Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 5, 2022

Israels central bank says the publics adoption of the digital shekel is not expected to materially affect the banking system. The bank, however, warns that any issuance of such digital currency will likely result in a decline of the volume of the publics deposits.

Israels central bank, the Bank of Israel (BOI), has said its analysis of the proposed digital shekels possible impact on banking stability showed that the expected effect is not as significant as previously thought.

However, the banks analysis notes the decline in the volume of the publics deposits held in banks following the issuance of digital shekel, would nonetheless lead to some increase in the banking systems interest expenses. The same might also lead to an erosion of the banking systems net profit, the BOI warned.

While the central bank said it has not yet made a decision to issue the central bank digital currency (CBDC), in its recently released statement, the BOI revealed it is building an action plan for the potential issuance of such a digital currency.

The statement also makes reference to a paper that was published by the BOIs steering committee. In that paper, the committee examined the banks motivations for issuing the CBDC also known as SHAKED as well as the ramifications of such a digital currency on financial intermediation.

Meanwhile, the BOI statement also discusses some of the key findings from the steering committees May 2021 paper. The BOI statement notes:

Transferring a certain volume of money from the publics deposits to SHAKED would have various effects on the balance sheets of the banking system and of the Bank of Israel. The banking systems balance sheet would contract due to the decline in the Publics deposits item on the liabilities side and in the Deposits at the Bank of Israel on the assets side.

The BOI adds that in the event the banking system attempts to maintain the credit portfolio to the public at levels prior to the CBDC launch, that development would erode banks liquidity ratios to a certain extent.

Besides looking at the potential impact that the CBDC might have on the banking system and the economy, the BOI said it will also examine other issues that arise as part of the research and preparation toward a potential issuance of a digital shekel in the future.

The central bank concludes its statement by reiterating that it has not made a decision to issue the digital shekel just yet.

What are your thoughts on this story? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Terence Zimwara is a Zimbabwe award-winning journalist, author and writer. He has written extensively about the economic troubles of some African countries as well as how digital currencies can provide Africans with an escape route.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Roman Yanushevsky

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Bank of Israel: Adoption of CBDC Will Not Materially Affect the Banking System Fintech Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2022

A 13-year-old Palestinian was shot and seriously wounded during clashes with the Israeli army in Hebron, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported on Friday.

'Holocaust distortion': Israel's Yad Vashem fights its own Ukraine war

According to the ministry, three more Palestinians, aged 14, 15, 21, were wounded by live fire. All four were taken to a hospital in Hebron.

As Friday prayers concluded, Palestinians began clashing with Israeli soldiers in protest of a military post set up in the center of Hebron, according to Palestinian media. It was also reported that dozens sustainedlight injuries frominhaling tear gas.

Meanwhile, 128 Palestinians were injured lightly in clashes with the Israeli army in Beita and Beit Dajan in the West Bank during weekly protests against the evacuated outpost of Evyatar, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

A full 36 were hit by rubber-tipped bullets and the rest suffered light injuries frominhaling tear gas.They were all treated at the scene and did not require further medical attention.

Earlier this week, a 19-year-old college student was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers near Bethlehem. Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa and a friend were strolling in a forest near his home when he was killed, the friend told BTselems investigator two days after the incident.

Last week, Israeli military forces alsoshot a 14-year-old Palestinian boydead near Bethlehem. The Israeli military said in a statement that the teen, Mohammed Shehadeh, was throwing a Molotov cocktail before being shot by soldiers in the West Bank town of al-Khader.

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13-year-old boy seriously wounded in clashes with Israeli army in West Bank - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2022

Early in my tenure on the Whitefish School Board, I gave a copy of the graphic novel Maus to the high school library.

I hoped the book was shelved, but if not, I trusted the process within our district policy that established a process for book selection. A few years before my contribution I had attended a world history class at the high school.

A highly respected, veteran teacher took me to the side as I entered the room. He said, Weve been studying World War ll, inclusive of the Holocaust. I have a student who espouses sympathy for the Nazi cause and denial of the Holocaust. I want you to be prepared for such a dialogue.

The topic was never broached by the student in question, but it shows how the Constitutional right to freedom of speech is often messy. Often during our school board policy reviews, we worried about the disruptive powers of expression, print in books, hair color, homecoming parades or simply put, the infringement of our expectations of an orderly, controlled environment. But we worked to strike a balance that protected our communitys right to freedom of expression.

The Imagine If County Library System is facing a set of challenges to this freedom that have attracted statewide attention. Even though the Library has been stalwart in providing professional staffing and product, the library board has engaged in some very troubling decisions. First, it discussed banning books by trying to pull several works it disagreed with off the shelves. By doing so, they entered the world of restricting free access to knowledge and second-guessed the library director the board entrusted to make decisions about how to run the Library.

Secondly, following the resignation of the director, the board hired a replacement who lacks the training necessary to run a library of this size and quality. That decision jeopardized the librarys state funding, but instead of taking responsibility for their actions, the board tried to get a waiver from the Governors office. So, here we are. The right to read is under threat from people unwilling to confront ideas that make them uncomfortable, and who want to hide from the consequences of their actions. Folks here in the Flathead have had a front-row seat to prime-time attack on the freedom of expression.

Remember, implementation of the First Amendment is messy and often disruptive. In a world craving fundamental freedoms of expression, Ill side with a professional library staff and their ability to choose and shelve books in the appropriate locale. When Maus was removed from the shelves in a Tennessee school district, the book experienced a welcomed resurgencewhich goes to show that when people try to restrict the freedoms of their neighbors, they will push back.

I stand steadfastly for local control and sometimes that means well see our local decision-makers making mistakes. I also believe in holding them accountable when they do. Our board would be wise to reject the book bans so popular in other states, leave the everyday tasks of book access and media purchases to staff, and look forward to a library that can hold its head high when compared with its counterparts in our states other largest cities.

Rep. Dave Fern (D-Whitefish) represents House District 5 in the Montana State Legislature.

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Book bans have no place in the Flathead Daily Montanan - Daily Montanan

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Russian President Vladimir Putins war of aggression against Ukraine is in full swing, with the final outcome unknown. Given Russias military dominance over the Ukrainian army, few seem to doubt that if the assault continues, the Russian army will defeat the Ukrainian military.

