Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

The emotions and passions surrounding Israel-Palestine are volatile, to say the least. There are few issues in our political discourse that cause people to run to their ideological corners faster than when the conversation turns to the latest round of violence in the small sliver of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

I, like many Jewish alumni and current Northwestern students, know this all too well. During my time at NU, the campus at large was embroiled in frequent debates over Israel-Palestine, with students and faculty often feeling the need to choose a side and engage in acts of political performance that did nothing but reinforce the binary, zero-sum nature of the conflict.

That is why it is disappointing that in her recent Op-Ed, Deanna Othman repeats the same unflinching, uncompromising and misleading narratives that some have shared when it comes to how Jews, Muslims and peoples of all faiths interact with questions of Zionism. Like most questions of national identity and peoplehood, the issues at hand are not black and white.

Othman posits that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-racist and never crosses the line into attacks on Jews or acts of antisemitism. However, the irony is she never defines what Zionism actually is. In order to define what a movement is not, its important to articulate what it is.

To me and many Jews and non-Jews all over the world, Zionism is simply Jewish self-determination in some portion of our ancestral homeland, a land Jews have lived in continuously for thousands of years even after the vast majority were forcibly removed or colonized by the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans and British; the list goes on and on dating back to A.D. 70.

It is easy to structure an argument on the merits of anti-Zionism if the philosophy of Zionism is shrouded in a cloak of ethnic cleansing. However, this fails to grapple with its complicated history and imperfect realization.

In reality, Zionism is a complex and ideologically diverse movement that means something different to any person with a physical, religious, emotional or spiritual connection to the land or people of Israel-Palestine. The intellectual underpinnings of Zionism span political ideology from left-wing Socialism to right-wing Revisionism with deep divisions on how the Jewish people should actualize self-determination: some wanted a nation-state, others a cultural homeland with shared political borders. At the core of Zionism is the essence that Jews are not just members of a religious community, but rather a distinct ethnic people with a shared future, language and destiny.

This is why overwhelming majorities of diasporic Jews identify with Zionism in some way and are pained when oversimplified narratives of Israels existence or the structures of anti-Semitism are lumped together. We are also pained when collective movements of Palestinian liberation claim to stand against anti-Semitism, yet are silent when American Jews are attacked in cities across the country for their association or connection to the State of Israel.

Intriguingly, Othman and I agree on some points: anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitic; structural racism exists within the State of Israel; and the fufillment of political Zionism has led to the dispossession, widespread removal and tragic statelessness of the Palestininian people who live under military occupation in the West Bank and woeful conditions in the Gaza Strip. I embrace this discomfort in my Zionist identity and never seek to derail the conversations of liberation Othman seeks. Yet, I wonder if she would do the same for Jewish Zionists like me.

While I recognize Othmans point that From the River to the Sea can be understood to mean a shared society of Jews and Arabs in the historic land of Israel-Palestine, Othman fails to acknowledge that this, too, is not black and white. For many Jews, it is heard as a rallying cry of Hamas militants; a call to expel Jews from Israel and to create another expulsion, displacement and trauma that Jews and their ancestors have endured for generations. These words on the Rock were accompanied by phrases equating Zionism to genocide, an inflammatory and dangerous accusation that has no basis in reality. Jewish trauma runs deep and cant be dismissed or ignored in the quest for equality and justice for Palestinians lives.

This is what we miss when we fail to talk to each other, understand complex narratives of peoplehood and move beyond zero-sum identity politics. My fellow NU alumni should strive to unpack uncomfortable histories and call each other in instead of running to our soothing, yet simpler, ideological corners.

Jonathan Kamel is a Northwestern alum. He can be contacted at [emailprotected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [emailprotected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

As rockets flew between Israel and Gaza last month, American Jews watched with alarm as anti-Israel rhetoric became the norm in some left-wing circles. Accusations of Israels alleged genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid spread widely, even reaching the halls of Congress.

Its become a very common experience for rabbis, and Jews of really any kind who lean to the left progressively, to find, at the very least, difficulties in progressive circles with the love for Israel, said Rabbi Menachem Creditor, the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation of New York. Among people like him American Jews who support progressive policies but also support Israel the language of being lonely has been getting louder.

With Zioness founder Amanda Berman, Creditor is the editor of Fault Lines: Exploring the Complicated Place of Progressive American Jewish Zionism, a book of essays released this week. The idea behind the book was to allow members of the Jewish community to grapple, collectively, with the increasing difficulty of being a Zionist in progressive spaces. Why should people continue to feel lonely when its a very obvious problem? Creditor asked.

