Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

Russia invaded Ukraine over a week ago. And since then, Russians living abroad myself included have been talking about one feeling in particular: shame.

Although my family immigrated to Canada when I was a little kid, shame over the Russian invasion has grown to a constant gnawing within my belly. As Vladimir Putin sends rockets towards apartment blocks in Kyiv; as I obsessively watch videos of Ukrainians taking shelter in the metro; and as I imagine what it is like to take up arms to defend ones home against, well, us, the feeling only gets more corrosive. I know that many other Russians and people with Russian heritage can relate.

But lets face it: the world doesnt need Russian shame right now. Shame immobilises. It implies embarrassment more than horror, inviting us to lick our wounds and look inward. That helps no one, least of all Ukraine. Instead, we should be taking a stand.

Putin has shown us the extent of the Russian states perversion, albeit in acid tones wed never imagined wed see. That needs to be pushed back against, and we in the Russian diaspora are in a uniquely sheltered position to speak up.

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So, I think that two things need to happen. Outwardly, we must move past our shame to embrace what I believe is our moral responsibility: to recognise our privilege compared to Russians living under Putins regime and act in solidarity with Ukrainians and the world. Inwardly, we need to confront our shame by accepting that our identities as Russian people have been shattered. We will see ourselves differently going forward, as will others. And so we must ask ourselves: how would we like to be seen and what can we do about it?

Nowadays, I live in Denmark. I can attend protests without fearing for my safety. I can post what I think on my social media accounts without having to worry about repercussions for myself or my family. And I can access any news source I want to gain the most thorough understanding of Russias invasion and its ramifications. Many other Russians living abroad are in the same situation.

The same cannot be said for many people living under Putins regime. The Russian police swiftly arrest those who protest their presidents war against Ukraine. Public access to information that doesnt toe the state line is becoming more restricted by the day. And outspoken figures run the risk of being made an example of as Alexei Navalnys continuing imprisonment shows. Russians living inside Russia enjoy little space for dissent, so we must do our best to fill the gap. I deeply feel it is our duty to recognise our privilege and speak up against the Russian states actions.

What does that look like? Attending demonstrations and speaking out on social media are good starting points, as is donating money to organisations helping Ukrainians on the ground. Whats more, we must challenge our family members attitudes that partially excuse Russias actions in Ukraine. Im not talking about the declaration of war per se its clear that most Russian people are disgusted by this. But many of us heard a version of the Russia against the world story growing up. I certainly did.

Whether they were complaining about Russias stolen victory in the Second World War or American meddling in Russian affairs, my family gave me the impression that post-Soviet Russia is the worlds anti-hero and victim. Even though my parents were openly critical of the state, an undercurrent of pride in Russias status as the black sheep remained.

Moreover, the legacy of Soviet imperialism isnt exactly gone. Even today, I hear my family members and their friends implying that Russia was and still can be the superior power, while ex-Soviet states like Ukraine are somehow lesser entities culturally and historically.

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Ukraine doesn't need the Russian diaspora's shame. It needs its voice - Open Democracy

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

My wife and I share a past that spans continents and tracks back to the Polish-Ukrainian border. Eighty-two years ago, during a frigid winter, both sets of our grandparents made the same escape from eastern Poland, ahead of the Nazis occupation. They crossed the River Bug, and found their way to what is today Lviv, Ukraine.

For more than a decade weve wanted to visit our ancestral homeland. The plan at last was set and we hope it still is in May, we are to arrive in Zamosc, Poland, birthplace of three of our grandparents, stop by the nearby village where the fourth came from, and then drive two hours east to Lviv.

But just when you think you are studying history, you find that you are living it. Except now, the refugees are fleeing in the opposite direction.

Since the Russian war against Ukraine began, more than 1 million people have fled their homes. Train cars are packed. Cars line the highways out of Kyiv headed to Lviv and, for those who can exit, onward to Poland and other countries. It is projected to be the biggest displacement of Europeans since our grandparents fled their homes for the East in 1939, at the onset of World War II.

That was the coldest winter of my grandmothers life. She had defied her fathers demands that she remain with her month-old baby in Zamosc: You will lose the kind, he shouted at her in Yiddish you will lose the child.

Paula Gerson, Daniela Gersons grandmother, left, holding her first child in Zamosc, Poland.

