involving an attempt to kill.The rampage was the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern U.S. history.Crusius was accused of killing and harming the victims "because of the actual and perceived national origin of any person," the indictment said. An earlier arrest affidavit said he told police his targets were Mexicans.He has pleaded not guilty and is yet to stand trial. Lawyers for Crusius have said he was in a psychotic state after the shooting and suffers from mental disabilities.11 worshippers killed in a Pittsburgh synagogueIn October 2018, a gunman killed 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the U.S., according to the Anti-Defamation League.Authorities said Robert Bowers targeted Jews online and made anti-Semitic comments during the shooting. Later, while receiving medical care, he told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die, according to a criminal complaint.Federal prosecutors filed hate crime charges against Bowers, claiming he used anti-Semitic slurs and criticized a Jewish group on a social media site in the days leading up to the shooting.Tree of Life synagogue: Remembering the lives lostFederal prosecutors said in 2019 they would seek the death penalty on charges that include obstruction of free exercise on religious beliefs resulting in death, use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder and possession of a firearm during a violent crime.They said they are justified to seek the death penalty because of the role that Bowers' anti-Semitic views played in the shooting.He has pleaded not guilty and is yet to be tried.A Charleston church becomes a targetIn June 2015, avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine African American worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church -- a historic Black church -- in Charleston, South Carolina.Roof was convicted of federal charges and sentenced to death in January 2017. He was the first federal hate-crime defendant to be sentenced to death, a Justice Department spokesman said."Mother Emanuel was his destination specifically because it was an historically African American church of significance to the people of Charleston, of South Carolina and to the nation," then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in 2015. "On that summer evening, Dylann Roof found his targets, African-Americans engaged in worship."Roof spent months plotting the attack, Lynch said."He was looking for the type of church and the type of parishioners whose death would, in fact, draw great notoriety for...his racist views," she said.Attacker who had talked about a 'racial holy war'Another place of worship -- meant to be a refuge -- was the scene of mass shooting in August 2012.An Army veteran opened fire in a gurdwara -- or Sikh house of worship -- in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four others.Wade Michael Page died of a self-inflicted wound after being shot by a police officer, the FBI said. The shooting came as violent attacks on Sikhs were spiking following September 11, 2001.Then-Attorney General Eric Holder called the attack "an act of terrorism, an act of hatred, a hate crime."According to a man who described himself as an old Army buddy of Page's, the attacker talked about "racial holy war" when they served together in the 1990s.Christopher Robillard, of Oregon, who said he had lost contact with Page, added in 2012 that when Page would rant, "it would be about mostly any non-white person.

Saturday's massacre in Buffalo, New York, is the latest mass shooting in which authorities say the suspect was motivated by hate.

The suspected shooter, an 18-year-old white man, shot and killed 10 people and injured three others at a supermarket in a predominantly Black area, authorities said. Eleven of the victims are Black.

"We'll be aggressive in our pursuit of anyone who subscribes to the ideals professed by other white supremacists and how there's a feeding frenzy on social media platforms where hate festers more hate," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday.

Investigators in the case have found evidence indicating "racial animosity," Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn said during a Saturday news conference. The FBI says it is investigating the incident as a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism.

The attack comes amid surging levels of hate crimes across the country. An FBI report published last year found U.S. hate crime reports in 2020 rose to the highest level in 12 years. Also in 2020, the Department of Homeland Security warned white supremacists were likely to remain the most "persistent and lethal threat" in the country.

Here are other high-profile massacres in recent years that authorities have said were fueled by hate.

John T. Earnest admitted to a shooting at a San Diego area synagogue that left one person dead and three others injured in 2019. In December, Earnest was sentenced to a second life sentence after pleading guilty to a 113-count indictment that included hate crime and weapons violations.

He was armed with an AR-15 style rifle when he entered the crowded Chabad of Poway synagogue and began shooting. He also admitted to setting fire to a mosque in nearby Escondido several weeks before the shooting.

"The defendant targeted his victims because he hated the Jewish community and Muslim community," Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, previously said.

"The defendant and his hatred have been silenced. He will spend the rest of his days and die in prison, while he languishes behind bars," Grossman said.

Patrick Crusius, the man accused of killing 23 people and injuring nearly two dozen others in a 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart store, was indicted on dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death and hate crimes involving an attempt to kill.

The rampage was the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern U.S. history.

Crusius was accused of killing and harming the victims "because of the actual and perceived national origin of any person," the indictment said. An earlier arrest affidavit said he told police his targets were Mexicans.

He has pleaded not guilty and is yet to stand trial. Lawyers for Crusius have said he was in a psychotic state after the shooting and suffers from mental disabilities.

In October 2018, a gunman killed 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the U.S., according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Authorities said Robert Bowers targeted Jews online and made anti-Semitic comments during the shooting. Later, while receiving medical care, he told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die, according to a criminal complaint.

Federal prosecutors filed hate crime charges against Bowers, claiming he used anti-Semitic slurs and criticized a Jewish group on a social media site in the days leading up to the shooting.