But does this mean Putin can achieve victory over a country larger than France with a population of some 44 million? In his obsession with Ukraine, Putin greatly misunderstands it. This misunderstanding contributed to his decision to invade, and it stands to foil his plans for restoration of Russian power over the country.

In his hourlong speech delivered days before he launched a full-scale military invasion, Putin aired a litany of grievances. He claimed the U.S.-led NATO bloc of Western democracies was set on destroying Russia by way of Ukraine. Enumerating fantastic scenarios that included the U.S. planning to put nuclear weapons on Ukraines territory and NATO assisting Ukraine to retake annexed Crimea and placing ballistic missiles aimed at Moscow in Ukraines provincial airports, Putin presented Ukraine as both a mortal threat to Russia and a victim in need of liberation.

In his delusion, he alleged that the West controls Ukraine, down to the level of municipalities and the lowest units in the military. And Ukrainians are victims of foreign powers and the ruling Nazi government (though President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy is Jewish and had family members who were murdered in the Holocaust), who have been deprived of their true identity a common identity with Russians.

Putin argued in a lengthy essay last summer that Ukraine is merely a quasi-state, an artificial construct of Vladimir Lenin born after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and that Ukraine is not a real nation but a natural part of a greater Russia.

Historians and scholars of nationalism can take numerous issues with Putins reading of history, starting with the assumption that some of todays nations are real while others are artificial. Dominant theories of nationalism reject the premise that modern nations are millennia-old natural entities, and hold instead that all nations are socially and politically constructed over the course of relatively recent history.

Historical processes by which the modern Ukrainian nation emerged are complex. Ukrainian identity continued to evolve since the Soviet Unions collapse in 1991, oscillating between Russia and the West. In recent years, however, Ukrainian identity drew away from Russia.

Ironically, Putin himself contributed greatly to the solidification of a distinct Ukrainian national identity with popular views increasingly aligned against Russia. As Russia moved to annex Crimea and foment and support a separatist insurgency in the Donbas region in 2014, following the protests that drove the pro-Russian Ukrainian president out of power, civic Ukrainian identity strengthened while pro-Russian attitudes declined.

Putin, however, repeatedly either dismissed these Ukrainian identity changes altogether, or framed polling data as false preferences, because pro-Russian Ukrainians were afraid to answer polls because they were ruled by Nazis.

These delusions about Ukraine and Ukrainians almost certainly informed Putins military plans.

Putin called on Ukrainian soldiers to surrender and appears to be counting on a quick victory and outright welcome from liberated Ukrainians, now free to express their true pro-Russian preferences.

In this frame, there would be no need for an occupation, and Putin said he is not planning to occupy Ukraine permanently. Instead, the stated goal of the military action is to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.

Western intelligence reports indicate that Putins game plan seems to involve installing a pro-Russian puppet government in Kyiv that will then rule Ukraine, guided by the Kremlins wishes. These plans extend far beyond military or foreign policy alliances, and a denazification campaign would likely target civil society activists, pro-democracy and anti-corruption campaigners, as well as intellectuals and academics.

According to a recent British report, Ukrainians targeted in this campaign would be eliminated or sent to concentration camps. The remaining good Ukrainians will presumably live happily under Russian rule.

But how does one rule over a country of tens of millions that rejects this rule? A puppet government, if installed, will lack any legitimacy and can only rule with the full force of Russian guns behind it, which would necessitate Russias sustained occupation of Ukraine.

As Western states contemplate further actions and weigh probabilities of Putins next moves, two things appear certain: Ukraines resolve to be free, and Putins denial of Ukraines right to exist as a free state. Standing up to Putin as he seeks to destroy freedom for Ukraine defends not only Ukraine and its people. It would defend a core value of Western democracies and thus their national interests as well.

Oxana Shevel is an associate professor of political science at Tufts University. She is the author of Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe.

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Commentary: Putin is a prisoner of his own delusions about Ukraine. They will be his undoing - Yakima Herald-Republic

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Barry Levinson is an Oscar-winning director for Rain Man, has earned three Academy Award nominations as a screenwriter--for And Justice for All, Diner and Avalon--and garnered two more nods for Bugsy, one for directing, the other for Best Picture as a producer. He also has eight career DGA Award nominations, winning for Rain Man in 1989. His latest Guild nod came a couple of months ago for the First Bottle episode of Dopesick (Hulu), a limited series which he also produced for creator/showrunner Danny Strong (who also garnered a DGA nom for another Dopesick episode). Dopesick delves into opioid addiction in America, drawing us into a distressed Virginia mining community, a rural doctors office, the boardrooms of Purdue Pharma, and the inner workings of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Between the chronological bookends of Rain Man and Dopesick came Guild nominations for Levinson on the strength of the features Avalon and Bugsy as well as such TV efforts as Homicide: Life on the Street, You Dont Know Jack, The Wizard of Lies and Paterno.

Levinsons episodic work on Homicide: Life on the Street earned him an Emmy for director of a drama series along with a Peabody Award. Levinson has won a total of four Emmys, the other three being as a producer of Displaced Person for Outstanding Childrens Program and two as a writer for The Carol Burnett Show. Overall Levinson has 11 Emmy nominations thus far--another one for his writing on The Carol Burnett Show, best telefilm nods as a producer for Paterno, The Wizard of Lies, Phil Spector and You Dont Know Jack, as well as directorial noms for Paterno and You Dont Know Jack.

Now Levinson is once again in the Emmy conversation not only for his work on Dopesick, buoyed in part by the aforementioned DGA nomination, but also for his directing of The Survivor, which debuted at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and is slated to premiere on April 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on HBO. Based on the book Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Haft, The Survivor stars Ben Foster as Harry Haft who survives both the unspeakable horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp and the gladiatorial life-or-death boxing spectacle he is forced to fight in with his fellow prisoners for the amusement of his Nazi captors. Haft, though, remains driven to survive by his quest to reunite with the woman he loves--from whom he was separated during the Holocaust. After a daring escape, he makes his way to New York where he makes a name for himself as a boxer, even landing a bout with the great Rocky Marciano. Haft hopes that the press coverage he gets as an athlete may help him find his lost true love--she will realize that he is still alive as he continues to believe that she too has survived.