The book contains four dozen essays, half of which are original; the rest were reprinted from other publications or taken from speeches or sermons given by the books contributors over the past couple of years. Writers include rabbis, journalists, nonprofit professionals and activists; organizations represented include the American Jewish Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women and the pro-Israel LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge, along with major Reform and Conservative congregations around the country.

The essays contend with what it means to be a Jew who supports Israel and who also supports progressive causes in the U.S., and to refute common misconceptions from people on both the political left and right. The presumption from anti-Zionists in the progressive world is that you cannot be a good person and love Israel, and thats just wrong, Creditor told Jewish Insider.

The problem, he argued, is an anti-Jewish fundamentalism at the fringes of progressive politics, such as the recent removal of an Israeli food truck from an immigrant food festival in Philadelphia. If it isnt countered, it becomes the core of the progressive movement. The response should be to show up as loud, proud Jews, Creditor said.

The idea to put together a volume of essays came after Creditor saw a Times of Israel blog post authored by Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. The American left has embraced moral maps that, while they may provide helpful frameworks for understanding some of Americas foundational and ongoing issues, warp understanding and discourse when applied to other parts of the world, Burton wrote, in a post published the day before Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire.

I found it to be one of the most important statements today, about how an American-left lens can get Israel wrong, said Creditor. It sparked my thinking that we could put together a collection relatively quickly because this is not a new question.

Creditor has a history of progressive activism, including as founder of the Rabbis Against Gun Violence movement. But he sees himself first and foremost as a Jewish educator so while he hopes the book might inspire progressive politicians to engage in dialogue on these topics, his desired audience is the Jewish community.

I want to support those who are showing up with courage as Zionists in progressive spaces, for them to feel the camaraderie and community of those who are experiencing similar struggles, said Creditor. He also wants to remind right-leaning pro-Israel advocates that progressives including those who might criticize, but deeply love, the Jewish state are, in fact, Zionists.

As a Jewish community, we have to stop alienating each other when we disagree. We should not deem as anti-Zionist someone who is a progressive American voter who loves Israel. Within Israel, theres robust debate about what building a better society looks like. Thats a healthy democracy, Creditor explained. The presumption that a critical voice is treasonous is itself incorrect.

As Creditor sees it, progressive Zionists have their pro-Israel bona fides questioned by both the anti-Israel left and some in the Jewish community. Progressive Jewish Zionists are not receiving the dignity they deserve in progressive circles, and theyre not receiving the dignity they deserve in conservative Zionist circles, he argued. Certain conservative Zionist circles typically judge progressive Zionists as naive or disloyal. Those are the same arguments, the same aspersions that progressive Zionists receive from progressive circles.

Neither Creditor nor Berman define what the book means by progressive, but Creditor argues that this is by design. They did not want to limit participation in the project.

Im not quite sure what progressive means, and there was no litmus test for the authors, because Im not really sure how to define the word to begin with, noted Creditor. I just know how it generally lumps together people who favor LGBTQ equality, combat the American gun violence epidemic [and] who stand for criminal justice reform.

Still, even though the editors did not set ideological boundaries about who could contribute, the book mostly falls within mainstream pro-Israel discourse. Numerous contributors wrote about trips to Israel with AIPAC, and one essay made the argument that progressives should attend AIPACs annual policy conference.

There were no submissions rejected based on any institutional affiliation, said Creditor. After putting out the call for submissions, Creditor and Berman did not receive any from people who affiliated with more left-wing Israel-focused organizations like J Street or IfNotNow.

The one requirement was that contributors consider themselves Zionist. This is about how to navigate the world of progressive Zionism, not how to reject Zionism, he noted.

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The politically lonely progressive Zionists - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

More good news from the Jewish world. Abraham Riesman, a 35-year-old writer for New York Magazine, has published a long, critical/loving article on his grandfather Robert Riesman (1919-2004), who was a leader of the Israel lobby in Rhode Island, with close ties to politicians in the ocean state.

The article in New York Magazine is titled, My Grandfather the Zionist. Young Riesman no longer believes the myths that the Israel lobby purveys in the U.S. media, and he says neither do many other younger Jews. The pro-Israel consensus is now in decline. The massacre and imprisonment of Palestinians today keeps young American Jews up at night and makes Jews unsafe, Riesman argues.

His article is a great answer to David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, who has asked, What did we do wrong in our homes and schools that young Jews are turning against Israel?

Riesman says Israel is now tearing the Jewish community apart.

