Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

Turkey has in the last few weeks sought to use media connections abroad to push narratives about how it wants reconciliation with Israel, even as its own media pushes extremist anti-Israel comments. One commentator, according to T24 Turkish media, said that Turkey could enter Tel Aviv in 48 hours. He claimed, we are not like the Arabs, an apparent reference to the inability of Arab armies to defeat Israel in 1948 and 1967. The commentary on Turkish television was not abnormal. Hatred of Israel and vows to destroy Israel, invade Jerusalem, liberate Al-Aqsa and spread extreme nationalist, anti-Zionist or antisemitic comments have become increasingly normal in Turkey. Most journalists who are critical of the ruling party in Turkey have been silenced, forced to flee the country or imprisoned. Turkey is considered the largest jailor of journalists in the world under the AK Party. In March 2018, a Turkish daily also suggested that Turkey should form an Islamist army to destroy Israel. In 2019, according to MEMRI, a retired Turkish general named Adnan Tanriverdi who heads the SADAT consulting firm also spoke about the need to liberate Jerusalem from Israel. The Islamic world should prepare an army for Palestine from outside Palestine. Israel should know that if it bombs [Palestine] a bomb will fall on Tel Aviv as well." It appears these views have become mainstream in Turkeys ruling party. Israel is seen as the main enemy of Turkey. Abroad, Turkey works with a few lobbyists in Washington to try to get media to present the country in a more favorable image and even tries to influence some Israeli media with false stories of reconciliation. However, Turkeys new envoy to Israel has said that Zionism is racism and accused Israel of displacing millions and committing many massacres. Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogans office has vowed to liberate Al-Aqsa and declared that Jerusalem is ours.At the same time, the increasing rhetoric of hate against minorities, non-Muslims, Israel, Greece, Egypt, the UAE, and others in the region, is also targeting all opposition groups in Turkey. An image on Turkish television showed the opposition HDP partys logo changed to include grenades and bullets instead of the colors of the usual logo, a way for Turkeys ruling party to incite against the opposition and call them terrorists. Turkeys ruling party tends to imprison all critics as terrorists, including peace and environmental activists and journalists. Terrorism is used as an accusation for disagreeing with Ankaras authoritarian trend. There is almost no space for any critique in Turkey, a country that was once more democratic and is still a member of NATO, despite Ankaras drift away from NATOs democratic and human rights values. The increasingly extremist comments on Turkish media and Ankaras army of social media activists who target any critics online illustrate that the narrative of Turkish reconciliation with Israel is largely hollow. Support for an Islamist army to take over Israel by numerous commentators in Turkey and Ankaras frequent hosting of Hamas, shows that Turkeys ruling party has embraced a worldview similar to Irans regime in how it views Israel as a central enemy and wants to liberate Jerusalem. This is in contrast to countries in the region that are embracing new peace deals with Israel and which have toned down this kind of extremist rhetoric.

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Turkish media vows to take over Tel Aviv, calls opposition terrorists - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

Theres a popular joke that every Jewish holiday can be summed up as They tried to kill us, we won, lets eat. Its an aphorism thats especially apt for the two rabbinic holidays on the Jewish calendar, Purim and Hanukkah, which were currently celebrating. In the Purim story, Haman wished to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire, and was foiled by a miraculous turn of events. Similarly, in the story of Hanukkah, the king of the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ordered the Jews to abandon their faith for Hellenistic ideals, but the Maccabees mounted a successful revolt and restored traditional religious practices to Judea.

These two holidays also represent two different kinds of antisemitism. While both stories involve the draconian decrees of antisemitic leaders against their Jewish subjects, there is a notable difference in their methods: Haman was not interested in the Jews abandoning their faith; his hatred was directed at the Jews as a people. By contrast, Antiochus offered the Jews a way out: Hellenize in other words, be like us and we will accept you; otherwise, face death.

And these two forms of antisemitism have served as a template for antisemitism throughout the ages. Hamans ideological progeny were men like Bogdan Chmelnizki and Adolph Hitler, who wished to kill all Jews regardless of their beliefs. By contrast, Antiochuss ideological progeny were the Spanish Inquisition and others who forced Jews to choose between their faith and death, people who predicated their hatred for Jews on Jewish beliefs, rather than on the Jews themselves.