The Survivor was produced by New Mandate Films and BRON Studios in association with Endeavor Content, USC Shoah Foundation, Creative Wealth Media and Levinsons Baltimore Pictures. The Shoah Foundation--dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, is a powerful voice for education and action. It provided detailed historical consulting for The Survivor in addition to access to a testimony of Haft, filmed in 2007 and preserved in the Foundations Visual History Archive.

Foster heads a cast for The Survivor which includes Vicky Krieps, Billy Magnussen, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirze, Dar Zuzovsky, Danny DeVito and John Leguizamo.

Levinsons body of work as a director over the years also includes such notable features as The Natural, Good Morning Vietnam, Wag the Dog and Sleepers. And via Baltimore Pictures he has produced such critically acclaimed releases as Donnie Brasco and Bandits.

Levinson talked to SHOOT about Dopesick and The Survivor. His remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.

SHOOT: What led you to decide to direct The Survivor?

Levinson: I recalled an incident back when I was very young in 1948 or 49. I lived with my parents and my grandparents. One day this man showed up at the door. He was my grandmothers brother. I never heard of anyone ever mentioning they had a brother. We put him up. He slept on a little cot in my bedroom. The first night he was asleep and speaking in a language I didnt understand. He was agitated, woke up, thrashed about and eventually fell asleep. He was upset and bothered night after night. After a period he moved out, had his own place and nothing else was said about him.

I later learned he was in a concentration camp. I was taken aback. It was the first time that ever came up. He had problems for much of his life dealing with what had happened in the past.

By todays standards, we look at what happened and now know about post-traumatic stress syndrome. Youre told to get on with your life but its not that simple. To survive is one thing. To live is quite another.

SHOOT: Its especially appropriate that The Survivor will debut on Holocaust Remembrance Day in that the story flashes back to Auschwitz but doesnt take place in the death camps. Instead it takes place in the U.S. where Haft is coping with life, still plagued by haunting memories. His remembrances continue to torment him.

Levinson: Yes, we tried to bring viewers into what he was dealing with. He had quite a fantastic story to tell. Its about him making that full transition to become a person living in the present. How does he deal with what happened?

SHOOT: What was (were) the biggest challenge(s) that The Survivor posed to you as a filmmaker?

Levinson: To re-create the death camp, the fights, to give it as much authenticity as you can, to create something that was quite haunting for the better part of his life. To show that, his sense of guilt, what it was like, what it looked like so we can understand the strong impact and his struggles.

SHOOT: Among your first-time collaborators were cinematographer George Steel and editor Douglas Crise, ACE. What led you to gravitate to them and what did they bring to The Survivor?

Levinson: I worked with Doug on Dopesick after The Survivor. Hes a very good editor. You have to find some kind of rapport. Youre talking about seconds at a time--a little faster on that, a little slower on this. It has much to do about rhythm on one hand, and how to unfold the story in general. How do we rethink a scene, maybe create something stronger than what we originally thought. Hes very good at that. When I shoot, I leave room for a certain amount of improvisation. He was very good at blending content, performance and visuals. We found a comfort zone.

When I was trying to find a cinematographer, I looked at Georges work and found it interesting. But more importantly when we spoke on the phone a few times, I got excited by his thoughts. We only had 34 days to shoot the whole movie, dealing with different time periods, boxing. It was a pretty tight schedule. But I never felt rushed because George was able to design what we needed for the scenes in a tight space of time. He was extremely efficient.

SHOOT: What was your biggest takeaway or lessons learned from your experience on The Survivor? And on Dopesick?

Levinson: We went to Auschwitz. The act of walking in that space, to realize that over 6 million people were murdered. Its staggering. You cant get away from it. My God, what is wrong with us. You see the shoes that are stored, the clothing piled up on display, the suitcases. You think about the dreams that never came to be. You can understand why Harry Haft is so tormented by his past.

As for Dopesick, Danny Strong wrote this miniseries. It was well researched, an enormous undertaking, moving in and out of time frames, moving backwards and forwards constantly. Sometimes you think you know a story and when you finally read it, you realize, oh my God, I had no idea. You feel a deep obligation to tell the story, to find a way to engage an audience but with an invisible hand. You dont want style to overwhelm the piece. You have an obligation to hold up the work that Danny wrote, to portray the characters as credibly and as humanly as possible.

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Oscar and Emmy-Winning Director Barry Levinson Reflects On "The Survivor" - SHOOT Online

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The white nationalist group Patriot Front attends the March For Life on in Chicago on Jan. 8. Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images hide caption

The white nationalist group Patriot Front attends the March For Life on in Chicago on Jan. 8.

The distribution of white supremacist propaganda around the country remained high last year, with nearly 5,000 incidents reported, or an average of 13 per day, the Anti-Defamation League says.

The ADL's annual report on such incidents noted increasing levels of coordination and mobilization within the movement.

"This activity is more coordinated than ever before," says Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL's Center on Extremism. "It's disturbing that white supremacists and anti-Semites can mobilize supporters quickly to target neighborhoods in multiple states."

Although slightly lower than the 5,125 events reported in 2020, last year's number was still almost double the number of similar incidents reported in 2019.

The ADL documented 4,851 instances during 2021 in which racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ fliers, stickers, posters, banners and stenciled graffiti were distributed in the United States. It was the second-highest level since the group began tracking such data in 2017.

Hateful propaganda appeared in every state except for Hawaii, with the highest levels of activity reported in Pennsylvania (473), Virginia (375) and Texas (327), the ADL said.

Texas is the home of Patriot Front, the group responsible for the vast majority of propaganda distribution at more than 82% of the national total. Patriot Front is also responsible for holding two of the largest white supremacist events in 2021, including a July event in Philadelphia and a December demonstration at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

"White supremacists more frequently are resorting to hate propaganda as a tactic to spread their noxious ideas and recruit new membership," says ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

The annual report comes amid a surge in antisemitic hate fliers this year, with at least 15 states targeted in January and February. Authorities were investigating the distribution of antisemitic and racist flyers in Colleyville, Texas, where a gunman took worshippers hostage at a synagogue in January.

Some examples of hate speech highlighted in the ADL report are instances where banners were draped over highway overpasses and other high visibility locations. It also mentions fliers blaming Jews for the spread of COVID-19 and stickers proclaiming "Hitler was right," which were attached to a menorah outside a California synagogue in October.

