Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

All the ruling Arab regimes that have tried or are trying to normalize relations with the Zionist regime know very well that this compromise is against the will of the divine law and the will of the nations of the Islamic Ummah and this is as fulfilling the will of the United States and Israel regime, while they are aware of its great losses for this Ummah and of the enmity of Israel regime and the United States with the Ummah, saidSheikh Isa Qassim.

The ruling regimes are never willing to do justice to the nations and want to exercise their dominion fully and seize every privilege and opportunity, he added.

They see submission to the United States and Israel, which is contrary to the interests of the Muslim Ummah and the religion of Islam, as a way to further dominate and oppress nations, he noted.

He stressed that if the nations of the Islamic Ummah want to be self-made and valuable, they should not neglect the policies of their country, and their will and desire should be respected in the affairs of the country and in domestic and foreign policies.

The normalization of relations with the occupying regime, which is rejected by the Islamic and Arab nations, will surely fail in the near future, he highlighted.

Sheikh Isa Qassim went on to say thatthe normalization of relations with the Zionist regime is a great infelicitous and evil act.

Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with the Israeli regime, becoming the latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by US President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the regime's relative isolation in the Middle East.

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Normalization of relations with Zionist regime evil act - Mehr News Agency - English Version

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

A coordinated public pressure campaign is attempting to induce Facebook to adopt the controversial definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and to use it to police content published on its platform. On August 7, 128 organizations sent an open letter to Facebooks Board of Directors, calling on them to fully adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and to implement a hate speech policy on antisemitism with that definition at its core.

The full IHRA working definition of antisemitism provides Facebook an effective, neutral, and nuanced tool to protect Jewish users from hate speech and imagery that incites hate and oftentimes leads to violence, write the organizations. To amplify their call, a campaign website has been launched.

But contrary to their claim, the IHRA definition is no effective, neutral, and nuanced tool. In fact, the IHRA definition is highly problematic and controversial. The two sentences representing the definition are unclear and indefinite, in particular the first one, which states, Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews (emphasis added). Its so ambiguous as to hardly be a definition at all. It thus does not and cannot provide an effective instrument to fight antisemitism.

It is also not neutral nor nuanced. The definition provides contemporary examples of antisemitism and these examples extend the definition of what constitutes antisemitism to include criticism directed at the State of Israel, for example, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation and claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. Someone displaying these behaviors or making these statements may be an antisemite, but it would require additional evidence to suggest anti-Semitic intent.

These examples can be and have been weaponized to attack, delegitimize and silence activists, experts, human rights defenders and civil society organizations criticizing the State of Israel and Zionism within the limits of freedom of speech. Even Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate who drafted the IHRA definition fifteen years ago, has denounced the definitions use to undermine free speech.

Indeed, among the signatories of the open letter are many organizations that have taken the lead in weaponizing the IHRA definition, who act in close coordination with the Israeli government which they shield from international criticism even while Israel entrenches its occupation and moves closer to formal annexation of Palestine. And these organizations have reached out to Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Orit Farkash-Hacohen to amplify their campaign targeting Facebook.

Their campaign is a mistake.

I, too, am deeply concerned about the rise in antisemitism around the world. Antisemitism and all other forms of racism and bigotry pose a serious threat that must be fought forcefully. I commend Facebooks efforts to ban antisemitic content and encourage it to intensify them. But the effort to combat antisemitism will only succeed if Facebooks policy and approach are rooted in integrity and universality, and are perceived by its wider community of users as credible and sincere.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism doesnt meet these essential standards. Adopting it would be a trap for Facebook and its users. It would be used as a benchmark against Facebook, exposing it to ongoing and increasing pressures to remove content interpreted as violating the contemporary examples of antisemitism attached to the IHRA definition.

Considering how the IHRA definition and its examples are being used in the public domain, this could have far-reaching implications for Facebook and for freedom of speech. Someone criticizing Israel in a way perceived as a double standard could then be accused of antisemitism under Facebooks corporate policy. Somebody embracing Anti-Zionism and supporting a democratic one-state or binational solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be booted from Facebook, as could someone blaming Israel for institutionalized racism (a common accusation against almost any country across the globe).

One can certainly disagree with these utterances. But such opinions are legitimate, and also held by many Jews around the world. Suppressing such opinions doesnt boost the fight against antisemitism, but undermines it.

With 55 other scholars specialized in antisemitism, Jewish and Holocaust history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have just sent my own letter to Facebooks Board of Directors warning them against adoption and application of the IHRA definition. We call on Facebook to fight all forms of hate speech on Facebook. But dont do so by adopting and applying a politicized definition of antisemitism, which has been weaponized to undermine free speech, in order to shield the Israeli government and to silence Palestinian voices and their supporters.