Tree of Life synagogue: Remembering the lives lost

Federal prosecutors said in 2019 they would seek the death penalty on charges that include obstruction of free exercise on religious beliefs resulting in death, use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder and possession of a firearm during a violent crime.

They said they are justified to seek the death penalty because of the role that Bowers' anti-Semitic views played in the shooting.

He has pleaded not guilty and is yet to be tried.

In June 2015, avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine African American worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church -- a historic Black church -- in Charleston, South Carolina.

Roof was convicted of federal charges and sentenced to death in January 2017. He was the first federal hate-crime defendant to be sentenced to death, a Justice Department spokesman said.

"Mother Emanuel was his destination specifically because it was an historically African American church of significance to the people of Charleston, of South Carolina and to the nation," then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in 2015. "On that summer evening, Dylann Roof found his targets, African-Americans engaged in worship."

Roof spent months plotting the attack, Lynch said.

"He was looking for the type of church and the type of parishioners whose death would, in fact, draw great notoriety for...his racist views," she said.

Another place of worship -- meant to be a refuge -- was the scene of mass shooting in August 2012.

An Army veteran opened fire in a gurdwara -- or Sikh house of worship -- in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four others.

Wade Michael Page died of a self-inflicted wound after being shot by a police officer, the FBI said. The shooting came as violent attacks on Sikhs were spiking following September 11, 2001.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder called the attack "an act of terrorism, an act of hatred, a hate crime."

According to a man who described himself as an old Army buddy of Page's, the attacker talked about "racial holy war" when they served together in the 1990s.

Christopher Robillard, of Oregon, who said he had lost contact with Page, added in 2012 that when Page would rant, "it would be about mostly any non-white person.

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The Buffalo supermarket massacre is the latest mass shooting authorities say was motivated by hate - KCCI Des Moines

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

Everyone has heard the old line that if you have two Jews you get three opinions.

Michael Takiff has done that one better. He has three opinions all by himself.

Mr. Takiff is the author and performer of Jews, God and History (Not Necessarily in That Order), which opened on May 18 for a three-week run at the Siggy Theater at the Flea in Manhattan. (The off-off Broadway venue is named after supporter Sigourney Weaver.)

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The play is in many ways an exercise in incongruity.

Im an atheist, Mr. Takiff says. But an atheist who adds that the Lord must remain our God. It is this dichotomy he offers in his performance, raising questions he hopes his audience answers.

Mr. Takiff, 66, grew up in Elizabeth, supposedly (according to the publicity material) the great, great, great, great, great-grandson of the legendary chasidic sage Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. That is supposedly, because when asked in a Zoom interview if he inherited any of the rabbis (you should pardon the expression) saintliness, he demurs.

I had an uncle, my Uncle Milton, who had a book and calculated and somehow figured out we were descendants of this great sage, Mr. Takiff said. Uncle Milton was committed to grandiosity, so theres no way to confirm it. Its sort of a fun fact. Ill take it.

Whether or not there is an actual blood connection, however, Mr. Takiff says he shares one special trait with the rabbi argumentativeness.

Hes famous for questioning God, Mr. Takiff said. Putting God on trial for saying to God were atoning for our sins, but you have things to answer for, too. And in my show I ask the same questions, challenge some assumptions of how we look at God.

I dont want to make too much of my being a descendant of this sage, but I do take from him that he was willing to question, willing to ask these questions. I will not say that I am a particularly observant or religious man, but Ive thought a lot about it. We as humans and we as Jews have many different ways of looking at God, especially in the modern age. Especially in the post-Shoah age. And I present different ways of looking at this question.

Mr. Takiff began asking questions in Elizabeth, where his family attended services at the Orthodox synagogue at the Jewish Educational Center. We were Orthodox by affiliation, but not necessarily by practice, Mr. Takiff said. My father was a strong believer and felt comfortable at the Orthodox synagogue. It was also the closest shul to our home.

There was an extremely charismatic rabbi, a magnificent personality. But we were not Orthodox by observance. We were not kosher strictly. But we did avoid the big stuff. We didnt eat shellfish. We didnt eat pork.

That produced one of Mr. Takiffs Jews, God and History riffs. The way he explains it in the show, kosher meat is too expensive. As long as you walk past the pork section of the supermarket meat counter, youve fulfilled your obligation to your people.

Similarly, cheeseburger? Okay? But milk with a pastrami sandwich is a grievous sin against Gods chosen people.

Those probably are not the rules he learned at the JECs Hebrew school or during his bar mitzvah lessons. Perhaps he picked them up during a period in my life, maybe 19, 20 years, where I didnt enter a synagogue except for the occasional wedding or bar mitzvah. But then, he got married.

My wife and I had a child and we wanted to raise him in the tradition, he said.

They joined a synagogue near their home on Manhattans Upper West Side. Theyre tolerant of all levels of observance, Mr. Takiff said. It was really meaningful to me when I started going back. During the singing, though so much of it was different with the Sephardic accent, but the melodies and the words were the same that I remembered sitting next to my father in this synagogue many years ago in New Jersey.