"This is an alarming trend that needs to be checked, now," Greenblatt says.

The report also notes a steep decline of incidents of white supremacist propaganda distribution on college campuses, potentially due to the pandemic.

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White supremacist propaganda is increasingly coordinated, the ADL says - NPR

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Barton is an attorney and adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. He has served on the boards of several Jewish organizations and served as the national chair of leadership, national chair of education and national vice chair of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. He lives in Encinitas.

While the effort to label Israel an apartheid state is not new, the newly released report by Amnesty International has charted new territory in the breadth of its accusations and factual distortions, essentially characterizing the entire history of the Jewish state as one continuous effort to impose intentional inhuman conditions on non-Jews residing in Israel and surrounding lands. In doing so, Amnesty International has called into question its own legitimacy as an organization dedicated to, as its own charter declares: effective action for the universality and indivisibility of human rights, impartiality and independence, and democracy and mutual respect.

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The report has been denounced in the harshest terms by Western governments and others. Of note was the criticisms from colleagues at Amnesty International itself. In an interview with The Times of Israel last week, Molly Malekar, executive director of Amnesty International in Israel, described the accusations of apartheid as a punch to the gut and that many others who campaign for Palestinian rights feel the same way. She also accused the report of turning Arab Israelis into victims, into an object. Her Amnesty International colleague, Tal Gur-Arye, criticized the flawed methodology and conclusions of the report and the absence of any solid analysis.

Among the many omissions in the report, several stand out. While alleging that Israeli systemic dominance goes back to 1948, there is little mention of the history of Arab state aggression against Israel, the terrorist campaigns against Israeli citizens, and the still-existing calls for armed struggle and the destruction of the Jewish state by Hamas and other Palestinian groups. International law specifically allows for a nations self-defense and the report altogether abandons any analysis of the context in which this applies to the declaration of Israel as an apartheid state.

Second, the report completely omits the efforts by Israel since its inception to seek a negotiated settlement with neighboring countries. The report mentions the Arab rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for independent Jewish and Arab states, but leaves out that the Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted the UN plan which would have established a separate Arab, now Palestinian, state. The report also fails to acknowledge that Israel held an open invitation to discuss a negotiated settlement with its neighbors and that comprehensive agreements were reached with Egypt (1978), Jordan (1994) and, most recently, with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco in the Abraham Accords.

Most glaring is the absence of any discussion of the multiple offers by Israel to the Palestinians in the past decades that would have resulted in an independent Palestinian state. These offers included a near-total withdrawal from the West Bank, withdrawal from Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, and placement of the Old City and Jerusalems most sensitive holy places under international control. The offers included agreements for the return of certain refugees and a compensation package for those not returning. All of these offers were rejected by Palestinian leadership with an immediate cessation of negotiations and resumption of violence. In the case of the Camp David negotiations in 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected the Israeli proposal and initiated a terrorist campaign resulting in the death and injury of thousands of Israelis.

The reports discussion of the Arab citizens of Israel is equally troubling. There are approximately 2 million Arab Israelis (20 percent of the total population of Israel) who hold the same rights to vote and other protections afforded under Israels Basic Laws. Arab parties currently hold 11 seats in the Knesset, Israels Parliament, and one of its parties, Raam, sits with Israels governing coalition. Raam is actually an Islamist party that identifies with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Arab Israelis hold positions in all level of government, nearly 10 percent of judicial appointments and one seat on the Israeli Supreme Court. Anyone who has been to a hospital in Israel knows that Arab and Jewish patients are seen and treated by Arab and Israeli providers. According to official government data published in the daily Haaretz newspaper, Arabs now make up 17 percent of the countrys doctors, 24 percent of the nurses and 48 percent of the pharmacists. Arab Israelis are provided an education and make up 16 percent of all undergraduates in Israeli universities.

None of the above is meant to suggest that there are no systemic issues with discrimination against Arab Israelis. Indeed, a great deal of study and effort has been undertaken by Israel to address these issues. In the past 10 years, the Israeli government has significantly increased funding in education and housing for Arab Israelis, including $30 billion in the governments most recent five-year plan and another $70 million in expanding access to the tech sector.

The question posed by the Amnesty report is how any of the above can be reconciled with an allegation of apartheid somehow akin to South Africa, which denied its Black populations even the most basic rights. In leaving out layers of history, facts and context, the report can only be viewed as an attempt to lend credence to the most radical elements that oppose Israels very existence and will say and do anything in an effort to bring about its demise. In the end, it is hard to see how the report benefits anyone, including the Palestinians.

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Opinion: Distorting and omitting facts in the Israel-Palestine conflict benefits no one - The San Diego Union-Tribune

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This is a fraught time to be a Jew in America.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents in the United States are at their highest since the organization began tracking sucheventsin 1979.

I have mostly lived in a bubble, mostly untouched by antisemitism. But after the Colleyville hostage crisis, I decidedto ally myself more publicly with my Jewish brothers and sisters. And so, I started wearing the universal symbol of Judaism, a Star of David.

I had never worn any religious jewelry before donning the star.When I attended an all-girls Catholic high school, I was the only Jew in my class.I was there for the single-sex education and a dare to my parents on how long I, who was Orthodox at the time, would last there.The nuns impressed me with their openness, allowing me to forego wearing the school patch a patch with a cross inside of a crown on my blazer.

It turns out that I loved my high school, I loved my classmates, and yes, I loved the wonderfully patient Sisters of Mercy. I felt so welcomed that I invited my rabbi to the school to participate in an ecumenical Thanksgiving celebration a year later. Yet, it never occurred to me to wear my religious symbol the Star of David.

I am aware I would have been burned at the stake in a different century for refusing to wear a cross.

I am aware I would have been burned at the stake in a different century for refusing to wear a cross. I might have worn a cross on pain of death to fool Nazis into thinking I was a Christian. Just two decades before I was born, my fellow Jews in Europewere forced to sew yellow stars on their clothing.

The miracle of America,thisbeautifulincubator of democracy,is thatweJews have felt safe in ourrelativelynewfound freedomperhapsfor the first time in our history. All of that, though, may be changing.

