Strange then, that the citizens of Hong Kong, mainly the youth of that city, are demanding freedom and defending their capitalism by waving American flags and actually singing our National Anthem, in the streets, dangerously, right in front of armed Chinese troops and police. Their lives are on the line. Photo Credit: Getty Images
The mainstream media and Leftists will tell you that our beloved country is hated and despised by the rest of the world. “We are being isolated by our friends!” they blare at us in newsprint and electronically. They support the women’s marches of discontent, college student protests against free speech and lash out against and bemoan the hard line stance our president is taking against the dictatorial likes of China, Cuba, Venezuela and the Iranian, mullah controlled regime.
So, isn’t it ironic that around the world, the movement for American styled freedom is exploding like crazy. Strange then, that the citizens of Hong Kong, mainly the youth of that city, are demanding freedom and defending their capitalism by waving American flags and actually singing our National Anthem, in the streets, dangerously, right in front of armed Chinese troops and police. Their lives are on the line.
Just compare these patriots to the likes of our own Colin Kaepernick, a professional ballplayer who earned 12 million bucks in his last season who took a knee during the playing of the anthem preceding a game and demeaned our way of life to the media. He hates America along with his supporters who number many, even in the halls of our Congress. We have it and don’t want it, and those who are enslaved will put their lives on the line for it. Figure that one out.
The ordinary people of Tunisia, Syria and Russia are also running great risks just to get a taste of the freedoms we take for granted. In Iran, the Mullahs are trying to stem the outrage of their citizens who clamor for basic human rights and the necessities of life. People wonder where the billions handed over to that country by our own previous administration went. They are screaming out for liberty and our style of democracy. In this age of advanced electronic communication they know they are governed by despots who deprive them of the basic freedoms that we Americans enjoy as a matter of course.
We are the envy of the world, yet many among us call for Marxist style Socialism to replace the capitalist system that has made us, over the past nearly 250 years, the greatest country on this planet. Many current presidential aspirants who have benefited well from our economic system clamor for change. And those in their ranks should take a second look at the real world around them and compare the gifts that have been bestowed on us and thank G-d that they live within the borders of the greatest nation this world has ever seen. May G-d continue to bless and watch over us, one and all.
On January 1, the combined inept leaders in Albany and City Hall ushered in a new set of revolving-door-justice laws that would permit repeat criminals to saunter out of the courtroom with the blessings of judges with guaranteeing only with the promise that they would re-appear for further hearings. Photo Credit: Bare Naked Islam
Along with the New Year’s ball falling in Times Square, so likewise did the hopes of the law abiding citizens of New York State for their families’ safety. On January 1, the combined inept leaders in Albany and City Hall ushered in a new set of revolving-door-justice laws that would permit repeat criminals to saunter out of the courtroom with the blessings of judges with guaranteeing only with the promise that they would re-appear for further hearings. And in the city, deBlasio’s rulings will bribe those charged and released to keep their word by gifting them with goodies such as Mets baseball tickets, subway passes or a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card. We’ll keep an eye out for the crime rates to increase in these venues.
Let’s take a look at the new ludicrous rules in these criminal justice reforms. As of January 1st, cash bail was eliminated for hundreds of offenses, state judges will no longer require cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies like selling drugs to school kids, for breaking into and burglarizing homes and to top it all off, in mid-December, over 900 inmates in city jails were released (and welcomed?) into the community. Last month, NYC Police Commissioner, James O’Neill resigned in protest of the bail reform bill, saying it would release thousands of dangerous inmates back on the streets. Recidivism….here we come. Dov Hikind, former Democrat Assemblyman stated, “It’s open season in New York. On Jews Muslims, on gay people. But it’s the Jewish people in particular who have been targeted.”
Let’s take the case of one Tiffany Harris a Jew hating black woman who attacked a group of Orthodox women in Brooklyn while shouting, “F U Jews!” When questioned by police, she admitted the act. She was let go and the next day hit someone else. And again released.,
Did the judge look at her record? Harris has been arrested at least a dozen times in the past and has an open harassment and assault case from 2018. The prosecutors in her most recent violent act did not even bother to request bail because they know that criminals are now running the show in NYC.
Worse yet, the new laws for pre-trial discovery force the prosecutors to inform the defense what evidence they have together with all witnesses, 911 callers and even victims. In other words, all accused perps will know who might testify against them and where they live. We see intimidation leading to witnesses to crimes keeping mum for the safety of themselves and their families. Say “Hello!” perhaps to a new, massive Witness Protection Program! Too bad we common, low level citizens cannot walk around with the same 24/7 armed NYPD protection Mayor deBlasio and his family have. For us, the new bail/prisoner release programs mean more pain and suffering. Happy New Year!
Our Jewish leadership has failed to harness and organize the average Jewish person’s righteous anger, deep frustration and desire to be doing more to stop this storm coming at them. “Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon suggested a change of strategy in the battle against anti-Semitism, offering a more active stance, and a move to “offense.” “While anti-Semitism continues to rear its head in the United States and throughout the world, we must move from defense to offense. We will not be silenced when Jews are murdered in synagogues and will not be ignored when those who wear kippahs are being killed in the street.”
Jewish Community Centers, Bureau of Education, synagogues, every place where Jews meet, need to form pro-active groups to hold accountable all those who issue smears, lies and genocidal hate speech against Israel and Jews. The list today borders on insurmountable: anti Zionist campus groups, academics, mainstream media, politicians, congresswomen, church groups, Arabs and Imams who preach Jew hate, Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, NGO’s, the far right.
Being proactive is simple but not easy. Subscribe to Committee For Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, Honest Reporting, Zionist Organization of America, Gatestone Institute, The Algemeiner, The Jewish Voice (NYC), Melanie Phillips, UK. If letters and calls fail to change an offender, then it is time to form picket lines outside their headquarters with big signs and bull horns. The NY Times’ obsession with demonizing Israel has to stop. Now.
Today, I read about successful Jews buying a baseball team, a vineyard, or raising millions for some charity. I ask myself why they are not instead pooling resources to form our very own Jewish Public Relations Agency, dedicated exclusively to telling the truth about Israel and the Middle East?
Unless and until each and every one of us begin naming, condemning and educating those who speak Jew hate, the present massacres of Jews in our homeland, in Europe will be multiplied by “too much to bear.”
Sincerely
Sue Worth
Good News from DC Regarding the MTA?
Dear Editor:
The January 15, 2020 Metropolitan Transportation Authority Public Hearing for their proposed federal fiscal year 2019 capital program of projects confirms there continues to be good news from Washington concerning real financial support. NYC and suburban commuters will see the benefits.
The MTA receives over $1.4 billion annually from the Federal Transit Administration. These dollars are used to fund various capital improvement projects for NYC Transit subway and bus, Long Island Rail Road, Metro North Rail Road, MTA Bus and Capital Construction Company. Most federal transportation grants require a 20 percent hard-cash local share. FTA accepted toll credits instead of hard cash for the local share. This saved the MTA over $1 billion in the previous $32 billion 2015-2019 five-year capital program. The MTA will save $1.6 billion under the $51 billion 2020-2024 five-year capital program when applying for $8 billion in future FTA funding.
Washington has made available over $1.4 billion in 2019 FTA formula funding for the MTA. This helps pay for a significant portion of its capital program. This includes $28 million in Buses and Bus Facilities; $793 million in Section 5337 State of Good Repair and $672 million in Section 5307 Urbanized Area federal funding. There are other opportunities for up to several hundred million more in discretionary competitive federal grants.
The MTA can also take advantage of FTA pre-award authority prior to grant approval. Use of Pre-award Authority affords the MTA an opportunity to start projects months earlier and incur costs for reimbursement at a later date after grant approval and obligation of funding. The MTA currently manages an active portfolio of federally funded capital improvement projects and programs in open grants worth over $12 billion in direct FTA financial assistance.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
(Larry Penner is a transportation historian, advocate and writer who previously worked 31 years for the Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office. This included the development, review, approval and oversight for grants supporting billions in capital projects and programs on behalf of the MTA, NYC Transit, MTA Bus, Long Island Rail Road, Metro North Rail Road, NYC Department of Transportation and Nassau Inter County Express Bus along with 30 other NY & NJ transit agencies)
The New Hypocrisy
Dear Editor:
When did hypocrisy become the new norm? The NY Times’ relentless, biased, sloppily inaccurate, demonizing the Jewish state of Israel, and Jews who support Israel, directly contributes to the danger of being Jewish on campuses, in NYC, the USA and Europe. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting documents detailed rebuttal for each of their skewed “reports” which this “newspaper” ignores and continues to ignore. Camera.org, in frustration, then put up huge billboards in NYC, opposite their offices, saying “Your Bias is Showing”, still to no avail. Yet they now are getting a pass, and some are applauding them, because they issued one editorial condemning this latest massacre of Jews, and only in the context of the recent march in NYC. Black Lives Matter, similarly condemned the targeting of Jews, yet its platform singles out only the Jewish state for castigation, calling Israel an apartheid and racist state.
