Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

Hamas on Saturday released a video of two hostages it is holding in Gaza, including one who is a dual U.S. citizen, as the group said it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal to halt the fighting and bring some of the captives home.

The video, which lasts just over three minutes, shows U.S.-born Keith Siegel, 64, and Omri Miran, 47, from a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip border. The families of the two men confirmed their identities in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer advocacy group.

The proof of life from Keith Siegel and Omri Miran is the clearest evidence that the Israeli government must do everything to approve a deal for the return of all the hostages before Independence Day, which is on May 14, the statement said.

The men were kidnapped by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, when the group and allied fighters stormed southern Israel and rampaged through local communities, killing around 1,200. More than 250 others were abducted that day, and over 100 were released during a temporary truce in November. Israel says 133 hostages are still in Gaza, 36 of whom are confirmed dead.

The video on Saturday, which was posted on Hamas-affiliated social media channels, is undated. But the pair make references to the Jewish holiday of Passover, which ends on Tuesday, and to being held captive for more than 200 days, suggesting the footage is recent.

Omris father, Dani Miran, told Israels Channel 12 news that he was in tears the second he saw his son in the video, which was the first evidence hes seen indicating that Omri, a husband and father of two, is still alive.

The clips of Miran and Siegel were screened Saturday evening at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages. The video shook me and all the people of Israel, Dani Miran said in an address to the crowd.

He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to approve a cease-fire deal with Hamas that would secure the hostages release. Take one small and bloodless step for both peoples, he said. All the people of Israel and the nations of the world want to see an end to the bloodshed.

In a recorded video statement, Keith Siegels wife, Aviva, addressed her husband, saying: Keith, I love you, we will fight until you return. Aviva Siegel was also kidnapped on Oct. 7 and was held for 51 days before her release.

The images of Miran and Siegel came just days after similar footage was released by Hamas showing U.S.-Israeli citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Together, the videos renewed pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate a deal. For months, the talks have largely been stalled, with Israel seeking only a temporary truce and Hamas insisting any pause in the fighting be linked to a more permanent cease-fire.

Israel wants the hostages released and Hamas eliminated in Gaza. For its part, Hamas hopes Israel will agree to withdraw its troops and release some Palestinian prisoners.

On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the government could suspend a planned military operation in Rafah in southern Gaza if a deal is reached. Katz, who made the comments in an interview with Israels Channel 12, is not part of Israels five-man war cabinet, which makes decisions on the countrys military operations.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel Monday to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he will meet with Palestinian, Egyptian and Qatari leaders to discuss cease-fire efforts and humanitarian assistance in Gaza, the State Department said.

An internal investigation into 12 U.N. relief workers in Gaza who Israel alleged were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack has cleared one person, as no evidence was provided by Israel to support the allegations, said Stphane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Antnio Guterres. Investigations into an additional three cases have been suspended because of insufficient evidence provided by Israel, he said, and eight cases remain under investigation by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.

Activists who organized an aid flotilla to Gaza said Saturday that their mission was canceled, after authorities from Guinea-Bissau withdrew their countrys flag from two of the three ships. The flotilla was scheduled to depart from a port near Istanbul on Friday after multiple delays. On Thursday, the Guinea-Bissau International Ships Registry requested a last-minute inspection, activists said in a statement, calling the decision to remove the flags blatantly political.

At least 34,388 people have been killed and 77,437 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamass Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 261 soldiers have been killed since its military operation in Gaza began.

Alon Rom, Claire Parker and Susannah George contributed to this report.

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Latest Israel-Hamas war news and Gaza conflict updates - The Washington Post

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday to discuss the prospects of a possible cease-fire deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, while repeating his warnings about a new Israeli assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, officials said.

The call was meant to pave the way for Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who left Washington just a few hours earlier on Sunday for his latest trip to the Middle East aimed at scaling back the war in Gaza. Mr. Blinken headed to Saudi Arabia, where he will see Egyptian and Qatari officials who have served as intermediaries with Hamas in the cease-fire and hostage talks, which remain in a stalemate.

The State Department announced while Mr. Blinken was in flight on Sunday that after attending a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, he would also stop in Jordan and Israel. The secretary has been a critical player in the Biden administrations efforts to broker a cessation to the war, increase humanitarian aid and win the release of more than 100 hostages believed to still be in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack.