Three decades ago, I monitored white supremacist groups for a Jewish civil rights organization. I thought of my job as fodder for a unique icebreaker at parties rather than as essential to national security. The hate rags that came across my desk were mimeographed sheets that stained my hands. It was the mid-80s and early 90s, and there was no social media presence perpetuating hate.

I kept an eye on extremists whom I mostly dismissed as crazy exceptions to the American way of life. I filed away my reports with the expectation theyd gather dust in an archive. However, over the years, my one-person job at the organization has morphed into a multi-person center dedicated to tracking and analyzing highly organized extremists who are viable threats to the country.

My sense of security as an American Jew has eroded in the ensuing years. After 9/11, the doors of my childrens Jewish day school were locked, and a security guard was the first person I saw when I picked them up. Given I once was tasked to pay attention to surges of hate crimes and antisemitism, an uneasinesslodgesin me whenI read about the latest statistics on the obvious rise of antisemitism in our country.

Then came the Tree of Life Synagogue murders in Pittsburgh in 2018, where a rifle-toting madman gunned down 11 people at a Sabbath service because they were Jews. It was the worst mass shooting of Jews in American history. In response, the doors of my synagogue were locked.

My sense of security as an American Jew has eroded ...

Yetin the spirit of welcoming Shabbat, thedoorswere purposely open for Sabbath services. The sober reality was that a local police officer and a phalanx of security guards patrolled the buildings perimeter and lobby. American Jewish life was relatively quiet until January, whena rabbi and three congregants were taken hostage in the small Texas town of Colleyville. For 11 hours on a Saturday, they were at the mercy of yet another hate-filled madman. The hostages escaped but not before a collective sense of Jewish wellbeing was again upended.

After Colleyville, itwasurgent for me to be in solidarity with my Jewish sisters and brothers. The most obvious way:publiclyidentify as a Jewout in the world. So, I began to wear a Star of David on a chain.

When I shopped for my star, the salesperson looked concerned and asked me if I wanted to see something smaller. A friend said she worried that I wore a Jewish star soopenly.

I worry, too, but concentrate on how the star invokes protection. In Hebrew, the star is called a Magen David the shield of David. King Davids shield is prominent onthe State of Israelsflag. And in the Jewish state,its version of the Red Crossis calledthe Magen DavidAdom the Red Star of David. The German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig foundexistentialmeaning in thestars two interlocking triangles.The corners of one trianglerepresent a mystical renditionof creation, revelation and redemption. The corners of the othertriangle are stand-insfor man, the world and God.

The Star of David that was, at one time, King Davids shield, comes down to me through the millennia. I wearitto tell you I am a Jew.

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I'd never worn the Star of David. That changed in 2022 - WBUR

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2022

Eight years ago, Jason Van Tatenhove hopped in a truck in Kalispell, Montana, with men he didnt know and traveled all night down Interstate 15 on a quest to document the fallout from the Bundy Ranch standoff.

The truck made only a handful of stops, including to pick up ammunition and food, as it sliced its way down the Rocky Mountain west toward the southern tip of Nevada.

The men Van Tatenhove was with were members of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide anti-government militia organization traveling to support the Bundy family as it refused to pay grazing fees it owed the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The longtime Colorado resident and former Fort Collins tattoo shop owner had moved to Montana less than a year prior and thought embedding with the Oath Keepers would be an opportunity to do immersive journalism like his idol, Hunter S. Thompson, who embedded with outlaw motorcycle gangs for his first nonfiction book. Instead of the Hells Angels, he would embed with the burgeoning militia group as it gained national attention in a series of standoffs with the federal governmentand pivoted toward conspiracy-fueled extremism.

But a year later, Van Tatenhove was working full time for the extremist group as a self-described propagandist. For $1,200 a month, he wrote blog posts for the Oath Keepers website, ran their social media networks, appeared in videos and dealt with inquiring reporters.

I had these grand intentions that I was going to write my break-out novel, but what wound up happening is I just became a propagandist for them, he said. I failed that internal mission pretty fantastically.

He worked for the Oath Keepers for a year and a half between 2015 and 2016 and said he watched the group pivot from a loose network of people allegedly concerned about government overreach and constitutional rights to an organized and hateful extremist group that spewed and profited from conspiracy theories and fear.

The Oath Keepers were founded in 2009 and gained attention and notoriety over the next decade by providing armed security at confrontations with the federal government and protests. Like many anti-government militia groups, one of the groups main tenets is the conspiracy theory that the federal government is being run by a secret organization attempting to take away Americans rights, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The group is part of the larger milieu of extremist militia groups that have become increasingly prominent over the last decade, though the Oath Keepers differs in that it specifically aims to recruit law enforcement and military personnel. The Anti-Defamation League estimates there are between 1,000 and 3,000 active Oath Keepers nationwide, though many more tune into their communications and loosely align with the group.

They frame things in terms of unconstitutionality because it makes them seem more reasonable, said Alex Friedfeld, investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism. Their sense of what is and isnt constitutional isnt based in law and is warped by conspiracy.

Five years after Van Tatenhove severed ties with the group, its founder and several of its members were indicted on sedition charges for allegedly plotting to violently overturn the 2020 election results and participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. After he appeared last month in a documentary about the attack, the U.S. House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 asked Van Tatenhove to speak to them about the Oath Keepers.

In early March, the 47-year-old plans to travel to Washington, D.C., to talk to the committee and share what he knows.Its part of his penance for furthering the groups propaganda, he said. Now, he has to speak out.

I underestimated things, he said. I saw how they spun the optics and made themselves look much bigger than they were. I tended to underestimate them because I thought they were never going to pull anything off. They have this scam going and theyll keep scamming people and, eventually, theyll run out of suckers to scam. But, man, they stormed the Capitol.

So how did an artist, father and self-described punk end up the national media director of a far-right extremist organization?

Van Tatenhove moved to Fort Collins when he was 10 years old and grew up in the 1990s art and punk music scene. He cut his teeth as a writer at underground music magazines.

He got married, had kids and opened a Fort Collins tattoo shop. In 2013, he closed the shop and moved his family to Butte, Montana. He and his family wanted to live in a more rural area and learn more about living off the land, he said.