(Courtesy of Daniela Gerson)

Instead, she crowded onto a Russian truck to meet my grandfather, who had gone ahead of her. They rented a small, unheated apartment in Soviet Lviv with other refugees, selling their belongings on the black market to survive. One last letter arrived with news of their parents: They had been relocated by the Nazis to Zamoscs ghetto.

I prayed, if I can live to May, Ill be able to go outside with my child, my grandmother recalled in an oral history project for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. Just the opposite, when I started to go with the baby outside, he caught a very bad pneumonia. In May 1940, my uncle perished at 8 months old. My grandfather said that losing their baby boy turned my grandmothers hair white.

Nearby in Lviv, my wife Talia Inlenders grandmother, then still a teenager, had also sought refuge. That winter, the memory book she had started in Poland, in which her friends shared rhymes and pleasant memories in a mix of Polish and Yiddish, took a darker turn.

Lviv, January 15, 1940 Remember that the patient will always get everything, so try to be patient.

Lviv, January 18, 1940 To Kind and Beautiful Pepcia: Almost everything is simple. Love God and Homeland. And dont forget me.

That summer, our grandparents were deported in cattle cars to Siberia, victims of one of Stalins massive and underreported purges.

Their forced labor in the gulag likely saved them from the gas chambers that extinguished their parents. Our grandparents we are convinced they must have crossed paths would be among 5,000 Jews (out of about 12,000 before the war) from Zamosc to survive. Most, like them, had endured Soviet imprisonment.

Once the Russians joined the Allies against the Germans in 1941, our grandparents were freed to travel within the Soviet empire. They landed in Uzbekistan. My grandmother said it was because they dreamed of making it to Palestine; my Uncle Moishe because it was warmer than Siberia. I have read that the relocation was simply part of Stalins plan.

After the war, rather than going back to Zamosc, where Poles in nearby towns were murdering returning Jews, they lived for years in Europes displaced-persons camps. My grandparents left for New York a decade after their frigid winter in Lviv; my wifes grandparents arrived in Haifa nine years after Lviv.

Pepa Inlender, Talia Inlenders grandmother, faces the camera in a snapshot believed to have been taken shortly before she fled the Nazis.

(Courtesy of Talia Inelder)

A month ago, as I dove into planning our trip to Poland and Ukraine, I contacted Daniel Sabacinski, who runs the local synagogue memorial site in Zamosc. (He isnt Jewish; he believes there is just one Jew left in Zamosc.) How easy would it be to travel on to Lviv? I asked him. No problem, he told me then, though Russian troops were massing on Ukraines borders.

The day of the Russian invasion I called him again. He was in shock. Its like 1939, he said. We havent had war in this part of Europe since World War II. War was just history.

War may never be just history in our families. The gassing deaths of their parents and half the Jews of Zamosc never faded for my grandparents; they lived by the mantra Never forgive, never forget. For our generation, that was amended to simply Never forget.

A similar generational shift from battle to history occurred after the Cold War. My father served in the Reagan administration at the United Nations and believed in fighting at all costs to defeat the evil empire. For my generation, coming of age with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the focus has been on reconciliation, finding ways to build a new global society together.

In a post-Cold War soft-power experiment, I was one of 10 Americans and 10 Russians awarded a German Chancellor Scholarship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. (The program has since expanded to include Chinese, Brazilians, Indians and South Africans.) For two months, we studied German in the West German capital of Bonn and drank a lot of vodka at raucous late-night parties before we scattered across the country to pursue research projects for the rest of the year. Bonding was part of the plan. It worked; some of the Russians are still among my closest friends.

Hours after the Ukraine invasion, I sent a WhatsApp message to them, checking in. One wrote back: How is it possible? We keep asking and have no words to explain.

I am also stunned, but perhaps a little less so.

Everything was so fast, my grandmother recalled in her 80s. It was such a shock. At the time, the idea that the Nazis would exterminate Jews seemed so silly or unbelievable. Later, she thought, how could I not have known?

My wife and I were raised to believe that we could move to a new era. But we were also raised to know intimately the unpredictable depravity deep in human nature that can change our trajectories in devastating and, as we would discover generations later, unexpected ways.

We hoped this was history; we fear it is not.

Daniela Gerson is a journalism professor at Cal State Northridge. She and Talia live in Echo Park with their 4-year-old twins.