Thats going to be right at the top of the list for Secretary Blinken, to keep pushing for this temporary cease-fire, John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman for the White House, said on This Week on ABC. We want it to last for about six weeks. It will allow for all those hostages to get out and, of course, to allow for easier aid access to places in Gaza, particularly up in the north.

He has also been leading discussions about what comes after the war is over. During his stop in Saudi Arabia, according to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Mr. Blinken expects to meet with Arab and European officials in a group to talk about plans for rebuilding Gaza, even though Israel is still carrying out its war there and has not achieved its elusive and perhaps impossible goal of fully eradicating Hamas.

An administration official said that about three-quarters of Mr. Bidens nearly hourlong call to Mr. Netanyahu focused on the possible cease-fire and hostages deal. American officials have said that Israel has accepted the U.S.-drafted plan, and they have placed blame for the failure to reach an agreement squarely on Hamas, which in their description has not been constructive. During the call, the president agreed that the onus remained on Hamas to accept the latest proposal, the official said.

The two leaders also discussed hostage videos released by Hamas last week, including those showing two hostages with American citizenship. American officials have been puzzling over why Hamas would release those videos more than six months after seizing the hostages, although it is possible the goal was to increase Israeli public pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to make more concessions to reach a deal so that he could bring hostages home.

The presidents call to Mr. Netanyahu came three weeks after Mr. Biden told the prime minister that he would rethink his support for Israels war unless the country did more to facilitate the delivery of food and other supplies to Gaza and to limit civilian casualties. Since then, humanitarian aid to Gaza has increased substantially, and Biden advisers credit Israel with responding to the presidents demands, although they acknowledge that more is still needed.

Israel has withdrawn some of its forces from southern Gaza but says it is still planning a major assault on Rafah, where about one million Palestinians have taken refuge. Biden administration officials have expressed concerns about the possible operation, and Israeli officials have said they will take that feedback into consideration and consult further with American counterparts

In a statement after the call, the White House said that Mr. Biden reiterated his clear position on any Rafah operation and reviewed with the prime minister the ongoing talks to secure the release of hostages together with an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

The president and the prime minister also discussed increases in the delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, including through preparations to open new northern crossings starting this week, the statement said. The president stressed the need for this progress to be sustained and enhanced in full coordination with humanitarian organizations.

With protests rocking American college campuses, some critics of the Netanyahu government emphasized on Sunday that the changes it has made since Mr. Bidens threat had not gone nearly far enough.

Right now, what Netanyahus right-wing, extremist and racist government is doing is unprecedented in the modern history of warfare, Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, said on State of the Union on CNN. They have killed in the last six and a half months 33,000 Palestinians, wounded 77,000, two-thirds of whom are women and children.

The White House statement made just passing reference to the recent clash between Israel and Iran, saying only that Mr. Biden reaffirmed his ironclad commitment to Israels security following the successful defense against Irans unprecedented missile and drone attack earlier this month.

Israeli and U.S. forces, with the help of European and Arab allies, shot down nearly all of more than 300 missiles and drones fired by Iran at Israel earlier this month in retaliation for Israels killing of senior Iranian officers. Israel, heeding pleas by Mr. Biden for restraint, fired back only a token counterattack, and both sides have indicated they want to avoid further escalation.

With the immediate threat of a wider war seemingly fading, Mr. Biden and his team could shift their attention back to Gaza. Under the U.S.-sponsored cease-fire proposal, Israel would halt hostilities for six weeks and release hundreds of Palestinians held in its prisons in exchange for the release of 40 hostages held by Hamas, mainly women, older men and those with health conditions. Later stages of the deal would then extend the cease-fire and result in more hostages being freed.

American officials have said that an agreement has been blocked by Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader living in hiding in Gaza. Israel put a new counterproposal on the table on Friday, raising the prospect of a more sustained end to hostilities. Hamas, which has demanded a permanent end to the war as part of any deal, said on Saturday that it had received the proposal and was considering it.

Mr. Kirby expressed cautious optimism that progress was still possible.

