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Afula City Hall: No Arabs in Our Park This Summer

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The municipality of Afula will prevent residents of the area from entering the municipal park along the summer vacation.

The municipality of Afula will prevent residents of the area from entering the municipal park along the summer vacation.

The park will be open to the general public on Fridays, but non-residents will not be able to participate in activities that will take place there. In his election campaign, the mayor declared that “the occupation of the park must stop,” and that “Israeli flags should be waved and music should be played in Hebrew”

The Municipality of Afula will prevent non-residents of the city from entering the municipal park during the summer vacation, except for one day during the week when the site will be open to the general public. The city’s decision, which was adopted Monday, comes after Mayor Avi Elkabetz declared in his campaign that he will prevent residents of Arab communities from entering the site. “The occupation of the municipal park must stop,” he said at the time. “It’s not a political matter, it’s not a subject for elections, it’s just something fundamental – a park built for the residents of Afula should remain theirs.”

According to the decision of the municipality, residents of the city will be able to enter the park at no cost and show identification card, and children of the city will be able to buy a bracelet at a cost of ten shekels, which will give them entry to the park throughout the period. On Fridays the park will open to the general public, but non-residents of Afula will not be able to participate in activities that will take place there. The “Afula” network of community centers, which the municipality authorized to operate the park during the summer months, announced that it intends to produce dozens of leisure, community and cultural events in the park.

In recent years, residents of the city have complained that Arabs from other communities in the area are visiting the municipal park. In a demonstration held a year ago in front of the park, under the title “Preserving the Jewish Character of Afula,” one of the demonstrators said that Arabs were coming to the city because “they are hunting for Jews, they are coming to assimilate.” Another demonstrator wondered why she should go to the park and “listen only to Arabic.”

Mayor Elkabetz, who founded the municipal park in his previous term, focused on his last campaign campaign in Afula’s “Jewish character.” As part of the campaign he participated in demonstrations against the sale of houses in the city to Arabs. In one of his posts on his Facebook page, he wrote: “We must proudly fly Israeli flags throughout the park and play music in Hebrew.” Since Elkabetz was chosen, the park has been closed several times for the benefit of the residents of Afula, but not for as long as it is now planned. Earlier this month, Elkabetz took part in a demonstration against the sale of a home to an Arab family in the city – this time while he was mayor.

The municipal park will be open to the general public on Fridays free of charge, and in the rest of the week it will serve as a community center for all intents and purposes, like many other places around the country that close activities for their residents only.”

Netanyahu Leads Summit of US, Russian & Israeli Security Advisers in J’slm

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday morning, led the trilateral summit meeting of the national security advisers of the US, Russia and Israel at Jerusalem’s Orient Hotel.

The historic meeting of security advisers is being held pursuant to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s efforts with the American and Russian administrations and in continuation of the meetings held by the Prime Minister and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat in recent days with US National Security Adviser John Bolton and the Secretary of the Russian National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev.

National Security Adviser Ben-Shabbat and his US and Russian counterparts are currently meeting at the summit. The discussions are focusing on Iran, Syria and regional issues.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, at the start of the meeting:

“It’s historic because it’s the first meeting between our three countries’ national security advisors in our capital, Jerusalem. I want to thank President Trump and President Putin for agreeing to hold this security summit and for sending their most senior advisors. I deeply value the strong relationships that Israel has with both leaders and both countries.

As I’ve said many times, Israel’s relations with the United States of America has reached new heights under President Trump’s leadership. Equally, Israel is grateful that our friendship with Russia has gotten stronger—stronger than ever in recent years.

I had an opportunity to meet with both of you these past few days, including just now in the last few minutes, to discuss important bilateral issues, but especially the challenge of how to bring security and stability in our immediate region. Based on our discussions, I believe that there is a wider basis for cooperation between the three of us than many believe. This summit represents a real opportunity to help advance that stability in our region, and particularly in Syria.

As both of you know, Israel has acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, while it actively and openly calls and works for our destruction. We have acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from delivering increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, or to form a second front in the north against us from the Golan Heights. Israel will continue to prevent Iran from using neighboring territory as platforms to attack us, and Israel will respond forcefully to any such attacks.

I want to thank the Russian government and President Putin for working closely with Israel on a mechanism of deconfliction that helps ensure that as we defend ourselves, we do not put Russian forces in harm’s way.

I want to thank the United States and President Trump from unequivocally backing Israel’s right to defend itself. All three of us would like to see a peaceful, stable and secure Syria.

Israel’s Religious Right Faces Leadership Power Struggle

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Ayelet Shaked (l) and Rafi Peretz (r) want to lead the Union of Right-wing parties. (Flash90)

Two are vying for the top spot of the United Right, an alliance of religious-Zionist parties.

This week may determine who will head the party that wants to shore up the Likud from the right of the political spectrum in the upcoming elections, Israel Hayom reported on Sunday.

Rabbi Rafi Peretz, current head of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, or United Right, is being challenged to give up his spot to former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who once held the No. 2 spot in the Jewish Home party, the senior partner in the United Right’s coalition.

Polls have shown that Shaked is more popular than Peretz among right-wing voters. Peretz is a neophyte politician, having been invited to lead Jewish Home right before the April elections, after it was left in shambles by the sudden departure of its former leader, Naftali Bennett, whom Shaked followed out the door to form the New Right party.

The New Right missed making it into the Knesset by only some 1,400 votes, which led to the loss of four Knesset seats that would have allowed the Likud to form a government. The United Right, which joined with two smaller parties, National Union and Jewish Strength, won five seats.

Neither Peretz nor Shaked show a willingness to budge. Peretz insists that Shaked can be second on the party list but not first.

Shaked’s supporters say the issue boils down to numbers. They say surveys show that if she is only number two, the United Right will get perhaps six seats. However, if she is the leader, the party could reach double digits.

“These are not struggles over ego,” Shaked’s camp says, “but insistence based on political analysis, in order to ensure the establishment of a right-wing government. Any other move could end with [us] sitting in the Opposition.”

However, a source involved in talks between the two summed up the feelings of those who were embittered by Shaked’s defection earlier this year.

“Rabbi Rafi stood at the head of the list and brought the needed number of mandates, while Shaked left, dismantled and endangered [us]. And now she wants to return and even get a prize for it.”

“It’s true that she’s popular, but is it so sure that she will bring so many mandates? If that’s really true, how is it that the New Right didn’t pass the electoral threshold in the last elections,” the source said.

The source admitted that “blood” spilled in the fight could “damage” the party.

Shaked’s confidantes countered doubts, saying that the focus should be on the hundreds of thousands of votes the New Right did get.

“To say they’re worth nothing is simply wrong,” they said.

            (World Israel News)

Read more at: worldisraelnews.com

 

Suspect in Rape of 7-Year Old Israeli Girl Released & Indictment Canceled

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At the end of a decisive session in Israel with the Military Advocate General (MAG), the military prosecution announced cancellation of the indictment and asked to release Mahmud Ketusa from the detention: “We have found certain evidence indicating Katusha’s involvement in the injury of the girl but not enough for a reasonable chance of conviction in court.

On Tuesday morning, the Judge Advocate General’s Office shelved the indictment against 44-year-old Mahmud Katusa from Deir Qadis, who was accused of rape of the seven-year-old girl from Modi’in Illit. Katusa will be sent home. In a dramatic decision made at the end of a meeting convened by Judge Advocate General (res.) Sharon Afek with representatives of the State Prosecutor’s Office and the police, it was said that there was insufficient evidence to establish an indictment. The findings of the supplementary investigation conducted in recent days only sharpened the evidentiary difficulties in the case.

On April 15, the girl’s parents filed a complaint with the police against Katusa and others in which they stated that their daughter had been sexually assaulted earlier, and that many of the interrogations were carried out, including the taking of testimony from the child by a skilled child investigator. The police investigation will continue with greater force, both in terms of status and in other directions, with the aim of exhausting the investigation and reaching the truth.

Deir Qadis is a Palestinian town in Area B which is under the municipal responsibility of the Palestinian Authority and on the security responsibility of Israel. Cases like this one highlight the practical complications of having three different overlapping government infrastructures operation separately in one geographical area. The gaps between them cause chaos.

