Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

Interdisciplinary artists and choreographers Rhys Dennis and Waddah Sinada lead an emotional exploration of generational trauma, Black masculinity and the struggle for vulnerability.

FUBUNATION was founded back in 2017 by dance artists and choreographers Rhys Dennis and Waddah Sinada as a collective and platform with which to create more representation and and visibility for dancers of colour in contemporary dance. Ruins is their ambitious, genre-spanning, multidisciplinary project exploring the myth of masculinity within the Pan-African diaspora. Drawing together live performance, film and photography, Dennis and Sinada lead us on an emotional exploration of gender, identity and the Black experience.

This work speaks to the generational trauma inherited by men from marginalised groups with the mission of creating a space where the black male figure is more visible & honestly represented in its full complexity, explain the duo. Through movement and visual art, FUBUNATION open a dialogue surrounding the myth of masculinity as it is felt within the Pan-African diaspora. They are deconstructing the power struggle within themselves and finding the balance between conflict,vulnerability, and codependency.Addressingand repairing the deep rooted anxieties that black men have learned so well to mask.

Toeing a delicate line between aggression and intimacy, violence and compassion, Dennis and Sinada enact a complex emotional dialogue in their movement. At once furtive and assertive, they cycle through a dizzying range of moods and tempos, reflective of the ever-changing dynamics of intense male bonds. Flickering between an intense duet and monochrome memories of past trauma, Ruins portrays many the faces of masculinity.

For more information about FUBUNATION and their work you can visit their website and find them on Instagram.

Ruins Credits:

Donnie Sunshine Editor, Director of Photography, ColouristSannchia Gaston Director of Photography, Edit Assistant, Colourist Stephanie Berge ProducerRobia Miliner Movement DirectorChristopher Raeburn CostumesMichaela Selway Production AssistantJames Campbell Wilkie MusicAram Zarikian DrumsJames Yates Drum Engineer

Cast:Christopher QuagraineGeorge RattiganGlenn HudsonJohnson AdebayoJonny ViecoKaiJaun DennisKirubel BelayMatthew McCarthyMicah McleodMuti MusafiriONeil RochesterRyan MunroeSolomon Berrio-AllenWillem Lock

Watch next: Patch Notes Qasim Naqvi

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

A new festival comes to Liverpool this month and it includes the annual Katumba Halloween Carnival.

Routes & Roots will see two weeks of free family-friendly cultural, arts and wellbeing activities & events across Liverpool, created to celebrate Black History Month and to include the iconic annual carnival.

Every October, Liverpool drumming and movement troupe, Katumba holds events across L8 and L1 that culminate with the Katumba Halloween Carnival in Liverpool City Centre.

This year, Katumba is partnering with other organisations from the newly-formed BlaST network of Black and Brown Social Traders, including Cycle of Life and Centre of Development.

Together, theyre delivering Routes & Roots Festival of the African Diaspora and theyre welcoming the whole community to join.

We are thrilled to bring back the Katumba Halloween Carnival after having to cancel last years event. This year will be even more special with us being now part of BlaST-Black & Brown Social Traders Network-and devising a whole two weeks of activities with our Routes & Roots Festival of the African Diaspora. Being part of that diasporic history myself, I hope this festival will help connect, share, and discover our shared history whist celebrating our diversity

From drumming and dancing to lantern making; slavery tours and bike workshops to wellbeing, this is your chance to connect with the heritage, culture and wellbeing practices of people of the African Diaspora.

Festival Opening Day

Saturday 16th October / 12 5pmat The Bombed Out Church St LukesDance, Drumming, Spoken Word, Slavery Tours, and more for all ages.

Community Workshops in L8 & Online17th 30th October Samba, African & Afro-Brazilian Drumming, Capoeira, Cycling skills, Fitness, Yoga, and more!

Katumba Halloween Carnival & BlaSTs launch31st October, 5pm 9pmat the Bombed Out Church, Church St and Liverpool One

Transforming the Liverpool City Centre into a playground of imagination, with pop up performances inspiring, and engaging audiences by creating big, bold, visual shows and performances through unexpected spectacle of drums, fire, lights, dance, theatre and more!

Routes & Roots-Festival of the African Diaspora is also part of the official Liverpool City Council Black History Month programme of activities.

I am really excited to be part of this pioneering collective in the Liverpool city region-the Black & Brown Social Traders Newtork-BlaST. Our Routes & Roots Festival is a great opportunity to bring together and showcase the fantastic and diverse talent within Liverpools black business community. The festival will also give the wider business community a chance to take a look at the STOs on show and create avenues for collaboration and new partnerships within the region.

I want this festival to bridge gaps, showcasing the power in understanding and celebrating cultural differences in the hope to reshape our social ideas that are divisive() We dont see people as labels Life is more complex and interesting than that. We are all shaped by our family, our education and by the experiences that we face daily. These things shape us and make us into who and what we become.

We hope to welcome the whole of the Liverpool City Region to come along and feel the beauty in connecting with our heritage and the legacies of our ancestral diaspora.

All activities will be free, but pre-booking is essential.

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

By Denijal Jegic

The inauguration of the Israeli embassy in Bahrain and the celebration of Israeli apartheid at the Expo 2020 in Dubai are the latest manifestations of the violent alliance between the three oppressive regimes which has been advertised as normalization.This increased public collaboration is a necessity for Israel, but, despite an exhaustive propaganda campaign, it will not help legitimize the regimes nor prevent their decline in the long run.