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Op-Ed: Putin's diaspora will echo 1939's, but going in the opposite direction - Los Angeles Times

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

CHAIRMAN of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation in Europe (NIDO-Europe) Bashir Obasekola has expressed disappointment at the failure of both chambers of the National Assembly to pass the Bill for an Act to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, to Provide for Diaspora Voting, and other related matters.

Obasekola told The ICIR that it was unfortunate that lawmakers have not seen the need to improve on the current level of Diaspora engagement by making the necessary adjustment to the Constitution to bring the bill to light.

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However, he assured that Nigerians in the Diaspora will continue to push so that Diaspora voting can be actualised in the near future.

It is particularly disappointing to see the number that supported it (bill), which is less than 23 per cent of the whole National Assembly. That shows that we have not improved, even though Diaspora engagement has been on for more than 20 years, it means we are still yet to see the importance of bringing the Diaspora into voting.

We are disappointed as NIDO, because weve done all we can in terms of explanation and lobbying. We have other organisations and initiatives that also tried as much as they could in terms of awareness.

To us, it was a sad day. We believe that we deserve more in that aspect. We will continue to engage our lawmakers in future because we are not giving up in the struggle to actualise a voting right for the Diaspora in the nearest future, he said.

In the same vein, the Association of States Diaspora Focal Point Officers (ASDFPO) described the rejection of the bill as a setback for Nigerias democracy.

The association noted that as a result of the development, a huge segment of Nigerians in the Diaspora, who are contributing to the socioeconomic development of the country, have been disenfranchised.

What the National Assembly had done and said in no uncertain terms with the rejection of the Diaspora Voting Bill is that this incredible critical mass of our people, whose collective annual remittances dwarfs the countrys annual budgets in most cases, do not matter in the overall socio-economic and political scheme of things.

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ASDFPO believes that the rejection of the Diaspora Voting Bill has not only sent a very wrong signal but a wrong step in the wrong direction. It is therefore our wish that this bill would be re-represented for the right thing to be done, chairman of the association Femi Odere said in a statement.

The ICIR reported that out of 469 federal lawmakers, only 390 were present during plenary last Tuesday, and while 87 votes were counted in support of Diaspora voting, a majority 269 votes countered the bill, causing it to fail.

Figures released by the National Assembly showed that 62 Senators and 240 members of the House of Representatives voted against the bill, which sought to allow Nigerians in the Diaspora to register and vote in their countries of residence.

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Condemnation trails NASS' rejection of Diaspora voting bill - ICIR

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

Natalie Tershakowec , left, 27, and Lida Moroz, 27, sort paintings that are to be sent to donors. Tershakowec is a lawyer who has been painting since she was a child and decided to make these paintings to sell as a fundraiser for the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, which is fundraising for humanitarian aid to Ukraine.The Globe and Mail

When Putin launched a war against Ukraine, Canadas Ukrainian diaspora watched and listened in shock to what was happening with an initial sense of hopelessness. But then the community did what it have done for generations: it mobilized.

Civil society and grassroots organization have always been the foundation of Ukrainian society. Toronto, which is home to more than 100,000 Ukrainians, began to see many community initiatives spring up to support Ukraine. There was no more time for people to think, or to despair, only to act in whatever corner of their lives they could. The overwhelming outpouring of support from those outside the community continued to lift them up as everyone gathered to do what they could to lessen the increasingly worsening situation back home.

Ulana Oswald, 35, sorts supplies for Ukraine, in her living room in Mississauga, on March 2. She put out a call on Facebook for friends and co-workers to drop off humanitarian aid supplies that she will then take to larger drop-off locations.

Ulana Oswald's kids also made drawings that she puts in every box.

Volunteers package donations for Ukraine at the Meest location in Toronto. The word 'meest' means bridge in Ukrainian. To address the worsening humanitarian crisis, the shipping company started to accept donations and ship them to partnering charities in Ukraine.

Valentyna Pasichnyk tapes shut a box of donations at Ivan Franko Ukrainian Retirement Home where people can drop off donations, both medical and humanitarian.The Globe and Mail

Maria Proniuk gives a bag of donations to volunteers collecting humanitarian aid.

Nina Kachura buys some Ukrainian cake at Future Bakery in Toronto on March 3.

Taras Tereshyn, left, hands donation boxes to volunteer Maksym Botte at the Meest location. The company has been connecting the Ukrainian diaspora with Ukraine for over 30 years.