We should reject these hypocritical bigots for their immoral words and actions, instead of tripping over ourselves to thank them for this one tainted crumb they throw us, amidst their sea of stirring up hatred of Israel and those who support this tiny Jewish state. They ignore and whitewash the true atrocities going on daily in our world. The Times repeatedly called molotov throwing Arabs in Gaza, alongside Hamas, threatening to storm Israel and kill every Jew in sight, ‘peaceful protestors’.
This is the same kind of thinking, this silence, this passivity, this acceptance of the new hypocritical doublespeak that got us loaded up onto rail cars to the death camps. I’d rather go down fighting. Wouldn’t you?
Sincerely
Pearl Weiner
Where’s the Outrage?
Dear Editor:
Where is the outrage from mainstream media, today’s“feminists”, LGBT, “progressive” groups, academics, when the actual atrocities and injustices going on in our world are ignored, yet they somehow seem to find their voices when it comes to smearing the tiny Jewish state of Israel.
Pelosi appoints an open Israel hater, Rep. Omar to the House Foreign Relations Committee. Omar loudly supports the boycott of only the Jewish state, never misses an opportunity to call Israel “apartheid”, and is now calling for sanctions against this tiny democracy who affords full civil, legal and religious rights to all of its citizens.
Where is the “feminist” outrage? Iran’s only female Olympic medalist “has rejected the regime’s oppression of women”, who force female athletes to cover their heads, and brutually enforce Islam’s supression of women and girls. UNICEF reported Islam’s Boko Haram has used 83 children as suicide bombers, “human bombs,” the majority of whom were girls. But today’s “feminists” are silent.
Where is the collective outrage, the reporting by mainstream media? Palestinian Media Watch documents child abuse by Arabs, “How old should children be before they are taught that the Dark–Eyed Virgins await them in Paradise if they become Martyrs for Allah? According to the Palestinian Authority no age is too young, as this message was broadcast on occasion of World Children’s Day on an official PA TV children’s program that addresses children as young as pre-schoolers.”
Where are the perpetual victims, the “progressive” voices raised in anguish against this fully documented, on-going Nazi speech? “Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Facebook has chosen to keep Fatah’s Facebook page open despite the recurring terror and Jew hate:
How Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah sees the Jewish role in the world:
“The [Jewish] tribe led the project to enslave humanity”
“[The Jews] were hated because of their racism and their filthy behavior”
The Jews allied with Nazis to burn Jews “to accumulate wealth”
The Jews say: “Only we are people, and all the others are our animals”
“Non-Jews… according to their worldview are snakes”
The Jews established “ghettos in order to separate from other people out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews”
What will it take for our collective outrage to begin? More Jewish blood spilled? Haven’t we all had enough? I have.
Participants holding a sign at the rally. Thousands of New Yorkers of all backgrounds joined community leaders and city and statewide elected officials in Foley Square at the No Hate. No Fear. solidarity march in unity against the rise of anti-Semitism. (Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The lauded NY march was not merely useless but counterproductive; it provided cover for those spreading bigotry to proclaim, “look, we love Jews!”
By: Yaakov Menkin
25,000 people marched in New York last Sunday under the banner “No Hate, No Fear,” ostensibly targeting antisemitic violence directed at recognizably Orthodox Jews.
Only two things were missing: printed signs with the words “antisemitism” or “Jews,” and more than a smattering of recognizably Orthodox Jews. The two phenomena are related.
Hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology. The march was not merely useless but counterproductive; it provided cover for those spreading bigotry to proclaim, “look, we love Jews!”
In reality, it is not difficult to understand why attacks are happening at an alarming rate. Classic antisemitism is not merely spreading on college campuses across the nation, but is even welcomed in the halls of Congress.
The classic beliefs of the anti-Semite are simple: that the Jews constitute a supremacist cult who believe themselves entitled to take advantage of others, and most commonly do so by theft, fraud and deceit. In 3300 years of Jew-hatred, there hasn’t been an anti-Jewish trope that didn’t trace its roots to this basic idea.
That is why hatred of Jews is so dissimilar from other forms of xenophobia. Racists say Blacks are shiftless but Jews are industrious, that Puerto Ricans steal your hubcaps but Jews control the banks, and that Arabs might be terrorists, but Jews control the media that exaggerates our fears.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) noted, while reporting on Austro-Hungarian battles in the Nineteenth Century, that the Jews were opposed by all sides – though they largely tried to avoid the conflict and keep their heads down. It is no different today.
To white supremacists, the Jews are “International Enemy Number One.” The Neo-Nazi website Stormfront.com has a discussion thread entitled “Jews are dangerous,” which since March of 2016 has garnered over 715 pages of hate.
Yet anti-white racists tar Jews with “white privilege;” the fact that Jews obviously suffered at the hands of European whites more than any other people escapes them. They include even Jews expelled from Syria, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere; they are claimed to have “white privilege,” while those who drove them out, who have identical skin tones, are “people of color.” It is pure racism.
And by far the most popular current form of this bigotry is the invention of a Palestinian people, from whom the Jews have ostensibly stolen their land.
The proofs are legion, so let me address this briefly. Until 1964, the “Palestinians” were Jews; Arabs specifically rejected the term. In 1922, the British divided modern-day Jordan from the rest of British Mandatory Palestinian, and even Mahmoud Abbas says that Jordanians and Palestinians are “one people living in two states” – putting the lie to the notion of a homeless Palestinian.
Every indigenous people has its own name, such as the Apache, Pueblo and Iroquois. They do not call themselves by the foreign term “Native Americans,” nor, of course, do borders of particular US states delineate their homelands. Yet the “Palestinians” appropriated a name from Roman imperialists which is unpronounceable in Arabic (which has no phoneme for P), and claim a homeland which, just coincidentally of course, precisely traces the borders of modern Israel.
And in case you still don’t get it, a “Palestinian” is anyone – Druze, Bedouin, Muslim or Christian – whose family ever lived in the Jewish homeland – unless they are Jewish. The Palestinian Arabs, like most racist constructs, are defined by what they are not: the Jews who constituted the majority of Jerusalem’s populace prior to the advent of modern Zionism, and who never left the so-called “occupied” territories except due to deliberate ethnic cleansing – such as that conducted by Arab mobs in 1929 and 1948.
Notice, then, that these hateful tropes precisely correspond to what reporters heard on the streets of Jersey City and Brooklyn when they interviewed other residents after hateful attacks. Residents spoke about Jews unfairly buying them out, not renting to them and driving them away. These lies are all derived from the “Palestinian” narrative, which, in reality, is far older than even Roman Palestine.
It is not happenstance that the machete-wielding thug who attacked people at a Hannukah celebration searched online not only for “Hitler” but for “Zionist Temples” before attacking non-Zionist Hasidic Jews in suburban New York. Again, hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology.
This hate will not be resolved by marching alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, by her own admission, knows nothing about the Middle East except that the Jews are (surprise, surprise) stealing land (in Palestine) and being unfair to others. It will not be fixed by the bigots of IfNotNow who claim that Jewish refugees of Arab ethnic cleansing are “occupying” Arab land in the eternal homeland of the Jews.
It will be helped if universities finally acknowledge that Students for Justice in Palestine is a hate group that honors almost exclusively those who have committed murderous, barbaric acts against Jews in and outside Israel. Today, the same universities which would deny funding to a KKK chapter sickeningly honor SJP as a “human rights” cause.
And it will be helped when Nancy Pelosi recognizes that an outstanding antisemitic bigot like Ilhan Omar does not belong on the Foreign Affairs Committee addressing the relationship between the United States and Israel, or, indeed, anywhere else in Congress.
Until this hatred is repudiated, these attacks will not stop – yet on the progressive left this hateful ideology is supported, while it is the opposition that is censored. Those infected with this mindset cannot be part of the solution, as they are themselves part of the problem.
