Stop Antisemitism

A primary challenge for universities is to identify antisemitism across the ideological spectrum, said Naomi Greenspan of AEN’s director of the Inclusive Campus Climate Initiative, which recently launched a series of Signature Seminars on ways to support Jewish students.

“While antisemitism emanating from the far right is relatively easy for campus administrators to identify and condemn, too often they are not aware of how historic antisemitic tropes play out in conversations about Israel, and how hostile rhetoric about Zionism can be perceived as an attack on Jewish identity,” she continued.

At Yale University, medical school deputy dean for diversity and inclusion Dr. Darin Latimore has pledged to play a major role in the initiative, biomedical imaging and radiology professor Evan D. Morris revealed, adding that “the need to fight antisemitism can be viewed through the lens of free speech.”

“Movements to boycott Israelis or Zionists are bald attempts to stifle Jewish voices,” he continued. “This is anathema to the free and civil exchange of ideas that is so essential to a healthy academy.”

Antisemitism on college campuses continues to garner national attention. Last month, CNN aired a documentary that highlighted the story of Cassie Blotner, a SUNY New Paltz student who was expelled from a sexual assault awareness group she founded because she openly embraces Israel and Zionism.

Last year, the the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) partnered with the Hillel campus organization to launch fast-track systems for responding to antisemitic incidents as they occur, tracking them in a centralized database.

(full article online )

 
It was a wonderful first day of classes on Wednesday in so many ways, from the sunshine to the great energy on Library Mall and Bascom Hill. We love seeing our students back on campus.

However, we were disappointed that this was marred by multiple sidewalk chalkings appearing around campus, targeting several Jewish student groups labeling them as “racist,” “genocidal,” and “having blood on their hands.” These labels are antisemitic: they attribute broad actions or beliefs to Jewish student groups.
OK, now that we have established that they are antisemitic, what should be done?

Nothing.

To those Jewish students and others affected, we are sorry for the impact this had on your first day of class at UW. We truly strive to create a campus where every student feels they belong, and this kind of messaging harms that goal and aspiration.

Our job as leaders is not to respond every time a controversial or offensive incident happens on our campus. However, these chalkings provide us a timely opportunity to express our expectations for civil engagement for the campus this fall and as we move forward together.

Here at UW, we believe in sifting and winnowing and a robust commitment to free speech. That can be difficult and uncomfortable at times. While we do not know who created these chalkings, and acknowledge the impact they had, nonetheless we also acknowledge they represent free speech which is a core value at UW. Just because something isn’t prohibited doesn’t make it a good idea. Our expectation is that we engage across differences and discuss varying views and ideas with civility and respect and that did not happen here.

We strongly believe that we learn best in environments that are inclusive and where people feel listened to and heard. Statements targeting students or other student groups, while not against the law or campus policy, violate our norms and actively work against the culture of belonging for which we are striving.

To our entire community, we hope you hear our calls for civility and kindness while at the same time, embracing vigorous, honest debate. Please use this semester to respectfully engage with one another while deepening our culture of belonging.

The university admits that this was an antisemitic message. But instead of expressing a zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism, UWM says that it is merely disappointing and an example of free speech - a core value!

Can anyone imagine a similar reaction to an anti-Black message on campus? You don't have to imagine.

In 2020, racist graffiti was sprayed on campus. And here was the reaction:


University of Wisconsin–Madison was alerted Thursday to racist graffiti that was spray painted on multiple buildings in the Library Mall area.

These racist and white supremacist messages run counter to university values. UW–Madison does not tolerate racist behaviors. We value a diverse community where all members feel welcome, safe and supported.

UW–Madison responds to all reported bias incidents. ...

Those in need of support for this or any other reason are encouraged to contact the Dean of Students Office, the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement, University Health Services , the Multicultural Student Center or the Employee Assistance Office.

Look how different the two messages are!