Its really an emotional connection. I think thats what it is rather than my saying I believe the words in the prayer book. Its more away to say yeah, Im in. Im part of this tribe. This is who I am. This is my identity.

It should be noted that being a Person of the Book fits Mr. Takiff well. Hes written a few serious works, including A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him, published by Yale University Press, and Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: American Fathers and Sons in World War II and Vietnam. Published by HarperColllins/Willliam Morrow. The latter was chosen as a critics pick by the Washington Post and called a superb oral history [that] would do Studs Terkel proud.

Mr. Takiff is less serious in the show, where he does some old Catskill schtick. Abraham was all in on the covenant deal until informed he has to cut off what? He also touches upon some familiar tropes. If were chosen, where was God when we were slaughtered? Why do so many Christians have trouble understanding that not everyone celebrates their holiday?

But the high point for me was after discussing the survival of the Jewish people he notes thats not enough. If we cannot demand more of ourselves than that we merely survive, we might as well stop trying, Mr. Takiff said. If we forget our past, we have no reason for a future.

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Jews, God and History - The Jewish Standard

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

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Users On Violent Incel Forum Celebrate Buffalo, New York Shooting, Express Desire To Kill Black People And Jews: 'I Would Go In A Synagogue Or All The...

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

She was given a state funeral at the presidential palace in the de facto capital. She was a national hero. Children across the land mimic her voice and signature expressions. She was a household name

This past Friday, the day of Shireen abu Aklehs funeral in Jerusalem, I officiated at a funeral service and burial in Chicago. As always, every care was taken by the Jewish funeral home to convey the utmost respect to the deceased and gentle consideration to the family.

This may come across as strange to many people although not to most of my fellow clergy: I feel fortunate to do this work. Where else do people show up with, truly, the best version of themselves? Families trust me with their most tender stories and feelings. I love listening to the stories. I look for ways to help the families as I do my professional best to create a sacred space where the mourners can feel what they are feeling and honor their loved one.

This past Friday afternoon, when I got back home from the funeral, the images and stories and feelings from the day were still with me. It had been a long day. Between the service at the chapel and the ride to and from the distant cemetery, I had been out of the house most of the day.

I checked my news feed. The top item was the now famous video from Shireen al Aklehs funeral earlier in the day, in Jerusalem. The casket is shouldered by Palestinian men. They are surrounded by other mourners bearing Palestinian flags. But a phalanx of heavily armed Israeli riot police and secret service is moving in on the pallbearers. I dont understand what I am looking at. Why? The pallbearers stand firm. The armed men move in again, and again, wielding truncheons, lashing out at the mourners legs. Some fall to the ground.

And then, to my horror, the casket dips. One end slips to the ground -but the pallbearers immediately regain control. They stand tall, shoulder to shoulder, holding the casket steady.

This was so far removed from anything I have experienced in my work or mypersonal life. Why was a peaceful funeral being attacked in this way, and bythe same forces that apparently killed her?

I rarely call my elected officials. Yet I was so upset that I immediately contacted the local office of my congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky (9th district, IL). I registered my concern and called on her to condemn the violence and disrespect shown to Shireens remains and to her family at her funeral.

The next day, I met my Arabic teacher Sara, a West Bank Palestinian, for our regular online study session. We start our lessons with Arabic conversation about whatever comes to mind. Sara is usually upbeat, but not today. She opens with: kaana yawm thaqeel it has been a heavy day. Shireens death was a personal loss for her.

After expressing my condolences, I asked Sara for her take on the gross mistreatment of Shireen abu Aklehs body and the mourners.

Sara: All the Israeli police could see were the Palestinian flags, not the funeral. The Israeli police couldnt handle the flags. So they attacked the casket.

But, to tell you the truth, when I saw the same scene you saw I was happy. There were no factional flags of this or that political party or religion, just the one flag, over and over again: the flag of Palestine. We were all united as Palestinians under the flag of Palestine. I am a Muslim and Shireen was a Christian but she was and is my hero, as she is for all Palestinians.

I was proud that the pallbearers stood their ground. These unarmed men were performing a sacred task. They did not give way when they came under attack. They did not drop the casket.

Saras words were arresting. Seeing the events from the United States I was shocked and outraged. But she, a Palestinian living under the Israeli military occupation, saw something else that I had not been able to name: her countrymens bravery and sumud resilience.

Then the funeral procession passed by the Old City of Jerusalems Jaffa Gate [the main entry point for Israeli Jews to the Old City] and past alQalaah [Davids Citadel a Muslim minaret that since became a Jewish/Zionist icon]. That was really something! I had never seen such a sight before! A large group of Palestinians assembled outside the Old City, right in front of Jaffa Gate!

I dont believe I had changed anything by calling Rep. Schakowskys office; I dont even know if my message will be relayed to her or if I just entered the congressional districts tally of those supporting the Palestinians. When I told Sara in my halting Arabic about the call, she thanked me. She said that knowing that the U.S. Congress is hearing from Americans about the violence helps. Perhaps that is the one reliable benefit of any activism we do over here, letting the Palestinians know they are not alone.