In my grandfathers day, Israel was the great unifier of the American Jewish community. Now it is the great divider, both inside our own community and in cleavages with other ones. Bring up Israel with any American Jew and you can feel the atmosphere tighten. There is no topic that incenses us more, whether the emotions are pride or shame, defensiveness or hatred, fear that not enough of our coreligionists support the Jewish state or rage that they support it too much.

The left is done with Israel, particularly since the last Gaza assault. Which heralds disaster and disunity for Jews.

Jews and Gentiles who had previously betrayed no interest in the topic have taken up the cause of the Palestinians who are governed and besieged and, in many cases, killedby an occupying state. Although Twitter, as they say, is not real life, its often a leading indicator of where real life is headed, and the conversation about Israel increasingly heralds disaster and disunity for the Jews of the United States. My grandfather probably be infuriated by me.

[I]n recent years, Ive developed a level of fixation on the place, both personal and journalistic, that rivals even that of my grandfather. The conclusions we have come to, however, are worlds apart

The main business of Riesmans article is to explain why Robert Riesman threw himself into the terrible duties of a pillar of the Israel lobby. Its a great examination of Jewish attitudes after the Holocaust and the responsibilities felt by wealthy American Jews to support Israel after 1967 when it seemed to be at risk. The writer appears to be making amends for lies that his grandfather peddled in American media to counter reports of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and Lebanese.

Here are some bits from Riesmans portrait of his grandfather. Robert Riesman was powerful. Devoted proudly to the pro-Israel lobby, he pushed other Jews to be that way:

My grandfather, a whisperer to two U.S. senators and a former president of the Rhode Island Jewish Federation, was far from powerless, and he made it his business to get the world to know and care about what was happening to the Jews. And the most effective way to do that was to rally American Jews around the common goal that united the vast majority of them, regardless of denomination, location, or political party: the defense of the Jewish state.

Robert Riesmans ardor was sincere, based on an assessment of Jewish safety:

In his eyes, Israel was always under mortal threat, and if its foes were to defeat it, there would be mass Jewish death there on a scale with which his generation was all too familiar. If his people lost their citadel in the Middle East, who knew what other dominos might fall?

Young Riesman notes that long ago, most Jews were anti-Zionists or non-Zionists. The dual loyalty issue.

Most identified as non- or even anti-Zionist, though not because of concern for the fate of the Arab Palestinians (as they would come to be termed). The issue was life for Jews in the U.S. since a Jewish state might create a situation in which Jews could be accused of divided national loyalties

His grandfather could dismiss the Nakba, or expulsion of Palestinians to make way for Israel in 1947-49, because Jews had been wiped out in Europe.

There was absolutely nowhere for them to go, he later recalled. They couldnt stay in Europe, which was a graveyard, and I could see from my prewar experiences they were not going to be accepted in America or anywhere else. So at that point, it was a process of elimination. Grandpa was not a sentimental man, and the fact that Israel sat in part of the territory of ancient Judea held no interest for him. It was, he said, just the only place available for them.

Not that he really liked Israel:

In those early years of Israeli sovereignty, Grandpa held no particular affection for the country. As he put it to the [United Jewish Appeal] interviewer, It was really like a relative that you had to support, whose company you didnt particularly enjoy, who gave you no excitement, no stimulation.

This is a brilliant insight from grandpa:

It was because Israel was threatened that it became precious, Bob told the UJA interviewer. When it wasnt threatened, it was an inconvenient relative; when it was threatened, it became something you liked.

Very similar to Abe Foxman saying that American Jews would divorce Israel if it is at peace. As long as Israel is under threat, as long as Israel is not secure, theres not a divorce.

This is great too. Abraham Riesman goes over the propaganda his grandfather poured out about Israeli war crimes. That was the deal.

When my grandfather parroted the Israeli governments talking points there and elsewhere, did he ever suspect he was being played? I suppose its possible that he, like many American Jews, truly believed that the Israelis wouldnt lie to him, that a man like Begin could be relied upon, that one couldnt trust mainstream media outlets and institutions for accurate information. But I fear the answer may be worse. He might have known full well that he was being served bullshit and, in turn, was serving it to others and didnt care. He and the rest of the Jewish Establishment in America had signed their pact.

Riesmans article is not about himself, but he says the persecution of Palestinians keeps him up at night.