(Israel National News)
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal Cross-Currents.com. Opinions are his own.
Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo
By: Alan Dershowitz
A Yale professor of forensic psychiatry has diagnosed guess who — yours truly — as suffering from “psychosis” for expressing legal views that happen to be on the Constitutional rights of President Donald Trump. Dr. Bandy Lee has never met me, never examined me, never seen my medical records, and never spoken to anyone close to me. Yet she is prepared to offer a diagnosis of “psychosis” which she attributes to my being one of President Trump’s “followers.” (I voted for Hillary Clinton and am a liberal Democrat.)
Indeed, Dr. Lee went even further, diagnosing “the severity and spread of ‘shared psychosis’ among just about all of Donald Trump’s followers.” Nor does she seem to be using these psychiatric terms as political metaphors, dangerous as that would be. She is literally claiming that we are mentally ill and our views should be considered symptoms of our illness, rather than as legitimate ideas.
Publicly offering “professional opinions” or diagnoses in the absence of a psychiatric examination, is a violation of psychiatric ethics and the rules of the American Psychiatric Association. According to that esteemed organization, “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to render a professional opinion to the media about a public figure unless the psychiatrist has examined the person…”
Dr. Lee has a history of such unethical conduct. She previously diagnosed President Trump as being psychotic. Now she is doubling down accusing me of having a “shared psychosis” with President Trump, and having “wholly taken on Trump’s symptoms by contagion.”
Dr. Lee’s absurd conclusions rest on the factual assumption that I am guilty of sexual misconduct in the Jeffrey Epstein case, despite overwhelming evidence that I never even met the woman who accused me. My accuser has essentially admitted never meeting me in a series of emails and a draft manuscript that she unsuccessfully tried to hide. Her own lawyer, in a recorded conversation, has admitted that it was impossible for us to have met and that she was “wrong … simply wrong” in accusing me. Despite this overwhelming evidence — all documented in my book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, Dr. Lee includes as a factor in her diagnosis, my unwillingness to show “remorse” for something I did not do. She cites as additional “proof” of my “psychosis” that I express “delusional level impunity,” and a “lack of empathy.” All this without ever meeting me!
She also believes that my use of the word “perfect” — the same word used by Donald Trump in describing his phone call to the Ukrainian President — is evidence of a “shared” psychosis. She does not mention that I used the word “perfect” in the context of rebutting the false accusations against me and proclaiming, quite truthfully, that I have never had sex with any woman other than my wife, since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein. I used the word “perfect” in reference to my fidelity during the period in which I was falsely accused, just as someone might say she had a “perfect” attendance record. Moreover, Dr. Lee neglects to mention that the interview during which I used that word took place months before President Trump used it. I guess she believes he caught the contagion from me.
It is difficult to imagine anyone ever hiring Dr. Lee as a forensic psychiatrist to offer an actual diagnosis of a litigant. On cross-examination she would have to admit that she has diagnosed “just about all of Donald Trump’s followers” as having “shared psychosis.” This would likely include jury members and perhaps the judge, along with millions of voters.
If it is difficult to imagine Dr. Lee as an effective forensic witness, just try to imagine her as a fair teacher. Even at Yale, some of her students are likely to be Trump followers. Would she grade them — or diagnose them? Would she prescribe anti-psychotic drugs to her students who she believed were Trump “followers”? Would she refuse to recommend them because of their illness? Would they be entitled to the protection of the American with Disabilities Act? Does she teach her students to diagnose their classmates and friends who disagree with them politically, instead of engaging with them?
Her resort to diagnosis rather than dialogue is a symptom of a much larger problem that faces our divided nation — too many Americans are refusing to engage in reasoned dialogue with people with whom they disagree.
Dr. Lee is part of that problem, not its solution.
(Gatestone Institute)
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the forthcoming book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, Skyhorse publishing, November 2019.
Perhaps the biggest news came from the White House, where President Trump spoke directly to the Iranian people in English and Farsi. He rehearsed the violence of the regime against the people, and said that he had supported the people from the outset, and would continue to do so. Photo Credit: Front Page Mag
It’s impossible to overestimate the power of the president’s words
By: Michael Ledeen
The Iranian people are demonstrating. You can see the protests on Twitter, and read about the internal ferment online at the Free Iran Herald, which appears on Gateway Pundit.
The current round of demonstrations erupted all over the country after the destruction of the Ukrainian commercial airplane taking off from Tehran. The security forces are reacting with even greater than usual violence, shooting the protesters with live ammunition. At the same time, supporters of deceased General Qassem Soleimani within the Revolutionary Guards are being rounded up in significant numbers, suggesting that there was a power struggle underway within his Quds Force for the succession after the death of the supreme leader—Ali Khamenei—who is now eighty years old.
The current round of demonstrations erupted all over the country after the destruction of the Ukrainian commercial airplane taking off from Tehran. The security forces are reacting with even greater than usual violence, shooting the protesters with live ammunition. Photo Credit; Sputnik News
According to the Free Iran Herald, published in the Gateway Pundit blog,
This news is increasing the speculation that Soleimani, who was known to act on his own initiatives, and who was being seen as a possible future dictator-in-waiting for Tehran, was betrayed to American intelligence by his own colleagues within the regime, who feared that he would deprive them of their power and privileges.
Additionally, information has surfaced that Soleimani, who had been personally leading the repression against the popular uprising in Iraq since October, had been planning a coup d’état in Baghdad that would have resulted in the assassination of the Iraqi president, and the seizing of the American embassy there.
Most of the passengers on the Ukrainian aircraft were Iranians, and speculation abounds that the flight was brought down in order to kill the “disloyal” ones. Although the question remains: disloyal to whom?
The Tehran regime organized big crowds to say goodbye to Soleimani, but the current demonstrations are explicitly against Khamenei and his cohorts, from calls for the resignation of the supreme leader to students on campus in Tehran refusing to walk on big painted images of the American and Israeli flags. The regime was shutting down Internet communications as rapidly as possible, attempting to divide the Iranian people from one another, a tactic that has proven effective in the past, while the leaders of the demonstrations used couriers to carry messages from city to city.
But perhaps the biggest news came from the White House, where President Trump spoke directly to the Iranian people in English and Farsi. He rehearsed the violence of the regime against the people, and said that he had supported the people from the outset, and would continue to do so. That was Saturday. Sunday he did it again. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been at it for some time, stressed the same themes: the regime is the source of the violence, and the people deserve the active support of the free nations of the world.
I don’t believe it is possible to overestimate the power of the president’s words on both the regime and the seventy-or-so million Iranians who oppose it. This is the first such event in forty years, and it comes from an American leader who has tried very hard to make a deal with the regime of the Islamic Republic.
Qassem Soleimani, commander of IRGC Quds Force (photo credit: Sayyed Shahab-O-Din Vajedi/Wikimedia Commons)
He gave it his all, and satisfied himself that the regime was not interested in a deal with the United States. Accordingly, he rejected the advice of the likes of Rand Paul, and ordered the troops to eliminate the regime’s prime killer Soleimani and the band of Mafiosi around him, in the event mostly from Iraq. Now Trump is talking directly to the Iranian people, and the demonstrations are bigger and more widespread than any earlier ones.
I don’t think that the Khamenei regime is long for this world, now that the American president has spoken directly to the masses of Iranians who had waited for the United States to do their dirty work for them. No American president — not Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush fils, or Obama — had understood the key to the Middle East: bring down the Islamic Republic. That, rather than the conquest of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam, should have been our goal in 2003, but we chose the wrong target.
Now, of all the unlikely people, Donald Trump figured it out and is pursuing it. Like his predecessors, Trump does not wish to invade Iran; unlike them, he has found that the regime is ready to fall, that America can inspire and lead a revolution against the world’s leading terror country.
Calling on America to withdraw its forces from Iraq could prove to be utterly self-defeating for the Iraqi government. The most likely consequence of a withdrawal will be the return of ISIS as a major terrorist force. Pictured: The remains of a church that was attacked by ISIS in Mosul, Iraq. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
By: Con Coughlin
The most likely consequence of any attempt by the Iraqi government to demand the removal of American forces will be the return of ISIS as a major terrorist force, as President Donald J. Trump singled out in his televised address January 8.