Thankfully, in todays western world, the notion that its okay to kill those who are not like you or who do not think like you is considered reprehensible. Likewise, the idea that its okay to exclude someone or discriminate against them for being different is condemned. But for some reason, to exclude those who think differently is increasingly legitimized by too many on the far Left. Such ideological purity requirements are all too often applied to Jews, resulting in an antisemitism that is comparable to the outright rejection of Jews.

Take Zionism. For the overwhelming majority of American Jews, Zionism is not merely a political ideology but an expression of their religious identity. And yet, for many on the far Left, extreme liberal values must replace certain Jewish values for Jews to be accepted in their spaces. Jews are all too often faced with an ultimatum: Renounce your traditions relating to your peoples history and your connection to the Land of Israel, or risk exclusion from spaces representing other causes you believe in.

While anti-Zionism might not necessarily equal antisemitism, the move of forcing Jews to renunciate a part of themselves is all too familiar to us from our tradition. And it happens all too often. Jewish students are increasingly being told they cannot be considered allies to minorities and other marginalized groups or be a part of progressive and social justice groups because they support for Israel. Examples are legion of the systematic exclusion of Jews from left-wing spaces because Jews are essentially white European colonial victimizers who, in a shocking twist of irony, cannot possibly fathom what being a victim could be like.

The delegitimization of any form of dissent by the far Left is not only hypocritical and bad for our national discourse; in the most extreme cases, it is also racist and antisemitic. The far Left has created an environment which fosters a double standard when it comes to antisemitism: Hamans antisemitism is correctly deemed reprehensible, but the antisemitism of Antiochus is legitimized.

Sadly, there are a small minority of Jews who have adopted this modern form of Hellenism. These Jews not only give a platform to people like Marc Lamont Hill and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, both of whom have shared Hamass genocidal call to free Palestine From the River to the Sea; they give them a platform to discuss antisemitism, no less. And just as Antiochus could have pointed to Hellenized Jews as proof he was not antisemitic, these figures can point to anti-Zionist Jews like Jewish Voice for Peace to justify their views.

These individuals have no obligation to subscribe to Zionism. Nevertheless, to delegitimize the right of Jews to identify as Zionists is no less antisemitic than Antiochus denying Jews the right to believe in Judaism.

One can attempt to distinguish the actions of some on the far Left from the blatant, Hamanesque antisemitism of some on the far Right, but at the end of the day, both are equally wrong in their demand that Jews sacrifice what makes us Jews in order to join, survive, and thrive.

Benyamin Moalem is a former foreign law clerk to the deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel and a Chicago-based attorney.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Hanukkahs lesson about antisemitism on the Left - Forward

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D(Front Page Magazine)

Nazifying ideological opponents is a tactic that campus anti-Israel groups and individuals have long used as part of the ongoing cognitive war against Israel, in which Zionism is racism, Israelis are the new Nazis, Gaza is equivalent to the Warsaw Ghetto, Israel is committing genocide against the guiltless Palestinians (a Holocaust in the Holy Land, as one student event called it), and the Star of David of the Israeli flag is regularly manipulated to incorporate a swastika.

This intellectually destructive behavior is nothing new for these anti-Israel activists; what is new is that they made a tactical pivot after the election of Donald Trump, choosing to join the chorus of shrill voices accusing the White House, conservatives, Republicans, and even white people in general of being a new incarnation of racists, fascists, and white supremacists, emboldened and given influence by the Trump administrations alleged racist and xenophobic ideology.

This newest thrust in their tactical assault against Israel, using the hysteria about a phantom alt-right infecting government and academia to justify a more aggressive bludgeoning of the Jewish state, means that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other radical campus groups and individuals have felt no compunction at all in increasing the tenor and intensity of their tactical assault on Israel and using the current political climate to reinforce a new slurwhite supremacyagainst it.