For racism, the university does not tolerate the behavior, for antisemitism, there is no such message.

For racism, it says it responds to every such incident but for antisemitism, it cannot.
It tries to protect students who are victims of racism by providing support services but doesn't offer anything like that to Jewish students here.

There is no call for "vigorous and honest debate" about racism but there is about antisemitism.

This is about ss egregious a double standard as can be imagined. And Jewish students on campus are hearing the message, loud and clear.


 
Fiamma Nirenstein’s latest book, Jewish Lives Matter, paints an aptly bleak portrait of the way in which Jew-hatred has had a happy resurgence in the West under the guise of human rights.


The term, which represents a genuinely high value, is so abused by the people who earn their livelihoods promoting it through various progressive movements and heavily funded NGOs, as well as by many of the very groups it aims to protect that its original meaning is all but a hologram.


As Nirenstein adeptly illustrates, this inversion of good and evil was given a serious push by champions of the Palestinian cause, whose false claims against the Zionist enterprise provided the perfect cloak for any antisemitism that was dormant, or at least kept under wraps, in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Indeed, while it was no longer acceptable to admit to a desire to annihilate the Jews, Israel became an acceptable target for what Natan Sharansky dubbed the three Ds: demonization, double standards and delegitimization.

“Today’s pro-Palestinian movements have found, especially in America, but also in France through the Islamic nexus, a conceptual link with the themes of racial injustice, colonial racism, and the persecution of blacks and women throughout history,” she writes. “Although Jews could only be identified by a very manipulative observer as the white oppressor or masculinist, this is precisely what has happened. The so-called intersectionality purportedly aimed at realizing human rights for all has become the catalyst for the current wave of antisemitism.”


THE TITLE of the book derives from this very phenomenon. Nirenstein, a prolific author, journalist and former member of the Italian Parliament, describes how the May 25, 2020 killing of African-American George Floyd at the hands of a sadistic Minneapolis police officer gave rise not only to riots on behalf of blacks in the United States but sparked an explosion of anti-Israel vitriol.

----
THE INTERSECTIONAL ploy of linking the Palestinians to a progressive agenda against all oppression is not only outrageous, since the Palestinian Authority, which has total control over its media, openly discriminates against women, gays and blacks; but more importantly, it is what Nirenstein refers to as the “postmodern way of justifying the most ancient hatred... the new version of antisemitism that puts the Jew in the same category as the white supremacist. And it is also a symptom of a cognitive disease that overturns the concept of responsibility and guilt to the point of deeming racist even those who are avowedly and politically anti-racist just because they are white or, in the case of Jews, Israeli.”


Yes, she writes, “Both whiteness and Israeliness are now associated with alleged apartheid in a country that is an evident mosaic of ethnicities, skin colors, languages and histories, and which recognizes the rights of all its minorities, while having one defect, namely that of not wanting to be devoured by its enemies.”


The distortion, she adds, “arises from a view of the world as a hub of evil inflicted on the weak and oppressed, who therefore have the right to rebel using all means. Jews have been strangely expunged from the list of the persecuted and added to that of the persecutors.”


Unfortunately, many liberals, among them Jews, fit Orwell’s characterization of those who can be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, in the pursuit of political correctness or to avoid, at all costs, accusations of racism.


It is this growing population that Nirenstein addresses in her book, which she says is more like an open letter to many of her friends who are falling prey – slowly and without realizing it, because they are decent people – to an alien antisemitic spirit... that has worked its way into their mindset precisely in the name of the good things in which they believe, that is, human rights.”


SHE EXPRESSES shock that they could have been gripped by such an instinctive repulsion for the most important manifestation of the Jewish people, Israel, and aims not only to respond to the accusations, but also to accuse.


She therefore dedicates Jewish Lives Matter, published in Italian by Giuntina and in English by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, to those who truly fight for human rights, without being misled.


Indeed, it is they who deserve and can benefit from her passionate, fact-packed reinforcement, which is sorely needed backup in the war against vilification.