The issue of whether the estimated 5,200 US troops currently based in Iraq will be allowed to remain in the wake of the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani has been raised following a nonbinding vote by the Iraqi parliament calling for the withdrawal of American forces.
President Trump immediately responded by threatening Iraq with sanctions and a bill for billions of dollars if Baghdad insisted on the withdrawal taking place, although questions remain about the legitimacy of the Iraqi parliament’s demand.
The resolution was put forward by a pro-Iranian faction in the parliament with the backing of the country’s pro-Iran prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who was forced to resign from office at the end of last year over accusations of corruption. The session, however, was not attended by Kurdish and Sunni parliamentarians, who are keen for Washington to maintain its military presence in the country, as well as other Western allies such as Britain, to help support the Iraqi military’s efforts to prevent ISIS from making a comeback.
It is also questionable how binding the resolution will be on Iraq’s caretaker government, which is only in power until the country’s politicians can agree on a new leader to replace Abdul-Mahdi.
The Trump administration has insisted that the US military will maintain its presence in Iraq for the time being, with Mr Trump remarking that withdrawing American forces would be the “worst thing to happen to Iraq.”
“At some point, we want to get out,” Trump added. “But this isn’t the right point.”
This is certainly the view of many senior Iraqi military officials, who are well aware that without Western support, there is every possibility that the fanatics of ISIS will be able to regroup and make another attempt to establish their so-called caliphate.
Back in the summer of 2014, when ISIS fighters first succeeded in capturing large swathes of territory in northern Iraq, they were able to do so because forces loyal to the Iraqi government were either ill-equipped or unwilling to defend their country against the Islamist extremists.
This success resulted in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Iraqi-born leader of ISIS, fulfilling his long-held ambition of establishing his caliphate in territory captured by ISIS fighters in northern Iraq and Syria, where the group imposed a brutal reign of terror over the inhabitants, with mass beheadings and torture becoming an everyday feature of their brutal rule.
It was only after the intervention of the US-led coalition that ISIS was eventually defeated last year and the caliphate destroyed, forcing thousands of ISIS fighters to flee into exile throughout the Middle East.
Now there are mounting concerns that, with Washington’s primary focus on containing the threat posed by Iran in the wake of the Soleimani assassination, ISIS will be able to take advantage of the mounting chaos in Iraq and regroup, an ambition that would be far easier to realize if the Iraqi government insisted on the withdrawal of US forces.
Western intelligence experts believe that there are now around 10,000 ISIS supporters based in Iraq, with between 4,000-5,000 fighters and a similar number of sleeper cells and sympathizers.
The surviving fighters from Baghdadi’s caliphate, moreover, are seen as being more experienced and more determined than they were under their previous incarnation under the command of Baghdadi, who was killed during a US Special forces operation last year.
As Lahur Talabany, a top Kurdish counter-terrorism official, recently said in an interview with the BBC:
“They have better techniques, better tactics and a lot more money at their disposal. They are able to buy vehicles, weapons, food supplies and equipment. Technologically they’re more savvy. It’s more difficult to flush them out. So, they are like al-Qaeda on steroids.”
Calling on America to withdraw its forces from Iraq could therefore prove to be utterly self-defeating for the Iraqi government. By breaking ties with the country that helped to defeat ISIS, they will simply be placing themselves at the mercy of a new, and bolder, generation of Islamist fanatics.
A US withdrawal from Iraq would also suit Tehran, where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not only called for the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq, but the entire Middle East. Not having the US to provide moral and military support to the Iraqi government would allow Iran to continue its meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs, as well as consolidating its malign influence throughout the rest of the region.
Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
Douglas Murray's latest, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity. Photo Credit: Amazon
Douglas Murray’s new book will make you angry, or angrier
By: Danusha V. Goska
If you enjoy gritting your teeth, balling your fists, and throwing objects across rooms, you’ll just love Douglas Murray’s latest, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity. Murray is the forty-year-old author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. A handsome, charismatic Oxford grad, Murray speaks with a plummy accent. He not only appears on mainstream media like the BBC, the BBC has actually apologized to him. While reading his books, I have to ask how he gets away with it.
A handsome, charismatic Oxford grad, Douglas Murray speaks with a plummy accent. He not only appears on mainstream media like the BBC, the BBC has actually apologized to him. While reading his books, I have to ask how he gets away with it. Photo Credit: YouTube
In 2015, Murray wrote, “French Muslims were increasingly aligning themselves with Islamist values … It is no coincidence that France has the largest percentage of Muslims in its population of anywhere in western Europe. Wherever the concentration gets above a certain level (perhaps 20 per cent), consequences follow.” Why is Murray allowed in the mainstream while heroes from Tommy Robinson to David Horowitz to Ayaan Hirsi Ali are sidelined to non-person status? Is it because Murray is gay, and therefore a beneficiary of the very privilege his latest book skewers? I don’t know.
In The Madness of Crowds, Murray invites the reader to teeth-gnashing at various events and trends, all involving homosexuality, women, race, and transsexualism. He starts strong. The book’s introduction is a fist shaken at the woke powers and principalities of political correctness. People nowadays are “irrational, feverish, herd-like, and simply unpleasant.” This isn’t just a rant, the intro promises. We must “see the causes” and “get to the root.” What is that root? “All of our grand narratives [religion and politics] have collapsed.” Life is now reduced to “getting rich” and “having whatever fun is on offer.” A new religion has arisen. That religion is Marxist in its platform and advanced by new tech companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook, all of which are run by true believers.
This new religion atomizes and tribalizes society. Our most important characteristics are our race, sex, and sexual orientation. We are deemed worthy or worthless, we are attended to or rejected, based on these superficial characteristics. This religion offers no stable organizing principle. What was virtuous at one time is sinful at another. We must “organize along whichever system of justice emerges from the perpetually moving hierarchy … it is a system that is not just unworkable but dementing, making demands that are impossible towards ends that are unachievable.”
We must live lies. For example, we must profess that a man is a woman. “As anyone who has lived under totalitarianism can attest, there is something demeaning and eventually soul-destroying about being expected to go along with claims you do not believe to be true.”
Douglas Murray is the forty-year-old author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. Photo Credit: Amazon
Murray’s goal in the face of this madness is to be a kind of mine-sweeper. He can’t fix the whole kit and kaboodle, he acknowledges, but he hopes to “help clear some terrain across which afterwards other people may more safely pass.” Exactly since Murray is one conservative who is allowed in mainstream media, he may very well be successful in this goal.
In his first chapter devoted to homosexuality, Murray expresses exasperation at how often gay-themed stories are “crow-barred” into other media. Murray mentions the lack of fellow-feeling among what comedian Dave Chappelle calls “the alphabet people.” Murray, just like Chappelle, mentions that gay men and lesbians “have almost nothing in common;” both are suspicious of bisexuals; and trans people present challenges so unique that some, including many lesbians, would like to disassociate from them.
Murray says that in the past, gay people wanted to be seen as like everyone else. Now, though, radicals want difference. People who identify as gay want to be accepted into society; people who identify as queer want to tear down society. Case in point: attacks on Bruce Bawer for pointing out, in his 1994 book, A Place at the Table, that some groups are self-defeating in their extremism. Bawer was denounced as a “piece of ——” and “a disgrace to the queer nation.” “What queer nation?” Murray asks. Murray observes that dramatizations of sadomasochistic behavior in gay pride parades are “off-putting.” Peter Thiel, a gay man who endorsed President Trump, was stripped of his gayness by many commentators. The authentic gay must be on the extreme left.
Again in his intro, Douglas promises that he will not be overwhelmed by the tsunami of a mad crowd, but rather he will rise above and provide root causes, thus, his second chapter on Marxism, especially as it manifests in the social sciences as taught on elite university campuses.
In the old, Marxist formulation, the capitalists were on the top, sucking up the wealth that would be better shared. Now, in the new pyramid that social justice warriors want to shatter, white males are on top, sucking up all available privilege, attention, and worth. White males must be brought low and their opposite numbers, trans Muslims, say, must be elevated.
Theorists like UC Berkeley Professor Judith Butler insist that gender is nothing but a “reiterated social performance,” not the result of a “prior reality.” In 1988, Prof. Peggy McIntosh gave the world “White Privilege,” describing how all whites are much better off than any and all non-whites. One item on McIntosh’s list: “I can buy band-aids that match my skin tone.” Seriously? What color is this woman? And where may one purchase these magic band-aids? Another: “I can criticize my government.” Yeah, Peggy, it’s amazing how black people aren’t allowed to criticize the government.