Some of that tactical poison flows to campuses through The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a coalition of hundreds of organizations that is at the very heart of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movements efforts to isolate Israel in the U.S, and which provides resources for radical student groups such as SJP. Since Trump came to power, we have seen a very open alliance between Zionists and white supremacists, the organizations website announces definitively. This alliance becomes all the clearer when we look at the shared histories and values of the United States and Israel, since Both the United States and Israel are European settler colonial states built on the exclusionary ideology of white supremacy, and Zionism and the US empire, both manifestations of white supremacy, collaborate closely to achieve shared goals.

Apparently, this toxic view has taken hold on university campuses. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaigns SJP chapter, for example, this hateful ideology was on full display when, in a September 2017 Facebook post, the group announced that since there is no room for fascists, white supremacists, or Zionists at UIUC, they had organized a rally called Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance Against White Supremacy. It would hopefully occur to any sentient being that characterizing Zionists as keeping company with or in fact being fascists and white supremacists is not only a historically grotesque notion, it would also seem to be self-contradictory.

And this assumption is dangerous because, if it is accepted by other leftist and radical campus groups, it will mean that, as the UN infamously achieved in 1975, Zionism again will be equivalent to racism, and any supporters of Israel can thereby be condemned and thrown into that ideological bucket of white supremacists, racists, and neo-Nazis that now seem to so animate the imaginations of Democrats, liberals, and marginalized and oppressed minorities.

A student-published disorientation guide for entering freshman at Tufts University in that post-election year echoed the same perverse theme: the guide not only disingenuously described the Tufts University Hillel of exploiting Black voices for inviting the parents of Trayvon Martin to discuss gun violence, but also, more egregiously, accused Tufts Hillel of being an organization that supports a white supremacist state namely Israel.

In 2019, in a paean to the intersectionality of oppression that currently animates progressive thought, two student groups, Claremont Students for Justice in PalestineandClaremont Prison Abolition, hosted an event to investigate the specious ties between the cause for Prison Abolition and Palestinian liberation. Attempting to create a uniting of oppression, the event promised to move through the Palestinian liberation movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)s rejection of Zionism in order to unmask the white supremacist and settler colonial projects that have worked to maintain Black and Brown bodies in bondage both domestically and internationally.

In 2019, Rabab Abdulhadi, the troublesome and eternally anti-Israel associate professor and director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) program at San Francisco State University, was delivering a guest lecture at UCLA. Abdulhadi, it will be remembered, was embroiled in controversy this year for a planned, though eventually canceled, virtual speaking appearance by Leila Khaled, a terrorist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose resume includes her role in the 1969 hijacking of an Israel-bound plane and her arrest the following year during a failed hijacking of an El Al flight.

At UCLA, Abdulhadi was at her hate-Israel best, claiming, according to a Jewish student attending the talk, that those who support Israel want to ethnically cleanse the Middle East and those affiliated with Israel and pro-Israel organizations are white supremacists. Abdulhadi apparently doubled down on the white supremacy slur against Zionism and the Jewish state, as she has undeterred in her personal jihad against the Jewish state, asserting that Rep. Ilhan Omar is attacked by AIPAC and all these pro-Israel organizations because [she is] Muslim, and that the United States and Israel have shared values of killing people, colonialism and white supremacy.

In a June 2020 online debate sponsored by Canadas York University, associate professor Faisal Bhabha, who teaches at the universitys Osgoode Hall Law School, after asserting that Zionism isnt about self-determination, its about Jewish supremacy and being challenged for that thought by another panelist, doubled down on his toxic views, stating definitively that Im equating white supremacy with Jewish supremacy.

Columbia University, of course, has been a well-spring of anti-Israel scholarship and invective, particularly emanating from the universitys anti-colonial, anti-Israel, anti-Western, and often anti-Semitic Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. In 2018, Columbias Middle East Institute, Columbia/Barnard JVP, and other progressive groups co-sponsored a conference which announced it would on the first day have as its topic On the Palestine Exception (with some thoughts concerning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Zionism in the academy), but it became clear that the actual purpose of the event was to demonize Zionism and the Jewish state yet again. The event ludicrously tried to conflate Zionism with white supremacy, even linking it to Islamophobia and other bigotry. [T]here is the little-known ZionistNazi alliance to rid Germany of its Jewish population . . , a description read. Richard Spencer is, therefore, hardly an aberration in linking the basic precepts of Zionism to the White Supremacist desire of a white ethno-state . . . . The link between White Supremacy, male chauvinism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Zionism is clearer than ever.