(full article online)


 
A total of 36 British politicians, Jewish leaders and public figures signed a letter this week asking the BBC to no longer feature as a commentator on its network Abdel Bari Atwan, who has been exposed for making anti-Semitic remarks and expressing support for terrorists.

The letter, addressed to BBC director-general Tim Davie, was signed by a number of Jewish groups, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the National Jewish Assembly and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.


(full article online)

 

Today in Jewish History​

• Passing of R. Boruch Mordechai Ettinger of Babruysk (1852)
R. Boruch Mordechai Ettinger was a follower of the first three Chabad Rebbes, R. Schneur Zalman (the Alter Rebbe), R. DovBer (the Mitteler Rebbe), and R. Menachem Mendel (the Tzemach Tzedek). He served as head of the Talmudic academy in Vilna (Vilnius) and then as rabbi in Babruysk, a post he filled for fifty years. Toward the end of his life he immigrated to Jerusalem, where he passed away.

R. Boruch Mordechai was known for his witty sayings and remarks which reflected his sharp perception and deep wisdom.
 
Canadian government officials and Jewish community members are speaking out after the revelation that more than $500,000 (CAD) in federal contracts were awarded to an organization whose spokesman made anti-Semitic comments.

Since 2016, Laith Marouf, who also serves as the top consultant for the Community Media Advocacy Center (CMAC), has made multiple anti-Semitic posts on Twitter, such as referring to Jews as “bags of human feces” worthy only of a “bullet to the head.”

In the past six years, CMAC has received $500 million in contracts for cost support, research and advocacy from the Canadian government’s broadcasting regulatory agency. The latest $133,000 contract from Heritage Canada’s Anti-Racism Action Program was suspended after Marouf’s comments came to light.

Mark Goldberg, a telecom consultant and independent blogger, has been sounding the alarm on Marouf’s anti-Semitic comments for a year and brought the recent grants to public attention.

According to Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather, Minister of Canadian Heritage Hon. Ahmed Hussen had dismissedMarouf’s comments in early July after Housefather flagged. Housefather has since called on all 338 MPs to condemn Marouf and declare that CMAC should not receive any government funding.

(full article online)

 
The survey found that nearly half of current students said anti-Semitism is getting worse on their college campuses.

One anonymous student noted that a professor made “a horribly offensive analogy about the Holocaust.”

“When I told her it was offensive, she gaslit me and said if I was so sensitive, I should find another career,” that student continued, adding that “there has been rising anti-Israel activity on-campus” and that “we have found swastikas and hate-speech from alt-right groups on campus.”

Another student said that “UConn [The University of Connecticut] has experienced seven anti-Semitic incidents in the year and three during Passover alone.”

“Each act has gotten bigger and bolder, and the students have become frightened,” the student continued.

In April, a 21-year-old UConn student was arrested and charged with a hate crime one month after a swastika was found spray-painted on a chemistry building during the Jewish holiday of Passover, the Hartford Courant reported, noting that the building was located directly across the street from the Hillel, the center for Jewish life and learning on campus.

In a statement sent to Fox News on Sunday a UConn spokeswoman said the same person was arrested twice on charges of painting swastikas found on two campus buildings in two separate incidents, noting that the arrest took place “after extensive investigation that included reviews of video and WiFi access.”

“Hateful acts, including instances of anti-Semitism, will never be tolerated at UConn,” the spokeswoman said. “Every member of our community – students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests — deserves to feel safe and respected at UConn.”

She added that “anyone who violates that principle goes against the values this university exists to uphold.”

The report also found that 79% of those surveyed had experienced or heard firsthand about another student making offensive or threatening anti-Semitic comments.

In addition, the survey revealed that more than half have received or heard firsthand offensive or threatening anti-Semitic comments from a faculty member or university employees.