The MAG announced that, “After examining the evidence in the case, the completion of the investigation and the analysis of the investigative actions that are yet to be carried out, the MAG believes that at this time there is no reasonable chance of convicting Katusa. Therefore, the MAG decided to backtrack from the indictment and allow the Israel Police to continue the investigation.”

In light of this, the Military Prosecution informed the military court of that it will take back the indictment and requested that Katusa be released from detention. “It is clear that cancellation of an indictment and the release of a defendant from detention, in a situation in which there is some evidence against him on charges of sexual offenses of a minor, is not a trivial matter, and in light of the fabric of evidence collected so far, this is the most appropriate professional decision.”

In an announcement of the Military Advocate General’s decision, it was noted that “according to the position of all the professionals involved in handling the case, the evidentiary basis underlying the indictment does not rise at this time to a reasonable chance of conviction.” Therefore, according to the law, the indictment should be retracted and Katusa must be released from detention.

Israeli Police to Recommend Indictment of MK Litzman for Helping Alleged Sex Offenders

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Police officials in Israel are said to be preparing to recommend an indictment for United Torah Judaism party chairman and Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman on charges that he used his office to illicitly provide assistance to alleged sex offenders, according to a report released Friday by the Kan public broadcaster. Photo Credit: mfa.gov.il

Police officials in Israel are said to be preparing to recommend an indictment for United Torah Judaism party chairman and Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman on charges that he used his office to illicitly provide assistance to alleged sex offenders, according to a report released Friday by the Kan public broadcaster.

One case reportedly involves Malka Leifer, a former ultra-Orthodox girls’ school principal charged in Australia with 74 counts of child sex abuse, according to the Times of Israel. “The police announced in February that they were investigating Litzman on suspicion that he pressured employees in his office to change the conclusions of their psychiatric evaluations to deem Leifer unfit for extradition,” it reported.

Another case has Litzman accused of aiding other alleged sexual predators in a manner that was against the law, Kan reported.

Litzman has claimed he did nothing wrong, but merely followed her policy of responding to those in need of assistance.

“The deputy minister is also being probed in a third case, but the likelihood of him being charged appears slim, according to the public broadcaster. It gave no details on the case,” the Times added.

The news site theyeshivaworld.com has reported that Litzman had reportedly been “playing a key role in preventing her extradition to Australia, including efforts to obtain an expert opinion that she is mentally unfit for extradition. This case against him states he exceeded and abused his authority with his involvement in the case of Laufer, and had no right to act as he did, to block the indictment of a suspect wanted by authorities in another country.”

According to i24news.tv, Litzman is suspected of “having organized for a panel of experts to issue a psychiatric opinion that would have allowed Malka Leifer, an ultra-Orthodox woman facing 74 charges of sexual abuse against minors in Australia, to evade justice by declaring her unfit for trial.”

Just weeks ago, Litzman addressed the crisis in coalition negotiations over the issue of the Draft Law. According to israelnationalnews.com, he “made it clear that he is not prepared to compromise on the issue of the law and will not hesitate to go back to elections over it. “I hope we will receive 10 seats,” he said. “Why give up, maybe someone else should give up? Be flexible? I have 20 Knesset seats together with my colleagues, someone else has less.”

Curator at USHMM Must Be Fired!!!

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Why are lunatics running Holocaust Memorial Museums around the globe? A few of them in major cities agreed with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D-NY) who last week caused outrage when she compared American detention centers for illegal immigrants at the southern border to…you guessed it….the concentration camps of WWII where over 6 million Jews were slaughtered in unimaginable ways. This caused a firestorm of responses to refute this idiot congresswoman who delights in bull-horning on topics that appear to be well above her childhood mentality. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the congresswoman was “insulting victims of genocide.” The Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center told AOC to “learn about concentration camps.” Polish legislator, Dominik invited AOC to visit the Nazi concentration camps in Poland “So that she may see that scoring political points with inflamed rhetoric is unacceptable in our contemporary Western societies.” And on and on with those who jumped on the former barmaid for her dangerous spouting of lunacies.

But to the point of this editorial. While others lambasted Cortez, strangely, Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, an author, historical archivist and curator employed by the United States Holocaust Museum (USHMM) in D.C., supported AOC in a series of tweets: “The parallels to the 1930s-1940s refugee crisis are so obvious. Why can’t we learn?” she tweeted. She also retweeted a comment that backed the freshman congresswoman calling it “a Geppetto checkmark,” which means “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” When the USHMM was asked whether Erbelding’s comments reflect their policy, their response was that the comments came from her personal Twitter account and that was it. No denunciation against her from her employer. Going back to 1998 during the Clinton administration, the Holocaust Memorial Council, under Miles Lerman invited Yasser Arafat to visit these hallowed halls. Can we still consider this museum to reflect the memory of over 6 million Jews dead with it being used as a political institution rather than a memorial to their souls?

And to add to this horror story, the Berlin Jewish Museum must also hide its head in shame for having its director, Peter Schafer, resign for tweeting encouragement for its followers to read (and support) an article about a petition in which some scholars criticized a May 17 Bundestag resolution that bars the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and any group deemed anti-Semitic, from receiving federal funds and using public space. Schafer, to all intents and purposes, supported those opposed to the Bundestag’s describing BDS’ “patterns of argumentation and methods” as anti-Semitic, including disputing Israel’s right to exist. Mr. Shafer had to leave the Museum under these circumstances but how in the world did he ever get this job with his openly, anti-Israel sentiments?

We started this piece with AOC and we’ll end it with her and the sad story of just who her supporters are. Nancy Pelosi, when questioned about the detention camps equating to being concentration camps, stated, “I’m not up to date with her most recent remarks. I saw them on the news, but I haven’t spoken to her about that.” And our own Jerrold Nadler patted AOC on her back by saying, “One of the lessons from the Holocaust is ‘Never Again,’ not only to mass murder but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights and assaults on our common morality.” In other words, “Yeah, we have Auschwitz and Buchenwalds on the Mexican border. And we rely on these people to run our country?

Palestinians to Nix Chances for Peace Once Again

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“The Palestinians are ingrates! They don’t want peace!” These words may soon be coming out of our very vocal President Trump’s sharp tongue’d mouth in response to these messed-up people’s turning down his very generous offer to them of $50 billion as part of a global investment fund tailored for them to just call it quits and finally rein in their Israel hatred and merely transform into normal human beings. Jared Kushner, the White House Middle East advisor proposed this monetary offer plus our nation’s assistance in aiding them economically to be self sufficient and to focus on raising up the status of that people’s now primitive standard of living…and stop dying. According to unbiased experts with no ax to grind in this volatile area, all agreed that these funds and American assistance would (1) reduce the Palestinian unemployment rate, now 40%, by creating over 1 million jobs, to single digits. (2) more than double their gross domestic product and (3) cut the Palestinian poverty rate, now at 25% in half.

But the blood-thirsty Palestinian leaders who live in luxury, turned down this offer unless it came coupled with a political solution (theirs, of course) for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Both suicidal camps, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) rulers of the West Bank and HAMAS, the Islamic militant party that dominates the Gaza strip both dismissed this unprecedented gift that would require them to agree to cease their terrorist activities and live in peace and harmony with their Jewish, Israeli neighbors. “We reject the deal of the century and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions. Palestine isn’t for sale. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation except to leave,” a senior Hamas official told Reuters. A PLO spokesperson also demanded that before his people accept any aid, Israel must basically cease to exist. Israel, of course, has accepted this offer, hands down, and would like nothing more than for Palestinians to prosper, give their people modern medical care, educational opportunities, jobs and have them enjoy each day with their children without sacrificing them as suicide bombers merely to satisfy the cravings of their demented religious and political leaders. They would welcome good neighbors no matter what religion.

With this display of lunacy emanating from the Palestinians is there any question that they are the stumbling blocks to peace in the area? That they are willing to bury their young just to satisfy their primitive ways? Will this rejection of sanity by them finally shake the likes of the United Nations, Bernie Sanders and the rest of our own Leftist Progressive Palestinian Cheering squad to finally give up their loathsome battering of Israel and wake up to the reality that it is not Israel who is the barrier to peace and tranquility in the area but rather it’s the Palestinians that have blood dripping from their hands? Don’t bet on it! Jew hating in this country is on the rise and logic will not stand in the way of this age-old bigotry.