Prof. Amos Goldberg teaches at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Find the letter he sent to Facebook with the full list of signatories here.

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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Dear Facebook: Please dont adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism - Forward

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,October 2020, pp. 16-17, 28

THE DISILLUSIONMENT with Israel of American Jews, and some Israelis, is becoming increasingly clear. In particular, controversy was stirred by a widely discussed article by Peter Beinart, respected journalist and long-time liberal Zionist, and an interview with writer and actor Seth Rogen.

Peter Beinart, for many years an advocate of a two-state solution, has now changed his mind. He stirred much debate with his article published on July 8 in the New York Times entitled, I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State. This was preceded by a longer article in Jewish Currents, where he is editor-at-large, Yavne: A Jewish Case For Equality in Israel-Palestine.

He writes: For decades I argued for a separation between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, I can imagine a Jewish home in one equal state. I was 22 in 1993 when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn to officially begin the peace process that many hoped would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Ive been arguing for a two-state solution ever since.

Beinart notes that, I knew Israel was wrong to deny Palestinians in the West Bank citizenship, due process, free movement and the right to vote in the country in which they lived. But the dream of a two-state solution that would give Palestinians a country of their own let me hope that I could remain a liberal and a supporter of Jewish statehood at the same time. Events have extinguished that hope.

At the present time, about 640,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and Beinart argues, Both the Israeli and American governments have divested Palestinian statehood of any real meaning. The Trump administrations peace plan envisions an archipelago of Palestinian towns scattered across as little as 70 percent of the West Bank, under Israeli control. If Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fulfills his pledge to impose Israeli sovereignty on parts of the West Bank, he will just formalize a decades-old reality. In practice, Israel annexed the West Bank long ago.

In reality, Beinart writes, Israel has all but made its decision: one country that includes millions of Palestinians who lack basic rights. Now liberal Zionists must make our decision, too. Its time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. Its time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state. Equality could come in the form of one state, that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem or it could be a confederation that allows free movement between two deeply integrated countries.

Achieving the goal of equality, Beinart believes, ...would be long and difficult but it is not fanciful. The goal of equality is now more realistic than the goal of separation...Israel is already a binational state. Two peoples, roughly equal in number, live under the ultimate control of one government. And the political science literature is clear: divided societies are most stable and most peaceful when governments represent all their peoples.

Beinart concludes: A Jewish state has become the dominant form of Zionism. But it is not the essence of Zionism. The essence of Zionism is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society in Israel-Palestine can be a Jewish home that is also, equally, a Palestinian home. Builders of that home can bring liberation not just for Palestinians but for us too.

Even in Israel there are voices embracing Beinarts analysis. Some even argued that Beinart does not go far enough. One of these is Jeff Halper, an Israeli anthropologist who leads the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions and is a founder of the One Democratic State Committee.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on July 13, he declares that, A single state is the only alternative to what exists today, and what annexation plainly offers for the future: apartheid. The One Democratic State campaign has formulated a political program that calls for a single democracy of equal rights and the homecoming of the refugees and the emergence of a shared civil society.

To the question, Will Israeli Jews buy into it, Halper provides this assessment: Of course not. Why would they? To such a degree do they enjoy the benefits of an apartheid regime that the occupation and Palestinian rights have been reduced to a non-issue. The refusal of most white South Africans to willingly dismantle apartheid resembles that of Israeli Jews. So Palestinians and their few Israeli partners that have the vision of a shared society must take a leaf from the ANC [African National Congress] playbook. Like the ANC, we must create a direct link between the international public, for whom Palestinian rights is a major issue (including among a growing proportion of young Jews), and our one-state movement. In that way, we render Israeli apartheid unsustainable, as the ANC did in South Africa, finally bringing the Israelis into the transition process when they have no choice but to cooperate.

Another Israeli who is giving up on a two-state solution is Gershon Baskin, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post. In a 2019 column he wrote: Those of us in Israel who have supported and struggled to bring about a two-state solution are now forced to accept the new reality that Netanyahu will create, and we will have to join the ranks of the people who will fight for democracy and equality in a non-nation, non-ethnic secular state.

Writing in The Nation, Eric Alterman declared: Liberal Zionism is a contradiction in terms. But no one has stirred more controversy than actor-writer Seth Rogen, who declared in a widely heard interview that, Israel makes no sense.

Rogen, who grew up in Canada, went to Jewish schools and Jewish summer camps. His parents met while working on a kibbutz in Israel. On July 27, he appeared on the Marc Maron podcast promoting his new movie, An American Pickle, which looks at Jewish life in the U.S. Maron, who is also Jewish, raised the idea of Jews moving to many places in the world after the Holocaust, and not to Israel. Rogen replied, I think thats a better strategyyou dont keep all your Jews in one basket. I dont understand why they did that. It makes no sense whatsoever. It would be nice to live somewhere that was not part of the Christian apocalyptic prophesymaybe settle somewhere that the Christians dont think you all have to die in order for the apocalypse to happen.