The year before, as part of the annual Israeli Apartheid Week hate-fest, Columbias chapter of SJP held a subtlety-entitled event, Zionists are Racists. The description for the event resurrected the long-discredited slur from the 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, the odious resolution that declared Zionism is Racism. With the support of newly liberated African nations, the description read, the bill recognized the supremacist ideology of the Israeli nation-state that had predicated its settler colony upon racial apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Come learn about Israels racist and imperialist policies and discuss what the BDS struggle looks from the perspective of South Africa.

These perpetrators of this unrelenting anti-Israel agitation have been leading a virulent campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel for years now, and it is astonishing that radical groups and individuals ignore all the factual and shameful chronology (of which they have been central fomenters and cheerleaders in the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign), and instead are trying to promote the fantasy that, not only do Zionism and Israel embody and perpetrate white supremacy themselves, the true threat to Jewish students and other Israel supporters, they contend, is from the Lefts perennial boogeymen, the lunatic fringe of white power extremists who these willfully-blind activists believe, and want others to believe, are the chief perpetrators of anti-Jewish bigotry.

It is no surprise, obviously, that when campuses attempt to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Associations (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, the anti-Israel crowd is the first to reject its use and complain about being unfairly targeted for being the bigots they actually are, precisely because much of their behavior and speech conforms to some of the definitions criteria. Some of those points include, for instance, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israelall of which accurately describe the intention and effect of this anti-Israel activism, and particularly the base charge that the entire Zionist endeavor is a racist one, and that Israelis, in their treatment of the long-aggrieved Palestinians, have become white supremacists, virtual Nazis, themselves as a result.

If you cannot answer a mans argument, Oscar Wilde once quipped, do not panic. You can always call him names. The cognitive war against Israel has employed many toxic ideological tactics and name-calling in the past, and the current charge against the Jewish state of being a well-spring of white supremacy is the latest in the unrelenting effort to libel, slander, and make an eternal pariah of the Jew of nations, Israel.

Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D.,aFreedom Center Journalism Fellow in Academic Free SpeechandPresident Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, is the author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.

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Equating Zionism With White Supremacy in the Age of Trump - The Jewish Voice

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

The resourcesaid that US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, during his recent visit to Doha, called for Qatar to normalize relations with the Zionist Regime.

According to the report, Kushner demanded that Doha normalize its relations with the Zionist regime before the end of Donald Trump's presidency in the United States.

According to the source,senior Doha officials strongly opposed Kushners request to normalize Qatar's relations with Tel Aviv; however, they showed flexibility in responseto other requests made by Trump's son-in-law.

In addition, the source said that despite some news in various media outlets about the imminent normalization of Oman's relations with the Zionist regime, the Omani authorities have not made such a decision and opposed Washington's requests in this regard.

The source also stressed that according to the latest news and reports, Kuwaiti leaders have not yet made any decision to normalize relations with the Zionist regime.

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Doha, Muscat oppose tie normalization with Zionist Regime - Mehr News Agency - English Version

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

We are living in stressful, divided, indeed dark times. The sense of cohesive mission by many in Western democracies has fractured into angry divisiveness in which the views of others are not only to be disagreed with, they are to be reviled; those who hold such views are to be cancelled.

So, when we are privileged to see rays of light, evidence to the contrary, we should take stock and celebrate the moment.

Such a moment of light occurred this past week, as Im Tirtzu, Israels largest grassroots Zionist organization, conducted its first-ever all Israeli crowdfunding event. The idea was to match grassroots social and ideological convictions with financial support.

More remarkable than the final total, which exceeded our goals, was the fact that more than 2,100 of our citizens took part in the campaign. The fact that this occurred in the midst of Covid-induced economic distress makes the turnout of supporters that much more notable.

All of this begs the question of why there should have been such a widespread and generous turnout. I suggest that this is a testimony to our citizens, to their understanding that in supporting Im Tirtzu they are supporting their own vision for a proudly Zionist and democratic society.

In the face of the increasing self-denigration of Western values, ethics, and binding myths, Im Tirtzu and other Zionist organizations and those who support them proudly affirm the justness, decency and humaneness of Zionism as the guiding light of Israels destiny.

