Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The title of Efraim Shmuelis book, The Last Generation of Jews in Poland (Academic Studies Press), is a little misleading.

Shmueli, a Polish Jew born in Lodz in 1908, focuses on the storied Jewish community of Poland during the 1920s, when it was home to 3.3 million Jews, representing nine percent of its population. It was virtually wiped out by the Nazis in only six years.

Jews returned to Poland after the Holocaust, but the communist regimes antisemitic campaign in 1967 and 1968 resulted in the departure of upwards of 20,000 Jews, leaving only a remnant of Jews.

Since then, however, the Jewish community has grown to some extent, though it is only a very pale imitation of its former self. Contrary to the books title, neither the fascists nor the communists succeeded in rendering Poland free of Jews.

Shmueli, who died in 1988, left Poland in 1928. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Friedrich Wilhelm University in Breslau and then spent an interlude at the University of Frankfurt, where Paul Tillich and Martin Buber were among his professors. He wrote his PhD dissertation on Hegels concept of individuality.

Immigrating to Palestine in 1933, he settled in Haifa and launched his teaching career in local high schools and at Haifa College, the precursor of Haifa University. From 1967 to 1977, he was a professor of philosophy at Cleveland State University. During this period, he lectured in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Latin America and wrote a succession of books about Jewish history, culture and philosophy.

In the volume under review, he draws a vivid portrait of Polands Jewish community in the 1920s.

As he strongly suggests in chapter one, Poland in the first quarter of the 20th century was rather backwards: I was born into certain conditions of health care when women still died at childbirth and infants often did not survive their first year. Scant medical knowledge, filth and poor infant nutrition took their toll

The insular chassidic community into which he was born sought medical advice from rebbes rather than from physicians, he adds. During his upbringing, he frequented two Chassidic centers near Lodz, Aleksander and Zdunska Wola, both of which were destroyed by Nazi hordes during the Holocaust.

Jews and Poles, though living side by side, inhabited two separate solitudes in prewar Poland. Yet they influenced each other and were committed to the same national cause. Adam Mickiewicz, the great bard, hailed from a Frankist family on his mothers side. Berek Joselewicz fought for Polish independence during the Kosciusko uprising in 1794. His son, Joseph, participated in the Polish revolt of 1831.

Polish poets exercised tremendous influence on young Jewish men and women, writes Shmueli. They strengthened our yearning for national freedom, love of our homeland, defiance at the suffering inflicted on a persecuted nation.

Lodz, his hometown, was the Manchester of Poland, the center of its textile industry. Comprising one-third of its residents, Jews were a key factor in Lodzs development, with 43 percent of Jewish laborers working in industry and the rest in trade, services and transport.

During the German occupation, Jews in the Nazi ghetto survived until the summer of 1944. They did not mount a rebellion because they had no arms and contacts with the outside world, he says.

The leadership of the Jewish community during the inter-war period was wrested by Zionists from assimilationists, he claims. One of the foremost Zionist figures in Lodz, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, was a newspaper editor and politician who served in the Sejm, the Polish parliament. As the 1930s wore on, he settled in Palestine.

As Shmueli points out, the rebirth of Poland in 1918 was accompanied by pogroms in Lvov, Pinsk and Krakow. And in 1919, high-ranking Jewish officers were removed from the Polish army on the grounds that they were untrustworthy.

With Jozef Pilsudskis rise to power following a coup in 1926, antisemitism waned. But in 1934, Poland reneged on its 1919 pledge to honor the rights of minorities. And in the wake of Pilsudskis death in 1935, Jews felt increasingly isolated. Only here and there did they find allies among the liberal Polish intelligentsia and in the socialist ranks, he says.

He admits that many Jews sneered at Poles prior to 1918. As he frankly puts it, Most Jews before the establishment of the Polish state viewed the Pole as synonymous with physical labor, drunkenness, prostitution, theft and murder. Passing by their churches, a Jew would spit These goyim were held to be idol worshippers. Altogether in those days, the prestige of the Poles was very low not only among Jews, but also among Russians and Germans. Only after the reestablishment of Polands sovereignty did we come to see that they too were human beings, but also that it was they who now has the power to harm and destroy us.

Shmueli waxes nostalgic about Aleksander and Zdunska Wola.

Aleksander, a town of 8,000 founded by German weavers in the first half of the 19th century, was composed mostly of ethnic Germans, 3,000 Jews and a smaller minority of Poles. The population of Zdunska Wola, population 30,000, was evenly divided between Poles, Jews and Germans.