Saras perspective was yet another reminder for me that however deeply involved many of us are with Israel/Palestine, this is their issue, not ours. To state the obvious, they are the ones living under military occupation and threat of violence, not us. So, how can outsiders living a different reality stand with the Palestinians living under the occupation?

I suggest that we can learn from the Palestinians how to stand in our own form of sumud resilience in the service of justice and security for Palestinians and Israelis. While we outsiders are far removed from the harsh realities of life in Palestine, our social lives also come under pressure from the Israeli occupation, albeit a far milder variety. This social pressure is particularly felt by those who affiliate with Jewish congregations.

I was an active member of a local Jewish congregation for many years. This congregation justifiably sees itself as progressive. Many of its members work professionally as leaders in various progressive fields. While most members of this Jewish community are Zionist, several are non-Zionist and support the Palestinian cause for justice too.

And yet, in one significant way, this community is uniformly reactionary. It imposes a double standard with regard to conversation about Palestine. The de facto rule is: pro-Palestinian posts must be labeled political even if the content is clear from the subject line; pro-Israel posts need no label whatsoever.

This has a chilling effect on any support for Palestinian rights. In our online community forum, while posts justifying Israels violence against the Palestinians are routine and pass without comment, statements made in support of Palestinian rights are rare and are treated as controversial.

During Israels last major attack on Gaza in May 2021, a pro-war post written by one of our members went up on the community listserv. The post rehearsed the Israeli armys talking points justifying the violence. The claims included falsehoods; in the context of the ongoing violence I found them inflammatory.

I posted a response. I challenged the veracity of the Israeli armys claims about Gaza. More importantly, I tried to humanize the Palestinians. I told of my Palestinian friends whose relatives had been wounded in the recent Israeli gunfire. Its hard to justify killing people you know.

I had anticipated the usual pushback from the usual suspects and that swiftly came. I received a warning that I would bring the wrath of the community down on my head. I was reprimanded publicly by the listserv moderator for not labelling my response political. But I was surprised when even several of my fellow supporters of Palestinian rights contacted me, faulting me for my post. They went so far as to tell me to be silent.

Not one member of the congregation spoke up for Palestinians human rights or to challenge the moderators call. I contacted one these pro-Palestinian friends and called her out for trying to silence me.

She asked: What is it you are you asking of me?

Me: I am not asking you support the Palestinians in public or even to defend my right to speak in their support in public. What I am asking you is not to ask me to be silent when I do speak up and for you to show me your support, if only in private.

She: I can do that.

And she followed through. We are still good friends. But, soon after this conversation, I left this Jewish congregation, one of my longstanding Jewish communities.

I still see myself as friends with many in this Jewish congregation and hope that they see me in the same light. But this incident crystallized what I had long felt: I can no longer pray with them. How can I open my heart in prayer in a community that is unanimous in its call to silence me about some of my most deeply held prayers?

This experience, since replicated in other settings, established for me the reality that all the members of this and other Jewish congregations across the world, Zionists and non-Zionists alike, adhere to the uniform code of silencing: Thou Shalt not oppose Israels War on the Palestinians in the Jewish Community.

Jews are allowed to question Israel privately but are required to remain silent in public, Jewish spaces. Thats the price of admittance that even non-Zionists must pay to be included in a Jewish congregation. Furthermore, selfcensorship is not sufficient. In addition to self-censorship, members are required to join in enforcing that censorship on all others.

My old friends in this Jewish community are right. Speaking up for Palestinian rights in the Jewish community is political and divisive. How could it not be when one of the organizing principles of Jewish congregations is supporting Israels agenda at the expense of the Palestinians.

I believe in inclusion of all Jews in Jewish congregations. I had been part of this congregation believing that it fully welcomed Zionists and non-Zionists alike. I was also the rabbi of a congregation where I successfully invited Zionists and non-Zionists to publish their views on Israel on the synagogue website. I believe is should be possible for Jews with different views on Israel/Palestine to worship together.

I therefore reject the accusation of divisiveness as I reject the demand for silence. The accusation of silencing and divisiveness is on them, not those of us who speak up for Palestinian rights in the Jewish community.

I am finding that its possible to live a happy life as a Jew and as a rabbi, without being a member of a Jewish congregation. After all, most Jews are not members of any synagogue and most of the minority who are synagogue members rarely attend religious services, if at all. With few exceptions, synagogue membership today is a statement of affiliation and identification, not fellowship or spiritual or even just ritual practice. Synagogue membership functions like museum membership. You pay your dues and visita few times a year. How many Jews go to shul outside of High Holydays and Barmitzvahs?

I think of the friendships I am forming in Chicago, across the United States and beyond, in Palestine, too. Friendships that dont require me to stifle my voice, friendships that give me hope for a kinder, more mentschlich future, friendships that nourish my soul.

As for being in the Jewish wilderness, I turn for instruction and inspiration to the Torah: Famously, most of the Torah is set in the wilderness, ending with the death of Moses at the end of the forty years of living in that wilderness. This journey extends across four of the Pentateuchs five books, from Exodus to Deuteronomy. The wilderness is where the Torah is given and where the Torah is written.