Letters to the Editor

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Ocasio-Cortez Should Do Her Homework

(In a letter to Jewish Voice publisher David Ben Hooren, Jack Rosen, the president of the American Jewish Congress speaks out on the outrage of NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s insane analogy of immigrant shelters on the US southern border and concentration camps in Nazi occupied Europe during WWII)

Dear David,

As someone whose parents survived the horrors of the Holocaust, I have been repeatedly uneased by the willingness of our politicians to invoke comparisons to this stain on humanity in an attempt to jar the public. Just recently, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did so while discussing migrant detention centers in our country’s south. She explicitly stated that our government is “running concentration camps” and that such practices have been institutionalized. She summoned people to say “never again,” invoking the post-World War II cry to never allow the systematic slaughter of millions of Jews to reoccur.

To say that what is occurring within our immigration system—as awful as it may be—is remotely comparable to mass murder on the scale of the Holocaust is a cheapening of the atrocities and their place in history, as well as of the power of the words we use to capture its unique inhumanity and violence.

I frequently recount the tragedy that my family endured during the Holocaust. My grandfather and uncle were burnt alive and after surviving Auschwitz my parents fled to a displaced persons camp, where I was born not too long after. We got off easy compared to those destined for the concentration camps. As heartbreaking as the images of children in detention centers on our southern border are, comparing them to Birkenau or Treblinka or Auschwitz concentration camps demean the memories of those exterminated thereby attempting to create a moral equivalence in the popular understanding. Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s comments are uneducated and insensitive. A Congresswoman from New York City, who represents the nation’s largest Jewish population, should do her homework before making such outlandish comparisons and learn that to a Jew, being sent to a concentration camp meant a death sentence.

Apologizing is not enough. By making these comments she is displaying ineptitude in representing her city.

Best regards,

Jack Rosen
President
American Jewish Congress


Tarnow Poland Jewish Cemetery

Dear Editor:

Celebrating the largest cooperative public-private single Jewish cemetery restoration effort conducted in Poland, and perhaps elsewhere, the Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland is pleased to announce the rededication of the Tarnów, Poland Jewish cemetery taking place on Wednesday, June 26, 2019.

Jews had lived in Tarnów for about 500 years prior to World War II, and, numbering about 25,000, comprised about half of the town’s total population. Today there are fewer than a handful of known Jews living in the town of over 100,000 inhabitants. Its major Jewish cemetery was severely devastated by German actions during the war, followed by vandalism and neglect after the war. Yet thousands of tombstones survived to this day. Adam Bartosz, a Polish Catholic, retired director of the Regional Museum in Tarnów, took it upon himself to preserve the history of the Jews of Tarnów and to care for and build interest in restoring this once great cemetery.

He formed an all-volunteer Committee for Protection of Jewish Heritage in Tarnów in 1988 and has led this project for the past thirty years. In 2017 that committee received a substantial 3:1 matching grant from the European Union to support major restoration work at the Tarnów Jewish cemetery. That grant is providing 2.4 million Polish złoty (over $600,000) to match the committee’s raising 800,000 Polish złoty (about $200,000). The seed funds were provided by individual and organizational donors including the Małopolska Polish regional government, the Polish Ministry of Culture, and the Tarnów mayor’s office.

The Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland, an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) public charity, has actively partnered with a Tarnów Jewish descendants’ group especially led by Dr. Jill Leibman and Elizabeth Szancer to help the local Tarnów committee raise the needed funds to qualify for the EU-sponsored matching grant. We acknowledge the particularly generous support of Ronald Lauder in making this project a success, along with the kindness of Bruce and Lori Gendelman of the Sidney Kohl Family Foundation. Donations of all sizes came in from supporters worldwide.

Restoration work (done under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate of Poland) has included rebuilding the walls of the cemetery, installing sidewalks, cleaning away decades of brush and vegetation, restoring many toppled and eroded tombstones and a Shoah (Holocaust) monument, converting the former Bet Taharah (funeral preparation room) into a mini-museum, and indexing thousands of tombstones in the cemetery to preserve those records on-line for access in posterity. The indexing project has already led to many descendants finding physical connections to their ancestors in the cemetery.

The rededication ceremony is scheduled at the cemetery for 1:00 PM on Wednesday, June 26. Speakers at the event (in Polish and English) include Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, Chief Bishop of Poland for Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Rafał Markowski, Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari, Committee Chairman Adam Bartosz, Mayor of Tarnów Roman Ciepela, Tarnów descendant Elizabeth Szancer and Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland President Dr. Dan Oren.

The Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland thanks Mr. Bartosz for his extraordinary leadership of this project, as well as our donors and all the supporters of this project. Donations to help support the future maintenance of this successful effort are welcomed at jewishheritagepoland.org/tarnoacutew.

Sincerely

The Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland

When Restraint is an Invitation to Escalation

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As certain as the sunrise, President Donald Trump will be viewed historically as Israel’s best friend to ever occupy the White House. He seems to understand, more than any president that preceded him, that the complexities of the Middle East are really rather simple matters to fathom if viewed objectively, with a modicum of truth. And yet, there are times when he simply doesn’t get it. Ironically enough – this is particularly true when it comes to understanding the psychological mindset that characterizes all the nations of the Middle East – save that of the Jewish State.

It happened again this week.

Only days after the Islamic Republic of Iran brazenly and unapologetically shot down a $150 million US reconnaissance drone in what the American government called an “unprovoked attack,” and two days after Trump threatened a swift retaliatory response that would serve notice that the Obama/Clinton/Kerry gang was no longer defining the geo-strategic game, the president unclenched his fist and rationalized his quiet acquiescence to Muslim aggression. Maybe they had shot down the surveillance drone “by mistake” he reasoned, offering an excuse that the Iranians themselves refused to accept.

Flashback: In January 2016, following the Iranian seizure of two small US naval crafts and ten sailors in the Persian Gulf, and their subsequent humiliation by their captors, then-Secretary of State John Kerry apologized to the Iranians and offered a loud public sycophantic thank you for their “kind” handling of the matter. Few would argue that this loathsome act of bootlicking only emboldened the Iranians. Candidate Trump, during a speech at Liberty University that same week, criticized the American administration: “Those young people were on their hands and knees in a begging position with their hands up and thugs behind them with guns, and then we talk like it’s OK. It’s not OK. It’s lack of respect.” Few too would argue that it was time to respond to this American vulnerability and weakness with a new sheriff in town.

Somehow, that message was all of a sudden forgotten. One might surmise, based on the reality that Trump is too-often susceptible, and often victim, to listening to the last voice that whispers in his ear: someone clearly urged restraint.

Chief among the elements that distinguishes the present Trump foreign policy team from the apologists that preceded it is the willingness to recognize that, in a war-torn world, peace can come only through strength. Trump might have forgotten, or perhaps was persuaded to stand down.

The options were as limited as they were clear: isolation, containment, deterrence, or retaliation. The mindset of Middle East understands only the latter.

One might imagine that a strong US military strike against Iran would have served several goals, not the least of which would be the reminder that the US would not tolerate Iran’s meddlesome and very dangerous jingoism. Israel, it seems, would be better served as well. Lest we forget, the Arab and Muslim mentality, totally at odds with Western thought, is founded on an ideological and cultural interpretation of compromise as submission. Restraint is viewed as a tepid form of surrender.

Nevermind. Israel appears to have forgotten too. Ask the residents of the Israel towns and cities where Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets have rained down about the logic of restraint. And the cease-fires that follow. It seems that the Trump/Netanyahu alliance has more in common than we might have imagined. Speak loudly and carry a small stick. The despots will refrain from their belligerent actions only as long as they deem a retaliatory response credible. And only then. Witness the new-found bluster by North Korea.

Another flashback: In June 2001, and again in February 2002, Israel’s former hawk-among-hawks – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in response to a series of murderous acts of terror, delivered two speeches with the same message. Both earned headlines, the former as “Restraint is a Sign of Strength,” and the latter, “Restraint is Power.” A perverse equation. And hundreds more died as a result.