One of its native sons, Maximillian Kolbe, was a Polish priest who, while incarcerated in Auschwitz-Birkenau, gave up his own life to save a fellow Pole. Pope John Paul II, a Pole, hailed him as a saint, but Kolbe was antagonistic to Jews.

Shmueli returned Poland on a visit in 1982 after a nearly 50-year absence. What he found was a vastly truncated Jewish community of old, ill and disabled vestiges, some leftists, or some crypto Jews concealing their origins. His appraisal is unduly harsh, but it is probably rooted in his implicit comparison between the Jewish present and the past.

He believes that Poland has been changed by major transformations. It has segued from an agricultural to a predominately industrialized nation. It is now ethnically homogeneous, with nearly all its minorities gone, the dream of prewar right-wing nationalists. It is far more Catholic than before World War II. Poles are better educated than at any time in Polands history.

Despite the virtual absence of Jews, antisemitism is still a distinctive hallmark in Poland. The image of the monstrous Jew inculcated by the Church, by Nazism and Communism is still operative, now rolled together into the modern antisemitic version, mainly called anti-Zionism and anti-State of Israel.

Shmuelis observations may have been true four decades ago, when Poland was a client state of the Soviet Union. But how accurate they would be in contemporary Poland is debatable.

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The Last Generation Of Jews In Poland | Sheldon Kirshner | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Hundreds of students and faculty members at Cal and city residents marched around the Sather Gate on March 11, 2024, demanding greater protection for Jewish students. Credit: Kelly Sullivan

About 300 people, including graduate and undergraduate UC Berkeley students, faculty members and city residents marched from Zellerbach Playhouse to California Hall on Monday, demanding the university do more to protect Jewish students and faculty members two weeks after a violent demonstration led to the cancellation of an event with an Israeli think tank leader.

That Feb. 26 demonstration, organized in part by Bears for Palestine, devolved into some protesters breaking down a door and smashing a window at the playhouse. University police and anti-discrimination officials have opened a hate crimes investigation after several people reported being victims of battery during the incident.

The federal Department of Education also opened an investigation into allegations of shared ancestry discrimination March 5, according to their website, but officials with that agency have not confirmed whether it is connected to the Feb. 26 incident.

One goal of the march Monday was to press the university to clear the Sather Gate, which for much of the last month has been obstructed by demonstrations against Israels military action in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces following a deadly attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and ended with Hamas taking hundreds of hostages, according to The Associated Press.

Marchers Monday said that the university allowing the protests to continue to block the gate had emboldened some groups into violent behavior Feb. 26, and hoped the university would temporarily suspend any student groups that were under investigation from that incident.

Hannah Schlacter, an MBA student at Cals Haas School of Business, said that there had been a known hostility and discrimination of Jews on campus since before she began her studies in 2022. Schlacter, who is Jewish, helped organize Mondays march.

She said the administration had not called out hate speech and acts against Jewish students, even when two Jewish students were attacked while holding an Israeli flag on campus in the most recent fall semester or when someone broke into a Jewish graduate students home and left a note that read F*** Jews, Free Palestine from the river to the sea.

All of those incidents, the university administration did not identify that as explicit anti-Jewish hate, so then we see a riot happen thats violent, attacking Jews, because people on this campus learn its OK to harass and be violent towards Jews, Schlacter told Berkeleyside. So the university permitted all these violations for a while, and that led two weeks ago to the violent mob, where a speaker was forced to essentially abandon the premises, escorted by police.

Another organizer, Noah Cohen, a law student who is also Jewish, said the events that precipitated Mondays march were in some ways avoidable by the university, and that the near-constant presence of banners across the main Sather Gate walkway was a violation of university policy.

Its a slippery slope, and we feel that the university should be enforcing its policies and showing that theres someone home, said Rabbi Gil Leeds, co-director of the Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at Cal and himself a university alum. Its kind of hard to continue to be trusting in the university and their enforcement of policies and their stewardship of our students academic experience when they just let things be trampled on time and time again.

Ethan Katz, a history professor who specializes in Jewish history and late modern Europe, spoke to the marchers before they left Zellerbach. Today we march to reclaim our place as rightful members of the community, Katz said.

The marchers, many clad in blue trousers and white shirts, marched arm-in-arm in a column three people wide from the Zellerbach Playhouse, up a set of stairs onto Upper Sproul Plaza and then toward Sather Gate, turning north to cross Strawberry Creek rather than walk through the smaller gateways to either side of the main one.