The wilderness is the less obvious path. Jewish tradition infers that four out of five freed Hebrew slaves refused to follow Moses. They never left the land where they had been slaves. But, per the Torah, the wilderness is a good place for a Jew to be.

So where are the Palestinian voices in mainstream media?

Mondoweiss covers the full picture of the struggle for justice in Palestine. Read by tens of thousands of people each month, our truth-telling journalism is an essential counterweight to the propaganda that passes for news in mainstream and legacy media.

Our news and analysis is available to everyone which is why we need your support. Please contribute so that we can continue to raise the voices of those who advocate for the rights of Palestinians to live in dignity and peace.

Palestinians today are struggling for their lives as mainstream media turns away. Please support journalism that amplifies the urgent voices calling for freedom and justice in Palestine.

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Bullets that silence, words that silence Mondoweiss - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

A recent report, Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, notes that the universitys faculty, staff and leaders held more than 70 black slaves between 1636, when Harvard was founded, and 1783, when Massachusetts abolished slavery. In atonement, President Lawrence Bacow reports, the university intends to dedicate $100 million of its endowment to help address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society.

A Harvard Crimson editorial speaks with even stronger moral conviction of the desire for rightful justice that spreads like wildfire when oppression strikes anywhere in the world. Moved to right past wrongs, the editors propose to help free Palestine by boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, which stands accused of pushing Palestinians toward indefinite statelessness, combining ethnonationalist legislation and a continued assault on the sovereignty of the West Bank through illegal settlements that difficults [sic] the prospect of a two-state solution.

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Slavery, Anti-Semitism and Harvards Missing Moral Compass - The Wall Street Journal

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

The idea is if we dont look out the white race will bewill be utterly submerged. Its all scientific stuff; its been proved.

These are not the words of the teenager who walked into a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday to hunt down Black Americans, although they might as well be. These are the words of Tom Buchanan, a rich, repugnant character in the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

Shortly before the massacre in Buffalo, authorities say, the shooter published a 180-page document that is an unpleasant mixture of the disconcertingly new and the horribly familiar. Underneath the superficial novelty of the suspects alleged actions (livestreaming the atrocity on Twitch, publishing the manifesto on Google Docs) and his vocabulary (his complaint about buying a cucked assault rifle that he had to modify, for example) is a sprawling, discredited ideology that was once entertained by respectable people and has now crept back toward the mainstream.

Graeme Wood: Why Tucker Carlson should want the Buffalo manifesto made public

The manifesto is steeped in early-20th-century scientific racismwhich motivated Gatsbys Buchananand the anti-Semitism that so often accompanied it. The document contains pages of memes about Jewish control of the world, plus scientific-looking scattergraphs of IQs broken down by racial group. Call this the intersectionality of hate: Just as academics have pointed out that marginalized identities (race, class, sex, disability) can overlap and reinforce one another, so too can old hatreds. Far-right movements are flexible about identifying the other from which their adherents are supposedly under threat. Many fascists see liberated women as a symbol of social decadence and decline. The KKK also targeted Jews. That an anti-Black racist like the Buffalo shooter would also be in thrall to anti-Semitic tropes might seem surprising, but intersectional hate is a totalizing ideology. Every new talking point is woven into the same tapestry, in which white men are at the center, protecting their women, and everyone else is at the margins.

The Buffalo shooter is open about the source of his radicalization. It was the internet, and specifically an anonymous discussion board on 4chan. There I learned through infographics, shitposts, and memes that the White race is dying out, he writes. He distributes the blame among Black Americanswhom he depicts as violent and lazyand the Jews and the elite who control them.

Although he doesnt mention them by name, the shooters grievance also lies with white women, through his invocation of falling birth rates and the Great Replacement, a conspiracy theory that accuses left-wing politicians of encouraging immigration to undermine majority white, Christian societies and create new, obedient voter bases. In his mythology, Black Americans are among the replacersa dehumanizing term repeatedly invoked in the documentwhile the masterminds of the replacement are Jews. This is one example of how hatreds amplify one another: If Black Americans are so inferior, how can they be a threat to the glorious white race? Ah, because they are being directed by shadowy puppet masters. And which group has been cast in this role throughout history? The Jews.

Yair Rosenberg: Why so many people still dont understand anti-Semitism

Although the American strain of white supremacy is distinctive, recent terrorists have been influenced by many overlapping ideas. The man who massacred 51 people at a New Zealand mosque in 2019 subscribed to the European version of Great Replacement theory, in which the demographic attack comes from Muslims, and Jews do not prominently feature. The gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the same year released a manifesto warning of a Hispanic invasion. The man who set fire to a mosque and shot four people in a synagogue in Poway, California, insisted in his own screed that Jews deserved to die for their role in feminism which has enslaved women in sin.