In 1985, Argentine-born Professor Ernesto Laclau advised roping persons who feel aggrieved about their lives into class struggle. Laclau was “explicitly setting out to try to find a new class of exploited person.” Working class people had failed to recognize their exploitation. They “let down their theoreticians and had generally failed to follow the path of progress that had been laid out for them.” Laclau described a plan to bring more people into Marxist revolution.
Laclau issued his call just four years before the Berlin Wall came down. Communism may have been exposed as the most murderous ideology in history, and a spectacular failure in living up to any of its promises, and so hated by its subjects that they rioted with joy when the wall holding them in was torn down. But some man somewhere was bummed because he faced ridicule for his desire to dress in women’s clothing, and he and others similarly simmering in resentment could be radicalized and convinced that tearing down heterosexual white men elevated them.
In this new revolution, victimization was the coin of the realm. Women were victimized and must be believed if sexually assaulted. When a female, leftist scholar, NYU’s Avital Ronell, sexually harassed her male graduate student, the very same scholars who argued for the new Revolution of the new oppressed supported the empowered scholar, rather than the serf grad student. I’m shocked, shocked! Judith Butler, one of Laclau’s colleagues, co-signed a letter identifying Ronell as a special princess who must not be interfered with. Her “grace,” her “keen wit,” demanded that she be “accorded the dignity rightly deserved by someone of her international standing and reputation.” Paging George Orwell, author of Animal Farm.
Theorists like UC Berkeley Professor Judith Butler insist that gender is nothing but a “reiterated social performance,” not the result of a “prior reality.”
Murray closes his chapter on Marxism with levity, citing a series of hoax publications, including “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct,” and “Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon.” Scholars, real scholars, admirable scholars, published these articles to expose the excesses of woke culture in the Ivory Tower.
Another foundation of our current insanity, Murray reports, is tech. The tech titans are woke, and they crush anyone who speaks any taboo truth. Too, tech provides the means to spread social panics. Murray mentions, but does not dwell on, the January, 2019 cyber lynching of a group of schoolboys. The boys were Catholic, from the south, majority white, obviously male, wearing MAGA hats, and were marching for life. They were hated for all these reasons.
One Nathan Philips, self-identifying as a “Native American elder,” approached the boys while banging a drum and chanting. Like wildfire, video of this encounter spread across the internet, accompanied with quite literal demands for the boys’ grisly murder.
The tech titans are hypocrites. “Google’s workforce is only 4 percent Hispanic and 2 percent African-American … Asians make up 35 percent of Google staff” though Asians make up 5 percent of the US population. And, as we all know, China don’t play. Tech does what China tells tech to do.
Tech’s selective un-personing is telling. Women have been banned from Twitter for stating that men are not women. Yesterday women were the oppressed victim, and gained status thereby. Today, men announcing themselves as women get to bully women, and indeed to make death threats against women. The victim status of men-as-women supersedes the victim status of women.
Murray reports the results of a series of Google image searches. Searching “European art,” for example, is designed by Google to send out images of black people. Search “white men” and receive images with captions saying, “White men are bad.” Da, da comrade.
Google and Facebook combined, Murray reports, employ at least 40,000 people whose job it is to “moderate content.” Patreon employs a “Trust and Safety Team” to discern who is adequately woke enough to use that platform. What’s that knock at the door? Never fear, it’s the “Trust and Safety Team.”
A personal note: recently I received notification that Facebook had deleted one of my posts, a post made in a small, private group I moderate myself. Facebook would not show the post to me, though I asked – I wanted to know what I had posted that broke Facebook rules. Facebook sent me this note, and I promise you this is really what it said, “Danusha, this is what you can do. You can remove Danusha from the group.”
Murray opens his chapter on race with Martin Luther King dreaming that his children should “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I’ll pause that the reader may weep.
“Skin color is everything,” Murray reports. Murray unearths bizarre attacks on tall, handsome, white, rich actor Armie Hammer. Hammer starred as both of the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network and he was perfection in Call Me By Your Name. But, you know, he’s white. And male. And heterosexual. And rich. So let’s bash him on the internet. We should count our lucky stars that so far Zuckerberg, Brin, Dorsey, et al, have not yet figured out how to operate a guillotine through the internet.
For me the best part of Murray’s race chapter is his no-holds-barred critique of 2015 MacArthur Genius Grand winner and grievance monger Ta-Nehisi Coates. I’m not going to describe that critique to you. I want you to read it for yourself, and shoot Murray an appreciative note afterwards.
One of the challenges I face as a Christian is that I often want to say, “Christ, or the Judeo-Christian tradition, offers the solution here,” and I hesitate to do so, because I know people hate being proselytized. Murray is an atheist, but in a couple of places in his book he acknowledges that Christ, or the tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, does indeed offer the solution here. Towards the end of his chapter on race, Murray says, “Equality in the eyes of God is a core tenet of the Christian tradition.” I’d add that equality in the eyes of God is central to Judaism as well, enshrined in Genesis and Talmudic interpretations of Genesis.
We live in secular societies, and we can’t impose that religious tenet. Without that foundational belief, though, we flounder. It’s a belief found in perhaps the single most famous American sentence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Without that, we fall prey to hierarchies and tribalism that could destroy the fabric of our society.
Baseball Team Israel celebrates after qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Photo by Margo Sugarman.
“We are about to build a field and complex in Beit Shemesh, which will become Israel’s national baseball stadium. My focus is to bring awareness that we are building baseball here,” said Jordan Alter, the new president of the Israel Association of Baseball.
By: Josh Hasten
Israel might be known globally as a high-tech juggernaut, but the “Startup Nation” is on the verge of being a superpower in diamonds as well. No, not the kinds that shine, but the kinds you use for pitching, catching and batting—as for the first time in history, the Israel men’s national baseball team has qualified for the Summer Olympic Games to be held this summer in Tokyo.
This past September, Israel stunned the competition by winning the “A” pool Olympic-qualifying tournament in Italy, where the best teams in the Europe/Africa regions were competing with a chance to move on to Japan.
Jordan Alter, the new president of the Israel Association of Baseball (IAB)—the organization that oversees all official baseball activity in Israel—tells JNS that reaching the Olympics was nothing short of astonishing. “It was a wild dream just to get to Group ‘A,’ ” he says. “To get to where we are, to the Olympics, is a dream come true. Europe is in shock” that we won the tournament, he adds.
Alter explained that out of the 24 members of team Israel, four are native Israelis. The other 20 are Americans who became Israeli citizens for the purpose of being eligible for the games, as players must have citizenship in the country they are representing.
The players must also not be currently on the roster of a Major League Baseball team in the United States/Canada, the top league in the world. Some of the players do have experience in the Majors, while many are currently playing in the Minor Leagues.
Bostonian Jeremy Bleich, 32, is a left-handed pitcher on the team. He is currently an MLB free agent who has played for various teams in the league after being drafted in the first round by the New York Yankees in 2008. He tells JNS that playing for the Oakland A’s in 2018 was “the highlight of my career.”
He got involved with Israel baseball in 2017, when the team competed in the World Baseball Classic in South Korea/Japan exceeding expectations with a sixth-place finish.
Bleich says that he welcomed the opportunity to represent Israel on the mound internationally. “Being a Jewish American, I grew up in a Conservative Jewish environment and was always in touch with my Judaism.” He shares that it has extra meaning for him to play for Israel, as he is the grandson of two Holocaust survivors. “When the IAB gave me the opportunity, I jumped at it quickly,” he says.
In terms of his expectations for the team in the upcoming Olympics, Bleich says “we just want to continue to complete and do some damage in the tournament.”
But more importantly, he notes, “the more successful we are, the more attention we can bring the State of Israel [in baseball], and can help provide confidence, desire and hope for young Israeli kids to step out of their comfort zone and want to play baseball.”
He stresses that “it’s an honor to represent the State of Israel and the worldwide Jewish community on such a large scale.” He also says now that he has citizenship, he would consider living in Israel full-time one day.
‘Try to get more kids involved’
The team’s manager and coach is Eric Holtz, 54, who lives in White Plains, N.Y. He has coached college baseball in the United States for the past 20 years, and also owns and operates a strength- and conditioning-training facility for athletes who play baseball and softball.