This week, following Trump’s dismissed the Iranian downing of the drone as “unintentional” – an action that he saw as clearly “a stupid” act “of a general or somebody” – the president told NBC that an American response might have taken 150 Iranian lives, something he thought “was not proportional.” What an obscene surrender to the United Nations’ and the liberal-left’s view of the evils of any disproportional response to evil. And of course, the bad guys noticed.

So much for that new sheriff.

The anti-war camp was relieved. And they were not alone. Some Trump supporters thought his reassessment of a counter-attack was called for, and well-played.

Many of Trump’s strongest supporters have rallied top his side. Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel and an unwavering proponent of a strong US military, applauded the president as “brilliant” and echoed Sharon by telling a national audience that Trump’s greatest talent was his demonstration of the “power of restraint.” Huckabee called it “his finest hour.” Not very Churchillian, to be sure. And the bad guys noticed.

Those words of praise were aimed at quieting those elements that make up the military industrial complex that fines favor with most American acts of adventurism. Some of these neo-cons still surround the American president, notwithstanding that candidate Trump had promised to avoid unnecessary military incursions into other parts of the world. Taking his finger off the trigger, Trump said the US would instead intensify the sanctions against Iran. Why, one must wonder, were they not amped to the max already?

Most disturbing of the support given Trump’s restraint was that which proffered that it was sound geo-strategic gamesmanship to maintain a level of “unpredictability… which leaves the adversary always confused.” Wrong. Dead wrong. If history offers any lessons – and any psychologist worthy of the diploma that hangs on their wall would agree – it is that the only effective deterrence is the very predicable recognition that any belligerence will be met with great counterforce. Consult either Sun Tzu or Machiavelli for a second or third opinion. Or channel Muamar Khaddafi after President Ronald Reagan bombed his palace. Predictability is good. Put your finger on my nose and I will break it. Shoot down our drones and… well, we hope your government offices are well-insured.

The obvious ought to be obvious. The Middle East mindset is readily transparent, except to those politicians, or political analysts, whose agendas have reason to suggest otherwise. The Arab/Muslim world understands the currency of credible counterforce.

Ninety years ago, the great Zionist Revisionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky questioned the concept of “Havlagah’ (self-restraint), understanding 1) that it failed as a political policy, 2) that it was taken advantage of by the British, and 3) that it served instead to encourage and enflame the Arab adversary. David Raziel, as commander of the Irgun during the underground years before Israel’s establishment, opined in 1937 that the Arabs understood only “the language of power.” He would argue the same today.

If President Trump wishes to fulfill a promise that he made as candidate – to keep Americans free of the unnecessary wars and conflict in the Middle East – he has taken a step in the wrong direction by misunderstanding how that hesitation was perceived by those who consider everything the West does as provocative.

No, President Trump, it’s not OK. It’s a lack of respect. And it was no mistake. Someone needs to remind you that the only thing they would respect would be your bold response. In the troubled Middle East, it is the only thing that deters. Count on it, the bad guys will surely notice.

Meir Jolovitz is a past national executive director of the Zionist Organization of America, and formerly associated with the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.

Love, Hate and the Holocaust

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Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at 3rd Annual Women's Rally and March on streets of Manhattan organized by Women's March Alliance. Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Considering that a survey last year revealed that 31 percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and that 41 percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was, a large and impressive Holocaust exhibit would seem to merit only praise.

And praise the “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” exhibit currently at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan has garnered in abundance. It has received massive news coverage in both print and electronic media.

First shown in Madrid, where it drew some 600,000 visitors, the exhibit will be in New York into January before moving on.

Corpses are laid out in rows prior to burial outside a barracks in the Dachau concentration camp. Tens of thousands were murdered in Dachau. Circa April 1945. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of William and Dorothy McLaughlin

Among many writers who experienced the exhibit and wrote movingly about its power was reporter and author Ralph Blumenthal. In the New York Times, he vividly described the artifacts that are included in the exhibit, which includes many items the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland lent for a fee to the Spanish company Musealia, the for-profit organizer of the exhibition.

Mr. Blumenthal wrote that the museum, within sight of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, had to alter its floor plan to make room for large-scale displays like a reconstructed barracks. Outside the museum’s front door, there is a Deutsche Reichsbahn railway cattle car parked on the sidewalk, placed there by a crane.

Inside, among the 700 objects and 400 photographs and drawings from Auschwitz, are concrete posts and barbed wire that were once part of the camp’s electrified perimeter, prisoners’ uniforms, three-tier bunks where ill and starving prisoners slept two or more to a billet, and, “particularly chilling,” an adjustable steel chaise for medical experiments on human beings.

There is a rake for ashes and there are heavy iron crematory latches, fabricated by the manufacturer Topf & Sons There is a fake showerhead used to persuade doomed victims of the Nazis, ym”s, that they were entering a bathhouse, not a death chamber about to be filled with the lethal gas Zyklon B.

And personal items, like a child’s shoe with a sock stuffed inside it.

“Who puts a sock in his shoe?” asks Mr. Blumenthal. “Someone,” he explains poignantly, “who expects to retrieve it.”

Another essayist, this one less impressed by the exhibit – at least in one respect –is novelist and professor Dara Horn, who teaches Hebrew and Yiddish literature.

Writing in The Atlantic, Ms. Horn approached the exhibit carrying in her mind the recent memory of a swastika that had been drawn on a desk in her children’s New Jersey public middle school and the appearance of six more of the Nazi symbols in an adjacent town. “Not a big deal,” she writes. But the scrawlings provided a personal context for her rumination on her museum visit.

In her essay, titled “Auschwitz Is Not a Metaphor: The new exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage gets everything right – and fixes nothing,” she recalls her visit to Auschwitz as a teenager participating in the March of the Living, and reflects on Holocaust museums, which she characterizes as promoting the idea that “People would come to these museums and learn what the world had done to the Jews, where hatred can lead. They would then stop hating Jews.”

And the current exhibit, she notes, ends with a similar banality. At the end of the tour, she reports, “onscreen survivors talk in a loop about how people need to love one another.”

To do justice to Ms. Horn’s reaction would require me to reproduce her essay in full. But a snippet: “In Yiddish, speaking only to other Jews, survivors talk about their murdered families, about their destroyed centuries-old communities… Love rarely comes up; why would it? But it comes up here, in this for-profit exhibition. Here is the ultimate message, the final solution.”

Ouch.

“That the Holocaust drives home the importance of love,” she writes further, “is an idea, like the idea that Holocaust education prevents anti-Semitism, that seems entirely unobjectionable. It is entirely objectionable.”

Those sentences alone would make the essay worth reading. And the writer’s perceptivity is even more in evidence when she writes:

“The Holocaust didn’t happen because of a lack of love. It happened because entire societies abdicated responsibility for their own problems, and instead blamed them on the people who represented –have always represented, since they first introduced the idea of commandedness to the world – the thing they were most afraid of: responsibility.”

Har Sinai is called that, Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna explain, because it is the mountain from which sinah, hatred, descended to the nations of the world. (Shabbos 89a). One understanding of that statement is precisely what Ms. Horn contends. Although her essay appeared the week before Shavuos, she didn’t intend it to have a Yom Tov theme.

But in fact it did.

Erdogan’s Loss is Israel’s Gain

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Istanbul, home to 20 percent of the Turkish population, has been emboldened by the mayoral victory of Ekrem Imamoğlu. It won’t take long for other areas of the country to follow suit.

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, during the lead-up to the country’s March 31 municipal elections, that “whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,” he couldn’t have imagined that the catchy campaign slogan was going to energize his rivals and bode ill for his own continued reign of terror.

Even the initial mayoral victory of Ekrem Imamoğlu—the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate challenging Binali Yıldırım, a former prime minister from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)— three months ago in Turkey’s largest city didn’t seem to pose too great a problem for the Turkish despot. All he had to do was deem the election invalid on the basis of some phony “administrative error” and force a new round of polls. Which he did, on May 6, by having Turkey’s “Supreme Election Board” annul the Istanbul results.

If that didn’t work, he could always add a few dozen people to the already jam-packed jails, filled with anyone who dared to look at him cross-eyed. Or so he must have thought.

What he didn’t realize, however, was that the extra few weeks before Sunday’s Istanbul election “redo” would work in Imamoğlu’s favor, enabling him to win by a far wider margin than the first time.