Despite a seemingly perennially dysfunctional government, these Israeli citizens demonstrate their clarity and understanding that ours is a society worth cherishing, defending and celebrating.

Millions of our citizens have internalized the meaning of Hanukkah, of resisting the siren song of assimilation into a society that discards its Jewish character, its Jewish essence, in the name of looking more presentable to Europeans and to others who have long ago cast off their own national identities.

Rather, they proudly assert their Jewishness, their Israeli-ness and the light and goodness that emanates from each. They recognize that with their financial support of organizations such as Im Tirtzu, they are giving voice to their own individual convictions.

In his last and perhaps his most powerful book, Morality, Rav Jonathan Sacks, ztl, talks about the critical role played by civic society. This sphere, intermediating between the individual and the State, is where people come together to give of themselves, to volunteer, to work together and to assure the civic health of a society.

Thankfully, Israel still possesses a healthy civic society, and Im Tirtzu is an exemplar of that society at work. We have no agenda other than to cherish and nurture the Zionist values that have sustained us.

We seek to include all, Jewish and Gentile, who see their future bound up in the continuing success of Israel, and we will confront those, whether they are in Israel, or financing them from overseas, who would seek to undermine those values.

We are about to begin a campaign that calls attention to the overreach of our Supreme Court, and its willful derogation of the separation of powers between the branches of our government.

Judicial overreach is a great threat not only to Israels democratic character by enabling the Court to act as an oligarchic super-legislature, but also potentially as a threat to its Jewish character.

On December 22nd, the Court will review the 2018 Basic Law which codifies that Israel is a Jewish State. The very idea that it could review such a law is akin to stating that a provision of the Constitution could be unconstitutional (Israel has no written constitution and its Basic Laws are seen in the aggregate as the representation of our Constitution.).

If this Law is overturned, the Court will show its complete contempt for our legislature, the Knesset, and could open the door to further challenges on the nature of Israel as a Jewish State.

To us at Im Tirtzu, and to the millions of Israelis who support us, this is wild overreach. We the People must assert ourselves and decry such behavior, sending a loud and clear message that our Jewish State is sacrosanct and not to be put into play to assuage political or ideological convictions.

This is why there is an Im Tirtzu, and this is why I believe that we speak to the hearts and minds of so many of our citizens. In supporting Im Tirtzu, Israelis have affirmed themselves and have expressed their conviction to be free and sovereign.

What better Hanukkah present could we give to ourselves!

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The People of Israel's Hanukkah Gift to themselves - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

In a tweet on Friday, the Iranian Parliament Speakers Special Aide for International Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian described the normalization of relations between the Zionist regime and Morocco as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, adding that the rulers of the Arab countries have demonstrated a total disregard for the teachings of Islam.

He went on to say that the Zionist regime will certainly have no place in the future of the region.

US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Zionist regime and Morocco "have agreed to full diplomatic relations," claiming that the deal will lead to a"massive breakthrough" for peace in the Middle East. Washington has instead recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara, an act which has been condemned by countries such as Russia as illegal to international law and resolutions.

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Zionist regime has no place in future of region - Mehr News Agency - English Version

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

A Polish diplomat serving in Turkey during World War II helped save hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis by issuing them false certificates that identified them as Christians, an Israeli newspaper revealed in an expose published Friday.

Wojciech Rychlewicz, then a consul in Istanbul, provided the documents to the European refugees at no pay. They could then obtain visas in countries that had policies in place to prevent Jewish refugees from entering, Israel Hayom reported in a story by its Europe correspondent, Eldad Beck.

Rychlewicz, who died in 1964, has not been recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations, the title conferred by Israel to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust, and has not been written about before, Beck wrote.

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Bob Meth, a Jewish physician from Los Angeles, has been key to the effort to document Rychlewiczs actions. His grandfather, Szymon (Simon) Wang, obtained Brazilian visas using one of the false certificates. They stated that Simon was a Catholic born into a Catholic family of Jzef and Maria Wang, as was as his entire family and his brothers family who also came to Istanbul.

Rychlewicz never applied for recognition for his actions or advertised them, according to the report.