He served as a player/coach in the short-lived Israel baseball League in 2007 for the Beit Shemesh Blue Sox. In 2017, after guiding Team USA to a Gold Medal in the Maccabiah Games in Israel, he was quickly scouted and asked to coach Israel Team Israel, which he accepted.
When asked by JNS if Team Israel has a shot to stand on the medal’s podium this summer, he doesn’t have a definitive answer.
“Look, nobody gave us a shot anywhere we went,” says Holtz as he lists Israel’s impressive tournament results on the long road to Tokyo. “This is how I live my life and coach baseball and father my kids: one day at a time. And the fact that no one gave us a shot makes this even sweeter for us.”
He concludes by saying, “I worry about us [Team Israel], handling our business. If we handle our business, then we are going to be just fine.”
Similar to comments made by Bleich, Holtz says that at the end of the day, “we are trying to build awareness, and love and passion [for baseball], and bring that to Israel. After wins and losses, our job is to try to get kids more involved.”
While Alter is certainly excited about the Olympic bid, he seems equally proud of the fact that 800 youth currently play in organized baseball leagues and clinics throughout Israel. He hopes to double that number as a result of upcoming plans to construct a professional-level baseball stadium in Beit Shemesh.
“What’s personally important to me is Israel baseball,” he says. “We are about to build a field and complex in Beit Shemesh, thanks to the help of our partners JNF-USA, which will become Israel’s national baseball stadium. My focus is to bring awareness that we are building baseball here. The Olympics is a big opportunity to get the word out.”
Holtz says he team will begin training for the Olympics shortly at a facility in New York. In large part due to the 24-member baseball squad, Israel will be sending its largest-ever delegation to the Olympics with around 85 athletes competing in 18 different sporting events.
The opening ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Games is set for July 24, with the baseball competition slated to begin July 29, and the Gold Medal Game scheduled for Aug. 9.
Holtz says “for us, nothing could be greater than having the Israeli people behind us.”
And while baseball has yet to overtake soccer or basketball as the most popular sport in the Jewish state, there’s no doubt that Israelis will behind all its Olympians, baseball hopefuls included.
Israeli super model Bar Refaeli is reportedly close to signing a plea deal in regard to tax difficulties. Photo Credit: IMdB
By Tom Roberts
Israeli super model Bar Refaeli is reportedly close to signing a plea deal in regard to tax difficulties.
According to The Times of Israel, the model’s mother may also receive a jail sentence.
Refaeli has been accused of stashing tens of millions of shekels in earnings from tax authorities, Israel’s Channel 13 news reported. Mom Tzipi has also been accused of related offenses, specifically money-laundering and tax-dodging.
“One suggestion raised during talks is that her Tzipi Refaeli will admit to masterminding the tax and financial offenses and serve a six-month term in prison, preventing her daughter from being incarcerated, the report said,” according to the Times. “Bar Refaeli would herself do community service instead. However, there are those in the prosecution who insist that the celebrity model also be sentenced to some time in prison, the report said.”
The tax issues involve the question of whether Refaeli was residing in Israel or the US for tax purposes between 2009 and 2012. “In the civil case, the Israel Tax Authority is demanding millions of shekel from her earnings overseas,” reported the Israeli news organization Globes. “The case was heard in the Lod District Court, which dismissed her claims that she was resident overseas and ordered her to pay the NIS 8 million in taxes demanded as well as NIS 120,000 in court costs.”
Refaeli and her parents Rafi and Tsipi were charged, subject to a hearing, with defrauding the country out of millions of shekels through tax evasion between 2009 and 2012 regarding overseas earnings, Globes added. “Rafi and Tsipi Refaeli are also suspected on money laundering. The couple are suspected of concealing NIS 23 million between 2009 and 2012.”
The case is a mass of unpleasantness at a time when the model should be rejoicing. She recently posted an Instagram photo set. According to inquisitr.com, there were three pictures in total, and they showed her wearing a dress. “Her huge baby bump was on full display, as she joked in the captions about how she was ‘about to explode.’ The model’s ensemble was silver with thin straps. It hugged all of her curves, and seemed to be knee- or floor-length. Bar wore her hair down in loose waves and in a middle part. Her makeup, if she wore any, was very natural-looking. She may have been sporting light lipstick.”
Born on June 4, 1985, Refaeli is a model, television host, actress, and entrepreneur. She is considered among the most internationally successful models to come from Israel. She adorned the cover of the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and was voted No. 1 on Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 list of 2012. As a television host, Refaeli has hosted of The X Factor Israel since 2013 and co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv.
Project: “Multiplication” necklace. Materials: Auricularia auricula-judae, pearl synthetic, silver 925. Artist: Anaelle AA. Photo credit: Gabriel ATTAB
Exploring the meaning and identity of natural materials from bacterial cellulose and fungus to cultured pearls and volcanic rock as a base for creation, “Materialness” is an original art installation premiering in New York City at the Parasol Projects Gallery from January 28- February 3. Presented by the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Materialness investigates the effects and ramifications, both positive and negative, of the earth’s natural resources and the process on the environment, both on the social-consumer level and the physical-environmental level. The installation features jewelry, vases and one-of-a-kind works by artists representing the Bezalel Academy, Israel’s oldest art institution. It includes nine projects totaling 60 original designs based on natural earth elements as they grow and transform, including some “living” pieces.
“The exhibit considers the complex triangular relationship between material, process and environment, and tries to shed light on works that, at their core, find a tension between earth, growth and source of the material; and process, product, and effects,” explains Udi Urman, Executive Director, Friends of Bezalel. “In an age when most things seem to be accessible, fast, and replaceable, the exhibit presents projects that focus on the process itself, its duration, the raw materials used, and alternatively the environmental results of the processes that occur as part of and/or following the production. Bezalel Academy is a pioneer and innovative force in arts and design. The exhibition offers a unique way to look at the materials we use in design, while raising questions about sustainability, climate, and other social issues.”
Some of the projects presented at this exhibit investigate and study new ways of using, processing, or growing of material; others, through their use of materials, criticize the ways in which we, as a society relate, to the resources around us.
“One artist searched nature to find a unique element in which her intervention would be limited but would still give it a new shape, choosing the fungus ‘Auricularia auricula-judae’ with the awareness that the objects in this project will fall apart and new objects will be born,” says Arial Lavian, Materialness Curator. “Another project explores the environmental damage and pollution that occurs behind the scenes of the fashion industry through a series of stools made of textiles and iron. The fabrics used were leftovers gathered from fashion houses and sewing workshops. “
Materialness features works designed by lecturers, graduates, and students from various departments of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, who present the subjects in a broad spectrum and study them from different and various perspectives . Artists featured include Adi Farber, Anaelle AA, Maavan Fima, Natalie Feldesman, Arial Lavian, and Nitzotz Saranga, with Arial Lavian also serving as curator. The pieces may be purchased, and many are available for under $500 USD. The installation is open to the public 11 am – 7 pm daily from January 28-February 3, 2020 at the Parasol Projects Gallery, 213 Bowery in NYC. For more information, please visit https://www.bezalelfriends.org/.
About the Bezalel Academy
The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem is one of the world’s most prestigious art schools representing over 100 years of innovation and professional training to over 2,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The Bezalel Academy is a world renowned institution that has inspired and shaped Israel’s physical and cultural world. It offers a wide range of degrees in art, architecture and design. Bezalel Academy prepares students to effectively cope with the challenges presented by the global world of the 21st century and succeed in blazing their own unique and individual trails through the demanding fields of art, architecture and design.
About the Curator
Arial Lavian earned a B.A. in Jewelry and Fashion and a master’s degree in industrial design from the Bezalel Academy. His works are exhibited in many exhibitions and collections in Israel and internationally.
Project: “Symbiosis” Brooch–Materials- different types of plastic from domestic waste- LDPE (polyethylene), Avocado shell, 925 silver, stainless steel. Artist: Maayan Fima. Photo credit: Yosef Chaim Ollech
Project: “Obsessidian” “Saki” jugs. Materials: Porcelain and Black Scoria volcanic rock. Artist: Nitzotz Saranga. Photo credit: Nitzotz Saranga
Project: “Toxtiles” – Materials: Iron and Scraps of Fabric. Artist: Ariel Lavian. Photo credit: Ariel Lavian
The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz with author Heather Dune Macadam. Photo Credit: Amazon.com
Edited by: TJVNews Staff
The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, which is currently presenting the acclaimed exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. that was extended to run through August 2020, announces its winter roster of programs, including an array of talks, book launches, and performances, as well as commemorative events to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Leadership of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust staff. Photo Credit: mjhnyc.org
“Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we are witnessing a global rise in antisemitism. The Museum’s winter programs have been curated to provide opportunities for people to learn the history and legacy of the Holocaust from precious eyewitnesses, prominent scholars, and artistic explorations by leading performers,” said Jack Kliger, President & CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. “As the Holocaust recedes further in time, our work to impart its lessons becomes increasingly important. The Museum experienced record-breaking attendance in 2019, and we look forward to welcoming more visitors in 2020.”