Hamas has not fully rejected it. They are considering this proposal on the table, he said. If we can get that in place, then that gives you six weeks of peace. It gives you no fighting for six weeks, and that includes no fighting in Rafah, and what were hoping is that after six weeks of a temporary cease-fire, we can maybe get something more enduring in place.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinkens plane.

Peter Baker Reporting from Washington

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World Central Kitchen Will Return to Gaza - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

The Ukrainian diaspora in the USA conducted advocacy campaigns to support Ukraine day and night; even after the passage of the eagerly anticipated aid package, they do not intend to cease their efforts, said Andriy Dobriansky, Director of Communications of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, in an interview for Suspilne Novyny.

Ukrainians probably saw how the agitation was happening in front of Congress every day, how they called the Senate, the House of Representatives, Joe Biden every day. The war has not ended. We still have a lot to add. We are moving forward for other initiatives, as we still need to convince President Biden to include more powerful weapons in the aid for Ukraine, not only ATACMS missiles but also finally planes, etc., said Dobriansky.

On April 23, the US Senate approved a Ukraine aid package exceeding $60 billion. Following six months of delay, the House of Representatives passed the measure. The next step is for President Joe Biden to sign it into law.

The package is extensive. There will be no signing ceremony; it will happen immediately. The president can sign it as soon as possible so that all procedures work through Europe, through the entire American system, because this is not only the transfer of weapons to Ukraine but also the transfer of weapons to Israel and the transfer of weapons to Taiwan, said Dobriansky.

The Ukrainian World Congress expresses gratitude to the USA for the decision to provide Ukraine with $61 billion in aid. We also thank the Ukrainian community for their consistent advocacy for American support.

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Dobriansky on US aid to Ukraine: Diaspora worked day and night - Ukrainian World Congress

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

Archpastoral Letter of the Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA and Diaspora: 38th Anniversary of Chornobyl Nuclear Disaster

"As we approach the solemn anniversary of the Chornobyl Nuclear Disaster, let us unite in prayerful observance and remembrance of the lives lost and the ongoing impact of this tragedy. As we commemorate the 38th anniversary of this Nuclear Tragedy, our hearts are heavy with the weight of recent events in world politics. In the midst of ongoing conflicts and aggressions, we are called to remember not only the lives lost in the tragedy of Chornobyl but also those affected by the current war in Ukraine.

Thirty-eight years ago, the world witnessed the devastating consequences of the nuclear catastrophe at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The effects of this disaster continue to be felt by countless individuals and communities, reminding us of the fragility of human life and the importance of stewardship of Gods creation.

Today, as we witness the genocidal actions of the Russian Federation which destroy not only human life but the environment as well, we are compelled to renew our commitment to prayer and action.

In the face of such challenges, let us draw strength from our faith and unite in prayerful observance. Let us lift our voices in remembrance of the victims of Chornobyl and all those affected by the ongoing invasion in Ukraine. Let us also pray for wisdom and courage for our political and religious leaders, that they may act with integrity and compassion in the pursuit of peace and justice.

As members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA and Diaspora, we are called to be ambassadors of Christ's love and agents of healing in a broken world. Let us use this anniversary as an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the values of compassion, justice, and environmental stewardship. Through our prayers and actions, may we bear witness to the sanctity of life and the sacredness of God's creation.

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all as we lift our hearts in prayer and solidarity".

With paternal blessings and love in Christ,

+Antony, Metropolitan

+Jeremiah, Archbishop

+Daniel, Archbishop

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Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA and Diaspora compared the Chernobyl disaster to Russia's ... - -

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

According to Bloomberg, Nigeria is planning to set up a $10 billion diaspora fund to attract investment from its citizens living abroad to support critical sectors including infrastructure, health care, and education to grow the economy.

Nigerias Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment is seeking bids from asset managers to set up the fund.

The fund is part of broader efforts to strengthen ties between Nigeria and its diaspora, promote national development, and harness the potential of its nearly 20 million citizens living abroad as agents of change and development for Nigeria, the ministry said.

Nigeria has introduced reforms to attract investors back into the economy and support the naira, which has lost more than 60% of its value since June.

They include relaxing foreign-exchange controls, easing rules on international money transfers and reducing the gap between the central banks policy rate and yields on the short-dated paper it sells at auctions.

According to data, Nigeria was the top country to receive remittance inflows in 2022 with $20 Billion.