The ideology might be flexible, but it always returns the same answer: The West is in decline; the white race is under threat, and it must be protected by violence. In place of the messy truth that migration is a continuous churn driven by war, famine, and individuals desire for a better life, the Great Replacement suggests a coherent plan controlled by knowable forces. Such theories thrive in hard times, because they offer themselves as an antidote to chaos.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Francis Galton and other then-respected scientists talked earnestly about classifying humans into superior and inferior races. Galtons heirs used the new technology of the IQ test, originally developed to identify children struggling at school, to collect proof of the alleged superiority of Europeans. Their work depended on definitions of whiteness, and rigid racial categories, that have since been debunked. (At various times in American history, Polish, Irish, and Italian immigrants would not have been considered white in the same way as those of Nordic stock.) Todays geneticists know better than to build their work on such shifting sands.

Nevertheless, the blithe assertions of early eugenicists and scientific racists are now being recast, a century later, in the clunky visual style of the modern internet, with its homemade cut-and-paste jobs of text overlaid on graphics. The anti-Semitic tropes in the Buffalo shooters manifesto could come straight from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text about a minority with disproportionate powers to control the world, or Henry Fords Dearborn Independent. But these ideas are presented in picture form. Page after page identifies people who hold important jobs as Jews; readers are left to form their own (predestined) conclusion. Also included are tables of supposedly Jewish facial features that could have come straight from a 19th-century phrenology handbook. Hes saying something that Ive never seen so clearly expressed before, Adam Rutherford, a British geneticist who writes about scientific racism, told me. He was radicalized by infographics.

Kathleen Belew: White power, white violence

The slapdash, collage style of the manifesto is the true novelty here; the author discusses his underwear, his lunch plans, and his Myers-Briggs profile alongside his murderous hatred of Black Americans, Jews, and other races. This format underscores how todays terrorists tend to radicalize themselves, alone, at home. They are technically lone wolves but are in constant dialogue with the internets bleakest corners. The blizzard of facts and figures on far-right websites flatters them into thinking they have followed a trail of clues and arrived at the truth themselves, unlike the blinkered herd. It is a narcissistic fantasy that casts the young radical as the hero of his own questa detective story in which he is an active participant. Many mass shooters have a sense of grievance in search of a mythology. The manifestos author claims that he found communism at age 12 but rejected it when he found something more useful to his psychological needs.

Rutherford, the author of the book How to Argue With a Racist, studies how academic research into intelligence and population genetics is laundered for use on white-supremacist websites. He cites the example of a mainstream paper on inheritance that featured a scatterplot on characteristics of people of Jewish descent, and ended up in racist internet posts. The simple addition of group labels such as quadroon Jewsa term repurposed from Jim Crowera Americatransformed a careful scientific study into a piece of racist propaganda. This is using science to prop up a preexisting ideology. Its exactly what happened in the 1900s with the [genetics] work of Gregor Mendelthe eugenicists seized on it, Rutherford said. Its the same as it ever was. New techniques, old story.

People drawn to intersectional omni-hatred can find multiple on-ramps online. One way into this mindset is through tasteless jokesmany users of sites such as 4chan see mocking the Holocaust as thrillingly transgressive. But ironic anti-Semitism expressed for shock value can shade into overt, unironic anti-Semitism expressed as a genuine belief. Another on-ramp is the debate, now simmering for more than a century, about the supposed connection between race and intelligence. Modern geneticists are reluctant to make sweeping statements about populations, but their nuanced disputes about the influence of environment versus heredity are presented instead by the far right as the left-wing suppression of obvious but unspeakable facts. (The resurgence of scientific racism as a political force poses a challenge to genetics researchers, many of whom would prefer to dodge these controversial questions altogether but risk leaving the field clear for cranks.)

Adam Serwer: Demography is not destiny

Anti-feminism is also a route to the far right. Nearly all mass shooters are men, and the tone of many far-right sites assumes that all their readers are male. White women mainly exist in this ideology to be protected from rape by invaders or from their own desire to have children with nonwhite men. Feminism is a threat because it frees women from mens economic control and might encourage them to pursue careers at the expense of motherhood. The Buffalo shooter invoked a white-supremacist slogan: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. The we are white men, framed as soldiers and martyrs, posing as the heroic defenders of the weak. A power fantasy is baked into this ideology, but so is feara clammy horror of becoming redundant and obsolete.

In the 1920s and 30s, a prominent man could voice his discriminatory thoughts about inferior races and the international Jew out loud, in public; Gatsbys fictional Buchanan had real-life counterparts in Ford and Father Coughlin. In the century since, pseudoscientific racism has been driven to the margins of society and appears instead in watered-down forms, in allusions, winks, and dog whistles. (Especially after the Buffalo shooting, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been widely criticized for promoting the Great Replacement theory. But as my colleague Graeme Wood notes, Carlson could not keep his job if he presented it in the grotesque terms expressed in the shooters manifesto.) Yet the banishment of overt scientific racism from the public square has given it a new glamour online, where it marinates alongside other forms of hatred and draws adherents who convince themselves that urgent truths are being suppressed. That mindset allows young men to brick themselves inside a mental castle of half-truths and old lies, fed by their own sense that they deserved better, and they could be remembered as a hero, if only they picked up a gun.