(full article online)

 
The survey found that nearly half of current students said anti-Semitism is getting worse on their college campuses.

One anonymous student noted that a professor made “a horribly offensive analogy about the Holocaust.”

“When I told her it was offensive, she gaslit me and said if I was so sensitive, I should find another career,” that student continued, adding that “there has been rising anti-Israel activity on-campus” and that “we have found swastikas and hate-speech from alt-right groups on campus.”

Another student said that “UConn [The University of Connecticut] has experienced seven anti-Semitic incidents in the year and three during Passover alone.”

“Each act has gotten bigger and bolder, and the students have become frightened,” the student continued.

In April, a 21-year-old UConn student was arrested and charged with a hate crime one month after a swastika was found spray-painted on a chemistry building during the Jewish holiday of Passover, the Hartford Courant reported, noting that the building was located directly across the street from the Hillel, the center for Jewish life and learning on campus.

In a statement sent to Fox News on Sunday a UConn spokeswoman said the same person was arrested twice on charges of painting swastikas found on two campus buildings in two separate incidents, noting that the arrest took place “after extensive investigation that included reviews of video and WiFi access.”

“Hateful acts, including instances of anti-Semitism, will never be tolerated at UConn,” the spokeswoman said. “Every member of our community – students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests — deserves to feel safe and respected at UConn.”

She added that “anyone who violates that principle goes against the values this university exists to uphold.”

The report also found that 79% of those surveyed had experienced or heard firsthand about another student making offensive or threatening anti-Semitic comments.

In addition, the survey revealed that more than half have received or heard firsthand offensive or threatening anti-Semitic comments from a faculty member or university employees.

(full article online)

Those who control the system, control what is hate and is not. Racism, anti semitism and other ways of hate can be accused on someone for the simplest of anything humans do. And it seems to be heading that way. Western Civilization is in decline. A gamble and confidence by power brokers for World Government and the consequences be damned is in progress. The potential for much misery is a possibility. Humans are not evolved as what has been promoted by some elitists and politicians.
 
In recent years, antisemitism in the U.S. educational system has been primarily associated with the demonization of Israel at institutions of higher education. Activism that targets Jews and a rise in support for the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement among students and faculty underscores the increasing antisemitism on American campuses.

However, efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state are now moving from higher education to K-12 public schools. Attempts to falsely label Israel an “apartheid state” and promote similar forms of defamation are being aided and abetted by teachers unions and normalized by mainstream Jewish groups.

Last year, California became the first state to pass a law mandating that public school students must complete an ethnic studies course before receiving a high school diploma. The Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum Consortium, which includes teachers unions, advocated on behalf of the new standards.

The Wall Street Journal reported that embedded in the Consortium’s materials are references to Israel as a “colonial settler state” founded “through genocide.” Responding to Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of the legislation, Jewish opponents of the requirement filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new educational guidelines.

But prominent teachers unions have overwhelmed parental opposition. These organizations include the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA).
AFT President Randi Weingarten’s embrace of intersectionality’s foothold in K-12 classrooms was evidenced last year. In an interview with The Jewish Telegraphic Agencyon the AFT’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Weingarten derided Jews as “part of the ownership class.” This comports with progressive rhetoric that libels Jews as wielding outsize power and influence.

(full article online)

https://worldisraelnews.com/teachers-unions-are-helping-antisemitism-gain-a-foothold-in-k-12-public-schools/?utm_source=newsletters_worldisraelnews_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=US+Teachers+Bring+Antisemitism+to+Public+Schools%3B+Marvel+Comics+Stole+Israeli+Superhero+Idea+from+Me%21+Israel+Blocked+Huge+Number+of+‘Significant’+Terror+Attacks+in+2022&utm_campaign=20220912_m169461644_US+Teachers+Bring+Antisemitism+to+Public+Schools%3B+Marvel+Comics+Stole+Israeli+Superhero+Idea+from+Me%21+Israel+Blocked+Huge+Number+of+‘Significant’+Terror+Attacks+in+2022&utm_term=_0D_0A_09_09_09_09_09_09_09_09_09_09Read+Now_0D_0A_09_09_09_09_09_09_09_09_09
 
Antisemitism on Twitter is far more common than previously acknowledged, a new study has revealed.