The proposed asset offering could take the shape of infrastructure, credit and venture capital funds, the ministry said. Interested firms, including joint ventures and greenfield funds, are encouraged to apply by May 6, the ministry said.

Source: Bloomberg

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Nigeria Planning To Set Up $10 Billion Diaspora Fund To Attract Investment - Tech Labari

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

To the Silent Ones,

In the early hours of October 7, 2023, the deadliest terrorist attack was launched against Israel. While I was fortunate enough to be in the United States, the impacts were profound on a global scale. The footage emerging from Israel of young adults being slaughtered, dragged out, and violently kidnapped, unraveled a haunting reality and reminded us of our own vulnerability: it could have been any of us.

I am an Israeli-American, Jewish graduate student at Columbia University. I hold multiple on-campus jobs and represent the institution in various capacities, mostly with my writing. However, the institution I once dreamed of attending has evolved into a place I no longer recognize- one where flagrance, lawlessness, anarchy, and terror is not only enabled, but openly tolerated and glorified.

On Monday, I made the difficult decision to transition to remote courses for the remainder of the semester, one not made lightly. Despite repeated attempts to engage with the administration through countless emails, I have been met with silence. As Jewish students, it is evident that our safety and well-being on our own campus is not prioritized, while blatant hatred is justified on a daily basis.

To leadership, I am done pleading for you to prioritize Jewish safety and minimizing our trauma, but this letter is not for you. It's one thing to lack administrative support, but to realize it's absent even among friends is a disheartening reality- one that in all of my twenty-three years, never saw that coming.

To my silent friends, I have seen you watch my social media stories, championing other causes in the name of social justice and so passionately engaging in discourse. Yet, as antisemitic violence and pro-terror rhetoric emboldens our very college campuses, you are suddenly nowhere to be found. Your ignorance, avoidance, and cowardice is omnipresent. Students are being physically assaulted by angry mobs, ones which continuously celebrate Hamas atrocities and undermine the collective mourning and trauma of our people.

We should not have to beg for your empathy because you are too afraid. We do not ask for pity, rather, seek recognition of our communitys ongoing pain and recurring battles we must fight every day as not only Columbia students, but Jews navigating a post-10/7 world. While unintentional, it is the silence of those too timid to call out Anti-Semitism who have allowed these demonstrations to escalate in both scope and intensity. To those I beg the question, What are you so afraid of? I implore you to rise above your apathy and fear before it is too late.

We have all both experienced harm and inflicted harm, for we are only human. I recognize our collective blind spots and ongoing efforts to grow, however, I am tired of rationalizing and justifying the silence for the sake of your comfort. There has been far too much of it and I have reached my limit. Many of us have.

To those who suggest Jewish students merely leave the institution, I almost find it amusing. I have worked tirelessly throughout my academic and professional career preparing for this moment. As Jews, we will not cower and submit to the hateful narratives being perpetuated around us on a daily basis. We will stand firm in our place, embracing Jewish joy as resilience. No force, group, or administration can strip us of our unwavering determination and everlasting spirit. This is a narrative deeply embedded in our history, yet we, as Jews in the diaspora, are rewriting it. But we cant do it without the help of our loved ones and friends.

If the past seven months have taught me anything, it is the preciousness of life- its beauty, fragility, and the often fleeting nature which defines it. In the face of terror and tragedy, we must surround ourselves with love and be immersed in joy- we owe it to ourselves, as well as the 1,300 innocent and beautiful lives lost who can never do the same.

It is in their memory that we must continue living vibrantly, loudly, and cherishing every moment. To the ones who still remain silent, there are still so many words I wish to express. Your resounding silence speaks volumes, but if you ever feel ready to share those words, know that your Jewish friends are ready to listen. It is better late than never. Let us all pray for brighter days and futures for both Israelis and Palestinians alike, and the dignity, safety, and humanity for all people.

Signed,

Your Jewish Friend Who Really Isnt Okay

Becca Baitel 25 is an Israeli-American graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University.