Imagine the Turkish tyrant’s horror at the massive crowds of secular CHP supporters, persecuted Kurds and disgruntled devout Muslims—sick and tired of backing the party hacks of an Islamist autocrat whose agenda never helped them improve their lot—gathering in the streets and hanging from balconies to cheer Imamoğlu.

Consider Erdoğan’s humiliation at Yıldırım’s concession of defeat. The same Erdoğan whose party had every electoral advantage. You know, with all the state’s institutions and controlled media outlets on his side. It would be a gross understatement to say that Imamoğlu was fighting an uphill battle. Which made his stunning victory that much sweeter and more significant.

It was a truly happy moment not only for Turks, but for the West as a whole. Erdoğan’s role as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998 had catapulted him to an 11-year premiership in 2003 and to the presidency in 2014. Perhaps Imamoğlu is now on a similar path.

Indeed, if Erdoğan’s motto about Istanbul was correct, Turkey might be on the verge of wresting itself from Erdoğan’s stranglehold, and resume the moderate traditions and statesmanship of Kemal Atatürk, when the republic that he founded in 1923 was a burgeoning industrial democracy genuinely allied with the United States, Europe and Israel.

Yes, Israel, which Erdoğan has compared to the Third Reich.

“I don’t agree with what Hitler did and I also don’t agree with what Israel did in Gaza,” he said in an interview in 2016. “Therefore there’s no place for comparison in order to say what’s more barbaric.”

A few days later, Istanbul hosted the first annual conference of the association of “Parliamentarians for Al-Quds.”

During the two-day gathering, which was held a week before Israel’s newly instated ambassador to Turkey, Eitan Na’eh, presented his credentials in Ankara, Erdoğan said, “Policies of oppression, deportation and discrimination have been increasingly continuing against our Palestinian brothers since 1948.”

In other words, he admitted to viewing Israel’s entire existence, since its establishment, as criminal. No relation whatsoever to the naval blockade that Israel imposed on the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew completely in 2005, as a result of incessant terrorist attacks from the Turkish leader’s Hamas buddies.

Nevertheless, in 2010, Erdoğan—also chummy with the Muslim Brotherhood—instigated an attempt by “peace activists” to violate the blockade.

The incident that led to the six-year schism between Ankara and Jerusalem occurred when Israeli commandos who rappelled onto the Mavi Marmara—one of the “Free Gaza Flotilla” ships that set sail from Turkey and headed to the Hamas enclave with weapons disguised as “humanitarian goods”—were brutally attacked. When Israel Defense Forces’ soldiers fought back, nine Turkish activists were killed; a 10th died later of his wounds. The remaining vestige of long-gone kinship between the two countries was finally erased, and the ambassadors of both were recalled.

In 2013, then-U.S. President Barack Obama forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to Erdoğan—on the tarmac of Ben-Gurion Airport, of all places. Before boarding his plane to return to America, Obama called Erdoğan and shoved his cell phone in Netanyahu’s hand.

Netanyahu gave in to Obama, of course. Yet Erdoğan (naturally) did not back down on any of his conditions for rapprochement. In addition to demanding $20 million in “compensation,” he insisted that Israel open the Gaza blockade to enable Hamas terrorists to roam freely in the Jewish state and commit mass murder, as they had been doing before being handed the entire area on a silver platter a full decade earlier.

Netanyahu could not agree to that, so the Turkey-Israel chasm remained vast. Until December 2015, that is, when a secret meeting was held in Switzerland between Turkish Foreign Ministry director-general Feridun Sinirlioğlu and then-newly appointed Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, accompanied by Netanyahu’s long-time special envoy to Turkey, Joseph Ciechanover, for the purpose of reaching a deal with the Turkish devil.

The only compromise that Erdoğan made was to consent not to prosecute Israeli brass in absentia for supposed war crimes related to the Mavi Marmara incident. Oh, and to ban Hamas terrorist Salah al-Arouri, mastermind of the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in Gush Etzion, which sparked “Operation Protective Edge,” Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists and infrastructure in Gaza, from operating out of Turkey.

Until Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017, the above was a typical scenario: To secure “peace,” Israel had to take all concrete action, while its Islamist “partner” got credit—and oodles of Western cash—for magnanimously accepting ill-gotten gains.

Today, the situation is completely different.

For one thing, unlike the Obama administration, Trump’s team is on Israel’s side in general, and in its forging of relations with regional Arab states, such as Egypt, in particular. Turkey, on the other hand, is on the outs with Cairo, since the ouster of the late President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood honcho.

For another, Turkey’s shunning of Israel after the Mavi Marmara affair left room for Jerusalem to strengthen ties with Greece and Cyprus, Erdoğan’s nemeses in the Mediterranean.

In a blatant act of belligerence in March, Turkey engaged in a mass military exercise, titled “Blue Homeland,” to convey to Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt that it would fight, literally and figuratively, to lay claim to the Eastern Mediterranean’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Then, last month, Ankara aroused the ire of Washington, Brussels and Cairo for drilling for gas in the EEZ.

It’s too early to tell whether Erdoğan is going to treat Imamoğlu’s election as he did the failed coup against him three years ago—by incarcerating anyone and everyone whom he suspects of disloyalty.

But it is safe to say that the cracks in his armor are too severe to be dismissed as temporary. Now that Istanbul, home to 20 percent of the Turkish population, has been emboldened, it won’t take long for other areas of the country to follow.

The possibility of an end to the Erdoğan era is also great news for Israel, a mere two-hour flight away, but light years from the former friendship it used to enjoy with its Mediterranean neighbor.

(JNS.org)

Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ”

Deconstructing Where American Media Has Gone Wrong

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Conservative radio and TV commentator Mark Levin’s “Unfreedom of the Press” has been perched atop “The New York Times” nonfiction bestseller list since its release—an irony of sorts since he’s tackling the Gray Lady’s internal ills

You just know that in the place where irony is calibrated, the needle on the meter must be going crazy.

Over at the newspaper that boasts it prints “all the news that fits,” they have no choice but to put this damning book on their bestseller list.

In just the few weeks since its May 21 release, Mark R. Levin’s Unfreedom of the Press has been perched atop The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. It’s a clear sign that this book, which takes on “America’s newspaper of record,” is as popular as the five other books penned by the syndicated columnist, radio personality and TV commentator.

In these 258 pages, Levin, who is also an attorney, beams a spotlight on a problem that threatens at the very least the way Americans view their media. As he shows, the infection in the heart of modern-day media is a threat to one of the main pillars of American democracy: a free and objective press.

Long known for his take-no-prisoners conservative view of the world, Levin the persona takes a back seat here, replaced by Levin the historian, researcher and analyst. He painstakingly demonstrates that by abandoning their responsibility to report impartially, contemporary journalists cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

“The press is eroding from within, not from government oppression or suppression,” he writes, “not by President Trump’s hand, but by their own self-censorship, group-think, bias by omission, and passing off opinion, propaganda, pseudo-events and outright lies as news. … A self-perpetuating and reinforcing mindset has replaced independent and impartial thinking.”

‘A breakdown in integrity’

It was only a century ago, he writes, that the American press began to see its role as objective truth-teller; earlier, during the “party-press era,” it tended to promote one party or another.

But in the past, newspapers were fairly evenly divided between political parties, according to Levin. Whereas, he says, “today’s news outlets are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic party and hostile to the Republican party—particularly conservatives—and, these days, virulently antagonistic to President Donald Trump, his supporters and his policies.”

“Even the tone of the press reporting on President Trump has reached a level of invective rarely seen in politics,” adds Levin, who backs up the argument with seven pages of excerpts reflecting the overt hatred of many mainstream journalists, an attitude he calls “media-pack malevolency.”

Indeed, Levin makes a clear case that journalists and news outlets, even as they fiercely defend their right to freedom of speech, instead “serve as filters attempting to enforce uniformity of thought … centered on the progressive ideology and agenda. Issues, events, groups and individuals that do not fit the narrative are dismissed or diminished.”

It’s a breakdown in journalist integrity that was foreseen long ago, he reports. During World War II, Time and Life magazines publisher Henry Luce convened a Commission on Freedom of the Press (aka the Hutchins Commission). Its conclusions remain a cautionary tale that continues to haunt America more than 70 years later.