Winter highlights include:
Historian and artist Elżbieta Janicka and YIVO Director Jonathan Brent discuss the complexities of how Poland is grappling with its history
Theater of War’s The Investigation, a searing piece of theater adapted from the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963–1965, followed by a guided discussion with the audience about the lasting impact of genocide
Write Me, a four-part creative arts series exploring the branding of women’s bodies during the Holocaust, in human trafficking, and as an artistic practice
Book launch for the American edition of the award-winning memoir By Chance Alone with author Max Eisen joined by Phyllis G. Greenberg Heideman, President, International March of the Living, Eli Rubenstein, National Director, March of the Living Canada, and Cantor Aviva Rasky
International Holocaust Remembrance Day / 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz commemorative events on Monday, January 27
Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death book launch with author David G. Marwell
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of WWII, a Grammy-nominated music program premiering for the first time in New York and featuring the preeminent Russian Roma trio Loyko, singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko, and narration by Yiddish scholar Anna Shternshis
In this episode of the acclaimed PBS series produced by THIRTEEN, historians, survivors, and experts consider one of the great moral dilemmas of the 20th century: should the Allies have risked killing Auschwitz prisoners and bombed the camp to stop future atrocities? Photo Credit: PBS.org
Admission to most programs is complimentary except where prices are noted. For tickets, visit mjhnyc.org, call 646.437.4202, or purchase in-person at the box office. The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is located at 36 Battery Place in Lower Manhattan.
JANUARY
Speaker Series
Sunday, January 5 | 1 PM
Stories Survive Speaker Series
At our monthly Stories Survive Speaker Series, hear Holocaust survivors share their life stories in their own words. Maritza Shelley was born in 1928 in Budapest, Hungary. After the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944, she endured forced labor and a death march with her mother. They eventually reunited with Maritza’s sister, and all three women escaped, obtained false papers, and hitchhiked back to Budapest with a convoy of Nazis. Maritza moved to New York City in 1947.
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz with author Heather Dune Macadam
In her new book, Heather Dune Macadam (co-author, Rena’s Promise) chronicles the tale of nearly 1,000 young Jewish women from Slovakia who were deceived into boarding a train for Auschwitz. Painstakingly researched, the book illuminates the women’s day-to-day lives and struggle for survival in the death camp. Join the author in conversation with Lori Weintrob (Director, Wagner College Holocaust Center) and descendants of the 999.
Contemporary Rendering of Space and Memory at Treblinka
By Chance Alone with author Max Eisen –At 15, Max Eisen was saved from certain death in Auschwitz by a Polish physician who employed him as a cleaner in his operating room. This remarkable memoir received Canada’s top literary award in 2019. Photo Credit: Amazon.com
At this program co-presented by the Museum and YIVO, historian and photographer Elżbieta Janicka investigates Polish participation to the murder of Jews set up by the German Nazi state, as well as Polish counter-narratives about the Holocaust and Jewish history. Janicka’s visual works examine the consequences of the Holocaust on urban topography and non-urban landscape. In conversation with YIVO Director Jonathan Brent, Janicka will discuss, among other works, a photographic project titled “Herbarium” that she has been pursuing for 15 years within the area of Treblinka II.
Write Me: Preview and Artist Panel (Series Part 1 of 4)
Join artists, scholars, and activists in a series that explores the branding of women’s bodies in the Holocaust and human trafficking. Write Me (2019), a short film, follows an older woman who joins other survivors in reclaiming the histories tattooed on their bodies. Adapted from the poem “After Auschwitz” by Deborah Kahan Kolb and premiering at the New York Jewish Film Festival, this preview screening of Write Me will be followed by a discussion with director Pearl Gluck, poet Deborah Kahan Kolb, composer Lisa Gutkin, Auschwitz survivor Shirley Gottesman, trafficking survivor and activist Barbara Freeman, and tattoo artist Virginia Elwood.
Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz PBS Premiere
In this episode of the acclaimed PBS series produced by THIRTEEN, historians, survivors, and experts consider one of the great moral dilemmas of the 20th century: should the Allies have risked killing Auschwitz prisoners and bombed the camp to stop future atrocities? Executive Producer Stephanie Carter will discuss the making of this episode after the screening.
Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death with author David G. Marwell–At this book launch co-presented by the Museum and Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), this new biography by former Museum of Jewish Heritage Director David G. Marwell describes the notorious war criminal’s training and early promise as a scientist; his wartime service in combat and at Auschwitz; and his postwar refuge in Germany and South America. Photo Credit: Amazon.com
Co-sponsored by THIRTEEN with funding from The Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism
This work of documentary theater is based on Peter Weiss’ 1965 play adapted from the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-65. Performed by a diverse cast of performers from communities affected by genocide, the play is followed by a dialogue with the audience about the human capacity for evil.
This production is made possible by the generous support of Bruce Ratner.
Directed by Bryan Doerries
Co-presented with Theater of War and National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene presents this annual MLK Jr. Day tradition exploring the intersections between African-American and Yiddish musical traditions during the Civil Rights Era, including Yiddish theater songs, songs of Jewish immigrants, jazz and classic spirituals. Conceived and directed by NYTF Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek, it stars Lisa Fishman, Cantor Magda Fishman, Elmore James and Tony Perry. In Yiddish and English with English supertitles.
Tickets start at $35 | NYTF.org or 866.811.4111
Book Launch
Wednesday, January 22 | 7 PM – 8:30 PM
By Chance Alone with author Max Eisen
At 15, Max Eisen was saved from certain death in Auschwitz by a Polish physician who employed him as a cleaner in his operating room. This remarkable memoir received Canada’s top literary award in 2019. Celebrating the launch of the book’s American edition, Eisen will be joined by Phyllis G. Greenberg Heideman, President, International March of the Living; Eli Rubenstein, National Director, March of the Living Canada; and Cantor Aviva Rasky.
Co-presented with the Canadian Consulate, Harper Collins, International March of the Living, and USC Shoah Foundation
International Holocaust Remembrance Day – 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz
Holocaust Commemoration
10 AM – 6 PM
Chief curator and acclaimed Holocaust scholar Robert Jan van Pelt will explore the significance of the types and provenance of artifacts in Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. as well as discuss the curatorial decisions that had to be made during the development of this complex exhibition. Free; advance reservations recommended at mjhnyc.org/events. Photo Credit: Museum of Jewish Heritage
Public candle-lighting area in the Anne & Bernard Spitzer Grand Foyer and free admission to MJH Highlights, which includes Ordinary Treasures: Highlights from the Museum of Jewish Heritage Collection, Rendering Witness: Holocaust-Era Art as Testimony, The Pickman Keeping History Center, and Andy Goldsworthy’s contemplative Garden of Stones.
Buckingham Palace released a statement from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II shortly after the royal summit was held which discussed the role Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan of Sussex, USA today reported. Photo Credit: Getty Images
By: Rusty Brooks
“My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life as a young family. Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.”
Buckingham Palace released a statement from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II shortly after the royal summit was held which discussed the role Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan of Sussex, USA today reported.
The palace said the queen’s statement, sent to USA TODAY via email, would be the only comment of the day. No specifics as to what was actually discussed has been released to the public.
USA Today reports: “Prince Harry, his brother, Prince William, and his father, Prince Charles, arrived for a royal summit at Sandringham to address the turmoil set off by Harry and Duchess Meghan’s historic announcement last week to step back from their senior royal duties and live part time in North America”.
It is unclear if Duchess Meghan called in on a conference call to this summit as of press. USA today reported hundreds of media members began gathering outside Sandringham, the queen’s private estate in Norfolk about 100 miles north of London, where she typically stays from late December to early February.
Another statement was issued as well: “Despite clear denials, a false story ran in a U.K. newspaper today speculating about the relationship between The Duke of Sussex and The Duke of Cambridge,” the statement said. “For brothers who care so deeply about the issues surrounding mental health, the use of inflammatory language in this way is offensive and potentially harmful.”