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An open letter to the silent ones in a post-10/7 world - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

About two years ago, while I was Israel's Ambassador to Canada, before I resigned due to the change in government and the promotion of the judicial-political coup in Israel, I, along with my colleagues, heads of Israeli missions in North America and Europe, faced displays of hatred, incitement, and delegitimization led by organizations that call themselves "pro-Palestinian." Even then, we tried to expose their true faces and present them as they are: organizations representing the new anti-Semitism, sly and sanctimonious, cleverly blending hatred of Jews with hatred of Zionists and absolute delegitimization of the very existence of the State of Israel, under the guise of "legitimate" criticism towards the Israeli government's policies concerning the Palestinians and settlements.

Often, these organizations, many of which are funded and supported by countries like Iran and Qatar, manage to camouflage their true motives, which, in the narrow and immediate sense, are to completely undermine Israel's legitimacy to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people in its historic homeland. In the broader and long-term sense, they seek to undermine the liberal-democratic order and challenge constructive progressiveness, committed to maintaining state frameworks that respect a variety of identities, beliefs, opinions, and different worldviews. Therefore, although in the common discourse in the media and social networks these organizations are presented as pro-Palestinian, their primary concern is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but opposition to the very existence of the State of Israel, as part of a deeper challenge to Western democracy as a state framework where fair interactions between different social and political currents are supposed to occur with respect for compromises and agreements.

If these organizations were genuinely pro-Palestinian, they would certainly call for the liberation of the Palestinian people in Gaza from the terrible burden of Hamas, the most extreme terrorist organization in the world, which not only beheads, rapes, and murders Israeli women and men, but also tortures and kills political rivals from within, and throws Palestinian homosexuals from rooftops to their deaths. If they were pro-Palestinian, they would call on the Palestinian political leadership to return to the negotiation table and promote dialogue with the Israeli government - not the current one of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, but the next one of Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, Benny Gantz, and Avigdor Lieberman - to promote the idea of separation into two states, an idea that has been repeatedly rejected through violence and terrorism by the Palestinians whenever Israel was ready for it in the past.

Their current occupation of campuses by these "pro-Palestinian" organizations is unlike the expressions of social-political protest known in the Western world. It is organized, violent, and brutal. It involves threats and abuse against Jewish and Israeli students, some of whom still deny the very right to exist of the only democratic state in the region and actively seek its destruction. These organizations cleverly exploit the freedom of expression, a key democratic constitutional principle practiced in the countries where they operate, and under its protection, they engage in incitement, hatred, and threats without facing any consequences. Campuses serve as a particularly convenient platform for them, allowing them to exploit the universities' deep commitment to pluralism, freedom of expression, and thought to spread toxicity, false realities, and offensive messages.

Thus, under the guise of freedom of expression, they not only make statements denying Israel's right to exist but also calls for the murder of "Zionists" and messages of praise for the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7th. These are not expressions of support for the Palestinian people and their rights - these are incitement to murder and genocide, calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people and its state.

More than any other aspect they embody, these organizations are inherently violent. Their support for violence and terrorism is not only verbal and written. Their control over shared student spaces in universities, employing verbal and physical violence against Jewish and Israeli students, instills fear and spreads terror. Jewish students feel threatened; many avoid going to campuses, and among those who do, many take care to remove any identifying sign indicating they are Jewish or Israeli. This is a direct result of intimidation and fear. This is terrorism.

Amid this dark momentum, there might also be a significant opportunity, as the camouflage employed by these organizations is no longer effective; their violence is now visible to all, and their challenge to democratic law and order is evident. Not only are Israel and the Jews threatened here, but also American society as a whole, along with Canadian society, Western Europe, and other democratic societies. The current wave of violence, filled with hatred and incitement, may thus serve as a ringing wake-up call, expected to reveal the true faces and identities of those behind these protests and campus occupations: anarchism, support for violence, and a drive to undermine the democratic order at its core. Hopefully, the cat is finally out of the bag.

Dr. Ronen Hoffman, former Israeli Ambassador to Canada, leads the philanthropic project "Oz for Israel," supporting trauma treatment and combating anti-Semitism. He is also the head of the international program ELI for Leadership, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at Tel Aviv University.