The modern press, the report said, “can play up or down the news and its significance, foster and feed emotions, create complacent fictions and blind spots, misuse great words and uphold empty slogans. Their scope and power are increasing each day as new instruments become available to them. These instruments can spread lies faster and farther than our forefathers dreamed when they enshrined the freedom of the press in our Constitution.”

It seems that this fearful scenario of the press using an ever-expanding bully pulpit (back then, they couldn’t foresee the reach of the Internet) to attack a common enemy has come to pass. “The media’s progressive ideology and Democratic Party bias are in full bloom as evidenced by their frenzied obsession with ‘getting’ President Trump,” Levin writes. “And, conversely, their disinterest and laxity respecting the roles of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, as well as the part played by the Obama FBI, Department of Justice and intelligent agencies, to thwart the Trump campaign and presidency.”

Why was the media so determined to use its power to unseat Trump even before he moved into Pennsylvania Avenue? Levin chalks it up in part to “their outrage over his electoral victory,” which the reader can interpret as “How could that ‘other’ America, the beer-swilling bowlers, defeat us, the liberal intelligentsia who should be calling the shots?”

‘Wildly absurd and hysterical assertions’

Indeed, Levin brings to the fore many questionable moves—legal and sexual—by previous presidents that were consistently overlooked by the press. Their kid-glove handling of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in particular, he maintains, was due in no small part to the fact that the two of them had “defeated Republican candidates who were much hated by the media”—namely, Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater.

Yet despite the persistently negative press coverage (an estimated 98 percent of news written about Trump is critical), the president “does not pose a threat to freedom of press,” writes Levin. Unlike with some other presidents, there have been no executive orders, FCC shutdowns of critical news outlets, or criminal charges against unfriendly journalists.

“Nevertheless, the constant media refrain is trying to convince the American people of a demonstrably false narrative, that President Trump has launched an unprecedented battering on freedom of the press … is media propaganda and a media-concocted pseudo-event,” he writes.

Often typified by what Levin describes as “wildly absurd and hysterical assertions,” the media has compared the president to such despots as Hitler and Stalin, and regularly describes him as a neo-Nazi white supremacist, mentally unhinged racist, and sometimes, even a psychopath.

Levin argues that journalists asking mental-health professionals to diagnose whether or not the president is mentally ill is particularly insidious and destructive.

It’s “perhaps the most inflammatory, scurrilous and pernicious allegation that can be made against a mentally healthy individual, but especially a president of the United States, as the purpose is to destroy his reputation with the public and foreign leaders and make governing as difficult as possible,” he writes.

One notable example: The accusation that the president colluded with the Russians—a charge Levin traces to the Hillary Clinton campaign, which was then snapped up by the media. Soon, the Democrats demanded a special counsel be appointed to investigate, cheered on by a blood-thirsty press. “In the end the collusion story and news scam turned out to be biggest pseudo-event perpetuated against the American people by the Democratic Party-press in modern times,” he concludes. Even after investigators could find no evidence that the president had ever colluded with the Russians.

Citing The New York Times shameful underreporting of the Holocaust and anti-Israel track record, a new low was reached last fall, Levin reports, when the paper published something previously considered verboten: an anonymous opinion piece—in this case, an anti-Trump screed supposedly written by a disgruntled presidential staffer.

Levin adds that anti-Israel bias at the Times and other American media became so egregious last year that U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman wrote these words when escalating Arab attacks on Israelis followed the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem: “The next day the liberal media vilified everyone associated with the embassy move and glorified the poor Hamas terrorists.”

The damage goes well beyond prejudicial reporting, says Levin, who’s concerned that “when the media function as a propaganda tool for a single political party and ideology, they not only destroy their own purpose but threaten the existence of a free republic … should not ideology be reserved for the opinion-editorial pages of newspapers or the commentary segments of broadcasts?” he asks. “Whatever happened to ‘professional journalism’ and the promise or at least suggestion that the press ought to pursue the objective truth in the gathering and reporting of news?”

Instead, the membrane separating the media from the left has never been as permeable as it is right now, he adds. “What of the incestuous relations between journalists and the last Democratic administration?” he asks, citing an Atlantic report that at least 24 journalists were hired for jobs in the Obama administration.

One question that arises: Is the American public buying the party line the media is selling? One recent study (Gallup, October 2018) indicates that such one-sided coverage is further polarizing the country. The media credibility gap between Republicans and Democrats, now at an unprecedented 58 percent, has never been wider, with Republicans generally agreeing with the president that the press unfairly covers his administration and Democrats seeing the media as using its influence as “primarily checking the president’s power.”

And the reader is left with a second question as well, one that no one—not Levin, and certainly not the editor of The New York Times—can answer: Can the “ideologically driven press” waken from its slumber and return to its job of seeing and reporting both sides of an issue free of their own bias?

Levin is not optimistic. You can almost smell the air of resignation hanging over these words of his: “If newsrooms and journalists do not act forthwith and with urgency to ‘fundamentally transform’ their approach to journalism which sadly is highly unlikely, their credibility will continue to erode and may well reach a point soon where it is irreparably damaged with a large portion of the citizenry—and rightly so,” he writes on the final page. “The media will not only marginalize themselves, but they will continue to be the greatest threat to freedom of the press today—not President Trump or his administration, but the current practitioners of what used to be called journalism.”

             (JNS.org)

Exhibit at Museum for Islamic Art Features Jewish Jewelers from the Arab World

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An exhibit featuring Jewish jewelry from the Islamic world. Credit: Museum for Islamic Art

The fact that Jews and Muslims used shared symbols in their work exists until today, as seen in the “hamsah,” an element against the evil eye.

The Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, with a mission of promoting interfaith dialogue, has opened a “past and present” jewelry exhibit featuring a section that highlights the Jewish amuletic jewelry in the communities of the Islamic world.

A piece of jewelry by Inbar-Shahak. Credit: Museum for Islamic Art.

According to its curator, Idit Sharon, the museum serves as a multicultural bridge between the different streams of Israeli society, Arabs and Jews, while furthering dialogue based on tolerance, mutual respect and equality.

“In Jerusalem, there is a lot of conflict and high levels of tension, so our mission is to represent dialogue between the religions in Jerusalem,” she told JNS. “Our mission in the museum is to create the opportunity to foster relations between the societies in Israel and dialogue between old and new. We hope to use art as a tool for enjoyment, change and open-mindedness.”

The newly opened exhibition is a prime example of this, presenting amulets made by Jewish designers living in the Arab world. Along with the amuletic jewelry, the exhibit includes European Jewish ceremonial objects, like a Sabbath lamp, a wine goblet and spice boxes.

Their aesthetic beauty, together with the faith they represent of the people who believed in their efficacy, are a gateway into the origins of the Mizrahi populations of Israel and their cultural relationship to their Muslim neighbors.

Judaica collector William Gross, who collaborated with the museum on the exhibit, offered his take on the pieces, noting that Jewish amuletic jewelry has forms and styles “often closely related to similar objects in the surrounding Muslim culture.” For example, he described, the hamsah, an element against the evil eye, originated in jewelry in the 12th century among both Muslims and Jews, and continued to be used by both groups.

Hamsa’ot on display at the Museum for Islamic Art. Credit: Museum for Islamic Art.

Gross noted that in their form and craftsmanship, “the folk art of Jews and Muslims was strikingly similar.”

However, he said, “the magical power of Jewish amulets in Islamic lands lay in the names and formulas inscribed in them which were taken from practical Kabbalah (mystical Judaism). Sometimes the same object, without text, appears in both cultures, as in Morocco. In other cases, while the form is the same, inscriptions in Hebrew or Arabic differentiate the users.”

For example, a Tunisian hair ornament worn at special Jewish celebrations, which is on display in the museum, has two Hebrew letters inscribed, meaning “a good sign.”

From Iran is a large, elegant pendant with beautifully engraved protective “names”—around the perimeter is the 42-letter “name” formed from the initial letters of the 42 words of the prayer “Ana Bekoach.” Several other inscribed amuletic formulas appear, such as the names of the three angels, the 22-letter name, and several others formed from abbreviated sections of biblical text for general protection. Lifting the front cover reveals a mirror to reflect the evil eye back onto anyone directing it towards the bride.