I retain a sliver of hope that he could understand that I, like him, want to save the Jews. I have chosen to see them as my family, for better or worse. And I believe that backing the status quo in Israel is not just a moral wrong but a recipe for disaster. I am not alone in this Israels own politicians andsecurity officialshave long said the occupation makes Israellesssafe. I believe Jews should have free access to the Holy Land and do not in any way want to see them driven into the sea or killed. But nor do I want to see Palestinians continue to be massacred and imprisoned. I dont think my grandfatherwantedto hurt Palestinians, but their concerns didnt keep him up at night. For me, they do. They are part of my family too. And until they are safe, the Jews will not be. Israel and the Palestinians will not fix their problems without audacious solutions. Solutions as audacious as, say, the creation of a Jewish state 70-odd years ago.

I think hes talking about one democratic state there.

Id note that New York Magazine has long promoted the Robert Riesman narrative, not the Abraham Riesman narrative. Not so long ago Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine said at J Street that it must not include anti-Zionist Jews. (And btw, New York magazine declined my own proposal to do a piece on the American guardians of Israel about 15 years ago.)

So this is another break in the media consensus. I assume there are anti-Zionists everywhere in media now, and they are going to make themselves heard.

And I like the headline. Years ago Norman Finkelstein quipped that were not far off from a time when people will ask, Are you now or have you ever been a Zionist? I imagine liberal Zionists are now fleeing the label.

h/t Donald Johnson, Adam Horowitz.

So where are the Palestinian voices in mainstream media?

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

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

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

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Jewish flight from Zionism continues with Riesman piece criticizing grandfather's role in Israel lobby Mondoweiss - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

The Moshava food truck. Photo: Instagram.

Another weekend has passed where Jews have been excluded from progressive spaces unless they toe the line and renounce support for Israel.

Organizers of the Chicago Dyke March, describe themselves as anti-racist, anti-violent, volunteer-led, grassroots activists seeking to bridge together communities across race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, size, gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, culture, immigrant status, spirituality, and ability. But they again decided to exclude Zionists and pro-Israel activists from participating in their June 26 Pride march. A 2017 march made headlines after participants carrying Jewish pride flags were asked to leave. Organizers said the mere presence of the Star of David made people uncomfortable.

A flyer promoting this years march posted on its Instagram page over the weekend featured a caricature of a woman standing atop a flaming police car with a burning American flag in one hand, a burning Israeli flag in the other. Chicago Dyke March Abolition Now! was scrawled on top of the flyer. Abolish CPD, Abolish the Isra*li Occupation Forces, Abolish ICE, All power to the people.

The flyer was removed after a backlash and Instagrams determination that it violated its community guidelines.

The Chicago Dyke March re-posted the original flyer with large flames replacing the burning American and Israeli flags.

Activist and New Zionist Congress co-founder Blake Flayton tweeted: Update: photo has been deleted, now a new one is up with flames covering the flags. The post reads: Tired of Social Media Censorship? Im noticing a familiar trend where the antisemites do something antisemitic, get confronted, and then say theyre being silenced.

Instagram removed the Chicago Dyke Marchs account on Monday afternoon, then restored it on Monday evening, and as of Tuesday morning, its account was again suspended on Instagram. A new account popped up in its place.

In Philadelphia, an Israeli food truck was disinvited from a festival celebrating diversity through food, art, entertainment, community, after other participants complained and threatened to protest.

We wont be attending The Taste of Home event, this Sunday on Fathers Day, the Israeli food truck Moshava shared on Instagram. We are deeply saddened by this. The organizers of the event heard rumors of a protest happening because of us being there and decided to uninvite us from fear that the protesters would get aggressive and threaten their event.

The nonprofit group Sunflower Philly also took to Instagram to notify patrons that the weekend food truck festival was cancelled.

At Sunflower Philly we truly believe in creating a positive and inclusive community space here in Philadelphia, they wrote. Due to the ongoing situation with one of our event partners @eatuptheborders and @moshava_philly we have decided to cancel the Taste of Home event today.

We were really hoping that the organizers @eatuptheborders and @sunflowerphilly would step up to the plate and defend local, small and immigrant based businesses, no matter where they are from, Moshavas post said. By the looks of it fear, violence, and intimidation got the best of them.

We really do hope that in the future you dont succumb to such antisemitic and dividing rethoric (sic) and keep true to your words of a safe environment for all religions and nationalities-not just all of them except Israeli and Jewish ones.

Eat Up the Borders, the events sponsor, issued a detailed apology. Moshavas truck was welcome previously, but organizers felt if the Israeli truck was present, a Palestinian truck should be, too. When the Palestinian truck couldnt attend last weekends event, they decided it somehow wasnt fair for Moshava to be there.

We understand that our actions have hurt you and we are truly sorry, the statement said. We want to be very clear that we do not support antisemitism or allow antisemitism in our spaces. Our actions were ignorant and inexcusable.