Volunteer Ulyana Zvizhynska takes a break from sorting donations at Ivan Franko Ukrainian Retirement Home. The retirement home is for Canadians of Ukrainian descent, some of who fled war in their country many decades ago.

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Canada's Ukrainian diaspora mobilizing to support Ukraine - The Globe and Mail

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

The Herald

Prosper Ndlovu in Dubai, UAE

ZIMBABWEANS based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have expressed readiness to invest back home through tapping into various business opportunities in the local economy.

A proposal has already been put in motion to establish the Zimbabwe Dubai Business Council, which will provide a platform for continuous engagement over business opportunities between the diaspora and their partners, as well as the Government.

The proposed entity is expected to be formally introduced to President Mnangagwa who is scheduled to lead the National Day events here on March 14, which will mark the pinnacle of Zimbabwes participation at the expo.

The Asian country has come under increased focus for Zimbabwe as the second largest trading partner with export earnings of about US$1,4 billion by 2020 and being a haven for scores of skilled expatriates.

Its thriving province of Dubai is home to many Zimbabweans who have established businesses and is host to the on-going world-acclaimed business exhibition Expo 2020 Dubai, which began last October.

Among the key take-aways from the countrys participation at the expo has been the warming up of the diaspora community here towards participating in the mainstream economy, not only as remittance contributors, but as investors and agents for driving the Zimbabwe economic interest.

Mr Rungano Innocent Nyaude, a financial expert based in Dubai and lead member of the business council initiative said they were working closely with the Zimbabwean Embassy here and that preparations for the launch of the new business council were at a higher level.

He said post-Expo 2020 Dubai, follow-up engagements would be very important in bringing to fruition the positive business leads.

This is one of the reasons why operationalising the business council will be crucial in facilitating continuous dialogue and connecting the business minds to ensure maximum gains.

We plan to introduce the business council when we meet His Excellency on March 14 and our preparations are almost at 90 percent, he said.

Mr Nyaude commended the Government for establishing the Zimbabwe Investment Development Authority (ZIDA) as the lead agency in investing into Zimbabwe and unlocking its vast opportunities.

He said as diaspora they were eager to work closely with the investment agency to attract more business for the economy.

In 2021 diaspora remittances were US$1.4 billion in Zimbabwe and they are our cash cow.

Yes, foreign direct investment is desirable but how do we make sure that institutions like ZIDA works with those diasporans to boost their opportunities back home, said Mr Nyaude.

Given the success stories registered at the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, which has been ranked among the top performers in sub-Saharan Africa in US-dollar gains, he said the diaspora were also eager to participate in capital markets opportunities.

In view of vast export opportunities to the UAE, Mr Nyaude said the country trade agency, ZimTrade, should partner the diasporans who are doing business here to promote the movement of goods in these markets.

UAE is very much open for business and the reason why we want to set up this business council is actually to showcase some of the Zimbabweans who are already owning and running businesses here across various sectors, he said.

We look at areas to do with the digital space because what Covid-19 has shown is growth of digital platforms. From a Zimbabwean perspective we first need to identify areas that we are good at, be it agriculture or mining.

The UAE is a good hub in terms of those areas. For example the UAE imports over 80 percent of their food that is consumed in this country.

For Zimbabweans in the food space who are able to value add, this is a good market to target to channel your products.

Mr Nyaude said Expo 2020 Dubai has highlighted the desperate need for business partnerships for economies to make the mark.

He said Zimbabwe needs such partnerships and that roping in the diaspora was a winning strategy.

The key take-away is who are your partners in the businesses that you do? Your partnerships are going to enable the growth of your business, he said.

In this environment you will not be able to really grown when you operate on your own, the value chain is important. Who is your supplier and consumer and can you connect the dots within that line?

Despite the adverse impact on all economies, Mr Nyaude said the UAE has shown greater agility in its ability to adjust to the new normal as well as driving robust growth when others were seeing challenges.

As such he said Zimbabwe has adequate potential to turnaround quickly through leveraging on its strengths and working towards more diversification to wean itself from relying on primary commodity exports.

So if they (UAE) are able to pivot on the strength, which is oil and utilise those gains to boost the other areas, which is non-trade, pivoting is very important, said Mr Nyaude.

Zimbabwe is strong in agriculture and mining and how do we pivot on these to boost our manufacturing? We do that by value addition.

We dont need to export our products in rawest forms that they are, we need to be able to value add and package.