A Tunisian necklace on display, made from gilded silver, includes four filigree hamsahs placed along the length of the necklace to convey protection from the evil eye. Hung at the bottom center is a fish symbol for fertility. The filigree elements are attached to chains of flattened rings called recannah, a trademark of skilled Jewish goldsmiths in Tunisia.

A fertility amulet from the Caucuses, executed in the form of a fish with niello metal work, has an inscribed Tetragrammaton with the letters on the dangling round elements forming the word argaman, a name made up of the initial letters of five powerful angels: Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael and Nuriel.

Explaining how these pieces reflect Jewish life in the Arab world, explained Sharon, “Jewish gold and silversmiths made jewelry for all parts of society from the 17th to 19th centuries in Morocco, Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, Ethiopia and India. During this time, most jewelers in the Arab world were Jewish, and the time was characterized by good economic relations between Jews and their Arab neighbors.”

“Through the jewelry, one can witness the relationship between Jewish and Arab artists’ dialogue in art,” she said.

According to Sharon, the fact that Jews and Muslims used shared symbols in their work exists until today. “Jewelry-making is a language that is universal and brings people together,” she said.

‘We carry our culture with us’

For this exhibition, the museum commissioned local artists and jewelers to select a piece from the museum’s collection and create their own contemporary interpretation of these historic pieces for the exhibition. Doing so offered a new lens of modern Israeli interpretations with which to view the collection.

The modern pieces are presented alongside historic Jewish, Islamic and Christian jewelry from throughout the ages. Also on exhibit are pieces of Israeli singer Ofra Haza’s jewelry and Bedouin jewelry from artists in the St. Catherine’s Monastery Region of the Sinai.

Inbar Shahak, who made one of the contemporary pieces on display, was interested in a ring from southern Morocco, topped by the form of a house with a pointed roof. Using a 3D printer, she created a similar ring that she says “raises questions about the contemporary home.”

“Our home is supposed to protect us, so I wanted to take the protection of our home out during the day. In contemporary times, when we go outside of our home, we talk about it. We should be proud of the home we carry, as we carry our culture with us,” she told JNS.

“Everything I do today is because my grandmother taught me to sew,” said Shahak, whose grandparents, originally from Turkey and Bulgaria, immigrated to Israel.

Other modern pieces in the exhibit include commentary on the #MeToo movement, silencing of women and the transformation of a man in the Arab world.

“Contemporary works create dialogue,” said Sharon. “Jewelry from the dawn of man is something that has interested people and, in addition, it reflects society.”

  (JNS.org)

Velvel Pasternak, 85, Preserver of a Priceless Chassidic Musical Tradition

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Velvel Pasternak, who passed away on June 11 at the age of 85, played a critical role in transcribing and recording Chassidic melodies known as “nigunim,” preserving them for future generations.

Musician and scholar transcribed and recorded historic ‘nigunim’

Song has always been at the heart of Chassidic life and practice. Nigunim, usually wordless melodies, have long held a central place in prayer, study and gatherings. Many are considered acts of Divine musical inspiration, with some of the most uplifting works composed by founders of the movement, including the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Yechiel Michel Zlotchever and Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Berditchever, as well as by their successors.

The first of ultimately 16 albums of Chabad Chassidic “nigunim” (above) met with surprising success. “The London Jewish Chronicle” proclaimed it to be “the finest recordings of authentic Jewish music ever made.

Famously, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, himself a preeminent composer of nigunim, declared that “the song is the pen of the soul” and at times answered practical questions posed to him with wordless melodies. Songs served not only in the avodah, the Divine service of a Chassid, but also formed a sort of cultural currency as they were taught at communal gatherings and traded between Chassidic groups across Europe.

By the mid-20th century, more than 200 years of musical tradition was in danger of being lost. Judaism in Eastern Europe had gone up in flames during the Holocaust or was suppressed during decades of Soviet repression, and most survivors were either trapped behind the Iron Curtain, or faced the assimilation and indifference of life in America and the West.

Though he initially planned on becoming a pulpit rabbi after graduating from Yeshiva University, Pasternak was drawn to pursue a master’s degree in music education from Columbia University.

Velvel Pasternak, who passed away on June 11 at the age of 85, played a critical role in recording and transcribing these tunes, preserving them for future generations.

During his lifetime, he recorded hundreds of Chassidic melodies from Lubavitch, Modzitz, Bobov, Ger and other Chassidic courts, as well as Sephardic melodies and more modern Israeli ones. Recorder and notebook in hand, he traversed the United States and Israel to document these songs.

During his lifetime, he recorded hundreds of Chassidic melodies, as well as Sephardic melodies and more modern Israeli ones. Recorder and notebook in hand, he traversed the United States and Israel to document these songs.

Through Tara Publications, the imprint he established (named for his daughter, Atara), he published dozens of compilations of Jewish songs. Key to his work was the deep respect in which he held communities whose music he recorded. Pasternak was born in Toronto in 1933 to immigrant parents from Poland. As a child, he relished the nigunim he heard at the Modzitzer shtiebel where his family prayed. His mother, seeing her son’s gift for music, decided to buy him a piano. An autodidact, Pasternak taught himself to play piano, later learning music theory from a lonely scholar. The fee for these lessons? Keeping his teacher company at a local bar once a week.

Pasternak and his wife, Goldie, championed Jewish music at events and conferences around the world.

Though he initially planned on becoming a pulpit rabbi after graduating from Yeshiva University, Pasternak was drawn to pursue a master’s degree in music education from Columbia University.

In 1960, Pasternak was approached by Benedict Stambler, a collector of Jewish music and the head of Collectors Record Guild label, to arrange and conduct a chorus of Lubavitcher Chassidim in what was to be the first recording of Chassidic songs actually sung by Chassidim. This record was the first of what ultimately would be a 16-part series comprising the main corpus of Niggunei Chassidei Chabad, known as Nichoach.

First, the ‘Farbrengen’

A collection of recordings showing the beauty, passion and spiritual inspiration of authentic Chassidic music.

The preservation of Chassidic music was a longstanding tradition in Chabad. In Russia, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dovber of Lubavitch, expressed an interest in teaching nigunim in a more organized fashion. Starting from Simchat Torah in 1899, the singing and teaching of nigunim became part of the regular curriculum at the Tomchei Temimim network of Chabad yeshivahs.

Following his expulsion from the Soviet Union, the Sixth Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory—made a concerted effort to preserve Chabad nigunim that were at risk of being lost and forgotten in the Soviet Union, where singing Jewish songs could lead to imprisonment, even death. In 1935, he contacted Chassidim still in the USSR, asking them to undertake the dangerous task of traveling to pockets of the Chassidic underground and transcribing the songs they heard. This act was also groundbreaking since traditionally many Chassidim were concerned that the act of transcribing and recording the songs could rob them of the intangible spiritual nuances that could only be conveyed by hearing them directly.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, himself a preeminent composer of nigunim, declared that “the song is the pen of the soul” and at times answered practical questions posed to him with wordless melodies

In 1944, Niggunei Chassidei Chabad (Nichoach) was formed at the previous Rebbe’s behest under the auspices of Rabbi Shmuel Zalmanov, with the express intent of transcribing and cataloging all known Chabad nigunim, so that they later could be recorded with a choir and registered with the proper copyright.

Zalmanov ultimately documented 347 songs, published by Kehot in the Sefer Hanigunim set. In 1957, following the success of the initial volume of Sefer Hanigunim, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory—suggested Nichoach begin recording the songs.

Zalmanov pulled together a group of cantors and venerable Chassidic singers, and contacted Stambler, who in turn roped in Pasternak. Meeting in a basement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., Pasternak was introduced to his “hand-picked chorus” of Chassidim. Almost immediately, the young conductor realized that he had considerable work cut out for him shaping them into a recording-ready choir. Even the question of how to start and end each song was in doubt. The Chassidim, accustomed to singing as a convivial but chaotic crew at farbrengens, felt assured they could all keep time with each other. Pasternak, on the other hand, knew that without careful precision and practice, the recordings would be unusable.

Mausoleum of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak in the old cemetery in Berdychiv, May 2003.