Cohen said that many Jewish students were afraid to walk through Sather Gate because of the regular demonstrations there, opting instead to take the creek crossing.

They continued north back on Sather Road to California Hall, where there were more speeches.

UCPD officers and guards from APEX Security Group stood along the march route, but the march proceeded peacefully and mostly without heckling from outside groups.

Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor, condemned violence against Jewish students on campus but also acknowledged the cause that Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine and other groups were advocating for. We share your anguish and anger, Goldberg said. We also respect your determination and right to free speech.

Danielle Sobkin, a third-year undergraduate, said she could not walk to class without fear of harassment, nor speak her mind for fear of her grades being lowered. She traveled to Israel recently and said she had felt safer there than she does on Cals campus.

City Councilmember Sophie Hahn, who is Jewish, walked in Mondays march, and told Berkeleyside that she had been subjected to antisemitic harassment as well.

I have heard the word kike, I have been called a dirty Jew, Hahn said. Weve all heard the things that are said in the (council) chambers that are very hostile, not just related to the conflict, which I think everyone is anguished about including myself we have received mailings, we have antisemitic Zoom bombers on a regular basis.

She said she wanted campus administrators to do more to make sure that Jewish students, and all students, feel safe and feel free to be themselves, to circulate freely on campus and to learn and grow free of intimidation and hatred.

A representative for Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, who did not want to be named, said the group was entering its fifth week of demonstrating at the Sather Gate.

The representative pointed out that the Muslim holiday of Ramadan had just begun and many of the students demonstrating on behalf of Palestine were fasting.

Our message today, as it is every day, is that there are people in Gaza who are dying, who are not just dying are being murdered because of a genocidal campaign, and we fund it, the representative said.

There has been harassment of Muslim and Palestinian students on campus, the representative said, but no one has heard of the Muslim students that have been called ISIS, no one has heard about the Muslim students and the pro-Palestinian students that have been called rapists, Hamas supporters all they hear about is that there are claims to antisemitic attacks.

Mondays protest is the latest in a series ofactions taken by Jewish students and faculty and other Berkeley residents to protest what they say is antisemitism. Last week, UC Berkeley professor Ron Hassner began a sit-in protest in his office because of the universitys failure to protect Jewish students, according to the J Weekly.

In a statement, university officials said they were trying to reduce tensions while honoring students and others First Amendment rights.

While we support the exercise of free speech rights, the campus also seeks to enforce its time, place and manner restrictions, said university spokesperson Dan Mogulof. For that reason, we have been making efforts to end those aspects of the nonviolent protest at Sather Gate that violate those restrictions.

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

At the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night, British-Jewish director Jonathan Glazer, whose film, The Zone of Interest, had just won the Oscar for Best International Feature, made a somewhat garbled statement critical of the Israeli governments policy, conflating the Occupation with the Holocaust. Many Israeli officials and Jewish leaders criticized the statement, but some Jews in Hollywood actually cheered it.

Thats because he did what so few who have criticized Israels decision to respond militarily to Hamass October 7 attack on Israel in which about 1,200 Israelis were murdered (and raped, burned, dismembered, and tortured) and 240 were taken hostage have done: He mentioned the victims of October 7 in Israel.

At least he said that, said one entertainment industry insider, who, like everyone I spoke to for this piece, did not want to give a name or any identifying details for fear of derailing his career.

If that sounds like the bar has gotten very low for what counts as a show of support for Jews and Israel in Hollywood, thats because it has. Simply acknowledging that there were victims in Israel is light years ahead of the prevailing political winds in Hollywood these days, people told me.Typical politically engaged celebrities in Hollywood simply ask for a ceasefire now, with no hint of the fact that there are still 134 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza a number of whom are American citizens, which is rarely mentioned or that Hamas has publicly stated, on multiple occasions, that it will commit more, and even bigger, massacres in Israel as soon as it can, and that Israel has an obligation to defend its citizens.

Thats why many Jewish entertainment professionals were relieved by Glazers speech, in which he said: All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then; rather, look what we do now... Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst; its shaped all of our past and present.It was possible to think he was speaking about Hamass dehumanization of Israelis as well as Israels dehumanizing Gazans, pointed out one professional.

Glazer went on to say, in the most confusing part of his speech, Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?