The illusion of a normalization

The formal US-backed publicization of the relations between the regimes of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in August 2020, also known as the so-called Abraham Accords, has highlighted how these oppressive regimes increasingly depend on each other.

The announcement was celebrated as alleged progress toward so-called Arab-Israeli peace in the Middle East, as if a war had ended. Of course, the regime in Tel Aviv and the ruling monarchs in Abu Dhabi and Manama were never really in any conflict. The unelected Persian Gulf dictatorships and the apartheid colony can be seen as natural allies given that their existence in the current forms necessitates continuous oppression and existentially depends on US support. The solidarity between the regimes is becoming crucial for their survival.

The normalization of the Israeli regime has been advertised as beneficial for Palestinians, through a recycling of Zionist euphemisms of conflict and lies about imaginary peace talks and two-state solution. Under the guise of prosperity and the ridiculous pretense to be helping Palestinians, the ruling monarchs of the UAE and Bahrain have done further damage to the Palestinian cause, becoming direct collaborators in the Israeli settler-colonial apartheid project. Yet, they lack any democratic mandate from their own population. Emiratis and Bahrainis did not elect these despots, nor did they consent to normalization with the Israeli regime.

Culture of fear

Laws in the UAE forbid organizing and protesting. Criticism of the normalization could effectively lead to life imprisonment. A culture of fear has prevented citizens from opposing their regimes alliance with Israel.

Despite the lack of freedom of speech, Bahraini citizens continue to protest against the regimes alliance with Israel. They face violent silencing from the regime. This week, regime forces brutally suppressed the demonstrations against the visit by the Israeli regimes foreign minister. Yair Lapid arrived in Manama on the first commercial flight from Israel in order to inaugurate the Israeli embassy in Bahrain. The two regimes stressed their common anti-Iranian stance and the usual key myths used in the advertising of the so-called normalization, i.e., peace, stability and cooperation.

The necessity of propaganda

Meanwhile, in Dubai, Expo 2020 represents a major propaganda opportunity and, in fact, necessity, for both the Israeli and Emirati regimes.

The dictatorship has long developed Dubai into a hyper-capitalist hub, where despotism is presented as progress, whitewashed through money, technology, and entertainment. The absolutist monarchy is using Expo 2020 to expand its glittery image, trying to hide its structural human rights violations at home and abroad, such as the systematic oppression of foreign workers and the war crimes in Yemen.

Just like Israel, the UAE invests enormous propaganda efforts to secure its legitimacy in the West. The expo, for example, is heavily promoted by the corporate media outlet CNN.

The Israeli regime was particularly well-received at the event. Israel can now whitewash its apartheid directly from Dubai. Indeed, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement reiterated its call for boycott of all events sponsored by the Emirati regime. Highlighting the violent alliance between the two regimes, the Palestinian BDS National Committee called for escalating worldwide pressure on the UAE dictatorship to end its support for Israels apartheid regime, its crimes in Yemen, and its horrendous human rights violations at home.

On her visit to the UAE this week, Israeli interior minister Ayalet Shaked announced the implementation of visa-free between citizens of the two regimes. Shaked, who is known for her calls forgenocide of the Palestinian people, was impressed by the Emirati police and the surveillance in Abu Dhabi.

The aftermath of the formal normalization has revealed how similar the three regimes in fact are. It has also shown their fragility. The normalization is most of all a transactional relationship between the United States and its proxy regimes. It is also an extension of Zionist apartheid. In fact, it has expanded the Israeli military and surveillance apparatus to the Persian Gulf. Israeli spyware has been used to track and oppress dissidents. Israeli tourists are smuggling drugs and engaging in prostitution. The apartheid states police will soon be establishing a permanent presence in the UAE.

Decline of US hegemony

Israel is weakened. As the US hegemony in Western Asia seems to be in decline, the normalization with Arab regimes is becoming crucial for Israels continuous survival.

The settler-colonial regime is constantly on the edge, having to please its enablers and justify its mere existence which continuously necessitates both the genocidal removal of Palestinians and enormous propaganda efforts.

However, settler-colonialism and apartheid cannot be normalized, neither can the despotic rule in the UAE or Bahrain. For decades, the people in the region have rejected any rapprochement with the Zionist project, and continue to do so. Throughout Western Asia, the resistance against the multiple Zionist regimes in the region is prevailing.

Denijal Jegic is an author and researcher in Beirut. His research focuses primarily on the Palestinian struggle and Zionism. He holds a Ph.D. from the Institute for Transnational American Studies (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany).

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

Summer is over in Israel and so too the holiday season that includes Yom Kippur and Sukkot with their accompanying prayers of remembrance. Memory is integral to most Jewish holidays. The readings at Passover and the lighting of candles at Hanukkah are collective acts of remembrance. The importance of remembering has always been central to Jewish self-identity. As Jonathan Safran Foer would have it: Jews have six senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing memory.

But here there are also holidays specific to the State of Israel, traditions linked to Zionist history. These include Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers, Jerusalem Day which celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem, and Independence Day. This is not to mention other days marked in the calendar to honour Zionist icons such as Herzl, Ben Gurion, Jabotinsky, and Rabin. And, of course, there is Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Israel, collective remembrance linked to a sense of national identity and a dominant narrative of history is ritualised and institutionalised; the days are sacred milestones in the calendar year. Nakba Day, as commemorated by Palestinians, is not one of them.