After six months of practice, Pasternak felt they were ready to record. With the studio booked and the appointed hour approaching, the Chassidim had yet to arrive. Finally, five minutes before recording was to begin, a gaggle of some 60 Chassidim entered the room.

In addition to the singers, elderly men, women and children—all well beyond the 24-member chorus and band—packed into the recording studio to show their support. With them were cases of soda, sponge cake and four bottles of l’chaim (of the variety known colloquially as zeks un ninetziger). At the rate of $45 per hour, any delays in the recording studio would be costly, but the Chassidic choir was firm in their plans.

They informed Pasternak that they would be holding a farbrengen in order to prepare themselves for the spiritual task ahead of singing.

“How long will this farbrengen last?” Pasternak asked.

“This farbrengen will last as long as it lasts,” was the answer, “and not one minute longer.”

When it had concluded, Zalmanov approached Pasternak with one final request.

“It’s a small favor,” he said “ but please don’t conduct.”

“Please what?” Pastnernak recalled responding. “What do you mean, ‘Don’t conduct?’ ”

Pasternak would have none of it. After six months of preparation, he had one job, and he was surely going to do it.

“I will tell you the truth,” said Zalmanov. “You can make with the hands, but nobody will watch you. Because if they watch you, it will get in the way of their kavanah, their concentration.”

Indeed, as Pasternak began to conduct, the 16-member Chassidic chorus shut their eyes in concentration and began to sing.

“I could have been in another state as far as my singers were concerned,” Pasternak later quipped. “But to the credit of the Lubavitch Chassidim, they were right, and I was wrong. They were handpicked Chassidim, instructed to present to the world the first recorded music of Lubavitch at the bidding of the Rebbe. As such, they treated the project with much more religious conviction and feeling than I had.“

The resulting record, the first in ultimately 16 albums of Chabad Chassidic nigunim, was met by surprising success. The London Jewish Chronicle proclaimed it to be “the finest recordings of authentic Jewish music ever made.” Famed conductor Leonard Bernstein even used one of the selections from the record for a program of religious folk music.

Pasternak continued to produce Jewish albums and songbooks, including the acclaimed Songs of the Chassidim series. His collections of Sephardic melodies included Ladino tunes and music that spanned communities from Bosnia to Calcutta. Many of his books became standard in the repertoire of any aspiring Jewish music student, opening a world of Jewish music beyond “Dayenu” and “Hava Nagila.”

Velvel Pasternak is survived by his wife, Goldie; five children; and 22 grandchildren.

            (Chabad.org)

America, A Step Back in Time–A Writer Remembers

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Singer Frank Sinatra sings (What Is America To Me?) in the film “The House I Live In” to a gang of reformed juvenile delinquents in an alley, in 1945. Photo Credit: Shutterstock

“What is America to me,

A name, a map, or a flag I see,

A certain word, democracy……”

America during World War II–Home Life and Victory Gardens

These were the words we sang out during the early horror days of WWII in the auditorium of PS 97 in Brooklyn along with Frank Sinatra’s recording of, “What is America to me?” As young as we were, we meant each and every word we belted out. And now, years later, l play it on my Amazon Echo and cry. And I play it often. It’s a sad reminder of where this country is now. We are split, broken, disunited, angry, hateful towards one another and growing more apart as the calendar pages fly off into space. There’s no end in sight. Back then, in the early 40’s, things were different. All of our neighbors had brothers, cousins and uncles out there somewhere in places we’d never heard of, fighting, all together, for our freedom. We were joined together by forces unseen. My buddies, Philley Bitetto, Billie McHugh, both Catholic and I a Jew, agreed that when the time came, we’d all enlist together and fight side by side. We meant it. Who cared if we worshipped from different books. We were all proud first generation Americans and ready to give our lives for our country. Joey Pinto, my next door neighbor did just that in the Pacific.

“What is America to me

The house I live in

A plot of earth, a street

the grocer and the butcher

And the people that I meet….”

Look where we are today. Citizenship is meaningless. Back then we all knew of Ellis Island where our parents were checked out a million different ways before they were even permitted to set foot on the sanctified land of America. They waited, studied, memorized, attended night school, all to stand with their hands raised on high to swear allegiance to America. Proud people they were. They asked for nothing but just the freedom to have the opportunities to do their best, to achieve, to show the natives that they appreciated being taken in. Not necessarily accepted, but just taken in and left to their own resources to blend in. I was forbidden to speak Yiddish in our two bedroom, one bath apartment that housed five. We were Americans! And to prove it we would speak, read and write English and celebrate American holidays better than anyone else! We’d show them that we could be even more American than those who welcomed us in. We’d go to school and learn, graduate to higher levels and prosper in the environment that gave us these liberties. And we did, with great appreciation.

“The children in the playground

The faces that I see

All races and religions

That’s America to me.”

Now we are encouraged to be at one another’s throats. Presidential candidates refuse to denounce the bigots within their own party, ones they sit with in Congress. The specter of religious hatred now lurks among our leaders. People proudly display symbols of the nations of their origins: places from which they fled for their lives. They burn the Stars and Stripes. They resent the land that gave them refuge. Now presidential hopefuls have hearkened to these ingrates. They solemnly promise they will do away with the gold cup of citizenship. They will remove that banner of achievement. They will give it away. to make it meaningless. The dilution of America by making all who want to be Americans……Americans.

“The town I live in

The street, the house, the room

The pavement of the city

Or the garden all in bloom

The church, the school, the clubhouse

The million lights I see

But especially the people

-Yes, especially the people

That’s America to me.”

I play that song frequently. I listen to the words. they mean something to me. They remind me that we were once a nation proud, strong and united. I pray that that one day, kids, once again will sing these words, understand them and walk out of the auditorium, hand in hand as we did back during the ’40’s.

(“The House I Live In” Lyrics by Louis Allen, Music by Earl Robinson 1943)

Andrew Dice Clay and Roseanne Barr Announce Standup Tour

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Roseanne Barr, 66, is back on the road as she does a standup tour with fellow comic Andrew Dice Clay. Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Roseanne Barr is being resurrected. Andrew Dice Clay, announced that he will be going on tour with the former ABC star. Clay performed with Barr in March at The Laugh Factory in Las Vegas, and she received a standing ovation from much of the audience in what was her first live performance since the “Roseanne” show was cancelled last May. Barr, 66, was fired after posting a derogatory tweet about President Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett, comparing her to “Planet of the Apes.”

Comedian Andrew Dice Clay performed with Roseanne Barr in March at The Laugh Factory in Las Vegas, and she received a standing ovation from much of the audience in what was her first live performance since the “Roseanne” show was cancelled last May. Photo Credit: Shutterstock

As reported by Fox News, the 61-year-old comedian, who has known Barr for almost three decades, said he doesn’t believe she has a mean bone. “I was given a little flak about this, a little bulls–t, when I pulled her onstage at the Laugh Factory in Vegas, but we’ve been friends for 30 years,” Clay said. He himself was banned from MTV for life for his material, and says the tour was inspired by America’s obsession with political dialogue. “She’s a comic because she’s wacky. I’ve known her since we were kids,” Clay said. “When people ask about what she said, I say, ‘She’s a comic!’ We gotta stop policing comedians. This is America!”

The tour, named the “Mr. and Mrs. America” tour, is slated to hold its first show at the Paramount Theater in Long Island, N.Y., on Sept. 19th. A follow up performance will be on Sept. 20 at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City, NJ. Eleanor Kerrigan, who regularly opens for Clay, will be a special guest on the shows. More dates will follow.

“America really needs to lighten up and not worry about the words comedians use because it’s all we have. There’s clean stuff and there’s street stuff. I’m a street guy because I tell it like it is,” Clay said. “I’m living it more now than I have for a really long time. My shows have been longer, my material is fresher. With these shows, I can do as long as I want because it’s one show a night.”

Clay cast aside apprehensions about Barr’s reputation saying, “She’s an original I’m an original and people should just stop reading Twitter. Calm down with your political conversations. Whoever is running the country, nobody else’s life changes. We still gotta go out there and make a living. Enjoy your family, enjoy your friends, bang your chicks and make your money.”

“We’re both excited because we both don’t give a s–t what anybody thinks about anything,” Clay added, “I decided not to run for president because it would be embarrassing for everybody else losing. It would be too easy.”