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The Intersectionality of Hate - The Atlantic

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History opened this past weekend for the first time since the pandemic lockdown shut its doors in March 2020.

That would be cause enough for museum officials to celebrate. But theres more.

The reopening follows a crippling bankruptcy and marks the first time the museum will operate at its current location with no construction debt hanging over its head and no mad scramble to cover regular interest payments.

Thanks to the largesse of designer, shoe manufacturer, and philanthropist Stuart Weitzman, 79, the museum has shed all of the long-term debt carried since the 2010 opening of its new $150 million facility off Independence Mall at Fifth and Market Streets.

Its unbelievable, said president and chief executive Misha Galperin, as he stood in the museum lobby and greeted visitors. Galperin took the reins of the museum just three years ago.

We had filed for bankruptcy on March 1. March 13 was a Friday and we closed the doors because of COVID. We canceled the big event that was scheduled for March. We had this whole plan for how were going to go forward. And then, you know, wham bam, Galperin said.

COVID hit.

And then we werent eligible for [federal COVID relief loans] because we were in bankruptcy. So thats two years we were held up. But we pivoted very quickly to be online and had enormous success with that. And we were fortunate to figure out how to exit bankruptcy in September of last year, and then Stuart came through with his transformational gift, he said.

And now Galperin greeted visitors on reopening day as he awaited Weitzman, who was in town he lives in Connecticut for meetings with museum officials and with Penn, Weitzmans alma mater and another recipient of his largesse. The Penn design school is now named after him.

Weitzmans gift to the museum in November was more than $20 million, he says, and allowed the museum to buy its own building and build its endowment.

The museum reopening is marked by a new exhibition of artworks and installations conceived by artist Jonathan Horowitz, The Future Will Follow the Past. Designed specifically for the museum, the exhibition explores the changes the country has experienced since 2020, addressing anti-Semitism, racial violence, immigration, womens rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Juxtaposing Horowitzs work with objects from the museums core collection, the exhibit is scattered across four floors. The proximity of the various works creates a dialogue, museum curators said.

For instance, a copy of Faith Ringgolds We Came to America (the original is in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) depicts Africans swimming toward a Black Statue of Liberty as a ship burns in the background. Ringgolds powerful image hangs in front of a more conventional view of the statue from a 19th century advertising poster, possibly for soap, said Claire Pingel, the museums chief registrar and associate curator.

Nearby is an untitled Horowitz sculpture that explores the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where hundreds of white supremacists, Klan sympathizers, and neo-Nazis gathered in a violent protest over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. One counter-protester was killed. Afterward, Charlottesvilles city council ordered that the Lee statue be hidden, covered by a black tarp. Six months later, a judge ordered that the covering be removed.

Horowitzs sculpture presents the covered sculpture cloaked in black. Interestingly, the Lee statue was created by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a young Jewish sculptor from Virginia who lived in Rome. Ezekiel fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and later crafted both Confederate and Union monuments, as well as sculptures decorating the United States Capital.

When Weitzman arrived at the museum after visiting Penn, he said that this kind of innovative display has been characteristic of the museum throughout his experience of it.

I loved it when I visited it, Weitzman said of trips going back several years. Im involved with Penn a lot and then I heard that this building might become an office tower because the bank was owed all this money.

Weitzman did not care for that idea so, about a year ago, he sold an extremely rare Double Eagle gold piece, a unique stamp, and another block of four stamps at Sothebys for a reported $32 million.

These guys benefited from it, Weitzman said glancing around at Galperin and a few museum board members.

Ive actually had an impact on the museum experience, he said.

A few years ago, he called up his friend Sidney Kimmel, who had just stepped down as museum board chair, and said, Sydney, Im looking at 15 renowned Americans on a screen here [at the museum], and one of the pictures in the lower right corner is Ethel Rosenberg, Weitzman said, referring to the museums Only in America gallery hall of fame. I said, What in the world is that museum thinking? Ethel Rosenberg? Known? Yes. Renowned? No. And he said, Hey, I dont know. I helped build the place 20 years ago, but I dont run it. But would you send me a shot of that screen? And within a week her picture was down.

Weitzman was impressed, and he realized he could have an impact.

I began to come around and send people, my kids, he said. Its the only museum, I believe, that is dedicated to American Jewish history. If he could help the museum avoid falling into bankruptcy and becoming an office tower, he would find it.

Josh Perelman, the museums chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections, was asked about the Ethel Rosenberg incident. He said he was not party to any conversations Weitzman had with Kimmel or other board members.

But, said Perelman, the museum is dedicated to presenting multiple viewpoints.

We are committed to exploring history from multiple different perspectives, Perelman said. Part of understanding, whether its our history as a community of Jews or our history as a nation, sometimes that means asking hard questions. Sometimes that means facing people or events that challenge us.