We should at least process part of the product we have and when we export we would have boosted our industry.

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UAE diaspora ready to invest back home - The Herald

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

A thousand Palestinians from all over the world met in Istanbul last weekend to elect a new leadership for the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad and to evaluate its work over the five years since it was established in 2017. The conference is the only entity that brings Palestinians together outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and calls for their legitimate rights to be recognised and implemented. By its very nature, the conference rejects the marginalisation or exclusion of expatriate Palestinians from the political process in their occupied homeland.

Palestinians living abroad support the legitimate right to resist the Israeli occupation until it is ended; the liberation of the holy sites; and the legitimate right of return for refugees. These are the basic constants of the Palestinian cause that cannot be waived or neglected by any party. Participants at the conference were keen to stress the importance of this point.

Istanbul remains the only major capital city to open its arms to the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad, despite intense pressure from Mahmoud Abbas and his leadership team to prevent it taking place. As the titular head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Palestinian Authority and Fatah, Abbas does not want any genuine representation of the people of occupied Palestine, especially those who reject his defeatist approach to the occupation. He is making political and diplomatic efforts to prevent expat Palestinians from meeting to reject the Oslo Accords, even at the grassroots level, as is the case with this conference.

Palestinians from all backgrounds took part in Istanbul. Notable absentees included those who are directly subordinate to Abbas, or have material interests in him staying in control. The presence of young men and women alike was remarkable; they are our future and it was heartening to see them at the conference.

READ: Keeping Palestinian heritage alive in Chile

However, the lack of institutional and democratic action for and by Palestinians was evident, which cast a shadow over proceedings. Some participants have been able to exercise their right to vote for the first time, whereas others are unable to criticise any party freely except during this programme. Anger and tension were the understandable results, albeit justified in such a context.

Critics of the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad allege that the organisers waste both time and money. Such allegations are usually exaggerated, and are made without seeking the full facts beforehand. The reality is that most of the participants paid to attend the conference and covered their expenses; others from the refugee camps and thus on low incomes were sponsored by relatively wealthy businessmen. Travel costs were paid for by the participants themselves.

It cannot be stressed enough that an exceptional conference like this taking place every four years is of immense benefit, and is therefore justified in terms of expense, because it brings Palestinians together to coordinate activities and promotion of the cause. The conference also provides a unique networking opportunity for participants and organisations, including charities and humanitarian NGOs.

As is usual in such gatherings, everyone with specific interests felt that the time allocated to them was insufficient. That is inevitable, though, and does not detract from the overall effectiveness of the conference. Even the sort of opening day protocols seen regularly at major events had to be curtailed, such was the pressure on the organisers to squeeze as much as possible onto the programme.

There were also administrative and logistical difficulties that need to be acknowledged and eased so that Palestinian community work can be more structured and coordinated. This is essential if the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad is to become more widely known across the diaspora and the objective of having one million members is to be achieved.

The new leadership was duly elected, including the Secretary-General, Dr Ahmad Muhaisen, following some recent regulatory amendments. He is supported by the General Secretariat and a committee, the Public Authority, chosen to represent the membership.

READ: Palestinians had a prominent presence in Brazil's 26th Festival of Immigration

Such collective effort for the sake of Palestine and its people is both appreciated and necessary, especially in the absence of democratic and transparent Palestinian representation in our occupied homeland. Abbas and the PA, remember, cancelled the scheduled presidential and legislative elections last year, and have reduced the size of the PLO and made it an affiliate of the PA, instead of the reverse. The PLO is now dependent on the president of the still largely hypothetical "State of Palestine".

The belief in the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad shown by national figures such as Palestinian thinker Mounir Chafiq, veteran diplomat Rabhi Halloum, economist Fouad Bseiso and the elected head of the Public Authority of the conference, Samaan Khoury, along with many others, is testimony to its importance in serving the Palestinian national project. The repositioning of the Palestinian expatriates towards the centre of the project is essential given the attempts by Abbas and his allies to marginalise them.