Collective memory is key to the argument of Omri Boehms new book, Haifa Republic A Democratic Future for Israel (New York Review of Books), which applies the ideas of Ernst Renan concerning nationhood to the Israeli-Palestinian context. Boehms work explores memory and history but is also concerned with the future, hence the subtitle. It can be considered a significant contribution to an increasingly vocal but still marginal strand of thought on the Israeli/Jewish left. The likes of Peter Beinart, Avraham Burg and organisations like BTselem are looking beyond the illusion of the two-state solution. In the light of demographic reality, the Nation-State Law, and the permanency of occupation and oppression, the word apartheid is being used more openly, albeit within the echo chambers of liberal thought.

This shift is in part a response to what Boehm identifies as a Gramscian crisis of intellectual leadership on the left in Israel. He offers the likes of Amos Oz and David Grossman as examples of those guilty of ignoring de facto annexation in pursuing the intellectual cul-de-sac of Oslo and the two-state solution. Like the current political leadership of the left in Israel, they are complicit in allowing a political reality based on Jewish supremacy to come about. With its choice to designate the occupation as Israels original sin, a wrong turning made in 1967, liberal Zionism has supressed the Nakba, according to Boehm. His book is a rejection of a way of thinking that has led to apartheid and is, at the same time, an exploration of a possible way forward for Zionism.

An Israeli and a professor of philosophy at The New School in New York, Boehm puts forward a vision of a federal binational future for Israel-Palestine in Haifa Republic. There is nothing new here. In fact, Boehm emphasises that this has been a line of thought in Zionism from its beginnings. But Boehms interesting contribution is to foreground the role that memory plays in sustaining the current situation the reality of an apartheid where citizens of Israel can live and vote anywhere between the river and the sea (bar Gaza) whilst Palestinians are denied basic rights. Boehm references Spinozas ideas concerning memory as a divisive force an agent of myth, ideology, religion, and irrational thought. Memory, as Spinoza had it, is the origin of conflict, violence, and war, never of enlightenment, democracy, or peace. Boehms vision for a democratic future for Israel-Palestine entails the act of forgetting alongside remembering.

For Boehm, the notion of remembering to forget is key to the way forward. He recalls Renans idea of the nation as a daily plebiscite that membership of a nation is a matter of continually choosing to belong. That choice of belonging cannot happen without a willingness to forget those things which have the potential to divide citizens. Willingness to forget therefore becomes a patriotic duty. This forgetting, Boehm stresses, is not Stalinist airbrushing, nor erasure. Remembering to forget entails the act of recalling and recognising history so as to set aside those things that divide.

His analysis in terms of the context of Israel-Palestine is that Israelis remember to remember as in the annual days of remembrance above but forget to forget. If a Holocaust messianism that places Israel beyond universalist politics and moral critique is not forgotten in this sense, Israelis and Palestinians cannot escape the status quo. And if the Nakba is not remembered, it cannot be forgotten. Despite some modest steps in the right direction, that particular part of Israels history has no significant presence on the school curriculum, and Naftali Bennetts current policy of shrinking the conflict encourages a continued widespread lack of engagement with a history of conquest and occupation.

Boehms vision depends upon both sides adopting a dialectical politics of memory and forgetting in relation to both Holocaust and Nakba. This is not an argument for ahistoricism, nor a pointless debate about equivalency between the Nakba and the Holocaust. It is an argument for acknowledging and then looking beyond the suffering of Jews and Palestinians to find a way forward. Boehm cites a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010 by Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian and Israeli citizen. On that day, Tibi chose to stay silent about the Nakba to express solidarity, to remember together with Jews. Boehm presents this as an example of leadership in terms of remembering to forget.

Boehms position is avowedly neither anti- nor post-Zionist. In contrast to others, he has no wish to abandon Zionism. He instead attempts to reinvigorate the politics of a binational state as a Zionist program consistent with Israels founding fathers. Boehm recruits a number of these to the cause: Herzl, no less, but also Ahad HaAm, Jabotinsky, Begin, even a young Ben Gurion. There is a highly selective emphasis on early Zionist binationalism in Haifa Republic, but this is not completely without foundation. The influential pre-state Zionist thinker Ahad HaAm, as Palestinian historian Nur Masalha has pointed out, always acknowledged that Palestine was anything but an empty land and was critical of the ethnocentricity of early political Zionism. Boehms Haifa Republic vision is itself based on an autonomy proposal of Menachem Begin approved by the Knesset in 1977.

He draws a distinction between nationalism and patriotism in his attempt to rescue Zionism from its collapse into its hard-right Revisionist interpretation, seeking to link it to ideas of self-determination rather than sovereignty. Boehm envisions a transformation of Zionism into something greater than a commitment to a Jewish state. One might question the effort to rehabilitate something that many consider too toxic, beyond redemption. But if there is to be any realistic, volitional movement away from nationalism towards Jewish self-determination within a federal structure belonging to all its citizens, Zionism cannot be unmade, but only recast. People are not going to give up their flags and grand narratives easily. Haifa Republic is a passionate argument for a future for a Zionism that is otherwise doomed, as Boehm (referencing Begin) puts it, within a twenty-first-century Rhodesia.