“Discussions with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage,” the statement said. “We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through”.
In other news pertaining to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the social media world is ablaze after Twitter removed a video of Prince Harry asking Disney CEO Bob Iger for a job for his wife Meghan Markle.
The resurfaced video shows Harry pitching the Duchess of Sussex to Iger about a voiceover gig while Markle chats up music icons Jay-Z and Beyoncé during the “Lion King” premiere in London last July. The speculation is the Royal family got this embarrassing video pulled off Twitter, according to several dozen Twitter commentators. The video resurfaced and shortly after vanished.
Markle has a resume of starring in several movies and T.V shows.
Finally, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly want to make Los Angeles their new home following the announcement that they will “step back” as members of the Royal Family, but only after Donald Trump’s presidency ends, Fox News reported.
“I feel like Markle had this planned out for a long time and got her Royal husband to go along with it, almost like a planned media event. If they really wanted to escape the paparazzi, this sure was not the way to do it, now with this video of Harry and Iger popping up I feel like she, is setting it up to be the next queen in a Disney spectacular, like creating a real life fairy tale, all ready to go”, Jared Evan, political satirist, joked with The Jewish Voice.
On Monday January 13th, Democratic Presidential candidate Cory Booker ended his bid for 2020, winding up a campaign whose primary message was unity and love. As reported by WPXI News, Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey who began his campaign in February, has been struggling to raise funds for his presidential bid. Photo Credit: corybooker.com
By: Ilana Siyance
On Monday January 13th, Democratic Presidential candidate Cory Booker ended his bid for 2020, winding up a campaign whose primary message was unity and love. As reported by WPXI News, Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey who began his campaign in February, has been struggling to raise funds for his presidential bid. The 50-year-old Democrat boasted taking only grassroots contributions, and publicized slogans like “We won’t take a dime from corporate PACs or federal lobbyists”. He has been lagging behind in most surveys despite heart-warming slogans like “The lines that divide us are nowhere near as strong as the ties that bind us”. Booker was unsuccessful in meeting the polling requirement which would have made him eligible to partake in Tuesday’s debate. Booker also missed last month’s debate. Of late, he has been polling in the low single-digits in the early primary states as well as nationwide.
Booker sent an email to his supporters, saying that he “got into this race to win” but that not being in the debates makes fundraising a real challenge. “Our campaign has reached the point where we need more money to scale up and continue building a campaign that can win — money we don’t have, and money that is harder to raise because I won’t be on the next debate stage and because the urgent business of impeachment will rightly be keeping me in Washington,” he said. Booker had forewarned that President Trump’s impeachment trial, which is a propriety to him, would deal a “big, big blow” to his campaign by averting his attention away from Iowa in the final weeks before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses.
A progressive candidate, during his seven years in City Hall, Booker became known for pushing for criminal justice reform, marijuana legalization, and for brainstorming new ways to close the racial wealth gap. Booker was formerly lauded for leading the renewal of Newark, NJ. Though Booker has not yet formally endorsed any other candidate, in his email he pledged to do “everything in my power to elect the eventual Democratic nominee for president”. Booker will run for reelection in Senate this year, and is expected to be victorious despite a large number of candidates eying his seat.
Earlier in January, Julián Castro, another progressive Democrat and the only Latino in the Presidential race, also dropped out after struggling with low polls and fundraising woes. There are now only 12 remaining presidential candidates, whereas there were formerly two-dozen. As per WPXI, the original lineup included a historically diverse group, but now the only African American candidate remaining is former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is struggling to register in the polls being a newcomer into the race.
The modern-day mugging occurred on Sunday January 12th, before 3 PM, at the Union Square subway station, on the mezzanine of the 4 train. Photo Credit: Wikipedia
By: Ellen Cans
The 21st century now boasts a new mugging style. Muggers are apparently evolving with the technology era to make up for the fact that most people carry less cash.
A 17-year old teen was robbed of $100 by two muggers in Manhattan, when they forced him to transfer them money via an app on his cell phone, police said. As reported by the NY Post, the modern-day mugging occurred on Sunday January 12th, before 3 PM, at the Union Square subway station, on the mezzanine of the 4 train. The victim was approached at first by one man, who offered to sell him some candy, as per the police report. The teen gave him $2 for the candy, which the crook took, but then demanded more money, threatening to “F him up” if he didn’t hand over the rest of his cash. “Do what you have to do,” the victim reportedly answered the mugger.
In response, the suspect called over an accomplice. The second suspect threatened to stab the teen if he refused give him his cell phone. The second mugger took the victim’s phone, and used it to immediately transfer $100 to himself using a payment app. He then gave the phone back to the boy. The two muggers fled into the subway station, cops said. The victim was thankfully not injured during the incident.
Police are investigating whether the mugger can be identified through the payment app’s history. Transfers made on most payment apps would be traceable. Apps such as Venmo, Zelle, Paypal, Square Cash, google pay, or Facebook need to be linked to a bank account, credit card or debit card. Only crypto currencies are usually notorious for allowing identities to remain ambiguous. It seems police have also evolved with the 21st century, as police also have video footage of the mugging suspects.
The NYPD announced in April 2018, that index crimes continue to decline in NYC, breaking ‘Low-Crime’ records for murder, robbery and burglary. The crimes fell 6.7 percent compared to 2018, with 1,900 less complaints year-to-date. Despite the improvement, there is of course still crime in NYC, which is the largest city in the country. The aforementioned incident follows the infamous Christmas Eve mugging on Third Avenue in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, in which a 60-year-old man was brutally beaten and later died while the muggers got away with just $1.
As always, anyone who has useful information, or recognizes any of the pictured suspects, is encouraged to call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1800-577-8477(TIPS), or for Spanish call 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
A new tenant is being sought for the four-story retail space at 1551 Broadway, currently the flagship store of American Eagle Outfitters Inc. Photo Credit: timessquarenyc.org
By Benyamin Davidson
A new tenant is being sought for the four-story retail space at 1551 Broadway, currently the flagship store of American Eagle Outfitters Inc. As reported by Bloomberg News, an anonymous source said real estate brokers are already marketing the Times Square mega-store. The property includes a multistory digital billboard, made with weather-resistant LED panels, which is a prime advertising spot visible to hundreds of thousands of visitors daily. The sculptural, 12-faceted display system which includes a 125-ft. tower, was designed by the The Barnycz Group and currently serves as a dynamic dimensional canvas for American Eagle content.
American Eagle Outfitters, the retail apparel company founded in 1977, has been faring well and reporting stable income and operating revenues. It also boasts the expansion of its Aerie lingerie line. However, citing a generally weak market, the Pittsburgh-based company reported lower-than-expected earnings last month, and said it will be closing weaker stores. “We have significant lease flexibility that enables us to exit less-desirable locations over time,” Chief Financial Officer Robert Madore told analysts. “We’ve closed approximately 130 underperforming stores since 2015 as we continued to strengthen our fleet.” As of their 2018 annual report, the retailer had 934 American Eagle Outfitters stores with 115 Aeries, employing an estimated total of 45,000 people.
Located in the heart of the busy tourist district, AE’s flagship store has seen its rent jump to an average of $1,675 per square foot, as per a report by commercial brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. In 2007, when the company first signed on the lease, the rent was less than $900.
AE’s lease at 1551 Broadway runs through February 2024. The 30,000 square feet store is the brand’s largest. The store’s design follows cues from New York City, with exposed brick walls, concrete and subway tiles and even a scaffolding system that holds the denim wall modelled after the scaffolding on NYC buildings. The men’s store on the ground level features a 27-foot denim bar, showcasing each AEO denim fit on a leg form. There is also a double-sided massive 32-foot denim wall with every fit, wash and size.
While Times Square’s famously oversized stores have not been as hard hit as other pricey neighborhoods including Fifth Avenue, asking rents may be starting to decline. Some of the district’s biggest long-time stores, including Toys “R” Us, have shuttered their stores in recent years. Forever 21, which filed for bankruptcy in September, also cutting the lease short for their Times Square flagship store. Landlord Vornado Realty Trust is cutting rents to fill the void, as per Bloomberg News.
A rep for American Eagle Outfitters declined requests for comment on the Times Square space. A rep for CBRE Group Inc., which is the broker for the space, also did not comment.