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Inciting to murder, genocide under the guise of freedom of expression - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote an essay inThe Atlantic about the protest at his home. The Dean provides more details on the facts leading up to, and during the protest. But the one paragraph towards the bottom is perhaps the most important:

Overall, though, this experience has been enormously sad. It made me realize how anti-Semitism is not taken as seriously as other kinds of prejudice. If a student group had put up posters that included a racist caricature of a Black dean or played on hateful tropes about Asian American or LGBTQ people, the school would have eruptedand understandably so. But a plainly anti-Semitic poster received just a handful of complaints from Jewish staff and students.

Chemerinsky is exactly right. The double standard is painful, but utterly unsurprising for anyone who has studied anti-semitism. And if silence is violence, there was a bloodbath in what was once Boalt Hall. The fact that only Jewish staff and students complained about the poster demonstrates the problems with the DEI industrial complex: only certain types of diversity are to be promoted. Jews with any attachment to the Jewish state need not apply. And forget ideological diversity.

In every generation, there is anti-semitism. 1619 was four centuries ago, but Jewish oppressions stretches back to the beginning of recorded history. Yet Jewish people will never fit into the DEI intersectional hierarchy. The aftermath of October 7 reveals that anti-semitism is always present; it just manifests in different forms.

In December I wrote:

Regrettably, as soon as Israel was established, the millennia-long train of anti-semitism simply morphed into its latest manifestation: anti-Zionism. They don't hateall Jews, they just oppose all Jews who seek to protect the the only speck on planet Earth devoted for their protection. This doctrine was dressed up in all the academic garb of Marxism, anti-colonialism, and critical racial studies. Anti-Zionism was championed by elite academics on campuses. DEI apparatchiks, ostensibly hired to promote equity, reified the anti-Zionist trope. Students, who are woefully unfamiliar with world history, see the children of the Holocaust as just another oppressor. And, as they are taught, any act of resistance against the oppressors is not only justified, but necessary. The right type of violence demands silence.

What lessons will Chemerinsky and other progressives draw from this experience? Will they reflect on how spending countless hours and dollars on DEI yielded nothing but crickets? Or will they realize that DEI enables and emboldens these students to engage in such antisemitic activity?

I'll admit that when conservative states started to clamp down on DEI, I thought it was mostly performative virtue signaling. But the events of the past few weeks have convinced me that these efforts are not just prudent, but may be necessary for the survival of higher education. I think a significant issue in the 2024 election should be how the Department of Education enforces Title VI.

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Chemerinsky: "Anti-Semitism is not taken as seriously as other kinds of prejudice" - Reason

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

In Embrace Pluralism over Racialism, Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam rightly observes that we are living through a disturbing rise in anti-Semitic violence. From the nations first days, he reminds us, America has welcomed the Jewish people, who, in turn, have helped make America the most dynamic, productive, and creative nation in the world.

I would go further. As Paul Johnson wrote in his History of the Jews (1988), it is to the Jews that we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person . . . of collective conscience and so of social responsibility . . . of peace as an abstract ideal . . . and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.

In diagnosing the rise in anti-Semitism, Salam puts his finger on what he terms racialism, defined as a new form of adversarial identity politics that scorns meritocratic pluralism and has become all the rage, figuratively and literally speaking, among a demographically diverse cross-section of young adults.

As the old saying goes, an explanation is the place where the mind comes to rest. But if we dig deeper, might we find an inverse relationship between religious commitments and anti-Semitism, such that a decline in religion begets a rise in anti-Semitism?

A suggestive study released last year might lead one to consider that possibility. In From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler,published in the Journal of Economic Literature, economists Sasha O. Becker and Hans-Joachim Voth subjected diverse datasets to cutting-edge statistical analyses to test whether Germans who lived in robustly Christian communities were more or less likely than otherwise comparable Germans to join the Nazi Party.

As Becker and Voth interpreted them, the results favored what they styled the Shallow Christianity theory: in places in which the Christian Church only had shallow roots, the Nazis received higher electoral support and saw more party entry. The results, they concluded, suggest that Nazi support and Hitlers startling appeal received an important boost from the spiritual emptiness of large parts of the German population.

Still, positing an inverse relationship between robust religious commitments, especially among Christians, on the one side, and anti-Semitism, on the other, might seem ahistorical, or even ridiculous. After all, pre-Vatican II, my own beloved Roman Catholic Church was at times a marketer of anti-Semitic views.