Rather than Rhodesia, Boehm uses the mixed city of Haifa as a symbol of his binational vision. It is tempting to point out the fragility of current examples of coexistence as evidenced by the country-wide riots during this years Operation Guardian of the Walls. It could also be said that a single speech by Ahmad Tibi represents thin evidence for a willingness to remember to forget by public figures on both sides. But the point, I suppose, is the example set. And the vision. Boehm anticipates charges of deluded, leftist optimism and so his telling choice of epigraph for Haifa Republic is the Herzl mantra, If you will it, it is no dream. His vision of a liberal, democratic Haifa Republic of all its citizens is, he argues, not messianic but utopian. As increasing numbers are recognising, the status quo is the unsustainable illusion. Ignoring this fact, Boehm writes, is akin to denying global warming.

The Hebrew word meaning remember, zachor, appears almost two hundred times in the Bible. Memory is sacred to all who live between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. No-one has a monopoly. Haifa Republic recognises the importance of remembrance, but it also represents an injunction to wilfully forget. This act is envisioned as part of an individuals continually renewed contract with a future democratic state of all its citizens. Boehm refuses to give up on Zionism, but he is not preaching to the converted. In proposing a nation built on choosing to belong rather than culture, tradition, or blood, he is issuing a challenge to a broken ideology from within.

This article was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2021 at 9:33am and is filed under Book Review.

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

Brigadier General RasoulSanaei-Rad made the remarks on Thu. on the sidelines of the graduation ceremonyfor military cadets of Iran's Armed Forces Academies and reiterated that the powerful Islamic Iran will not allow presence of terrorists, whether Takfiris or Zionists, on northwestern borders of the country.

Turning to the recent incidents took place in northwestern regionof the Islamic Republic of Iran, the brigadier general said, "In the events that are taking place in the northwestern part of the country, we know that Zionist regime and some trans-regional powers are behind these incidents and seek to take advantage of neighboring countries for their benefits.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Brigadier General Sanaei-Rad referred to the recent military drills launched by Iran's Armed Forces in northwest part of the country and stated, Staging a military drill entitled Conquerors of Kheibar in northwest part of the country conveyed a strong message to enemies of the country that Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow presence of terrorists, whether Takfiri or Zionist, near its borders.

Islamic Republic of Iran opposes any geopolitical changes in the region and considers it 'important' to preserve its territorial integrity, observe international law, respect international rights and also rights of its neighbors, Political Deputy of Political-Ideological Office of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces added.

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

The Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism (JDA) is theproductof a group of international scholars of antisemitism and related fields who have been meeting since June 2020 in a series of online workshops convened by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Essentially, the new document charges the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism with blurring the difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism. As a result, the IHRA definition delegitimiz[es] the voices of Palestinians and others, including Jews, who hold views that are sharply critical of Israel and Zionism.

The JDA was purportedly written as a resource for strengthening the fight against antisemitism, because there is a widely felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine. The JDA is presented as the alternative, a corrective to overcome the shortcomings of the IHRA definition.

Nowhere in the IHRA definition are Palestinians mentioned; nor does it mention BDS. There are, however, three clauses that can be construed as applying to the actions of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists. These are:

Pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Israel groups have long complained about the IHRA definition because, in the grip of their fixation on Israel as fundamentally illegitimate and their flat denial of the Jews right to self-determination, they reject the premise that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

It should be noted that some of the authors of the new document are radical academic activists, including Israelis and non-Israeli Jews. Among them are Richard Falk, Neve Gordon, Anat Matar, David Feldman, Chaim Gans, Snait Gissis, Amos Goldberg, Avishai Margalit, Hagar Kotef, David Shulman, Dmitry Shumsky, Yair Wallach, Moshe Zimmermann, Moshe Zuckermann, Gadi Algazi, Seth Anziska, Bernard Avishai, Peter Beinart, Louise Bethlehem, Daniel Blatman, Daniel Boyarin, Jose Brunner, Naomi Chazan, Alon Confino, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, and David Enoch.Some of them have also called for the boycott of Israel. Recruiting Israelis and Jews to deflect accusations of antisemitism is a longstanding practice in anti-Israel and antisemitic circles.

As for its content, the JDA is essentially a wholesale denunciation of the IHRA definition. Some points stand out. The declaration accuses the IHRA definition of malpractice because it considers criticism of Israel antisemitic. However, the IHRA definition clearly states, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. The JDA suggests that Institutions that have already adopted the IHRA Definition can use our text as a tool for interpreting it. It doesnt explain why an institution that had adopted the IHRA definition should wish to adopt the JDA version, which opposes it.

The JDA makes its political agenda clear by declaring its support for the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law. Similarly, the JDA wishes to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants between the river and the sea, whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.

What the JDA fails to mention is that in Palestinian parlance, the demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state on its ruins. Similarly, the Palestinian demand for a binational state or a unitary democratic state has been used by the PLO since the late 1960s as code for the transformation of Israel into an Arab state in which Jews are reduced to a permanent minority living on the sufferance of the Muslim majority, a status known in Islamic history as Dhimmis. In the words of Edward Said: [T]he Jews are a minority everywhere. A Jewish minority can survive [in Arab Palestine] the way other minorities in the Arab world survived.

As for dismantling the occupation, this was effectively ended in January 1996 when Israel relinquished control of 95% of the West Banks Palestinian population in line with the Oslo Accords (control of Gazas Palestinian population had been transferred to the newlyestablished Palestinian Authority (PA) in May 1994).