Most think he meant that he and his producers (the men to whom he refers) rejected or disapproved of the idea of their Jewishness and the legacy of the Holocaust being used to justify the invasion of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, not that he was rejecting his own Jewish identity. Commenting on the confusing phraseology, one insider said, That was quite a word salad. Ive met him and hes usually very clear, very focused on what hes trying to get across. Writer/directors are generally the most charming, most articulate people in the world because theyre always trying to get people to give them money to make a movie; theyre always pitching.

I think he was tying himself in knots, trying to find a way to acknowledge that there was a massacre, that there were Jewish victims. He wanted to say it without saying it... I think thats because he did this Auschwitz film, and hes a British Jew. He knows that the Nazis would have killed him and Hamas would have killed him. For him to say, to acknowledge that there were any Jewish victims at all will probably cost him some dinner-party invitations, probably from intellectuals he respects. Thats the reality.

Would it have been so hard for him to say the word Hamas? I asked. Yeah, it would have, was the answer I got. There can be Jewish victims as long as the worst villain, the only real villain, is Israel, the occupier.

INSIDE THE AUDITORIUM, there were almost no yellow ribbons denoting support for the hostages held by Hamas, save for Avi Arad, the Israeli-American producer of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which was nominated for Best Animated Feature. Other attendees said they would have worn yellow ribbons but their cars were closely eyeballed by protesters who tried to block invited guests from attending the awards ceremony.

But there were many celebrities wearing red pins and calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, among them Ramy Youssef, who is one of the stars of the movie Poor Things. Youssef, a writer and producer as well as an actor, is best known for the series Ramy, which is about the son of Egyptian immigrants to the US. Interviewed on the red carpet, Youssef said, This pin here is for Artists4Ceasefire, which has...more than 400 signatories [to its open letter] just calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Palestine to really ensure the safety for innocent people. We really want to stop killing kids, and we want to make sure everyones safe. Its really just a humanitarian issue that a lot of artists have been really passionate about. He didnt mention the hostages at all or that among them are children.

Among other celebrities wearing the red pins were siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas OConnell, whose song What Was I Made For? from the movie Barbie won the Oscar for Best Song; and Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Poor Things.

Since the start of the war, a few Jewish Hollywood voices have emerged to support Israel, most of whom have visited the country and spoken out at rallies in the US, including actors Michael Rapaport and Brett Gelman both of whom performed skits on Eretz Nehederet, one of which featured Rapaport hosting the Oscars, which was brutally critical of Hollywoods indifference to the plight of the hostages as well as Debra Messing and Jerry Seinfeld.

Influencers Baby Ariel and Julia Haart of My Unorthodox Life have also been here and have devoted much of their social media to defending Israel. Early on, David Simon, the showrunner of The Wire, and Orange is the New Blacks Jenji Kohan spoke out in defense of the victims of October 7, and recently, comic/actress Tiffany Haddish visited Israel. Israelis based in Hollywood and Israeli-Americans, like Gal Gadot and Natalie Portman, have spoken out, especially about the hostages and the sexual assaults.

Steven Spielberg, who presented the Best Director Award to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, did not make a statement about anything connected to the war on Sunday.

Spielberg, seen as the most respected Jewish elder statesman in Hollywood and one with something to say about Jewish suffering, as he directed Schindlers List and created the USC Shoah Foundation, which collects testimony from Holocaust survivors remained silent about the October 7 atrocities for months, ignoring direct requests from Holocaust survivors to comment.

Finally, in December, he wrote, I never imagined I would see such unspeakable barbarity against Jews in my lifetime in a feature published on the foundations website, and he pledged that the foundation would collect testimonies from survivors of the Hamas massacre. Non-Jewish Hollywood A-listers who often speak out on causes and have visited Israel in the past, such as Paul McCartney, continue to be silent on this conflict.

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'Acknowledging Jewish victims will cost him': Jewish creators comment on Jonathan Glazer's speech - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

(March 7, 2024 / JNS)

Tufts University is investigating reports of some extremely disturbing antisemitic words and conduct directed at Jewish students who opposed anti-Israel resolutions in the student government and Islamophobic actions against students who supported them.

The school will hold accountable any student found to have engaged in these behaviors, wrote the university president and other senior academic officials.

Let us be entirely clear: Antisemitic and Islamophobic words and actions are entirely unacceptable and should be met with condemnation from the entire community, regardless of your perspective on the resolutions, they added.