We now see that excluding any particular vendor in the name of trying to protect them was the wrong decision, they said. We did what we thought was best in the moment, but we failed. Since then, we have cooperated with authorities to answer any of their concerns. We were ignorant in our actions, and it was inexcusable. We do not wish for this to be swept under the rug or forgotten, but rather we wish to learn from our actions and make up for our mistakes with help from our community as we continue to educate ourselves. We are in touch with leaders from the Jewish and Palestinian community to aid us in our growth and further the conversation.

These public events that are welcome to all except supporters of Israel are not isolated incidents.

The group Muslims4Abolition advertised a Juneteenth rally last year as open to all minus cops & Zionists.

June 19th, or Juneteenth, commemorates the day the last slaves were freed in Texas, a full two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Muslims4Abolition marked an event celebrating freedom by engaging in blatant bigotry. And unsurprisingly, the event was retweeted and promoted by antisemite Linda Sarsour and her organization, MPower Change. Sarsour has argued that Zionists cannot be feminists and that nothing is creepier than Zionism.

A Toronto-based restaurant also came under fire last year after the owner used the hashtag Zionists not welcome in social media posts.

We are the ragged ranks of isolated objectors doing the dirty work of calling out anti-Zionism in Americas powerhouses and hinterlands, wrote Tablet Magazine contributor Kathryn Wolf. Because thats the stuff that rots the floor joists, leading to the moral collapse of otherwise good Americans who will grow to favor Deadly Exchange, and reject things like funding the Iron Dome that protects innocent Israeli children from rocket fire.

And once that happens, theyre just a breath away from justifying why someone might want to smash the face of, say, one Joseph Borgen, a red-headed accountant who had the misfortune recently to walk through Midtown while Jewish.

It is unclear what advocates of this kind of exclusionary behavior think they are accomplishing.

Banning Jews from progressive spaces will do nothing to help change Israeli policy or ease tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. But there is evidence it increases anger and hatred.

The London-based Community Security Trust found a 438 percent increase in antisemitic incidents, mostly linked to the recent Israel-Hamas conflict that took place mid-May. Jew-hatred soared globally as activists took to the streets to rally in support of Palestine and called for Israels destruction.

Lo and behold, it turns out that vehement online anti-Zionism inspires people to engage in antisemitic violence offline, endangering Jews as a result, wrote activist Eve Barlow in Tablet Magazine. In the streets of major cities around the world, Jews have been targeted with fireworks, with fists, and with human spit. Who knew this could happen? Well, we did, and we tried to make noise about it.

Banning Zionists and Israeli food trucks from gay pride parades and food festivals will not free Palestine. But it does fuel tension and animosity toward visibly Jewish people and neighborhoods. It promotes antisemitism, and should be condemned for what it is.

A version of this article was originally published by The Investigative Project on Terrorism, where the author is a contributor.

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Banning American Zionists Changes Nothing, and Increases Hate - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

The great American civil rights warrior, Martin Luther King, said way back in 1968 in response to a question from a student attacking Zionism, When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. Youre talking Antisemitism.

Today there are many people who say they are only anti-Zionistic and not anti-Semitic.They try to defend it by saying they have nothing against Jews, only Israel.

Often this is done under the banner of so-called liberal and progressive movements that supposedly fight for freedoms and human rights. Groups such as Black Lives Matter or Jewish Voice for Peace or the United Nations Humans Right Council. The great irony of this is that true liberals who share progressive values should be at the forefront of supporting Israel with its freedoms for all its citizens, rather than leading the charge against it. But their minds are so clouded with hatred and antisemitism that they have lost all sense of what liberal values even mean. These are not groups of freedom but groups of hate.And anti-Zionism is a movement of hatred, fuelled by the darkness of humanity, not the light. It brings out the worst in people, not the best. Its supporters are not driven by a sense of the lack of justice in the world, but rather by a sense of a reinforcement of long-standing injustice directed against only one particular group of people. They wave the banner of morality, while conveniently ignoring the absolute lack of morality of their own cause.

They try to educate us by saying Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism that somehow Zionism isnt a Jewish movement at all, so you can therefore be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. Of course Israel can be criticised and there are no bigger critics than Israelis themselves, but these people are not against any policy at all they are against the very existence of the country.

They want to confuse you into thinking its some kind of evil movement by throwing in emotive and inflammatory terms such as colonialism, white supremacism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

So let me unconfuse you by setting the record straight:

Zionism has EVERYTHING to do with Judaism.