The key problem with the JDA is the claim that Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism is not antisemitic. It betrays its bias by failing to reject any form of nationalism other than the Jewish one. Needless to say, such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace its corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated racism.

No less disingenuous is the JDAs claim that it is not antisemitic to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheidanother attempt to discredit Israels right to exist on account of its alleged dispossession of the (supposedly) indigenous population. Apart from failing to indict any other manifestation of settler-colonialism (from the US, Canada, Australia, to most of Latin America, to earlier manifestations of this phenomenon in Europe and the Middle East), this claim ignores the fundamental fact that the Jews are not colonial settlers but rather the indigenous inhabitants of the Land of Israel (renamed Syria Palaestina by the Roman occupiers). This millenarian attachment was specifically emphasized by the 1922 League of Nations mandate, which tasked Britain with establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine.

If anything, it is the long string of Muslim occupiers of the Land of Israel (or parts of it)from the 7thcentury Arab invaders, to the Seljuk Turks, to the Mamluks, to the Ottoman Turks, to the Egyptians, Jordanians, and newlyformed Palestiniansthat can be defined as colonial settlers.

As with the settler colonist slander, the apartheid canard is not only false but the complete inverse of the truth. Whether in its South African form or elsewhere, such as the US South until the late 1960s, apartheid was a comprehensive and discriminatory system of racial segregation, on the basis of ethnicity, comprising all walks of lifefrom schooling, to public transportation, to social activities and services, to medical care. None of this has ever been applied in Israel, where the Arab minority has enjoyed full equality before the law and has been endowed with the full spectrum of democratic rightsincluding the right to vote for and serve in all state institutions. (From the first, Arabs have been members of the Knesset.) From the designation of Arabic as an official language, to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal rest days for their respective communities, to the granting of educational, cultural, judicial, and religious autonomy, Arabs in Israel may well enjoy more formal prerogatives than ethnic minorities anywhere in the democratic world. This is at a time when apartheid has been an integral part of the Middle East for over a millennium, and its Arab and Muslim nations continue to legally, politically, and socially enforce this discriminatory practice against their own minorities.

The JDA argues that calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic, but it does not call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against any other nation except Israel. Quite clearly, the document is intended to legitimize the anti-Zionist boycott movement against Israel.

Ironically, after the JDAs writers bent over backward to appease the Palestinians, a leading Palestinian group rejected the JDA. According to the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the highest authority on BDS, there are inherentflawsin the document, such as the following:

Aljazeera, the Qatari media outlet, which favors the Palestinians, published a negative article about the JDA, calling it an orientalist text. Mark Muhannad Ayyash, an associate professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada, authored the piece. He says the core problem with both the IHRA and the JDA definitions of antisemitism is their failure to address the silencing and erasure of Palestine and Palestinians. He argues that by proclaiming that the Jews have a right to their own state, it obscures the fact that this state was established on a land that was already inhabited by Palestinians.

Ayyash goes on to say that like the IHRA definition, the JDA sets out to determine which kinds of anti-Zionist critiques and views constitute antisemitism, and which do not. But like all liberal documents that have been produced in the thick of a colonial or settler-colonial moment, this document keeps intact the colonial contract whereby the colonial masters retain the position of privilege and supremacy in voice and status over the colonized. Ayyash calls the JDA an orientalist text because it does not oppose the core problem of the IHRA definition: the silencing and erasure of Palestine and Palestinians.

Ayyash considers the JDA an example of covert orientalism because hostility to Israel could be an expression of an antisemitic animus, or it could be a reaction to a human rights violation, or it could bethe emotionthat a Palestinian person feels on account oftheir experience at the hands of the State. Therefore, the JDA, in supposed opposition to the IHRA definitions anti-Zionism is antisemitism premise, tells its audiencethe Euro-American worldthat even the Palestinians, whom Ayyash apparently believes should be absolved of such attentions, should be policed for possible antisemitism.Because the Palestinians are so reactionary, emotional, and hostile, they are a source of statements and campaigns that Euro-Americans should tolerate but also remain vigilant against.

According to Ayyash, the JDA dares to question the reasonableness and lack thereof of Palestinians, and that very assessment is presumptuous and Orientalist. His concern is that according to the JDA, any Palestinian who question[s] the validity of the idea of a Jewish State for a Jewish majority could be characterized as at best unreasonable and at worst antisemitic. This is Orientalism at its best, Ayyash concludes.

The JDA tried to appease the Palestinians by asserting that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic. But for the Palestinians, this is splitting hairs. In their view, both the IHRA and the JDA are inherently flawed because they accept the basic premise that Jews have a right to a Jewish State. The Palestinians flatly reject the Jewish right to self-determination in any form. No matter how the pro-Palestinian writers of the JDA might want to spin it, that view is fundamentally antisemitic.

(Dr. Dana Barnett is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies)

{Reposted from the BESA website}

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

Upon his arrival in Moscow, Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with the media representatives, "We expect Russia to react to probable changes in countries borders in the region and be sensitive about such matters."

"It is also expected that Russia will be sensitive about the presence of the terrorists and the moves of the Zionists in the region, which are both threats against regional peace and stability," he added.

Amir-Abdollahian said that besides this visit, Tehran and Moscow are exchanging viewpoints on various issues of mutual interestcontinually and through diplomatic and telephone calls.