As one participant pointed out, "One hand is not able to clap." Palestinian expatriates across the diaspora have a vital role to play in the future of the national project. The Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad is dedicated to making sure that they are not overlooked by the leadership within occupied Palestine. It should not be dismissed lightly.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Palestinians in the diaspora have a key role to play and must not be marginalised - Middle East Monitor

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

(from left) Kim Kyung-sung, chairman of the Blue Tree Foundation, Rep. Yang Hyang-ja of the ruling Democratic Party, Go Do-won, president of Godowon Foundation, and Choi Jin-young, CEO of the Korea Herald pose for a picture after signing the Memorandum of Understanding to support young ethnic Koreans living abroad. (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)

The K-Diaspora Project envisages shaping Korean youth in 190 countries roughly 2 million in total - into global leaders that share an identity anchored in Korean roots. Godowon Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth mentoring, and the Blue Tree Foundation, an NGO against school violence, have joined the initiative.

In remembrance of the fact that Korea Herald was founded 70 years ago to place our country on the global map, we plan to utilize our long-established global network for this project to reap success, said Choi Jin-young, CEO of the Korea Herald.

Under the memorandum, the signing parties will join efforts to develop programs that bring the Korean diaspora to Korea and provide them with educational opportunities. Accordingly, two-week long programs during the summer and winter break will kick off this year, and will be extended into eight-week programs starting from 2025. By mingling Korean youth at home and abroad, the project aims to forge connections between them and encourage them to build a shared identity.

The scope of collaboration will also include forging a worldwide network of Korean youth communities, supporting their educational and career development, and promoting a culture of non-violence and global citizenship.

We are grateful for this opportunity to engage diasporic youth, a group that has long been alienated from the legal support system. This project can encourage legal reform in favor of this neglected community and contribute to fostering a sense of shared transnational identity among the Korean youth. said Go Do-won, president of Godowon Foundation.

Our organization plans to leverage our educational infrastructure here in Korea, which spans 15 youth training centers, to support the capacity of emerging young leaders. said Kim Kyung-sung, chairman of the Blue Tree Foundation.

By Ahn Ju-hee (dianahn@heraldcorp.com)

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K-diaspora project launched to support young ethnic Koreans overseas - The Korea Herald

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By SURA JESELSOHN

When my substitute mailman could not differentiate between a slush pile in front of my door and the mail slot, I tried to contact my federal representative, Jamaal Bowman, by leaving a message per instruction at his Bronx office. I have not heard back.

The dimension of antisemitism is a problem on American campuses, obvious in the book, Anti-Zionism on Campus by Andrew Pessin and Doron S. Ben-Atar. U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu wrote a strong letter to the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights in early February asking why, in the face of enormous antisemitism on many campuses, the civil rights office has not been particularly timely nor aggressive in following up cases of discrimination against Jewish students.

He also asked why the office has not been proactive in reaching out to Jewish students to advise them of their civil right, and about the offices deferral of necessary changes to its rules mandated by two executive orders intended to combat antisemitism and advance racial equity and support for underserved communities.

In addition to Rep. Lieu, 38 other congressional members signed on. Jamaal Bowman did not. I then sent him an email asking him to be a signatory to a letter supporting Jewish students on campus.

While he did send a lengthy letter, it was totally non-responsive. Instead, he wrote why a bill that he co-sponsored The Israel Relations Normalization Act is something he will no longer vote for should it come to the floor of the U.S. House.

It is hard to understand such a non-response. I wrote to him about protecting Jewish students on American campuses, and he responds that he is not voting on a bill supporting Israel. We are now supposed to continue believing that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

The popular belief is that Israel is a colonial enterprise. This is so far from the truth as to be ludicrous! As Jane Austens manipulative and vicious character Lady Susan says when her machinations are uncovered, Facts are such horrid things.

So, a few facts:

Judaism predates Christianity by more than a thousand years. It predates Islam by an additional 700 years. Both daughter religions expected Jews to join them, and when they did not, they were vilified. In the 1500s, Martin Luther repeated this history.

The Bible read widely for thousands of years places Jews in the land of Israel in historic times. Theirs was the original Diaspora.

There were three expulsions: in 733 B.C.E., by the Assyrians; between 597 and 586 B.C.E., by the Babylonians; and by Rome in 132. This last defeat effectively restricted Jewish population centers in the land of Israel.

Despite expulsions, however, there have always been Jewish communities in the land of Israel living under a variety of conquerors.

Events eventually led to an effort to restore the land of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people where they could be secure from the whims of both the authorities and mobs in the lands of their Diaspora.

As Jews started returning to the land of Israel during the late 1800s and economic conditions improved Arabs from surrounding countries also started moving in. The clan names identify their countries of origin.

This should effectively deal with the canard that the Palestinians are indigenous and the Jews are colonialist invaders.