Jakub Kumoch, Polands ambassador to Poland, said he has discovered hundreds of nearly identical documents in archives.

Yad Vashem, Israels Holocaust museum, is looking into the new information, according to the Israel Hayom report.

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Polish diplomat in Istanbul rescued hundreds of Jews from the Shoah, report says - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

A group of Dallas high school students recently fired up their laptops, tablets and phones for a virtual visit to the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum.

The field trip started like any of the thousands held every year at the facility, with the museums top educator leading the way.

Good morning everybody, my name is Claire," Claire Robinson said. "Im the Senior Museum Educator at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum.

Robinson stood at the entrance of the museums Shoah wing, which focuses on World War II and the Holocaust.

The class taking the virtual tour included 16 juniors and seniors from Dallas Thomas Jefferson High School. They were all online, watching Robinson through a video feed handled by a colleague.

Keren Carrin

Robinson continued her introduction, facing an iPad as she addressed the students.

Were going to ask to keep your videos off because that helps the connection when were in the exhibit," she explained.

With the help of a little technology, this field trip was nearly identical to what students would've experienced if they were there in person. At other museums, some virtual field trips usually gallery tours are pre-produced and pre-packaged. This visit, however, preserves live interaction.

Keren Carrin

My first question for you, Robinson asked the students, Has anybody heard of the holocaust and if so, what words do you associate with the holocaust?

Students delivered answers through their devices. Jews, said one. Good, Robinson said.

Gas chambers, said another student. Genocide," said another. Great word, Robinson replied.

On screen, she started walking through the exhibit, detailing how Hitlers anti-Semitic rage and his ability to infect others with inhumane hate led to the infamous concentration camps. But Robinson explained that killing squads came first.

So as the German army moves east and takes over territory after territory, theres a group of men that follow the German army, and theyre called the Einsatzgruppe, mobile killing squad, Robinson said. They would get to that town, they would round up all the Jews living in that community, with the help of the local neighbors right? Because they dont know whos Jewish

Keren Carrin

Those squads would shoot them, Robinson said, after the victims were forced to dig their own graves. Two million were murdered this way, she said, standing in front of a map showing where mass graves have been found. Theyre represented by bullets, not stick pins. More than 80 years since these crimes happened, graves continue to be discovered.

Its a lot.

Thomas Jefferson Senior Danna Reyna first learned of the Holocaust in school, years ago.

As a kid, Danna said, you dont expect that kind of hate in the world. It was kind of like shocking there was a lot of hate in the people to actually go and murder one whole population And still now with this tour, its still now pretty shocking.

Shock is partly the point. A tenet of the museum encourages action. Urging visitors dont just be a bystander become what the museum calls an upstander.

Mary Pat Higgins, the museum's CEO, said the field trip gives students an opportunity for self-reflection and action in their own lives.

We know from past experience, if we can get students to come to the museum and go through this experience we can help them think about the dangers of unchecked prejudice and hatred," Higgins said. "And we can inspire them to stand up to it when it occurs in their daily lives."

Keren Carrin

Since student groups still arent visiting the museum in person because of COVID-19, online visits will have to suffice and Southern Methodist University professor Rick Halperin says they work. As the director of SMUs Human Rights Program, hes taken students to see Nazi death camps in Europe, and to civil rights landmarks in the American south.

Even via Zoom, it does allow us as educators to present material, so students can at least stop saying 'I didnt know'. We can at least bring the awakening issue to students," Halperin said. "Its just not ideal but its better than not doing it.

Halperin said these digital tours remain both intensely important and enlightening, especially during the dark days of a pandemic.

Got a tip? Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble.

KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.

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Virtual Field Trips: How Interactive Learning Has Evolved In The Pandemic Age - KERA News

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

The preposterous claim of the Jews to have a special relationship with God seems like an exercise in narcissism.

There are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe and just our galaxy alone has over 100 thousand million stars. To think that out of all of these stars there would be just one star that would have but one planet for whom God would have a special interest in, is absurd.

And then, to break it down even further; from over eight million species of life on earth, to think that God would make a special covenant with just one group of naked apes roaming the planet making trouble?! And not all the apes of course, but just one small tribe of former Hebrew slaves living in the Levant 33 centuries ago, is insane.