Before there were any Jewish laws at all, there was the Land of Israel. It is absolutely a Jewish movement, and one that is as old as the Jewish people themselves. It began almost 4000 years ago when Abraham, the first Jew, started his journey to the Land of Israel, a place in which he made his home. And from that moment the Land of Israel and Jews have been intertwined with each other, so much so that the love and commitment to the Land of Israel is a core value of what being a Jew is all about.

And while there are non Jews who support Zionism some very famous ones too who do amazing work, whenever you see any hate speech out there against Zionism or Zionists in particular, they are not referring to Muslims who support Israel, or Christians who support Israel, or Indians who support Israel, they are referring quite specifically to Jews:

When those who attack Israel compare Zionists To White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis, they mean Jews;

When the fascist BDS and other similar movements call for the liberation of palestine, they mean getting rid of the Jews;

When anti-Israel movements complain about the Zionist lobby in America, they mean Jews.

The leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, doesnt even try to disguise it, such as when he was quoted with the following in the New York Times in 2004, If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.

So yes, while there are still some Jews who think that if they join forces with movements who accuse Israel of genocide, maybe theyll be liked, the reality is they are nothing more than poster children for self-hatred and self-flagellation. Should Israel ever disappear, so would the protective shield that provides their security to live openly as Jews anywhere.And Jews know all too well what it means to not have our own country.

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Zionism has EVERYTHING to do with Judaism - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

Religious Zionist MKs Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strook sent a letter to Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev emphasizing the need for increased protection of Jewish homes inShimon HaTzadik, a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem near Sheikh Jarrah.

The letter comes after the two MKs visited the neighborhood on Tuesday and were accosted by Arab residents. Videos show one Arab man screaming at Smotrich, "You are garbage, there is nothing for you to do here. You cockroach, get out of here." Two nearby police officers intervened and dispersed the crowd.

In the letter, Smotrich and Strook say that Jewish homes in the neighborhood are attacked daily with "stones, bottles, Molotov cocktails, explosives and fireworks." They describe the lives of Jewish residents as an "ongoing nightmare."

The MKs also stress the lack of response from the police in the neighborhood, as they argue that the police are not doing their part to stop the attackers. They claim that the police do not intervene to prevent attacks on Jewish residents, instead focusing on keeping them in their homes to create an "artificial peace."

In response, the MKs urge the police to take a more active role in stopping the violence, including making arrests, stopping riots and preventing "hostile, agitated and violent elements" from entering the neighborhood.

The letter concludes that "as long as there is no immediate change in the police approach, we are forced to reach the area ourselves in the evening on a regular basis in order to stand by the attacked residents."

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Religious Zionist MKs urge increased protection in Shimon Hatzadik - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

A shouting match erupted between far-right MKs and Arab and left-wing lawmakers in the Knesset Tuesday, disrupting an event titled After 54 years: From Occupation to Apartheid.

The event was hosted by MK Aida Touma-Sliman of the opposition Joint List party and MK Mossi Raz of Meretz, a party that is a member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennetts government.

Razs involvement was sure to raise hackles within the coalition, which was formed under the understanding that its rightist and leftist parties would avoid contentious issues in order not to rock the boat. One of the right-wing MKs who attended the event is the coalitions Abir Kara of Bennetts Yamina party.

During the event, representatives of various left-wing human rights groups presented reports about the situation in the West Bank since 1967. The organizations included BTselem, Adalah, Peace Now, Yesh Din, Gisha, Breaking the Silence and Human Rights Watch.

Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman attends an event titled After 54 years: Between occupation and Apartheid in the Knesset on June 22, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)

Religious Zionisms extremist MK Itamar Ben Gvir attended the event and hurled insults at several Arab lawmakers, calling organizers Touma Sliman and Raz terrorists and terror supporters and shouting the same accusation at Joint List MKs Ofer Cassif and Ahmad Tibi.

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Cassif retorted by saying: Shut your mouth, you piece of shit, racist fascist.

Aida, you dont condemn [it] when a soldier is murdered, Ben Gvir shouted at Touma-Sliman. Youre a terrorist, Im willing to remove my [parliamentary] immunity, sue me. Well teach you what democracy is.

Religious Zionism MK Itamar Ben Gvir argues during an event titled After 54 years: Between occupation and Apartheid in the Knesset, June 22, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)

Amichai Chikli, a rebel Yamina MK, labeled the event a disgrace and on Monday sent a letter asking the Knessets legal adviser and events department to prevent the participation of organizations he said were undermining Israel in the international arena.

This is a serious act of political sabotage and it is unbearable that it should take place within the walls of the Knesset, Chikli said.