The highly-ranked, nearly 175-year-old private school in Medford, Mass., also condemned the student senates vote to divest from Israel at a meeting on March 3.

As we have done in the past, we reject the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement, we wholeheartedly support academic freedom and all our academic and exchange programs and we will continue to work with all companies that we engage with and do business with now, the senior Tufts officials wrote.

The officials wrote that the immense loss of life in Gaza is tragic. We mourn with the Palestinians, but we also feel for the Israelis grieving over those they have lost and share their desire for the safe return of the hostages. It is possible to hold both of these views simultaneously.

It is also possible for us to be supportive of both the right of Israel to exist and for the self-determination rights of the Palestinian people, they added. However, these resolutions do not allow for these views to coexist and, as a result, force our community into opposing groups rather than uniting us to build from areas of agreement.

Rabbi Naftali Brawer, executive director of the Tufts Hillel, wrote that What is particularly disturbing (as if the resolutions havent caused enough harm) are reports of vitriolic antisemitism expressed throughout the evening by students in support of the resolutions.

Jewish students were spat on and subjected to stomach churning antisemitic taunts and jeering from their peers, such as Go back to Israel, we dont want you here! You stink and Israel controls the entire world, he added.

The Anti-Defamation League office serving Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont posted on social media that it is appalled by reports of vile antisemitism at Tufts, which it said must immediately investigate these allegations and take concrete steps to address the antisemitic hostility on campus that has only escalated in the wake of Oct. 7.

The Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at Tufts, which supported the resolutions, has alleged that its members were spat upon and one was nearly punched. The group also said that Palestinian students were forced to relive the trauma inflicted on them by the Zionist occupation and prove their humanity to peers who responded to this painful emotional labor with mocking gestures.

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

From biblical times to the present, Jewish women have given hope, meaning and strength to the Jewish community. These twelve remarkable Jewish women have shown extraordinary leadership, changed the course of Jewish practice, offered comfort and hope, and injected creativity into the Jewish world.

Ruth

The biblical Ruth was a Moabite woman who chose to remain with her mother-in-law Naomi after the death of her husband even if it meant a life of poverty in a foreign land. She pledged herself to her mother-in-law like this: wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16) She is considered the model for conversion to Judaism. Ruths story is read yearly on the holiday of Shavuot, telling a tale of the power of kindness and of those who make the Jewish nation their chosen family.

Deborah

Deborah was a judge, prophet, military strategist and poet. The book of Judges supplies what we know about this multi-talented revolutionary. As a leader in the battle against the ancient Canaanites, she took great risks, and her courage paid off. After the war was won, she composed her exquisite Song of Deborah, and then returned to her palm tree, from whence she continued to advise the nation. Some 3,000 years later, 19th-century Italian Jewish communities chose her song to mark their bat mitzvahs, celebrating her legacy of leadership.

Esther

The title character of the megillah read yearly on Purim, Esther was once an uncertain orphan girl and ultimately grew into a decisive leader. Brought to the Persian palace as a potential bride for the king, Esther won his heart but kept her Jewish identity secret. Only when royal advisor Hamans genocidal intention became clear did she step into the fray, rallying her community around her in prayer and putting a plan into motion, ultimately revealing her identity and delivering her people from Hamans plot.

Bruriah

Few women in talmudic times were known for their scholarship, but Bruriah, with her sharp tongue and even sharper intellect, studied alongside the men in her community. She advised and corrected her husband, the renowned Rabbi Meir, on religious matters. At a time when women were not welcomed into the beit midrash, the house of study, Bruriah walked right in serving as a model for young women up to the present day.

Asenath Barzani

Asenath (Osnat) Barzanis father headed four yeshivas in 16th-century Kurdistan and he raised her to be a scholar. When her father passed away, Osnat began to teach in his yeshiva in Mosul in his stead, and eventually took over. She was not a rabbi but the community gave her the title tannait, teacher. It was believed that she could work miracles and her name was used in amulets for luck and health. After her death, her grave became a pilgrimage site for the women of Kurdistan.

Glckl of Hameln

Born in 17th-century Germany, Glckl married when she was only a teenager. She raised 14 children, but also held an active role in her husbands business; she took over when he was killed suddenly and began traveling throughout Europe. Glckl chronicled her life in a series of diaries written over the course of 28 years. They were meant as an ethical will for her children to read, and included stories of the sages, legends and advice but they are now historically significant as the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs and an important window onto German-Jewish life in this period. They also offer a singular portrait of a resilient, resourceful woman.