In 1947, the United Nations devised a Partition plan. The distribution of land between Arabs and Jews was not equitable. The Jewish portion was small and geopolitically unstable.

The Jews accepted the Arabs did not. Five Arab armies attacked simultaneously from all sides, but Jewish soldiers drove them back.

Everything that has happened since 1948 is the result of Arab leadership and its intransigence.

So, who and what does Jamaal Bowman represent? He says all the right things in news releases. He decried the vandalism of Riverdale synagogues last year. He lauded the Jewish community on Jewish Heritage Month, acknowledging the partnership of the Jewish community alongside Black Americans for racial and religious justice.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, he wrote, It was a debilitating and chilling experience (at the Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial) that tells the truth about genocide, dehumanization and antisemitism and the fear and hate that fuel them. Today and every day, we must surround the Jewish community with support and love.

Jamaal Bowman represents the congressional district that includes Riverdales sizable Jewish population. Despite his warm words, he was barely in office when he went on the attack against Israel supporting H.R. 2590 as if Israel enjoys having to defend itself against attacks supported by the Palestinian Authority.

He also vocally supported the calumny that Israel was not vaccinating Palestinians despite the Palestinian Authority being solely responsible and not making any effort to obtain the vaccine.

His stance seems nothing more than a determination to ingratiate himself with The Squad and its progressive allies.

For too long, the intelligentsia has pretended that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. That linguistic distortion was completely unmasked during the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas had been shooting missiles into Israel over a lengthy period of time, and Israel finally retaliated.

In this country Jews were being attacked in response. Anti-Zionism? Really?

I asked Jamaal Bowman to sign on to Ted Lieus letter protecting Jewish students on American campuses, and all he can do is wax eloquent about the needs of Palestinians.

We are his constituents. Act in our interests!

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Waiting for Bowman to finally acknowledge Israel - The Riverdale Press

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

One Damn Thing After Another begins with a fond evocation of Barrs childhood in a conservative family nestled in the liberal enclave surrounding Columbia University in New York City. His mother was Catholic, and his father Jewish (though he later converted to Catholicism), and Barr gives a lovely description of his elementary school education at the local Corpus Christi Church. (George Carlin went there too. Go figure.) Barr went on to Horace Mann and then Columbia, where he developed an interest in China. After college, he worked briefly at the C.I.A. while attending night law school, where he excelled. He moved up the ranks in the Justice Department until the first President Bush made him attorney general, at 41, in 1991. He was a largely nonideological figure, mostly preoccupied, as many were in those days, with getting surging crime rates under control.

The next quarter-century brought Barr great financial rewards as the top lawyer for the company that, in a merger, became Verizon. More to the point, it brought a hardening of his political views. Barr has a lot to say about the modern world, but the gist is that hes against it. While attorney general under Trump, he dabbled as a culture warrior, and in his memoir he lets the missiles fly.

Now we see a mounting effort to affirmatively indoctrinate children with the secular progressive belief system a new official secular ideology. Critical race theory is, at bottom, essentially the materialist philosophy of Marxism, substituting racial antagonism for class antagonism. On crime: The lefts root causes mantra is really an excuse to do nothing. (Barrs only complaint about mass incarceration is that it isnt mass enough.) Barr loathes Democrats: President Obama, a left-wing agitator, ... throttled the economy, degraded the culture and frittered away U.S. strength and credibility in foreign affairs. (Barr likes Obama better than Hillary Clinton.) Overall, his views reflect the party line at Fox News, which, curiously, he does not mention in several jeremiads about left-wing domination of the news media.

Barr is obviously too smart to miss what was in front of him in the White House. He says Trump is prone to bluster and exaggeration. His behavior with regard to Ukraine was idiotic beyond belief. Trumps rhetorical skills, while potent within a very narrow range, are hopelessly ineffective on questions requiring subtle distinctions. Indeed, by the end, Barr concludes that Donald Trump has shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed.

Barrs odd theory about Good Trump turning into Bad Trump may have more to do with his feelings about Democrats than with the president he served. I am under no illusion about who is responsible for dividing the country, embittering our politics and weakening and demoralizing our nation, he writes. It is the progressive left and their increasingly totalitarian ideals. In a way, its the highest praise Barr can offer Trump: He had the right enemies.