I get it. Trust me, I get it. Most mornings I stand wrapping tefillin around my arm wondering how God could possibly care. I offer thousands of words of prayer a day and have to wonder if God is actually listening. I have seen too many good people get a raw deal in life to believe there is real justice in this world. No one says it, because they do not want to give expression to such a terrible notion, but the real way to get ahead in life is to be dishonest and harm others.

So why do I continue to wrap those tefillin? Why do I continue to believe in a God of Justice and inculcate Judaism into my children?

I think the answer has to begin with the idea that God did not choose us out of all of creation, as much as we chose Him. And its not like we chose him in a distant past and we are just stuck with Him, but we have constantly chosen Him time and time again. Every morning that I wrap those black leather boxes around my arm, I choose Him again!

I once heard of a Christian theologian who said that one of the greatest proofs against Christianity is that when Evil came to this world in the form of Nazism, it didnt attack the church, but rather attacked the Jews.

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And no, I do not do it for the survivors. While I may owe them my admiration, and respect, I do not think I owe the survivors to continue being Jewish. The so called 614th commandment not to hand Hitler a posthumous victory always rang hollow to me. There is no value in being stubborn for stubbornness sake.

I choose Judaism for the same reason they chose God. I truly believe that Judaism is the greatest idea in the history of the world. And if it has led me to be on the side of the oppressed, I happily choose it over being the oppressor. I see in Judaism a truth that goes beyond reason. It is a truth that is proven to me again and again in the little things. Things so small and so trite they scarcely make an argument. But put together they present strong evidence for Judaisms bold claims.

I have spent too much time studying theology to think the truth I see and feel is unique to Judaism. I know that our Christian and Muslim friends feel it as well. I do not doubt the authenticity of their religious experience or feelings of finding truth. My belief in Judaism does not include a monopoly on the truth. I find much resonance in a quote attributed to 20th Century philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig who said, Perhaps Jesus is the way to God, but we Jews have no need of him as we are already with God. And while these ideas wont win me any points at the Oxford Debating Club, it is enough for me and satisfies my soul. For me, Jewish particularism, along with Jewish exceptionalism, serves as the greatest evidence of Judaisms bold claims.

One of two things must be right. Either there really was a God who made a covenant with his friend Abraham that He would be for us a God and we would be for Him a people; or there was no God who made an covenant at all. In which case the Jewish people are religious geniuses to have come up with a story and plan for immortality that has spent millennia enriching humanity with notions of equality, human rights, dignity, charity and morality.

Either way, I want to be on Team Jew. Throughout history Team Jew has been known as Hebrews, Israelites, Judahites, Jews, Maccabees, Israelis, etc. No matter the name, those are my people.

As we light the Hanukkah menorah, this week, we would do well to remember the real miracle that is being celebrated. It is not about the oil lasting eight days, but the light that has never been extinguished and continues to illuminate the world. It is a celebration of a miracle that was brought about by Jews refusing to be anything but Jews. Before meeting Greek culture, every theology and philosophy the Jews met was inferior to Judaism. Primitive even. The encounter of Judaism with Hellenism was the first time that Judaism met a real rival. The Odyssey, The Iliad, and Euclid offered real wisdom that rivaled the Hebrew Bible. And yet, the Jews still chose God. They read Homer and chose Moses. They read Platos The Republic, found it lacking and walked away to later compose the Talmud.

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Reflections on Hanukkah 5781 - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on December 16, 2020

In a powerful letter addressed to the Armenian National Committee of AmericaWestern Region Board of Directors, the California Teachers Association PresidentE. Toby Boydshared his groups solidarity with the Armenian Community in denouncing in the strongest possible terms the aggressions and war crimes committed in Artsakh by the Azerbaijani government. CTA is one of the largest and most powerful teachers unions in the country with over 300,000 members and a high political profile in California politics.

In a response letter, the ANCA-WR Board ChairNora Hovsepian, Esq.expressed gratitude for CTAs letter of support for the plight of the Armenian people further noting, [T]he importance of teaching about the Armenian Genocide is even more pronounced when unpunished crimes against humanity become unwelcome invitations to continue the same policies of genocidal intent. Unfortunately, the Armenians of Artsakh and Armenia are currently suffering an existential threat, as they once again fall victim to the aggression and unbridled attacks of Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tragically, the world, for the most part, remains silent once again, allowing this threat to continue with impunity.