Maron asked, Do you want to live in Israel? Rogen answered, No. Maron responded: Im the same way and were going to piss off a bunch of Jews. For some reason, my mother, whos not religious, her generation, theyre kind of hung up on Israel, and they found some comfort in it. Ive been thereI couldnt imagine living there. Rogen replied, If it is truly for the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because you dont keep something youre trying to preserve all in one place, especially when that place has proven to be pretty volatile.

Beyond this, said Rogen, I also think that as a Jewish person, I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. You know, they never tell you that, by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was just sitting there...the doors open. Literally, they forgot to include the fact to every young Jewish person, basically, oh, by the way, there were people living there. I dont understand it at all. I think for Jewish people especially, who view themselves as analytical and who view themselves as people who ask a lot of questions and really challenge the status quowhat are we doing?

Both Rogen and Maron knew that they would be bitterly attacked by the Jewish establishment. Maron said, I get frightened to talk about it. And were afraid of Jews. Rogen agreed, I know. Im afraid of Jews. I am 100 percent afraid of Jews. But were Jewswe can say whatever we want.

Indeed, both Peter Beinart and Seth Rogen have been subject to bitter attacks. Writing in Newsweek, Alan Dershowitz, a long time Zionist advocate, headlined his article, Beinarts Final Solution: End Israel as Nation-State of the Jewish People. This, of course, was a clear allusion to the Nazi genocide. Eric Mandel, director of the Middle East Political and Information Network wrote, in Washington Jewish Week on Aug. 6, that Rogen had crossed a line and associated him with groups critical of Israel that he described as anti-Semitic. We could fill pages with similar harsh attacks.

The reason the attacks are so bitter is that the Jewish establishment recognizes that voices, such as Beinart and Rogen, speak for more and more American Jews. An article appeared on July 29 in The Forward with the headline, Wake Up, Jewish Establishment: Seth Rogen Speaks for a lot of us Young Jews. The author, Joel Swanson, wrote: Few millennial Jews have the ability to capture the Jewish cultural conversation the way Seth Rogen does. Andhe used that influence to show the Jewish establishment why it cant keep pretending that young Jews who reject Zionism and the State of Israel are relegated to a tiny, insignificant fringe of the community.Seth Rogen is one of the most publicly Jewish celebrities right now, and has made one of the years most anticipated Jewish movies. He cant easily be dismissed as marginal or fringe. Jewish establishment organizations have every reason to be afraid of what Seth Rogens point of view represents.

Beinart and Rogen represent only the tip of the iceberg of the growing disillusionment with Israel and Zionism within the American Jewish community, which is coming to understand how Israel has turned its back on the Jewish moral and ethical tradition. The attacks upon them cannot change this reality.

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

Online conference focuses on social media, which is used to spread bigotry but can also be enlisted to fight it

Four generations after the Holocaust, members of Generation Z are coming of age at a time of increasing anti-Semitism and are vulnerable to online influence, according to speakers taking part in a virtual conference called Shaping Future Discourse about Racism, Anti-Semitism & Hate Speech.

The September 8-10 online gathering was hosted by Startup Media Tel Aviv, an initiative promoting proper news coverage of Israel and Jewish matters.

The Anti-Defamation League says it received more than 2,000 reports of anti-Semitism in 2019, many of them proliferated on social media.

Members of Generation Z, defined by the Pew Research Center in 2019 as those born in 1997 or later, have grown up online and are thus particularly susceptible to Jew-hatred. Yet according the speakers at the online conference, the platforms used to spread anti-Semitism can also be used to combat such biases and to educate people.

As a starting point, speakers advocated that online platforms adopt the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, formulated in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance [IHRA].

According to the IHRA, anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities

With a clear definition and public commitment to fight hate speech, the social-media giants might be more likely to remove anti-Semitic statements, speakers said.

On August 7, 128 non-governmental organizations signed a measure calling on Facebook to adopt the IHRA guidelines.

Emily Schrader, a researcher of online hate speech concerning womens rights and anti-Semitism at the Tel Aviv Institute, told The Media Line: We must collaborate with the social-media networks to push forward a working definition of anti-Semitism such as IHRAs that will address the unique manifestations of anti-Semitism prevalent on social media today.

One way to do so, she says, is by using the same platforms to monitor anti-Semitism and educate and call out anti-Semitism whenever it is present. When anti-Semitism is threatening or violent, it should be removed outright, and potentially the users posting the content [should be] as well.