For example, in his magisterial book, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain (1995), B. Netanyahu, father of the present Israeli prime minister, chronicles how the Jews, after resisting the Churchs commands to convert, and being tortured and slaughtered for that resistance, started to comply. But it was not all coerced capitulation; rather, many Jews genuinely embraced the new faith, drenched as it was, then as now, in Hebraic-originated ideas, rituals, and symbols. Some Jews even became Catholic bishops. The Churchs ultimate response, however, was not to embrace but to expel its Jewish co-religionists, redefine Jewish as a racial category beyond the pale of conversion, and resume pogroms and persecutions (if resume is the right word, since, from 1391 to 1492, the anti-Semitic violence was nonstop).

More generally, to posit that a decline in religious commitments is implicated in the latest rise in anti-Semitic beliefs and behaviors might seem daft, given that so much of the phenomenon seems inextricably bound up with inter-religious conflicts between Jews in Israel and their fundamentalist Muslim neighbors in the surrounding countries.

All that acknowledged, it remains the case that the latest surge in anti-Semitic behavior is occurring in an America in which, over the last two decades, tens of millions of people, mostly of Christian background, have either broken with organized religion or become secular. The best book on the trend is David Campbell, Geoffrey Layman, and John Greens Secular Surge: New Fault Line in American Politics (2021). More than a third of Americans now self-identify as belonging to no religion, and about three-quarters of them are now secularists, defined by Campbell et al. as people who disbelieve in the God of Abraham and affirmatively believe in scientific naturalism . . . humanism, or freethinking.

Secularists have come disproportionately from among the ranks of one-time Christians, like cradle Catholics who became lapsed Catholics, and whose Christian faith commitments were never other than shallow. As Jim Davis and Michael Graham report in their book, The Great De-churching: Whos Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will Bring Them Back? (2023), evidence also exists that more than a quarter of the growing cohort of de-churched white evangelical Christians hold at least one view that typically has been associated with anti-Semitic beliefs and sentiments: namely, that the United States should be declared a Christian nation.

What about religious commitments among American Jews themselves? In May 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that, in 2020, only about a quarter of American Jews believedin the God described in the Bible, only a fifth deemed religion very important in their lives, and only an eighth attended religious services at least weekly.

The same survey found that 42 percent of Jews are married to a non-Jew; 72 percent of Jews who married in the 2010s married a non-Jew; and only 28 percent of children raised by intermarried couples that include a Jewish parent are raised to be Jewish and religious, while 29 percent are raised to be Jewish but not religious, and about four-fifths are raised either with only an incidental Jewish identity or no Jewish identity at all.

So, did anti-Semitism become more or less prevalent, virulent, and violent as religious commitments among Christians became shallower and Jewish identities, both religious and cultural, underwent assimilation or attenuation via intermarriage?

In the Pew survey,three-quarters of self-identified Jews agreed that, in 2020, there was more, not less, anti-Semitism in the U.S. than a half-decade earlier, with 53 percent feeling less safe from violence.

One wonders, with trepidation, what those percentages would be now.

Photo: Douglas Sacha/Moment via Getty Images

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Unchurchedand Anti-Semitic? - City Journal

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) joined 26 of her Senate Republican colleagues in sending a letterled by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)to Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, urging them to restore order to campuses that have been effectively shut down by anti-Semitic mobs that are targeting Jewish students. The senators requested Attorney General Garland and Secretary Cardona provide an update on efforts to protect Jewish students by Wednesday, April 24.

In part, the senators wrote: You need to take action to restore order and protect Jewish students on our college campuses. President Biden issued a statement on Sunday, purporting to condemn the outbreak of anti-Semitism. If that statement was serious, it must be accompanied by immediate action from your departments.

Full text of the letter may be found here.

BACKGROUND:

Since the Hamas-led massacre against Israel on October 7, there has been a disturbing rise in anti-Semitic incidents, including targeted harassment, directed at Jewish children in K-12 schools. Senator Capito has joined a number of efforts condemning these anti-Semitic acts and called on the administration to address the rising rates of antisemitism. A list of Senator Capitos efforts can be found below:

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Capito, Colleagues: Biden Administration Must Act to Protect Jewish Students from Pro-Hamas, Anti-Semitic Mobs - Shelley Moore Capito

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