Regina Jonas

An Orthodox Jew raised in Berlin, Regina Jonas harbored dreams of being a rabbi from childhood. She fought her way into rabbinical seminary and ordination, becoming one of the first female rabbis. When the Orthodox community would not accept her, she cared for the religious needs of Jews in hospitals, nursing homes and even prison. When the Nazis rose to power, she chose to stay with her community and offer solace and support, trying to maintain a life of scholarship and Jewish communal activity in the ghetto. She was killed in Auschwitz in 1944.

Anne Frank

At age 13, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding from the Nazis. Her diary was her closest companion; in it, she shared her hopes, fears and dreams. Though the Jews in the secret annex where she and her family hid were discovered and deported, and though her life was cut tragically short in a concentration camp at age 15, her words live on in 75 different languages, giving a face and a voice to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Hannah Senesh

Though she was born in Budapest, when she was still a teenager Hannah Senesh moved to the land of Israel, then under the British mandate. She enlisted as a paratrooper with the British Womens Auxiliary Air Force when World War II threatened Jewish communities in Europe. She parachuted into Hungary with her comrades but was caught a few weeks later and endured months of torture before being sentenced to death by firing squad at age 23. Not only her example but also the Hebrew poetry she wrote continues to inspire, including perhaps her most famous lines in the poem Eili, My God:

My God, My God may there be no end to

The sand and the sea,

The waters splash,

The lightnings flash,

The prayer of man.

Henrietta Szold

Born in Baltimore, Henrietta Szold served as aide to her father, a rabbi and scholar, and then became the first woman to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary. But her life changed on a 1909 visit to the land of Israel, when she was shocked by the rampant poverty and disease. Henrietta founded Hadassah, which rallied women to raise funds for healthcare and ultimately set up clinics throughout the land. She moved to the land of Israel, joined the Jewish National Council to work on health and education initiatives, and directed the Youth Aliyah program, which brought some 15,000 teens to safety during Hitlers reign. Though she never had children of her own, the anniversary of her death is celebrated as Israels Family Day.

Golda Meir

Born in Ukraine and raised in Ukraine and the U.S., Golda Meir moved to the land of Israel at age 23 where she distinguished herself in a life of public service, rising ultimately to serve as Israels minister of labor for seven years, minister of foreign affairs for 10 years and, finally, prime minister for five years, seeing the country through the Yom Kippur War.

Naomi Shemer

Naomi Shemers songs are the soundtrack of the young State of Israel. Born on a kibbutz in 1930, she began playing piano at age six and accompanied the kibbutz celebrations. She grew up to write such songs as Al Kol Eleh (For All These Things), Od Lo Ahavti Dai (I Have Not Yet Loved Enough), and Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold). Her songs, often evoking her Jewish and Israeli heritage and the nature that surrounded her, define the Israeli experience.

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12 Remarkable Jewish Women - My Jewish Learning

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Cornell University is hiring a professor with a history of sharing anti-Semitic posts.

Wunpini F. Mohammed, assistant professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia,announced on X that she will be starting a new job as an assistant professor at Cornell Universitys Department of Communications later this year. The decision comes despite Mohammeds record of controversial anti-Israel activity on X.

Israel is a settler-colony on stolen land-it does not have a right to exist, read one statement that Mohammed reposted this January.

Another post from the same account that Mohammed reposted states: If Jewish folks dont want to be incorrectly associated with Israels barbarism, the answer is to be vehemently anti-Zionist & work to dismantle Israel+Zionism.

[RELATED: Cornell students demand divestment from Israel, find university president guilty of genocide in mock trial]

Mohammed also shared a post from someone who wrote: Hakeem is a house dem alright and a house neeeeegrow, in reference to Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) expressing support for Israel.

Mohammed reposted a comment from another user who denigrated Mia Schem, an Israeli-French woman released from Hamas captivity who said she was afraid of being raped by her captors, saying: We keep reaching new lows. Also its so clear this has the same energy as white women historically falsely accusing Black men of assault. Whatever it takes to demonize Palestinians and continue mass killing them.

When a pastor from Mohammeds home country, Ghana, publicly prayed for the safety of Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians (as reported on Ghana News), Mohammedlashed out on X, writing: These religious frauds do not speak for Ghanaians. She continued: We [Ghana] stand in solidarity with Palestine and unequivocally condemn Israeli genocide and war crimes in Palestine.