Schrader is also CEO of the Social Lite Creative digital-marketing agency.

Gen Z needs to understand that just because you can say something on social media doesnt mean you should. The networks play a key role in this, she said.

Gen Z needs to understand that just because you can say something on social media doesnt mean you should. The networks play a key role in this

However, definitions are of limited use, according to Christina Hainzl, who heads the Research Lab on Democracy and Society in Transition at Danube University Krems in Austria.

Its nearly impossible to have one definition that covers all anti-Semitism because there are always in-between cases, she told The Media Line.

Its nearly impossible to have one definition that covers all anti-Semitism because there are always in-between cases

What we see in Austria and in some ways all over Europe is that many Jews dont want people to know they are Jewish. If you ask how they perceive anti-Semitism in Austria, they very often answer that they do not have a problem with it, but they also dont talk much about it because theyre afraid of repercussions, Hainzl said.

This avoidance behavior is quite significant in Austria because it restricts the lives of Jews, she noted, yet it is not covered by IHRA and would still be difficult to include in a working definition of anti-Semitism.

IHRA provides 11 examples of anti-Semitism. Four involve Israel, such as holding it to a double standard by expecting it to conduct itself in a way that is above and beyond what any other democratic nation might do, and holding Jews collectively responsible for the State of Israels actions.

Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini said during the conference that there was a difference between legitimate and anti-Semitic criticism of Israel.

Criticism of Israeli policy is totally legitimate; we [Israelis] do it all the time even about Palestinians and the settlements, Yemini said. What is not legitimate is lies and deception.

Lukas Mandl, a member of the European Parliament and head of the Transatlantic Friends of Israel group, told The Media Line: Anti-Semitism isnt an opinion; anti-Semitism is a crime. Anti-Zionism is one kind of anti-Semitism.

Another IHRA example of anti-Semitism is denying Jews the right to self-determination and claiming that the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

But the matter of defining anti-Semitism has spurred controversy.

There is a lot of debate and criticism over the inclusion of anti-Israel sentiment, Dr. Dina Porat, head of Tel Aviv Universitys Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, told The Media Line.

According to Schrader, some online platforms apparently have more of an anti-Semitism problem than others.

Twitter is the worst of the mainstream social-media platforms. There is a high number of white supremacists and Nazis, as well as Islamic extremists and generally hateful comments. [It has] also been trailing behind other platforms in removing or labeling posts that are blatantly hateful, she told The Media Line.

After Twitter, TikTok is struggling the most to effectively combat anti-Semitism on its platform though [its] terms of use are generally more stringent than Twitters, she noted.

Schrader also provides examples of online anti-Semitism.

Theres classical anti-Semitism, such as the tweet from April which stated Jews invented Coronavirus, and there is modern anti-Semitism, such as when a user posted a photo of an Israeli flag on Facebook with a swastika replacing the Star of David, she said.

The major social-media platforms have repeatedly failed to adequately deal with both, though they have been better about when the word Jew is used [instead of] Zionist or a reference to Israel, she continued. Incidentally, this does not apply in Arabic [postings], where they have failed in both.

Some say that the ability to stop online anti-Semitism is limited.

[This bigotry] is something that has always existed and will continue to exist, Barak Shachnovitz, CEO of TwoHeads marketing, told The Media Line.

Rabbi Dov Lipman, a former Knesset member, told conference-goers it is difficult to change anti-Semites although action must be taken to prevent others from adopting their ideology.

We cant change people but we can take [their message] down to prevent its spread to new people, said Lipman, in charge of community outreach for Honest Reporting, which defends Israel from media bias.

Its hard to debunk, but most people say that racism is wrong, he stated. You have to show that anti-Semitism is racism.

Social media is also used by Holocaust deniers but can in turn be used to fight them. A recent example includes the story of Eva, a Jewish girl who lived during the Holocaust, told over Instagram.

Those who experienced the Holocaust are dying. We have to spend time with them and gather their memories in a way that is accessible to the younger generation, Ksenia Svetlova, a former Israeli politician and currently a senior fellow at the Mitvim Institute for Foreign Policy, told attendees.

We have to do our utmost to be innovative while we still have people who can tell their story, she stated, calling for more efforts on social media.

In some cases, this form may have more influence than the traditional Holocaust [education] format, Svetlova added.

Alana Baranov, a steering committee member of the World Jewish Congress Jewish Diplomatic Corps, agrees.

We have to meet young people where they are, use apps [and] other digital tools, she told the conference. This awareness [then] needs to translate into concrete action. It has to make youth proactive.