"The Iranian and Russian presidents had two phone talks and President Putin had sent his high ranking representative to attend President Raeisis inauguration ceremony in Tehran," he added.

The Foreign Minister said that this visit will have achievements aimed at taking a long and comprehensive stride forth in bilateral ties.

"Keeping in mind the status in the south Caucasus region and Afghanistan, we are going to have serious negotiations, he said.

Amir-Abdollahian said that Tehran and Moscow policies have been very close to each other during the recent years and in the field of mutual interests good, harmonized and constructive moves have been made.

We hope this potential will be further improved in all sections to ensure regional security, he said.

Heading a diplomatic delegation,Irans Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has left for Moscow on Tuesday eveningat the invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

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Posted By admin on October 5, 2021

What is it like to grow up as the son of arguably the most famous Holocaust survivor in the world?

That was the question put at AJRs next generations conference by Stephen Smith, now UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education and Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation. Dr Smith, founder of the UK Holocaust Centre in England and cofounder of the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity and genocide, was in conversation with Elisha Wiesel, son of the writer and Nobel prize-winner Elie Wiesel, who died in 2016.

In fact, as Elisha Wiesel made clear in their conversation, he is the son of two Holocaust survivors, but with very different attitudes towards their wartime experiences.

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His mother, Marion, wanted to put the war behind her and not talk about it ever again, he said. But to mark his mothers 90th birthday in 2020, he had managed to get a film crew to record her talking about her familys departure from Vienna after the Anschluss, their subsequent moves to Belgium, France and then Switzerland, where she remained for the rest of the war.

Elie Wiesel, by contrast, wrote 60-70 books, many detailing aspects of his survival, and not all of which, his son admitted, he had read.

The AJR Connecting Next Generation of Connecting Next Generation at the Stamford Bridge, in London. By Debra Barnes

He actually sheltered me quite a bit from knowledge of the Shoah, Elisha Wiesel said. But one picks things up in an ambient fashion. When my friends [in New York] were going to Palm Beach for sumner camps, I would be going to death camps in Poland.

Overall he characterised his father as an incredible listener.he loved to engage with people and hear their stories.

Elisha Wiesel (via Twitter)

For a long time, from about age 14 onwards, Elisha wanted nothing to do with the old world. I resented being known as the son of Elie Wiesel, and I led a very rebellious teenage life, only interested in my guitar and meeting girls.

Today, however, aged 49, things are very different. Almost to his own surprise he studies a page of Talmud every day and says since he married and had children, he has joy in passing on knowledge and faith. In his family, he says, he talks much less about the Shoah and much more about what it means to be Jewish. But he admitted, with a grin, to Stephen Smith that he still plays the guitar.

Elie Wiesel had only two red lines for his son, which he hopes to pass on to his own children. He insisted that I had to marry someone Jewish, and he asked me to say kaddish for him. Now, says Elisha, he has made peace with being the son of Elie Wiesel, and makes himself available to speak about his father and bearing witness in the Second Generation wherever he can.

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Elie Wiesel's son: 'My father sheltered me quite a bit from knowledge of the Shoah' - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on October 5, 2021

At least 440 narrative films have been made about the Holocaust and Rich Brownstein has seen just about every single one of them.

As a lecturer on Holocaust film for Yad Vashems international school, Brownstein has both a personal and professional interest in viewing and cataloguing so many depictions of Jewish suffering.

Dealing with Holocaust education is akin to dealing with oncology, in that you have to set aside your personal feelings, he says. You cant be drawn in.

Now, Brownstein has publishedHolocaust Cinema Complete, a comprehensive book-length guide to theever-expandingcinema of the Shoah. The book, which went on sale in September, contains statistics on the content of the films, essays on their methods, descriptions and capsule reviews and information for educators looking to use Holocaust films in their curriculums. Documentaries are not included, but made-for-TV movies and miniseries under three hours in length are.

Brownstein says he has seen every film that is available to be seen (excluding unreleased outliers such as Jerry Lewis The Day The Clown Cried). In the book, he gives his unvarnished opinions on the giants of the genre, including Schindlers List, Life is Beautiful and Jojo Rabbit and fans of those movies may not like what he has to say.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Brownstein hasnt always focused on such dour subject matter. Prior to moving to Israel in 2003, he worked as a producer for Jewish comedy legend David Zucker (Airplane!) and South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker (Stone is Jewish), even appearing in an uncredited cameo in the trios 1998 comedy BASEketball, before founding his own video transcription company. He says he has no familial connection to the Holocaust, and first became interested in the subject after reading Leon Uris novel QB VII.

Brownstein spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about his years watching Holocaust reenactments, what qualifies as a Holocaust movie in his book and how the public, and educators, should approach the genre.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

JTA: How did you become drawn to catalogue these films?

Brownstein:I started collecting movies when I was in my twenties. In Los Angeles, I had over 1,000 movies on VHS, and I knew VHS wasnt going to exist anymore. So I started over on digital, but the whole time, I kept a database, and in the database I had created I would separate Jewish and Holocaust films from others. So I was always attuned to it.

After I moved to Israel, I had a cousin who was on a Young Judea [year abroad] course. And I asked her what she was learning and she said, We have a Jewish film class. We just watched Private Benjamin [a 1980 comedy starring Goldie Hawn as a grieving Jewish widow who enlists in the Army]. I said, Private Benjamin is not a Jewish film. It has a Jewish character, but that doesnt make it a Jewish film. I happened to have known the educational director for the program he and I grew up in Portland together. And so I went to him and said I would teach a class for free, on Holocaust films. And he said, Fine, free is a very good price.