Thats when he first heard of Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, talking on InfoWars, the far-right website founded known for spewing misinformation and amplifying conspiracy theories.He agreed with some of Rhodes broad ideas: the dangers of government overreach, the need to question authority. When the Oath Keepers involved themselves in the Bundy Ranch standoff, it sounded like an opportunity to report on the ground and, like Thompson, embed himself with a fringe group.

After Nevada, he traveled to other hot spots where the Oath Keepers decided to enmesh themselves. He went to the Sugar Pine Mine standoff in Oregon and the White Hope Mine conflict in Montana. Van Tatenhove published his reporting on his website, broadcasted video livestreams and ran an internet radio show on Revolution Radio.

During the White Hope Mine incident, Rhodes offered Van Tatenhove a job writing for the Oath Keepers. Van Tatenhove accepted.

The work was full-time. Van Tatenhove woke up every morning, checked websites like the Drudge Report to see what was in the news and then wrote posts about the issues from the Oath Keeper point of view.

He also tried to keep his own point of view in his writing, which, he said, eventually led to friction between him and Rhodes. The first major conflict arose in 2015 when a Kentucky county clerk refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples have the right to marriage under the Constitution.

Van Tatenhove wrote a post stating that the U.S. Constitution protects everyones rights equally including gay people. But Rhodes rejected the post.

Other problems increasingly worried Van Tatenhove as the Oath Keepers viewpoints became increasingly extreme. He hated that Rhodes wanted staff and members to keep rifles in their cars at all times. He worried when Rhodes started associating with Richard Spencer, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi.

The organizations leaders did not have core beliefs, but instead catered to whatever beliefs would be easiest to fundraise off of, Van Tatenhove said. Often, those were based on conspiracy theories.

Hes going to cater to wherever the money is coming in from, Van Tatenhove said of Rhodes. He knows his base, thats where theyre at. Thats where he gets his ego fed and where he gets his steak dinners at Applebees every night.

But Van Tatenhove stuck with the job. The Oath Keepers had moved him and his family out to a cabin outside Eureka, a town of 1,600 in the upper northwest reaches of Montana. There were few other job options there and he had a chronically ill wife and two daughters to care for. He felt trapped.

So I stuck around a lot longer than I should have, he said.

The breaking point came in 2016 after Van Tatenhove overheard two of the Oathkeeper members in a grocery store deli talking about how the Holocaust was a hoax. He quit and severed contact with the group.

He was always claiming, Were not racist, we dont care if youre queer, Van Tatenhove said of Rhodes. But what Stewart says and what he truly believes are two different things. The man is really just driven by money and a sense of power at this point.

AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Van Tatenhove is doing penance now.

After leaving the Oath Keepers, he worked in search and rescue and as an EMT, including with a wildland fire crew. He moved back to Colorado with his family four years ago after inheriting a home in Estes Park.

I have been trying to make up for the propaganda that I spewed, he said.

Hes returned to art, to writing novels, to journalism. After a time writing for the Estes Park Trail-Gazette, he launched the Colorado Switchblade, a website covering Estes Park and Colorado news and culture.

Hes written about working peoples struggles to afford housing in the mountain town, womens rights activists, the need to address climate change.

Look at what Ive been doing since then thats what I really believe, he said.

He hopes by speaking about the organization he can help people see that it is a scam and help walk people back from joining the Oath Keepers.

I have these self-realization moments where Im like, (Expletive), I helped these guys out, I helped spread the message, Van Tatenhove said. And yeah, it was just with words, but Ive got to try to do something to try and make up for that in my own life.

Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder, remains incarcerated while his criminal sedition case in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection winds through federal court. His attorneys have argued that Rhodes cooperated with FBI agents investigating the failed insurrection and that while Rhodes may have used bombastic language, he did not intend to actually overthrow the government, The Washington Post reported.

The Oath Keepers have been less publicly active since the insurrection, though the threat of criminal charges has not tempered their rhetoric, Friedfeld said. Their ability to appeal to a wide swath of Americans shows how far conspiracy and deep distrust of government has permeated American society, which relies on trust in the democratic process to survive. The Oath Keepers have shown they are willing to use violence, or the threat of violence, to further their aims.

Thats a great threat to society and how we do things, Friedfeld said.

The Oath Keepers rhetoric is the organizations most powerful tool, Van Tatenhove said. The organization knows how to say the right thing to connect to peoples fears and worries. The rhetoric then manifests into actions.

The worlds a bit upside down and on fire right now and desperate people do desperate things, he said. Their words are like gasoline thrown on fire. Those words are more powerful than the guns that they have.

Theyve set up these powder kegs that are so ready to explode, were lucky to have seen so little bloodshed so far, he said. I think were running out of luck.

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This Coloradan was a propagandist for the Oath Keepers. Now hes speaking out against the extremist militia tied to Jan. 6. - The Denver Post

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2022

MARCHING ORDERS Gov. Charlie Baker is ordering executive branch agencies to terminate any contracts they have with Russian state-owned companies as the country continues its assault on Ukraine.

The governor's executive order directs agencies to review any partnerships or affiliations with those companies, the Russian government and any government-controlled entities. It encourages other agencies, constitutional offices and public colleges and universities to adopt similar policies. And it directs the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants to support Ukrainians fleeing the conflict.

Its not clear how many contracts are actually at stake. Earlier this week, Baker said the state does business with roughly 100,000 entities. His office didnt respond Thursday to request for a contract tally.

Baker joins Republican and Democratic governors who are directing state agencies to cut ties with Russia. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr initiated a bill with bipartisan support that would let state Treasurer Deb Goldberg divest state pension funds from any investments in Russian companies, another tactic thats emerged in several states this week. Their bill would also bar Russian companies and government entities from accessing assets in banks overseen by the commonwealth.

These state-level sanctions are more symbolic than substantive. The $140 million in exposure to Russia already identified in the states pension fund is less than 0.2 percent of the funds total worth. That percentage is similarly low in other states. Governors and lawmakers across the country are aware theyre acting with more bark than bite. But individual states have few levers to pull against Russia over what Baker called an unjustified attack on Ukraine.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Legislation that would overhaul the states offshore wind industry sailed through the House in bipartisan fashion yesterday. But the bill, a priority of House Speaker Ron Mariano, is facing the prospect of a Senate rewrite.