This is not the first time that Cornell has hired an anti-Israel professor. [RELATED: ASU suspends left-wing student org that called for death to the zionist: We do not condemn Hamas]

As seen on Campus Reform,Russel Rickford, associate professor of history at Cornell, described Hamass killings as exhilarating, stating: It was energizing. And if it werent exhilarating by this challenge to the monopoly of violence - by this shifting of the balance of power - then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.

Another Cornell instructor, Alyiah Gonzales, canceled her English class in order to observe a Global Strike for Palestine, according to areport by Campus Reform. In an email to her class obtained byThe Washington Free Beacon, she stated: Today, I am canceling class in solidarity with collective calls for a Global Strike for Palestine . . . I mourn the fact that all universities in Gaza have been destroyed or demolished by Israeli military forces and operations.

Gonzales has also previously said that Israel and all those complicit in genocide and occupation can rot in the deepest darkest pits of hell, according toThe Washington Free Beacon.

Campus Reform has reached out to Cornell University and Wunpini F. Mohammed for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

An ad purchased by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism that ran during the Academy Awards on Sunday is drawing criticism for depicting a bar mitzvah celebrated in a church.

Im sure they had decent intentions but this ad sends a poor message, wrote Dovid Bashevkin, director of education for NCSY. We are grateful to our non-Jewish neighbors, but we dont take kindly to seeing a bar mitzvah in a church.

Our history of forced conversion and assimilation makes such imagery honestly too painful to bear, he added.

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, a Chabad rabbi in Kentucky called the ad absolutely moronic.

A bar mitzvah takes place in the middle of the night and gets a bomb threat, so they go next door to a church to finish the ceremony, he wrote. What in the ignorant savior foolishness motivated the script? Maybe stop Jew-hatred by meeting a Jew.

The ad states that 895 Jewish temples received bomb threats last year, adding that this is one of those stories.

Police cars rush to the synagogue and officers interrupt the service. The rabbi and congregants retreat to an adjacent church, as a SWAT team searches the building.

The commercial concludes with the rabbi stating in the church sanctuary, Thank you for welcoming us, before continuing with the bar mitzvah celebration.

Hate loses when we stand together, the ad states.

The rest is here:

Some Jews critical of 'Oscars' ad depicting bar mitzvah moving to a church - St. Louis Jewish Light

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The UK Health Secretary Victoria Atkins announced intentions to "urgently" investigate Dr. Dimitrios Psaroudakis, a London-based gynecologist who claimed his local borough of Hammersmith would be better "Jew free," according to multiple media reports from Saturday.

Atkins told the Telegraph, As the Prime Minister set out on the steps of Downing Street last week, there are people whose ideology and dogma are in direct conflict with our shared values as a country."

Just as we will not stand for that across the country nor will I stand for that in our NHS, she said. I can assure [Sir Michael] I will be looking into this with great urgency and great care.

Atkins wrote to England's National Health Service and the General Medical Council, where she reportedly asserted that hate speech and support for extremism or terrorism are not compatible with the responsibilities and duties of healthcare professionals."

She also reportedly asked the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service to review the three-month suspension, which will expire in a few week's time, in favor of a more severe punishment.

Sir Michael Ellis, the former Conservative attorney general, was cited by the Telegraph as having expressed this doctor may be a danger to Jewish patients and called for a review of the tribunals grossly unreasonable decision before his suspension is up.

Citing the Telegraph's investigation, Ellis told the House of Commons, I am concerned this doctor may be a danger to Jewish patients, and Im also concerned that this tribunal is defective and their decision is grossly unreasonable.

The tribunal found that Psaroudakis had not been racist butcomfortable with using discriminatory language," the Jerusalem Post reported in February.

In addition to claiming that Hammersmith would be better "Jew free," Psaoudaki had previously described Jewish colleagues in emails as leprechaun[s], alky, s**t for brains and big nose, the Post reported.

The Mail also reported that the doctor had made a number of sexually explicit and sexist remarks, including sending an email that said, If we hire another woman, Im going to kill myself. It was also reported that the doctor had sent several sexually explicit messages about lube and gregging- an act that involves performing a sexual act on a stolen hat.