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Philadelphias Jewish history museum reopens after bankruptcy and a 2-year shutdown - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

One person helping educate younger generations is Ruth Steinfeld, a child survivor of the Holocaust who features prominently in Werners film and who took part in the panel. Born in Germany in 1933, Steinfeld was sent to Gurs, a concentration camp in southwestern France, with her sister and parents when she was 7. A French aid agency helped smuggle the children to safety, but Steinfeld never saw her mother or father again. Decades later she learned they had both been killed at Auschwitz. Today she shares her story, she told the audience, to honor them and the staggering number of children murdered during the Nazi regime.

When I found out what happened to my parents, I made a silent decision that I will not let it happen, that the world will know what actually did happen, that 1.5 million children were murdered. And to me that is of utmost importance, to let the world know not to let this happen ever again, said Steinfeld. We know that in many places, a lot of this is happening. And we need to keep talking about it.

The film captures Steinfeld speaking to Laporche Abrams history class at Hastings High School in Houston. Abram, who took part in the panel during a lunchtime class break, said Steinfelds visit helped her students connect her story of struggle and survival in one way or another with their own personal stories.

Daniel Braunfeld, associate program director of special projects for Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit using lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate, said stories from the past can help students better understand empathy, motivations, inspirations, and consequences of peoples everyday choices, and the decisions students they make in their own lives.

[History] provides a little bit of arms length for students to be able to wrestle with these questions about how people treat each other, engage in processes, what are the impacts of ideologies, said Braunfeld, so they can begin to recognize their agency in the present.

In her class, Abram asks her students to study the personal narratives of children who experienced the Holocaust and to keep their own diaries. For the past two years the teens have chronicled their lives during the pandemic, she said, writing about school closures or losing a loved one. By comparing their own experiences to those of the children who suffered during World War II, Abram said they feel that empathy and are better able to understand what these particular groups of individuals were going through.

I think that thats important because once were able to make those connections, and theyre able to find something that they can relate to they then become invested in wanting to learn more.

ModeratorEric Shed, a lecturer on education at HGSE, asked Steinfeld what the world still needs to learn from the Holocaust and from her own experience. What the world has experienced is 6 million Jewish people died for no reason other than someone decided that we were not welcome in this world, my parents included, she answered. What we need to learn is that were all created equally.

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Lessons in hate from the Holocaust to Buffalo - Harvard Gazette

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Posted By admin on May 20, 2022

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Northern Kentucky Republican, was the only House member to voteagainst a resolution this week that condemned rising antisemitism in the nationandworld.

The American Jewish Committee publicly criticized Massie, who votes against things so often he gotthe nickname"Mr. No."

"It's Jewish (American) Heritage Month," the national group's chief field operations officer, Melanie Maron Pell of Louisville, told The Courier Journal."In a moment when not a whole lot gets overwhelming support bipartisan support this should not have been hard. This should not have been a hard one for him, to support and recognize that antisemitism is on the rise."

More: Only one lawmaker voted against all recent legislation aimed at Russia. He's from Kentucky

The resolution Massievoted against Wednesday afternoon includes several non-binding calls to action, including:

Massie tweeted at about 1 a.m. Thursdaysaying: "If we just voted based on the names of the bills, Id vote for almost all of them." He did not specifically mention the resolution on antisemitism.

He tweeted directly about the resolution Thursday afternoon, saying:

"I dont hate anyone based on his or her ethnicity or religion. Legitimate government exists, in part, to punish those who commit unprovoked violence against others, but government cant legislate thought.This bill promoted internet censorship and violations of the 1st amendment."

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Pell, of the American Jewish Committee, said it's important for members of Congress to show recognition as the House of Representatives did Wednesday, by voting 420-1 to approve this resolution that antisemitism is a legitimate, serious and increasing problem here in the U.S.

"The Jewish community is feeling vulnerable," she said. "And we expect our elected officials to speak up ... and demonstrate that they both recognize theres a problem and stand with the Jewish community."

Pell said voting in support of this congressional resolution condemning antisemitism was "like the lowest threshold required," adding that other members of Congress who "have been problematic in different ways for many in the Jewish community" supported this measure.

Recent instances of antisemitism as well as Jewish individuals' direct experiences with that longstanding form of hate across the nation have been reportedby the AJC and other organizations.

More: Louisville's Jewish Community Center cleared after bomb threat Wednesday

Pell indicated Massie's 'no' vote this week was especially concerning as the country grapples with a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. A white man is chargedwithkilling10 people and injuring three more individuals, nearly all of them Black.

The accused shooter posted documents online that talked about a racist conspiracy theory that's rooted in white supremacy and antisemitism.

Massie's lone 'no' vote wasn't surprising, Pell said, but it was still disappointing.(It's worth noting that while Massie was the only person who voted against the resolution, eight other House Republicans did not cast a vote on the resolution Wednesday. None of those eight were from Kentucky.)

More: Thomas Massie shares supposed Voltaire quote. Its real source: A reported neo-Nazi

Pell pointed to other past actions by Massie that she indicated were similarlytroubling, including:

Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal'schief political reporter. Contact her atmwatkins@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26.

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KY Rep. Thomas Massie voted 'no' on measure condemning antisemitism - Courier Journal

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