House lawmakers pitched the bill which would change the offshore wind bidding process, create new tax incentives and more as a way to reestablish Massachusetts as a leader in the burgeoning industry and fuel job creation. It would also, they said, help Massachusetts meet its climate goals in the wake of Maines rejection of a transmission line meant to carry cheap hydropower south.

Senate President Karen Spilka plans to take up a broader climate resiliency bill this session that would pair offshore wind with solar and electric public transit. Michael Barrett, the Senate chair of the Joint Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, told Playbook he hopes the Senate will go broad and spread the love more evenly across the full range of emissions-reducing technologies.

Im all for offshore wind. I think everybody in the Senate likes it for the electric power and likes it for the jobs, Barrett said. But you do have solar, and you do have energy efficiency, and you do have clean transportation.

Baker called the House bill round one of what he expects to be a very complicated back and forth during an appearance on GBHs Boston Public Radio. GBHs Mike Deehan has more on the bills tax incentives and fees for gas ratepayers.

TODAY Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and U.S. Education Sec. Miguel Cardona visit a Roxbury elementary school at 8:15 a.m. to promote multilingual learning. Wu joins the union picket line outside the Marriott Copley at 9:30 a.m., signs her real estate transfer fee home-rule petition at 10:30 a.m. in Mattapan and hosts an Instagram Live on how Boston can support Ukraine at 3:30 p.m. Cardona and AG Maura Healey participates in a MIT Title IX panel at 9:30 a.m. Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley host a roundtable on the impact of student loan debt on Black small businesses owners at 10:45 a.m. at Soleil Boston. Baker and Wu speak at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle awards at noon at the Omni Boston Seaport hotel.

THIS WEEKEND Baker is on WBZs Keller @ Large at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Rep. Jake Auchincloss is on WCVBs On the Record at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Tips? Scoops? Links still not working? Email me: [emailprotected].

Massachusetts reports 1,067 daily coronavirus cases; 3,084 infections in K-12 schools, by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald: State health officials on Thursday reported 1,067 new coronavirus cases and a continuing drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations, as infections also kept falling in K-12 schools. A total of 3,084 staff and students tested positive in Bay State schools in the past two weeks, an average of 1,542 cases per week. That weekly average is down 61% from the previous report as the omicron variant slows across the state.

"Town-by-town COVID-19 data in Massachusetts," by Ryan Huddle and Peter Bailey-Wells, Boston Globe.

State Senate hires a pay consultant in wake of report that says staff pay breaks with best practice, by Samantha J. Gross, Boston Globe: A salary study commissioned by the state Senate but never publicly released found fault with the chambers hiring and pay practices for its staffers, concluding the approach can be perceived as lacking fairness and may lead to problematic staff turnover. After Globe inquiries about the report, the Senate on Wednesday announced that it had hired a consultant to serve as the chambers newly created compensation specialist. The consultant will receive a $100,000 annual salary, according to state payroll data.

Senate releases governance bill for Holyoke Soldiers Home: Removes layers from chain of command, by Jeanette DeForge, Springfield Republican: The Senate Ways and Means Committee released a new bill defining the oversight of the Holyoke and Chelsea Soldiers Homes, cutting out several steps in the chain of command the superintendents of the state-run veterans nursing homes will have to follow. The bill is substantially different from the House bill on the oversight, which passed in a 156-1 vote on Feb. 10 and has since been criticized by Inspector General Glenn Cunha as well as members of the Holyoke Soldiers Home Coalition, which is made up of former employees and family members of residents.

State Police troopers may have inflated hours they worked in hundreds of details, inspector general finds, by Matt Stout, Boston Globe: State Police troopers may have claimed to work more hours than they actually did in more than 800 paid details, spurring at least $150,000 in payouts that investigators called emblematic of possible abuse, according to the state inspector generals office. Inspector General Glenn Cunhas office said the conduct, which occurred in 2016, violated the State Polices rules at the time for paid details. And while the State Police and its largest union have since agreed to new rules governing how troopers are paid for details, Cunhas office argued that the new guidelines are ripe for more wasteful spending.

Baker explains his opposition to Mayor Michelle Wus real estate transfer tax, by Rebecca Tauber, GBH News: I dont support these sorts of things, [Gov. Charlie] Baker said. And I especially wonder why were doing this at a point in time when we have billions of dollars available to us to spend on housing, and the city of Boston has hundreds of millions of dollars available to them to spend on housing.

NEVER SAY NEVER: Baker mostly but not completely shut the door on another run for elected office. Responding on GBHs Boston Public Radio to a caller who asked when hes going to run for president, the outgoing governor said hes 65 years old now and wants to spend more time with his family. I think the likelihood I would do anything else in elected politics is pretty slim. Thats not a no.

Lady Gaga, other celebs have unclaimed property in Massachusetts, treasurer says, by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald: Lady Gaga: You could be on the right track, baby, if you visit Find Mass Money. Thats according to the Massachusetts treasurers office, which revealed on Thursday that the pop icon has unclaimed property in the Bay State. Treasurer Deborah Goldberg announced the latest grouping of names that have been added to the states list of unclaimed property owners. More than 55,000 new properties worth millions of dollars belong to individuals and businesses throughout the state, including Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga.

Boston-area colleges relax pandemic protocols, by Grant Welker, Boston Business Journal: Northeastern University is taking some of the strongest steps back. It stopped posting a Covid-19 dashboard indicating test results last weekend, and has dialed back from required weekly surveillance testing to allow optional weekly tests for asymptomatic staff and students.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Rep. Jake Auchincloss is formally kicking off his reelection campaign Saturday afternoon with endorsers Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, Newton City Council President Susan Albright and council Vice President Rick Lipof.

GETTING IN: Tara Hong will launch his campaign for 18th Middlesex state representative at 11 a.m. Saturday in Lowell.

"Healey: No Regrets on 2016 Marijuana Opposition," by Michael P. Norton, State House News Service (paywall): Massachusetts voters in 2016 voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana over the objections of Attorney General Maura Healey. Six years later, as a candidate for governor, Healey doesn't regret her position. ... Was she wrong, [GBHs Jim] Braude asked. I think I'll leave that for others to judge, Healey said. Watch the clip.