And then, my daughter was a high school senior, and most Israeli high school kids used to go to Poland on their class trips, and she was the spokesperson for her class. Someone asked her if she would represent the State of Israel at Yad Vashem, at their international conference. I looked at the program, and one of the seminars that they had was on using the documentary Shoah in the classroom.

I called up the director, whom I did not know, and said, I think this is the stupidest thing Ive ever heard, that you would consider using a 10-hour documentary in a classroom. Students would fall asleep. To have a symposium where youre advocating to people using Shoah pedagogically is reckless. And he said, You sound like you know what youre doing, so well try you out [on a class]. And his blurb is on the back of my book.

Why do you think there are so many Holocaust films?

Well, I actually dont think there are that many Holocaust films. I think that in terms of the total number of WWII films, for example, its a tiny fraction. We just know about Holocaust films because 25% of all American-made Holocaust films have been nominated for an Academy Award. And from 1960 through 2015, every other year, one of the best foreign language films nominated [at the Oscars] was a Holocaust film.

So you think that theyre coming at you like snowflakes in a blizzard, but theyre not. Theyre just very well targeted and very well marketed, and we have a hunger, especially in the Jewish community, for this story to be told properly.

I think that the percentage of good Holocaust films is far greater than the percentage of good non-Holocaust films. That is, I think that if Im recommending 50 Holocaust films in my book, out of 450, that means Im recommending 11% of Holocaust films. I couldnt recommend 11% of non-Holocaust films.

You use a categorization system in the book. Can you break it down for us?

You cant compare apples to oranges; you have to compare apples to apples. I created these categories its a grid. The first [box] is victim film. So if a film took place during the Holocaust and it was principally about a Jew, then its a victim film, and there are like 100 of them. If a film took place principally during the Holocaust and its about a Gentile saving Jews, then its a righteous Gentile film. If its after the Holocaust and its primarily about a survivor, then its a survivor film. After the Holocaust and mostly about a perpetrator, a Nazi, then its a perpetrator [film].

And then I had a little bit of a problem with with this general theory because of Sophies Choice and Inglorious Basterds, which dont fit into any of these categories but clearly are Holocaust films, so I added a miscellaneous or tangential category.

You consider Harold & Maude and X-Men to be Holocaust films. Is anything that references the Holocaust a Holocaust film?

No, not at all. There are many, many films that arent Holocaust films in my eyes that other people think are. The most famous ones are The Book Thief [a 2013 drama about a young girl in Nazi Germany who steals books to share with a Jewish refugee] and The Sound of Music [the famous 1965 musical about a wealthy family in prewar Austria, in which several characters are Nazis], neither of which I consider to be Holocaust films.

Harold & Maude, if you think about it, she lives in a train car. And theres a scene where shes in the train car with Harold, and he points to the umbrella over her hearth, and she says, That was when I was a kid in Vienna, and shes tearing up. And then she says, But that was all before. Shes clearly a survivor, and then they reveal the tattoo. Its not just that she happens to be a survivor and Hal Ashby threw that in there. Her entire being is shaped by her experience.

X-Men, too, not that its a great film, but you dont have X-Men without Magneto suffering in the first three minutes, in Auschwitz.The mutants are a metaphor for Jews during the Holocaust, and its not a hidden metaphor. Magneto rips down the gates of Auschwitz! Of course its a Holocaust film.

JTA readers already know thatyour favorite Holocaust film is The Grey Zone,a 2001 drama about the Jews who worked as Sonderkommando at Auschwitz-Birkenau. What are your least favorite Holocaust films, and what distinguishes a bad Holocaust film?

It depends on how far down into the sewer you want me to go, because there are some that are spectacularly horrible.

Lets talk about The Reader [a 2008 drama, based on a novel by Bernard Schlink, that won Kate Winslet an Oscar]. The Reader is a story about an East German woman after the war, who is really, really hot. But she cant read. And so she makes this really sketchy deal with a young man, that if he reads to her, they can have sex. And then we find out, after all of this hot sex, that this really nice lady was a Nazi guard, who had, with other women Nazi guards, locked 300 Jews in a barn and burned it down. And she gets put on trial. But she cant adequately defend herself, because shes illiterate, and were supposed to feel bad for this woman who killed 300 Jews in a barn, because shes illiterate. Thats really weird. Thats a bizarre notion.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas [a 2008 British drama about a child of a Nazi guard who befriends a Jewish boy held prisoner in Auschwitz] is the same idea It was an absolute train wreck. It was just a terrible, terrible, terrible movie.

The glorification of Nazis, Im going to say, the humanization of barbarians is a hard no for me. Im gonna hold the line there. And thats my main complaint about Schindlers List. Oskar Schindler was a repulsive, repugnant, horrible human being while the first five-and-a-half million Jews were killed. He didnt care; he participated. And then all of a sudden, he grew a conscience, so he became a normal person. He didnt become a good person. You would think somebody who was a cog, who had been participating with the Germans since 1936, that guy doesnt get elevated.

I know this is an incredibly difficult thing to hear and say, but almost every Holocaust film that ever came out of Canada, and was directed by a Canadian, theres not a one of them that I can recommend. Every single one of them is horrible.

Your book is structured partially as a teaching guide. In general, how do you think Holocaust films should be used in educational settings?