I am very pleased that CTA passed this resolution in support of Artsakh and the larger Armenian Diaspora. It is very important to always stand up for justice, peace, and humanity, said LAUSD teacher and advisorIngrid Gunnellwho brought this critical matter to the CTA Representative Assembly and the CTA Board of Directors for approval. I have long advocated for CALSTRS to divest from Turkish investments, and have stood with the ANCA-WR, Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian, and GTA President Taline Arsenian in this fight for years, through the passage of AB1320 in 2019. I have marched with the LA Armenian Community on April 24th and worked with Sedda Antekelian of the USC Shoah Foundation to bring professional development about the Armenian Genocide to educators in LAUSD. This is advocacy that sees no end in sight, as greed, power, and hatred have flourished in this region against a relatively small population for well over a hundred years.

The California Teachers Association has and continues to be an organization that promotes human rights advocacy in our state, nation, and the world. As a CTA member and an Armenian-American, I am proud that my state union, like my local union the Glendale Teachers Association has taken a strong position on the human rights violations and injustices that continue to occur in Artsakh and Armenia, remarked GTA PresidentTaline Krikorian Arsenian. It is important for community organizations, advocacy groups, legislators, and world governments, as well as individuals like you and me, to use our collective voices to tell our story, recognize Artsakh, and ensure awareness of these war crimes and human rights violations. It is imperative that the aggressors be held accountable and that the Armenian victims of these crimes against humanity be made whole through reparations.

A GUSD educator of 21 years and a member of the ANCA-WR Education Committee, Arsenian continued, I am honored to be working with the ANCA-WR Education Committee consisting of a diverse and strong group of professionals who are dedicated to bringing awareness of Armenian genocide, culture, and history to students in California, the nation, and the world. She concluded by saying, I am truly grateful for my fellow union colleague and community activist, Ingrid Gunnell, for spearheading this effort with the CTA. She is a dedicated activist for all victims of harm and a social and human rights advocate.

Azerbaijans premeditated and coordinated military assault on Artsakh with the direct support of Turkey and mercenary terrorists has seen a number of gruesome war crimes committed against Armenian servicemen and civilians alike, further resulting in a major humanitarian crisis that has seen over 100,000 Armenians displaced from their indigenous homeland.

The full text of the CTA letter is provided below.The California Teachers Association stands in solidarity with the Armenia Community in denouncing in the strongest possible terms the aggressions and war crimes committed in Artsakh by the Azerbaijani government. These acts, committed with the backing of the Turkish government, include bombings of schools, hospitals, and places of worship while people under attack continue to struggle through a worldwide pandemic.

We remain deeply troubled by and condemn the violent history of Turkey toward the Armenian people and its ongoing denial of the Armenian genocide it committed a century ago. Those crimes against humanity have gone unanswered, and the nation responsible has evaded responsibility. Now, with these new Turkish-backed attacks on Artsakh and Armenia that began in September, the older crimes are being compounded and exacerbated by these new aggressions.

CTA believes that a failure to learn history is an unwelcome invitation to repeat it. Since 2016 California schools have been required to teach students about the Armenian genocide. Many CTA members are of Armenian heritage or live or teach in communities rich with Armenian heritage such as Fresno and Glendale. The current situation in Artsakh is of grave concern to our members in those communities and throughout the state.

CTA policy recognizes that peace is superior to war and believes in the interdependence of all people. CTA unequivocally condemns Azerbaijan and Turkey for their aggression on the people of Artsakh and Armenia. We urge an immediate ceasefire and a permanent end to these attacks. California educators stand with you, and will continue to do what we can, both in and out of our classrooms, to help ANCA raise awareness and bring peace and justice to the Armenian people.

The Armenian National Committee of America Western Region is the largest and most influential nonpartisan Armenian American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues in pursuit of the Armenian Cause.

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ANCA-WR Applauds Calif. Teachers' Association for Firm Stance on Artsakh - Asbarez Armenian News

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