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Generation Z is Urged to Combat Anti-Semitism Wherever it Is - The Media Line

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

Issued on: 13/09/2020 - 17:26Modified: 13/09/2020 - 17:31

The majority of French young people aged 15-24 have learned the history of the Holocaust at school, according to a poll published on Sunday. But the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) regrets that these lessons are not available in one in ten classrooms.

Some 87 percentof the young people questioned said they had already heard about the Holocaust, 95 percentof them had heard about the gas chambers and for 80 percentof them, they had learned about this at school, according to a pollconducted by Ifop for the UEJF and French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, published on Sunday.

Carried out from September 4 to 9, the survey was published to tie in with a ceremony in remembrance of the deportees and victims of the Shoah, commemorated on Sunday with a service at the Great Synagogue of Paris located in the rue de la Victoire, Paris.

"We can congratulate ourselves on the progress made in society thanks to schools educating young people about the Shoah. Some 68 percentof the young people surveyed said they knew about the Vel'd'Hiv Roundup, whereas in 2012 they were only a third," the UEJF said in a statement.

Vel dHiv was the name given to a mass arrest of more than 13,000 Jews in Paris by French police on July 16 and 17, 1942. Many of them were temporarily held in the Vlodrome d'Hiver (Vl d'Hiv) stadium. They were then sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. In 1995, then French President Jacques Chirac apologised for Frances complicity in this atrocity.

>> 75th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation: Testifying till their last breath

Commitment of schools

According to the UEJF, "these figures are proof that the schools commitment as well as of the many other parties involved, such as the survivors who testify or the associations at work, are bearing fruit".

Despite the encouraging results,one in ten students surveyed found it was impossible to learn about the Shoah in their class, while21 percentnoted the many criticisms and questions from other students during lessons about the subject.

"[We're] alarmed at these particularly high figures," the UEJF wrote. "They bear witness to latent anti-Semitism in some French classes. How can you be a Jewish pupil if anti-Semitism is so present that it is impossible to talk about the Shoah?"

The survey also revealedthe influence of Holocaust denial statements on online video platforms and social networks. Nearly one in three (29 percent) of the young people questioned said they had already read or viewed content questioning the existence of the Holocaust. Of these, 57 percenthave learned about these denial theories on Youtube and 40 percenton Facebook.

The UEJF wants social platforms to take more responsibility fortheir online content sayingthese figures "demonstrate once again that platformsmust urgently make a real commitment not to undo everything taught in schools by allowing the simple and rapid spread of antisemitic content".

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

By mid-July, within days of the latest flareup in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a flurry of articles written by Azerbaijani think tank members appeared on Modern Diplomacy (MD). Azerbaijani think tanks may have erroneously assumed that MD was a media battlefield between Armenians and Azerbaijanis after a Geopolitical Handbook on Armenian issues was published a month earlier.

On August 2, 2020, MD published an article entitled The Treasure Map to the Forgotten Epoch of the Iravan Khanate, by Irina Tsukerman. The article uncritically adopts the most vulgar of Azerbaijani historical falsifications claiming that most of Armenia and its capital, Yerevan, have little or no Armenian lineage and are instead Azerbaijani. The rambling nature of this four-thousand word article, and its spectacular disregard for the accepted historical record, seemed designed for the express purpose of appealing to Azerbaijanis and offending Armenians, for example by pointedly referring to the 2800-year-old Armenian capital city as Iravan, instead of Yerevan.

The thesis of Tsukermans article on MD dates back well over a generation. It parrots nationalist screeds, penned by Azerbaijani and sometimes Turkish propagandists, usually intended for local consumption. In recent years, many such works have been translated into reasonable English and evidently distributed for posting by western authors under their names. A common characteristic of these articles is their lack of hard references a relic from the Soviet days. Tsukermans MD article appears to have been post-annotated with reference links before it was submitted to MD. Most of these links are of low quality and/or have little to do with the associated text. Forty-five of the fifty-three reference links were Wikipedia articles, gratuitously including general Wikipedia articles on Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, The Republic of Azerbaijan, Tehran, etc. Another reference points to a Turkish-language text that originally appeared in an anti-Armenian publication, Yeni Turkiye 62, which includes articles claiming Armenians committed genocide on Turks and Azerbaijanis a claim widely known to be untrue, and similar in form, tactics and intent to Holocaust denial.

Within weeks of the apparent success of post-annotating an article in MD with useless reference links, Israels Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) published another anti-Armenian article of dubious integrity by Tsukerman, entitled Russia and Irans Dangerous Energy Gambit in the Caucasus. Due to a reader complaint noting the lack of any references and the articles clear anti-Armenian bias, BESA initially took down the article, but then restored it the very next day, replete with ill-considered, low-quality references, not unlike those in Tsukermans MD article.