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William P. Barrs Good Donald Trump and Bad Donald Trump - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on March 8, 2022

When singer, fiddler, songwriter, and composer Lily Henley set out to make an album of Sephardic Jewish ballads set to new melodies, she was looking for her own way to interpret a tradition that she saw as critically endangered. With Oras Dezaoradas, to be released on May 6, 2022 on Lior ditions, Henley wanted to highlight the Ladino language, a threatened tongue that fuses old Spanish with Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish elements and is spoken by less than 100,000 people in the world today. What she didnt expect was to find herself directly connected to centuries of women spread across a forced global diaspora. Expelled from Spain on penalty of death by the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, Sephardic Jews kept their culture alive as they moved throughout North Africa and the Ottoman empire. These old ballads, some dating back to the expulsion, carry the hopes and dreams, the daily worries, and existential thoughts of the Sephardic people. In setting these songs to newly composed melodies, Henley brings new life to the words of these songs and to the independent female characters in them and directly inserts herself into the tradition in a transformative way, including writing three original Ladino songs of her own. There are so few young musicians in this song tradition, Henley explains, and, to me, doing an album of the old melodies, re-recording what people have already recorded, didnt make me excited. This feels inspiring because I'm creating music that feels really authentic and original to me and Im adding to this tradition that is very endangered.

Known for her expressive songwriting, gifted fiddling, and ability to bring together American and Jewish traditions, the spark for Lily Henleys new album Oras Dezaoradas, came from melodic compositions she had been working on for an upcoming solo album of original material. Building new melodies inspired by American folk traditions unexpectedly dovetailed with Henleys work with Sephardic song traditions and texts. She came to realize that the traditional Sephardic songs she had been singing for years could meld perfectly with the tunes she was writing. Some of the lyrics I was playing around with from Sephardic songs just fell into the music so organically that I can barely remember writing most of the melodies, she says. I was always hoping Id find a new voice like this. It took a lot of time for me to feel like it was a valid voice. Invited by Sephardic community leader and head of record label Lior ditions, Franois Azar, Henley traveled to Paris to record her new album, embraced by the Sephardic community in the City of Light, the largest Sephardic community in Europe. She was joined by fellow fiddler Duncan Wickel and bassist Haggai Cohen Milo (himself half Sephardic). We recorded Oras Dezaoradas in Montreuil, outside Paris, at this beautiful studio, Henley says. It was very special because Franois was there, another person who could really understand these lyrics and this culture. He was sitting in the control room helping keep the emotion of the music centered around these stories.

Coupled with Henleys compositions, the songs on Oras Dezaoradas sparkle with life. Drawn from living sources, old archives, and medieval love poems, the songs are part of Sephardic womens vocal traditions across many countries. Since, historically, women werent allowed to participate in Sephardic liturgical singing, these folk songs became a place for Sephardic women to pour their lives into song. There is a very strong female hand in the creation of these songs, Henley says. Much of the music was kept alive and added to by women, and in doing so they were really going against standard gender roles. While women in the Western ballad canon can usually only find agency through murdering wayward lovers, the women in Sephardic songs display a powerful independence and the songs are full of discussions between lovers, young daughters seeking advice from mothers, complaints about daily life, and grief from young women left widowed by war. The melodies of these songs were fluid, usually adapted from surrounding musical traditions in the diaspora. For Henley, this presented a chance to craft new melodies inspired by her own work and travels and to add to the tradition in the same way Sephardic women have done for centuries. Its a remarkable bit of songcraft from Henley, indicative of the deep immersion shes had in Ladino song, to the point that new songs roll off her tongue as easily as the ancient ones.

With Oras Dezaoradas, American roots musician Lily Henley has achieved a remarkable feat. Shes brought new life to centuries-old songs and shown that the heart of women has remained the same across hundreds of years. These ballads of the Sephardim sound as modern today as when they were written thanks to Henleys creative compositional settings, and her original songs could have fit into a salon gathering in the Ottoman Empire just as easily. Theres a tendency to view non-European cultures as exotic, which is something that Henley bristles against and a key reason for her work to re-contextualize this music and to show its relevance. Theres nothing exotic about these stories, she says. Things are only exotic as long as you dont understand them or as long as they dont feel connected to you. The way Ive connected to these stories is through music that feels familiar to me, and hopefully will feel somewhat familiar to people listening as well.

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Lily Henley's upcoming album dialogues with centuries of Sephardic Jewish women - Grateful Web

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