More here:

Better 'Jew free': London doctor to be investigated by Health Secretary over antisemitism - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On March 12, 2024, the pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Sarh Al-Khilafa media outlet released a poster titled "Fight All The Polytheists." The poster praises the 15-year-old assailant who stabbed a 50-year-old Orthodox Jew, Meir Zvi Jung, in the Selnau area of Zrich, Switzerland,[1] as a response to ISIS Spokesman Abu Hudhayfah Al-Ansari's call to attack "Jews and their allies everywhere." Asserting that just as "the Jews, Christians and their allies" fight against the Muslims the world over, so must Muslims fight them wherever they are, the poster claims that "a Jew in Palestine or in China is an infidel whose blood is permissible." The poster concludes that "like they attack us, we will respond to their hostility, break their power, our fire won't be extinguished until we avenge our brothers sooner or later, as we will kill the men, capture the women and enslave the children, so wait, we are waiting with you."[2]

On March 11, the pro-ISIS Al-Murhafat media outlet released a poster featuring a quote by slain ISIS Spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, calling on Muslims in "the Crusaders' countries" to carry out lone-wolf attacks, declaring that such attacks are more effective than ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq, and telling supporters in the West that "if one of you strives to reach the Islamic State, then one of us wishes to be in your place." Al-Adnani called to target civilians, as it is "more painful," and declared that there is no difference between armed or unarmed, woman or man. He also encouraged attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, saying: Perhaps you will attain great reward or martyrdom during Ramadan."[3]

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Pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Media Outlets Call On Muslims To Attack Jews And Christians In The West During Ramadan - Middle East Media Research Institute

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Posted By admin on March 13, 2024

Barricades stretched for a quarter mile along Roemer Ave. in Teaneck, N.J., on both sides of the street.

A spotlight camera stood sentry at the intersection outside the Congregation Keter Torah off New Bridge Road.

Tensions have been high in various corners of the township, home to a large Jewish community, since Hamas terrorists brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

They have been even higher in the days since rumors surfaced that the synagogue was hosting a gathering of real estate agents on Sunday who will be selling land in Israel that was stolen from the Palestinians.

But thats not whats happening.

Not exactly.

But the internet can be a dangerous place.

And so can the world.

What is happening at the Great Israeli Real Estate Event, according to Juda Englemayer, a spokesman for the congregation, is that real estate agents from Israel will be showing off their projects in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

No one buys anything there, said Englemayer, who described the six-hour session as informational. There are no transactions taking place.

Englemayer also distanced the synagogue from the event, saying that Keter Torah was merely renting space to organizers, as it has done in the past.

He said this years event, which has been condemned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other pro-Palestinian groups, is getting attention only because of the Israel-Gaza war.

Not to mention social media. News of the meeting went viral after local resident Rich Siegal blasted the town council for allowing it to take place.

If we allow this sale to go through, we are enabling a local synagogue to violate both domestic anti-discrimination laws and international law, Siegal said. Were not entitled to have a real estate event where we only invite Jews for properties that are only available to Jews where Arabs are being actively kicked out of their homes right now.

A video of his remarks garnered more than 120,000 views on Instagram.

But Teaneck Town Manager Dean Kazinci said the town has no power over how a private organization like a synagogue conducts its business.

It is a private event being hosted by a a private religious establishment, Kazinci said in a statement.

The Township of Teaneck is a large, diverse community, and we welcome the free exchange of ideas. We encourage all residents to be respectful of one another in a peaceful and orderly manner.

In other words, the town and the synagogue are washing their hands of the whole event.

Thats not good enough for residents like Sam Bruschansky, who lives across the street from Keter Torah and is worried about protesters who will practically be on his front lawn.

Bruschansky considers himself an American Jew, and doesnt feel like he and his neighbors should be targeted over what is happening in Israel.

I just dont like trouble on my doorstep, Bruschansky said. You think I want protesters at my door with little kids in my house? We might have to hunker down Sunday and not go anywhere.

The fallout over the event could end up being much ado about nothing. Much of the controversy can easily be attributed to misinformation.

But just because youre paranoid, it doesnt mean theyre not out to get you.

Ninety percent of the projects on display at the event are in Israel proper, Englemayer said. The rest are in West Bank territories, some of which remain in dispute.

At the very least, given the timing, Keter Torah could have skipped the event this year, and let the real estate agents book another venue. That would have kept the demonstrators away from Bruschanskys doorstep.

Tensions are high, and optics are everything.

And just because theres smoke, that doesnt always mean theres a fire. But sometimes, especially where matters involving Israel are concerned, the smoke is bad enough.

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LEONARD GREENE: Tensions rise in N.J. Jewish community over land for sale in Israel - New York Daily News

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