In my perhaps old-fashioned view, the provision of valid high-quality citations is a responsibility that every author should take seriously, and the verification of the quality of those citations is a responsibility that every editor should take seriously. Padding an article with useless and unhelpful citations pro forma, simply to be able to say that the article has citations, is the tactic of a college freshman not one that I would expect to see in a scholarly publication. Evidently BESA operates according to a different set of standards.

This brings us to the larger question: Why do so many poorly referenced, factually inaccurate, anti-Armenian propaganda pieces appear in the world press? A short-term answer is that both the ruling family dictatorship in Azerbaijan, and the countrys supporting interests in the west need to bolster Azerbaijans image at home and abroad, especially after its significant military loss in the latest border flareup.

In the medium-term, one might note that the amount of western investment in Azerbaijani hydrocarbon extraction and transport is probably well over $100B, with British Petroleum accounting for $75B of that figure. Azerbaijan is also one of the few countries bordering Iran that is compliant enough to be used as a base for intelligence gathering and covert operations targeting Iran. Moreover, forty percent of Israels crude oil is supplied by Azerbaijan, and in return Israel has sold Azerbaijan at least $5B in high tech weaponry over the past decade. By contrast, Armenia has no viable petroleum reserves, and comparatively little with which to counter materially. Hence a much lower standard is set for the publication of Azerbaijani propaganda in the western press, and Azerbaijan is propped-up as a reliable partner to the Israeli public this in spite of the fact that Azerbaijan is a Shia Muslim-majority country that refuses to open an embassy in Israel.

A rare glimpse at the longer-term answer can found in a September 2015 event where Israeli Knesset Members Oren Hazan and advisor Mendi Safadi visited Baku, Azerbaijan, for high-level meetings. During this visit, Safadi commented, Ive always been on the side of Azerbaijan, and we are ready to provide assistance and patronage to the Azerbaijani side to neutralize the influence of the Armenian lobby in the US Congress, the EU institutions, and international organizations.

To this observer in Yerevan, it is manifest that Azerbaijan has enlisted help from certain actors in Israel and the Jewish diaspora in generating and promulgating pro-Azerbaijani propaganda, including anti-Armenian propaganda that falsifies the historical record and that is sometimes overtly racist in nature. Of course, with such an arrangement between two countries comes the opportunity for authors of a mercenary bent who are willing to lend their names to such falsifications. Since 2015, a large number of articles of this sort have appeared, for the most part in the Jewish press. Some writers have focused on the semi-frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Others have attempted to characterize Armenias normal relations with Iran as in opposition to western-imposed sanctions, while neglecting to note that well over twice as much trade goes on between Azerbaijan and Iran. Still others characterize certain Armenian historical figures as fascist supporters of the Nazis during WWII, conveniently neglecting the fact that well over a quarter million Armenian soldiers never returned from fighting the Nazis, and that fact that Armenia was awarded twenty-four Israeli Righteous Among Nation Awards, while Azerbaijan was awarded none.

Truth and open debate have little to do with this kind of industrial production of anti-Armenian propaganda. Opportunist writers posting such articles know very well the nature of the endeavor in which they are participating, yet they seem to feel that they can persist without regard to any cost to their reputations, as long as their hate speech is directed only against Armenians.

It is ironic that Jewish writers, many the progeny of Holocaust survivors, blindly support Azerbaijans government and its anti-Armenian policies, many of which are designed to create an external enemy in order to redirect popular anger away from a corrupt family dictatorship. The former mayor of Baku, who served between 2001 and 2018, Hajibala Abutalybov, in a 2005 meeting with a municipal delegation from Bavaria, Germany, stated,

Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 40s, right? You should be able to understand us.

Israelis and Jews everywhere certainly ought to be able to understand these words better than most, and they should be asking themselves if this is really an alignment for which they wish to be remembered in the fullness of the historical record.

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Putting People in Control of Their Land to Realize Ukraine's Potential - Modern Diplomacy