On Sunday, the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA) said it found that between 2019 and 2020, over two million tweets about Jews and Israel were antisemitic, with one being posted every twenty seconds in 2020.

The ISCA, a scholarly institute affiliated with Indiana University, “pursues high-level scholarly research into present-day manifestations of anti-Jewish animosity,” according to its website.

“Antisemitic content was mostly related to conspiracies of Jewish global dominance, the Middle East conflict, and the Holocaust,” the group said. “We need to do more research to identify sources of antisemitic propaganda. Some of it originates in neo-Nazi groups, anti-Zionist organizations, and state-sponsored activities from Iran and other countries.”

ISCA noted that such tweets proliferated “despite claims from Twitter that they were cracking down on antisemitism and Holocaust denial.”

In 2019, 6.9% of all Twitter conversations about Jews — 849,253 — were antisemitic. In 2020, 10.7% — 1, 531, 912 —percent were. That same year, an antisemitic tweet about Israel was posted every 5 seconds, totaling over 6 million, or 14% of all tweets about the Jewish State.

“Social media has become the largest medium for antisemitic narratives, which can radicalize individuals and lead to violence,” said the study, which examined primarily lexical differences between antisemitic and non antisemitic tweets. “The Coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the challenged posed by hatred against Jews and antisemitic conspiracy theories.”



 
This is an episode of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" called "The York Treasure" that has a Jewish-themed plot, even though the word "Jewish" is (as far as I can tell) mentioned only once.

Joseph of Cordoba and his young friend Esther escaped from a pogrom of the Jewish community in York (described as "riots") instigated by a deserter of King Richard I's army named Malbete. He knew that the Jews had raised 1000 pounds to pay the captain of a ship who is bringing more Jewish refugees from Europe via the seaside town of Grimsby. Malbete started the pogrom to steal the money, but Joseph and Esther smuggled it out, and asked Robin Hood to help them bring it to the arriving ship at Grimsby. Meanwhile, Malbete enlists help from the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood's enemy.

Antisemitism is seen during the episode as well, when Malbete rages against Jews in a tavern (also referring to the Crusades) and later when he promises his men that the Jews arriving from the boat will not be a problem: "Those scum don't fight."

Obviously, they do.

Interestingly, the legend of Robin Hood occurs right in the timeframe of the destruction of York's Jewish community in 1190. The Jews were expelled from England altogether in 1290. So the episode did not take as many liberties with history as one could have imagined.

The TV show was produced by Hannah Weinstein, a Jewish left-wing political actress-turned producer who moved to England to avoid being blacklisted by McCarthyism. Many episodes of the series were secretly written by Americans who had been blacklisted, under assumed names. (The writer of this episode was "Clare Thorne," almost certainly a pseudonym.)

Weinstein went on to a career in Hollywood in the 1970s.

(vide episode online)

 
Yesterday, the New York Times published a long pieceabout how Hasidic schools in New York State are failing:


The leaders of New York’s Hasidic community have built scores of private schools to educate children in Jewish law, prayer and tradition — and to wall them off from the secular world. Offering little English and math, and virtually no science or history, they drill students relentlessly, sometimes brutally, during hours of religious lessons conducted in Yiddish.

The result, a New York Times investigation has found, is that generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.

Segregated by gender, the Hasidic system fails most starkly in its more than 100 schools for boys. Spread across Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley, the schools turn out thousands of students each year who are unprepared to navigate the outside world, helping to push poverty rates in Hasidic neighborhoods to some of the highest in New York.