Holocaust film should be a supplement to lessons. If you are teaching the Holocaust using Holocaust films, then you should rethink your teaching methods, because they are not the beginning of Holocaust education. They are the end of it.

So, if you want to teach about what happened in Birkenau, you can, if your students are old enough, mature enough, you can show The Grey Zone. But not before youve spent weeks explaining what this place is, and the history of it.

You can teach about the Wannsee Conference, and you can show the film Conspiracy [a 2001 made-for-TV drama about the planning of the Final Solution] a wonderful film, with Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci. Its one of the finest films Ive ever seen. But if you dont know what theyre talking about, then its a complete waste of time.

What would you like to see filmmakers and audiences keep in mind when it comes to making, or viewing, Holocaust films?

Well, lets establish from the beginning that every [historical] narrative film, Holocaust or otherwise, whether were talking about Lincoln or Argo or Apollo 13, is a fictionalized account of something that happened. Every narrative film is fiction. If the intention is to represent something true, that happened, then it is raising the bar, and you need to be able to ascertain what elements of the truth are relevant and what are irrelevant.

Theres a difference between watching Inglourious Basterds and watching Schindlers List. Everybody should know, after watching Inglourious Basterds, that Adolf Hitler was not killed in a movie theater by Ryan the temp from The Office. But you dont know when youre watching Schindlers List that Jews were not marched into a dual-purpose shower that actually did have water, but that was hermetically sealed, and that the Jews, going in, actually thought that they might be gassed. The misrepresentation of the shower scene in Schindlers List is so egregious that it ruins the veracity of the film.

The second thing is within the context of all filmmaking, where does it stand? Do I need another one of these? Every story has been told, basically. We all know, within general strokes, whats going to happen. There arent a lot of alternatives people live or they die. But are they going to tell a new story in a new way?

I have to make this really clear: When I sit down to any movie, Holocaust or otherwise, I am the most optimistic person in the world. I want the movie to succeed. I believe in everything that Im watching until they make me disbelieve it. And even then I sit there and I try to find some reason to like this movie.

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Following its world premiere at Toronto, HBO Films has taken exclusive North American rights to Barry Levinsons The Survivorabout Holocaust survivor and U.S. boxer Harry Haft. Ben Foster plays Haft in the movie, which marks a reteam with his Liberty Heights writer-director Levinson. Deal was 8-figures, making it the biggest one in a subdued Toronto marketplace.

After being sent to Auschwitz, Haft survived not only the unspeakable horrors of the camp but the gladiatorial boxing spectacle he was forced to perform with his fellow prisoners for the amusement of his captors. Unbeknownst to those who try to destroy him, Haft is driven by the most important reason any man has to survive: a quest to reunite with the woman he loves. After a daring escape, he makes his way to New York, where he succeeds in using his boxing skills to establish a name for himself in the hope of finding his one true love. His indomitable spirit lands him in the ring with boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as he fights to make sense of his past and reclaim the life that was stolen from him.

The movie is based on the book Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Haft. Rain Man Oscar winner Levinson directs, reteaming with HBO, having helmed such movies as Paterno, You Dont Know Jack and The Wizard of Lies; those HBO films amassed 26 Emmys. Justine Juel Gillmer adapted The Survivor.The Survivor is produced by New Mandate Films Matti Leshem (The Shallows), BRON Studios Aaron L. Gilbert (Bombshell, Monster, The Front Runner), Baltimore Pictures Jason Sosnoff (HBOs Paterno, The Wizard of Lies) and Barry Levinson (Donnie Brasco, Bugsy) and Scott Pardo (Hope & A Little Sugar). Executive Producers are Joel Greenberg, Ben Foster, Danny Devito, Brenda Gilbert, Steven Thibault, Ashley Levinson, Anjay Nagpal, Ron McLeod, Jason Cloth and Richard McConnell.

The Survivor Toronto Film Festival Review: Barry Levinson Directs Ben Foster In Extraordinary Transformation Into Auschwitz Prisoner Who Boxes To Stay Alive

The Survivor also stars Vicky Krieps, Billy Magnussen,, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirze, Dar Zuzovsky, Danny DeVito, and John Leguizamo.

Levinson, who also produced, said, Having done numerous films at HBO, I dont know of a better home for The Survivor.

Producers Matti Leshem and Aaron L. Gilbert said: The Survivoris the true story of a man who confronts the ultimate moral dilemma in the face of one of the worlds greatest evils, Nazism. Harry Hafts journey takes him from the depths of Auschwitz and into the ring with Rocky Marciano as he negotiates his new life and seeks the woman he loves. At a time when hatred based on race and belief is escalating, Harrys story is a reminder of overcoming adversity against all odds. We were thrilled to launch the film at TIFF and the subsequent tremendous reception we received. We are delighted that the team at HBO shares our passion and we are looking forward to launching this important story with them.

The films production was aided by a team at USC Shoah Foundation, who provided detailed historical consulting in addition to access to a testimony of Haft, filmed in 2007 and preserved within USC Shoah Foundations Visual History Archive.

Said HBO Programming EVP Francesca Orsi: We are immensely proud to bring The Survivor to the HBO and HBO Max audience. Barrys meticulous exploration of this true story of unimaginable choices, perseverance and redemption coupled with Bens transformative performance will captivate viewers and stay with them long after the credits roll.

WME Independent brokered the deal with HBO.

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