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

The Israel Democracy Institute published a recent survey on Sunday that examines the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has hindered the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) communitys trust in the haredi political parties. The survey was published in light of the resignation of Housing and Construction Minister Ya'acov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) on Sunday morning, over the possibility of a full lockdown being imposed during the holidays, which he said is a result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lack of appreciation for religious observance.The survey shows that less than a third (32%) of ultra-Orthodox Israelis believe that their communities' trust in the political parties that represent them has not been harmed by the coronavirus crisis. Some 38.5% think that their trust in ultra-Orthodox parties has been harmed or harmed to a great extent and 22.5% think it has been slightly harmed. While 38.5% expressed a distrust of haredi politicians, 53% said that their trust in the current government was harmed, and 53.5% said that their trust in the Health Ministry was harmed. It's worth noting that out of those who expressed a distrust in the Health Ministry, the most were members of hassidic streams (as opposed to Lithuanian, Sephardic and others, who participated in the survey.) Some 62% of hassidic participants expressed a distrust in the Health Ministry and 59% of them expressed a distrust in the current government. Many hassidic Jews hold Netanyahu and the Health Ministry responsible for Ukraine closing its borders for visitors as part of their effort to combat the spread of coronavirus, thus preventing many hassidic Jews from traveling to Uman as part of the annual pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov on Rosh Hashanah. Litzman held the office of Health Minister between December 2019 and May 2020, and some blame him for not handling the pandemic appropriately from the get-go, leading Israel to the situation it faces today, with records of new infections being broken daily. Current Health Minister is Yuli Edelstein (Likud.) cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });While the survey shows clear signs of erosion of the haredi public trust in their representatives and government, it also shows that the general trust in the rabbinical leadership and in the IDF and Home Front Command barely changed at all.

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Over 50% of haredim say trust in gov't harmed during coronavirus - survey - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

Seventeen years ago a number of courageous individuals, with the help of US military personnel, entered the flooded basement Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters in Baghdad and found a miracle: nearly 20,000 personal and religious artifacts confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community, some dating back to the 1600s. The Iraqi government had begun stripping Iraqi Jews of their property in 1952, leading the former owners to believe their treasures had been lost forever. Among the finds: handwritten notes by one of the leading Rabbinical scholars of the early 20th century, the Ben Ish Hai, and the records from the last Jewish school in Iraq, the Frank Iny School. The treasures which had been severely damaged, in part by an unexploded bomb, were rescued and shipped to the US for a ten-year restoration process. But today not only have the archives not been made fully available to the Iraqi Jewish community, the US and Iraqi governments have agreed that within the next year the materials will be returned to a politically unstable Iraq. A new documentary, Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives: A Journey of Identity, aims to highlight the existence of the archives and the Iraqi Jews who would like to reclaim them. The fourth in a series of documentaries detailing stories from Iraq's Jewish community, culture and history, produced over the last 25 years by Carole Basri and Adriana Davis of D-Squared Media, the film highlights the stories of those connected with the archives such as the student who found a photograph of himself in his school transcript, and Harold Rhodes, one of the individuals who made the discovery. This film relies on the personal meaning attached to items that verify an existence: birth, marriage and school records, religious books and artifacts, family photographs, and, most importantly, each persons right to possess them, Baskin and Davis said. When the community decided to speak out publicly, in our previous films, it was with trepidation; but they realized it was an important way to put their lives on the record. Today, they speak with one amplified voice to Save the Iraqi Jewish Archives for their descendants whose ancestry is forever linked to the land between the rivers. With only five Iraqi Jews left in Iraq, now it is crucial. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });The filmmakers have called for the archives to remain in the US rather than being shipped back to Iraq. If this happens, they said, there will be little hard evidence for the community to prove they ever existed in Iraq and certainly nothing to cling to for future generations. Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archives: A Journey of Identity Premieres Sunday, September 13 at the NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival in New York.

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Miracle discovery of Iraqi Jewish archives highlighted by new documentary - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

The Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are nearing, and Jews across North America and in the Five Towns who want to pray together will either attend synagogues, albeit in a unique environment, or use technology to connect spiritually.

Because of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, returning to a synagogue now requires extra precautions, so many shuls will use virtual platforms to celebrate the holidays, as they have for other services.

The Rabbinical Council of America and the New York-based Orthodox Union, which represents more than 400 congregations in the U.S. and Canada, published guidelines in a four-page document sent to union members that focuses on 16 points ranging from seating plans to childrens programming.

The main message is respect, respect for human life, which is a core principal of Judaism, said Rabbi Adir Posy, the Orthodox Unions director of synagogue services. We believe in all the locally applied health guidelines.

Noting that the OU called for the shutdown of synagogues when the pandemic first hit, Posy said that the organization allowed for worshiping under very strict guidelines as phased reopenings took place.

Holding services and praying together in the Jewish religion has two parts that are special, he said. The first part, the almost technical part, that every religion has is . . . that for prayer to work, it requires people praying with others; prayers are more successful when you do it as a community, Posy said. The second part is what we are doing as a community socially connects us with a joint communal social message.

Synagogues on Long Island were permitted to reopen at 25 percent capacity in Phases 2 and 3 of Gov. Andrew Cuomos reopening protocols, then to 33 percent in Phase 4. While many Orthodox shuls reopened in the Five Towns, synagogues of other affiliations were tentative, and one remains closed.