While one can certainly argue that these yeshivas should teach secular subjects better than they are, the article is hopelessly biased: the community deliberately chooses to be separate from the "outside world." It is successful on its own terms and within its own frame of reference. The poverty that the New York Times pretends to care about is utterly unlike the other poor neighborhoods - there are practically no problems of crime or drugs, there are strong families, and an internal support system that borders on the heroic. While the NYT complains about the amount of money that the community receives from the government, it doesn't mention how much the government saves compared to supporting other lower income communities because they have virtually no social problems one sees in other neighborhoods - which means that the schools are part of a success story.

Ironically, the major reason for the poverty that does exist is because Hasidic families choose to spend around tens of thousands of dollars annually for each of their many children to go to their own schools rather than trust public schools to educate them.

The article is problematic on many levels. But it has also predictably sparked a torrent of Jew-hatred. And one of the results is this thread from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is pure antisemitism:


While NYC public schools are being drained of money, funding is flowing to private religious Hasidic schools.

These schools have received $1 billion+ in public money but are denying students a secular education, trapping generations of kids in poverty.

It’s an issue not unique to New York City — in the hyper-segregated East Ramapo Central School District, a white majority took over the school board in 2009, denying a generation of public school students an adequate education.

For years, district leaders in East Ramapo have extracted resources from public schools, which are almost entirely attended by students of color, in order to lavishly fund yeshivas attended by white students.

State leaders often claim their commitment to an equitable, high-quality education. But if they mean it, they have to do more.

ALL students deserve access to a basic education free from violence and discrimination.
Every sentence is insane.
A public school student costs the government about $28,000 a year, a private school student in one of these schools less than $2,000. Most of that is federal and state money and has nothing to do with school board decisions. The "$1 billion+" is stretched out over years. (The annual NYC school budget is about $38 billion, I estimate Jewish schools get about 0.7% of that while their students represent about 5% of the total in public schools.) The public schools in East Ramapo are paid for overwhelmingly by the taxes of people who do not send their children to those schools. Every community chooses the members of their school boards, but when a religious Jewish community does the same, they are racist "whites" who are trying to suck the blood of the students of color.
The NYCLU's linked article is even worse, referring to the East Ramapo school district as the "Jim Crow school district."




One feature of antisemitism is when Jews are blamed for two opposite, mutually exclusive attributes (like being behind communism and capitalism.) Here, though, we see the same NYCLU blames religious Jews both for "trapping generations of kids in poverty" and for withholding their fabulous riches from people of color, as their article says:

While East Ramapo public school students are recognized by the state as having high needs compared to other districts, there is substantial income and property wealth within the district....East Ramapo is the most fiscally stressed district in the state, according to the New York State Comptroller. This is not because the district lacks wealth, but because white voters refuse to fund public schools.
The NYCLU claims that religious Jews are wealthy white racists who steal government funds for their exclusive rich schools and are choosing to keep people of color poor and oppressed. But they are also politically powerful but poverty-stricken wretches who steal government funds to keep their own children poor and oppressed, under the tutelage of teachers who beat them (a theme of the NYT article.)

There are real issues to be dealt with, both in Hasidic and public schools. Antisemitism is not the solution for either of them. And to see a "civil liberties" organization inciting against Jews should be a wake up call about antisemitism from the Left.



 
According to Quds Press, the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, signed an agreement with the Jordanian Bar Association on Sunday for them to help prevent sale of Jerusalem land to Jews.


Sources say the Jordanian Bar Association will announce a package of decisions including punishing any lawyer found to be involved in selling Palestinian property and lands to Jews, with penalties including dismissal and expulsion from the association and preventing them from practicing law altogether.

The JBA will announce details within days.

Yes, the Quds Press article says "Jews."

I was curious if the bar association mentions Jews elsewhere on its website. I found that in 2017, they sponsored a talk about a book called "Bait Al-Maqdis and the Foundations of the Final Battle with the Jews, a Quranic Study."



 

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