Second candidate joins race to succeed Blodgett, by Julie Manganis, Salem News: A longtime North Shore lawyer is joining the race to succeed retiring District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, who announced in January that he will not seek re-election. James OShea, 50, of Middleton, formally filed campaign papers with the states Office of Campaign and Political Finance last week.

As Commuters Return To Offices, Some Find Their MBTA Bus Lines Are Gone, by Brandon Truitt, WBZ: [Michael Lyons] was just one of many who used the MBTA bus lines daily. The trouble is that the lines he needs have been suspended during the pandemic. The MBTA said there are some alternative routes available for commuters to use. However, many riders say those routes make the commute time at least twice, up to four times, as long.

"Making gig drivers employees could result in major job loss, study finds," by Katie Johnston, Boston Globe: If Uber and other gig-economy companies are forced to make Massachusetts drivers employees, and they then require drivers to work at least 20 hours a week on average, between 49,000 and 74,000 job opportunities across four major ride-hailing and food-delivery platforms could be lost, a drop of 58 to 87 percent, according to a study commissioned by a coalition representing the four tech companies.

Former Fall River mayor Jasiel Correia II gets another delay in reporting to prison, by Jo C. Goode, Herald News: Despite opposition from federal prosecutors that it is time for Defendant Correia to go to prison, federal Judge Douglas Woodlock has ordered a fourth delay for Jasiel Correia II. ... Correia's new date to report to a federal medium security prison in Berlin, New Hampshire is April 5. Woodlocks latest reasoning to defer Correias incarceration is the former mayors recent deadline extension in the First Circuit Court of Appeals for his defense attorneys to file arguments to either acquit him of fraud and government corruption or to offer him a new trial.

Massachusetts could receive $110 million from new Purdue settlement, by Deborah Becker, WBUR: The new settlement with Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma could provide Massachusetts with $110 million to offset costs from the opioid crisis. Thursday's settlement with all U.S. states and thousands of local governments calls for Purdue's owners, the Sackler family, to pay up to $6 billion.

More than trending hashtags: Black congresswomen Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush press for end of qualified immunity after President Joe Biden calls to fund the police, by Erin Tiernan, MassLive: Black congresswomen Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush are pushing back on President Bidens State of the Union calls to fund the police instead demanding greater law enforcement accountability and an end to qualified immunity.

Massachusetts has the fourth highest levels of hate propaganda activity in the nation, report finds, by Liz Neisloss, GBH News: White supremacist propaganda in the U.S. remained high in 2021, according to a report released Thursday by the Anti Defamation League (ADL), and included jumps in antisemitic activity and white supremacist events. Massachusetts was found to have the fourth highest levels of hate propaganda activity in the country after Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas. This type of propaganda includes racist and antisemitic fliers, banners, and stenciled graffiti. At least 12 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.

Under fire, Parole Board considers new process to terminate never-ending parole, by Sarah Betancourt, GBH News: The lawsuit [Khalid] Mustafa and other former inmates have filed the first of its kind in the state argued that the process to end parole is opaque and termination applications are rarely approved. Theyre seeking a clear process for terminating parole, with benchmarks for getting approval and requiring specific reasons for denial. The case may already be spurring change. The parole board has agreed to create formal regulations to address issues the plaintiffs have brought up, putting the case on hold.

A knockout blow: Mass General Brigham ads ruffle feathers, by Jessica Bartlett, Boston Globe: For weeks, Mass General Brigham has splashed its teal ads across newspaper pages, television screens, and the internet to rally support behind its proposed $2.3 billion expansion. The campaign, which experts estimate cost millions of dollars, has angered competitors and a legislator, who say the health system is using its deep pockets to relay misleading information to regulators and the general public. Mass General Brigham, for its part, says its using the ads to dispel misinformation spread by critics and to speak directly to patients.

Report cites uptick in welfare fraud, by Christian M. Wade, Salem News: The Department of Transitional Assistance, which oversees Massachusetts welfare system, says it blocked at least 683 attempts to use electronic benefit transfer cards to purchase banned items such as cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana. Thats a more than 40% increase over the previous year, when the state agency blocked at least 480 illegal EBT card transactions, according to a new report.

New Bedford Police Union leaders rank high in number of complaints, by Anastasia E. Lennon, New Bedford Light: Current and former New Bedford Police Union leaders have some of the largest complaint histories among the departments nearly 240 officers, according to data provided by the New Bedford Police Department. The department submitted this summary disciplinary and complaint data to a new state agency that will have the authority to certify or decertify Massachusetts police officers in response to misconduct.

North Attleboro officials consider changing town seal, by Tom Reilly, The Sun Chronicle: They called her Helen, and she may be in line for a makeover. Shes the female figure emblazoned on the town seal and, although she doesnt have an official name, thats how workers in the town hall knew her for many years.

From law enforcement to a sitting state senator, nearly 300 New Hampshire names appear in Oath Keepers database, by Todd Bookman, NHPR: The names of nearly 300 New Hampshire residents including members of law enforcement, a sitting Republican state senator, former lawmakers, local elected officials, and military personnel appear in a database of alleged members of the Oath Keepers militia, though the extent of their ongoing involvement is not detailed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jonathan Kraft, Rene Fielding, Henry Barrett, Deborah Ziskind and the Daily Hampshire Gazettes Bera Dunau.

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the Boston Globe, which turns 150 today. Today is also Boston Globe Day in Boston, per a proclamation from Mayor Michelle Wu.

HAPPY BIRTHWEEKEND to Lowell state Rep. Thomas Golden, Josh Arnold, Sharon Block, Gov. Charlie Bakers 18 campaign manager Brian Wynne, Chris Joyce, Chris Lane, Justin Backal Balik, Adam Boyajy, Tavo True-Alcal and Tamsin True-Alcal, who all celebrate Saturday; and to UMass Journalisms Steve Fox, Blake Gottesman, Jenn Queally and Lauren Young, who all celebrate Sunday.

NEW HORSE RACE ALERT: Diana DiZoglio and Republicans' moves in statewide races State Sen. Diana DiZoglio joins hosts Jennifer Smith, Steve Koczela and Lisa Kashinsky to discuss her run for state auditor. Subscribe and listen on iTunes and Sound Cloud.

Want to make an impact? POLITICO Massachusetts has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Bay State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause youre promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness among this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: [emailprotected].

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