Rabbi Steven Golden, of the Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst, said that the congregation was the first to close in the Five Towns, sending an email to members on March 12 and closing the next day. The beginning of that week, hearing the news, it was clear something was very serious, Golden said. I spoke with my rabbi colleagues in advance of any direction from the state. After that, the temple conducted services on Zoom Sunday through Friday mornings only, which he said enabled the congregation to continue to connect with members who were stuck in Florida at the time.

After reopening for Shabbat services in July, the temple is planning to hold services for Rosh Hashana (Sept. 18 to 20) and Yom Kippur (Sept. 27 and 28). It is to feel a sense of comfort as much as spiritual satisfaction, Golden said, adding that the temple leadership has been planning for months, and certain prayers will be skipped so the synagogue can be cleaned.

For Golden, having his congregation come together for the High Holidays and especially for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year is akin to children returning to school and having that sense of excitement, a new beginning with new challenges.

Even as adults, we recognize what the High Holidays represent, he said. In the past year, the guilt, then you come to the High Holidays and recognize that God takes away all the burden, and with that you celebrate as a family, grandparents, parents, children. The woes of the past year are gone, and blessings of a new year begin. That emotion is very powerful, and you want to experience it.

Temple Beth El, a Conservative synagogue in Cedarhurst, restarted in-person services for Shabbat morning last Saturday, with pre-registration and limited attendance, Rabbi Claudio Kupchik said. We plan to have in-person High Holiday services, also with pre-registration, he said. We expect about 50 people to attendin-personfor the holidays. Most people responded to our survey saying that theyll watch the service online. We will continue streaming all our services in any case.

Kupchik said that virtual services are more convenient for many people, and that since streaming began, participation has increased. People have even joined from out of town and out of state even from other countries, he said. But no online service can fully replace the embrace of a community singing together in a sanctuary.

To minimize members risk of contracting Covid-19, the temple has increased social distancing, keeps attendance to under 10 percent capacity, requires masks, has installed Plexiglas partitions for the cantor and rabbi and HEPA/UV filters in the air conditioning system, and the blowing of the shofar will take place outside.

We are social beings, and we crave being together, Kupchik said. This coming High Holidays, we hope to begin taking small, tentative steps towards the normalization of our religious life. We do it with care and concern, well within the state guidelines and with an eye on the pandemic figures in our county and community.

Throughout the pandemic, Temple Israel of Lawrence, the oldest Reform synagogue on Long Island, has conducted services on Zoom. It has worked nicely, and it has increased attendance, Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum said. Two factors, possibly more convenient and people are more introspective, connecting with their higher selves.

Temple Israel will also conduct its High Holiday services virtually: Rosenbaum said that the temple hired a professional to record the services in advance. Though it pains him not to be with congregation, Rosenbaum said that Judaism is all about life: improving and preserving it. Recalling the story of

Abraham planning to sacrifice Isaac for God, Rosenbaum said, We sacrifice for our children; we dont sacrifice our child. We follow science and our hearts.

For the Orthodox Unions High Holiday guide, go to https://bit.ly/3jMqXVg.

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Praying on the Jewish High Holidays during Covid - liherald.com

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Posted By admin on September 13, 2020

George Harrison; Philip Glass; John Coltrane; Andre Previn: the list of musicians influenced by Ravi Shankar is as diverse as it is distinguished. The legendary sitar player would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2020, and in a year of cancellations it was heartening to see this Proms tribute survive.

Anoushka is her fathers musical heir, but very much her own musician; a programme that opened with a backwards look to Ravi Shankars legacy ended in his daughters own musical compositions and genre-crossing collaborations.

Variations is a tribute to Shankar that unfolds in three continuous sections over a hypnotic half-hour. Producer Gold Panda, performing on stage alongside Anoushka Shankar, set up beats, drones and samples a backdrop for Shankars own web of musical quotations and reworkings. The effect was of a duet across time between father and daughter, heightened by passages of Shankars own speaking and singing as well as his music.

Rhapsodic and free, now tumbling in glittering streams of notes and now holding us suspended in time-bending resonance, Shankars contributions were hypnotic, though it was harder to see what Golda Panda offered beyond structural support. Against such freewheeling virtuosity, his beats seemed staid and his transitionsgauche.

Far better were Shankars collaborations with Austrian percussionist Manu Delago. A slightly redundant Britten Sinfonia and conductor Jules Buckley provided symphonic scope, while in the foreground Shankar and Delago sparred and danced in melodies and rhythms drawing on everything from flamenco to Sephardic folk, the keening voice of the sitar melting into the grainy thrum of Delagoshandpans.

There were moments of wonder here among the box-ticking BBC caution. Maybe next time we can lose the musical safety harnesses and classical conventions and just relax into it?

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Moments of wonder as Anoushka Shankar pays tribute to her father Ravi at the BBC Proms - iNews

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