Chikli said that he was most concerned about the involvement of Human Rights Watch, one of the worlds best-known rights groups, saying that the organization works for the delegitimization of Israel and should not be permitted to participate. HRWs Omar Shakir, the New York-based rights groups director for Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, was expelled from Israel in 2019 after a lengthy court battle when the country accused him of supporting boycotts of the Jewish state.

American citizen Omar Shakir, the director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, is pictured at Ben Gurion Airport on November 25, 2019, after being expelled from Israel. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Authorities said at the time that Shakirs expulsion was the first from inside Israel under a 2017 law allowing the deportation of foreigners who support a boycott. The move was condemned by international bodies, with the United Nations warning of a shrinking space for human rights defenders to operate in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

When Shakir started talking via video at Tuesdays event, Ben Gvir called out: How can we let him speak here, in the Knesset?

Earlier this year HRW said that Israel was guilty of the crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians within its own borders and in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel strongly rejected the accusations.

I'm proud to work at The Times of Israel

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'Terrorist,' 'fascist': MKs hurl insults at Knesset 'occupation-apartheid' event - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

Religious Zionism MKs Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock were met with angry protests when they visited the flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Tuesday.

In video footage of the confrontations, some Arab residents called the delegation animals and one grabbed the phone of Strocks parliamentary aide, prompting police to intervene. Other residents approached Smotrich and Strock and shouted: Get out, get out of here now.

Why are you here? Youre garbage, youre a cockroach, one resident shouted at Smotrich. Get out of here now, theres no reason for you to be here.

A small crowd gathered around the lawmakers and screamed at them to leave. The delegation was surrounded by police officers who pushed the crowd back.

In another video of the event, Smotrich was seen yelling at an Israeli police officer over the way he spoke to Strock.

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Why did you speak like that to her? You have to speak appropriately to a member of Knesset, Smotrich shouted. Youre out of line. Im about to explode shes a member of Knesset, you work for her!

Following the visit, Smotrich slammed the Israel Police and said one of the East Jerusalem men who accosted the group was known to have thrown rocks in the past at groups of Jews in the neighborhood. Smotrich said the incident shows the incompetence of the Israeli system, from the police to the courts. There is clear evidence of a terrorist throwing stones and trying to murder Jews and he continues to roam free and attack violently. Today, it was Knesset members.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood has been a flashpoint of tensions in recent months, due to a series of pending evictions of multiple Palestinian families living there.

The looming evictions have sparked widespread anger among Palestinians and Arab Israelis and international condemnation, and were blamed in part for the conflict between Hamas and Israel last month in the Gaza Strip.

The land in question was owned by Jews before the 1948-49 Independence War, when it was seized by Jordan and leased to Palestinian families. After Israel captured the area in the 1967 war, a 1970 Israeli law transferred all abandoned properties still held by the Jordanian government, including the Sheikh Jarrah homes, to the custody of the Israeli government. The law further obligated the release of properties to original owners when possible. The Jewish trusts that had owned the site appealed for its return to their hands, sparking a five-decade legal battle between the trusts and the Palestinian residents.

Israel says the issue is a private property dispute to be adjudicated by the courts. Palestinian residents argue that the demand to reclaim the site is part of a campaign by Israeli settlement groups to displace them and replace their community with a Jewish one.

MK Orit Strock attends a Knesset Arrangements Committee meeting in Jerusalem on June 21, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Palestinians and members of the international community accuse Israel of seeking to Judaize East Jerusalem by slowly evicting hundreds of Arab families and replacing them with Jewish ones. Israel maintains that East Jerusalem is a part of its undivided capital and that the Jews moving into neighborhoods there do so legally.

Palestinian protesters and Jewish residents clashed late Monday in the neighborhood before police moved in to disperse the Palestinians, wounding at least 20. Jewish residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood said protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Jewish homes, lightly wounding a pregnant woman who was hit in the back with a stone.

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Ill tell you the truth: Life here in Israel isnt always easy. But it's full of beauty and meaning.

I'm proud to work at The Times of Israel alongside colleagues who pour their hearts into their work day in, day out, to capture the complexity of this extraordinary place.

I believe our reporting sets an important tone of honesty and decency that's essential to understand what's really happening in Israel. It takes a lot of time, commitment and hard work from our team to get this right.

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Thank you,

Sarah Tuttle Singer, New Media Editor

Youre serious. We appreciate that!

Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

Thats why we come to work every day - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

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Far-right MKs heckled, harassed by angry protesters in Sheikh Jarrah - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

On May 18, a group waving the Palestinian flag assaulted diners seated outside a Los Angeles restaurant after reportedly asking if they were Jewish. In New York City two days later, assailants pummeled a young man wearing a skullcap on the street, a few blocks from where pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed that day.

The May 2021 fighting in Israel and Palestine coincided with a spike of antisemitic incidents in the US, as has happened before. What seems new this time is these incidents included a rash of physical assaults on Jews, a spokesperson of the Anti-Defamation League told Human Rights Watch.

Just months after the departure of a US president who did little to condemn groups like the marchers in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, who chanted, Jews will not replace us, these assaults remind us that the far right has no monopoly on antisemitism.

There is nothing antisemitic in itself about denouncing Israeli human rights violations or supporting boycotts against Israel. But it is antisemitic to reflexively treat Jews as complicit in the harm that the Israeli government inflicts on Palestinians just as it is a hate crime to attack an Asian-American for how Chinas authoritarian rulers may have handled Covid. Claiming that most American Jews support the Israeli government a claim that a recent poll calls into doubt is no excuse.

The Biden administration has condemned these antisemitic attacks as despicable but has yet to nominate a new Special Envoy on Antisemitism (SEAS) at the State Department. Filling that post would provide a focal point for calling out and combatting antisemitism in the US and worldwide.

Biden should ensure the envoy he nominates is also committed to rolling back the efforts of the Trump administration to brand vast swaths of Israel criticism as antisemitic, which ill-served the cause of combatting actual antisemitism.

Two coalitions of analysts and scholars this year have tried to define judiciously when Israel criticism crosses the line. This includes painting Israel as being part of a sinister world conspiracy of Jewish control of the media, economy, government or other financial, cultural or societal institutions, or applying to it other clear-cut, classically antisemitic stereotypes, images, or symbols. The coalitions concur that evidence-based criticism of Israel, even when contentious, is not, on its face, antisemitic. Bidens SEAS, by publicly defending such distinctions, would bring into relief when Israel criticism does in fact betray hatred of Jews, and when it does not.

One thing is clear: to assault or use ethnic slurs against a Jew because of what the government of Israel may be doing is antisemitism.

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Spate of Antisemitic Attacks in US During Recent Mideast Tensions - Human Rights Watch

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Posted By admin on June 25, 2021

ALLENDALE TWP, Mich. A couple says racial harassment pushed them out of their house, and even encouraged them to leave the township they called home.

Jessica Griffin and Anthony Miller are local activists and married. Anthony happens to be a black man, and Jessica a white woman. They have both been involved heavily with the local Justice for Black Lives organization, which in recent months has made a push for Allendale Township to remove an increasingly controversial civil war statue standing at the Allendale Community Park.

The couple says that back in the summer of 2020, their neighbor at their mobile home park harassed them so bad that they were forced to move. Griffin says the man's threats escalated from online, to physical.

He would just flip out and start screaming and yelling... and calling us a bunch of liberals and it just kind of went sideways, Jessica Miller says.

And it typically happened when Tony was home more often than not, and then it just escalated from there.

Jessica and Anthony Miller have gathered a collection of video evidence and screenshots from social media-- saying their neighbor has called them derogatory names and even shared their home address on social media sites.

They have collected a list of police reports regarding their neighbor's alleged actions. According to online court records, their neighbor has not yet been charged in relation to the incidents.

Jessica says they contact the police and their landlord whenever something concerning happens, but the issues continued.

I mean, you have a white man harassing a black man and people that are part of the LGBTQI community and nothing's being done, and when nothing is being done, that's giving him a platform and more motivation to do something.

The Miller family is just one example of racist harassment here in West Michigan. According to Carolyn Normandin, regional director of Michigan's chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, the state has seen a sharp increase in racially motivated attacks in recent years.

I am very concerned about the increased incidence of all types of hate in Michigan, Normandin told FOX 17.

We've seen an increase of white supremacy and white nationalism over the last several years, but it seemed to be fueled by not only BLM movements last summer, but also concerns and fear over COVID-19.

Normandin recommends that those who feel unsafe due to suspected hate-based harassment or violence should most importantly contact the police and have the incident documented. She also recommends that they do whatever they can to protect themselves from further harm.

As for Jessica and Anthony Miller, theyve moved out of the community to a temporary home while their children attend school nearby.

There's like a weight lifted off of us Anthony Miller says. I can actually go outside and not have to look over my shoulder or feel any kind of tension.

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"It kept escalating and escalating" Couple believes campaign of harassment was due to skin color - Fox17

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