An ex-girlfriend of the alleged gunman in an August 3 shooting in Dayton, Ohio wrote in an August 5 Medium post that he showed her a “play-by-play” of the October Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
Adelia Johnson wrote that she met the alleged shooter, Connor Betts, in a psychology class at Sinclair College in January. Their first date was in March, where Johnson claims Betts showed her a video of the Pittsburgh shooting.
“He pulled out his phone and I was too drunk to care that I was watching it,” Johnson wrote. “Thankfully the bar was too loud for me to hear what was going on. Connor gave me the play-by-play of what was happening. Even then, I did realize that that was a weird thing for a first date, but not too weird given the context of our class.”
She went on to explain that “serial killers” was a frequent “off-topic” discussion in their class.
Johnson ended the relationship with Betts in May, saying that Betts needed to “work on himself and find more coping mechanisms” to deal with his “dark thoughts” and “uncontrollable urges.”
Betts allegedly shot and killed nine people – including his sister – and 27 others at Ned Peppers Bar on August 3; police shot and killed Betts at the shooting. Betts reportedly had a “hit list” of boys he wanted to kill and girls he wanted to rape.
On October 31, Robert Bowers was indicted for shooting and killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue; Bowers had white nationalist sentiments.
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust’s latest exhibit “Venerated – Persecuted – Forgotten: Victims of Nazism at FC Bayern Munich” tells the story of nine club players and officials who were murdered, deported or had to flee Germany during the Nazi era. It includes the remarkable saga of Jewish Club President Kurt Landauer, who was forced to resign his post and was imprisoned in Dachau.
“We are thrilled to host FC Bayern’s fascinating exhibit in its first appearance outside of Europe. We are excited to bring a new story about the Holocaust to the museum. Not just about soccer, but sports in the Holocaust and the role sports played and how you can really use sports as a tool to combat hatred and anti-Semitism,” Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust CEO Beth Kean told the Journal.
“The exhibit shows how the Nazis’ oppressive and discriminatory policies reached all aspects of society, including sports. FC Bayern has done an admirable job of bringing attention to the suffering of Jewish club members under the Nazis as well as the resilience of club leaders like Landauer,” said Kean.
The exhibit first opened in 2016 at the Church of Reconciliation at Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial site. Since then it has toured to over 40 locations in Germany and Austria. The opening at LAMOTH is the exhibition’s United States debut. It also coincides with FC Bayern Munich’s summer tour of the US.
“FC Bayern Munich opened its first international office in New York in 2014 with the aim of increasing our fan base and building mutually beneficial relationships. We started working with the American Jewish Committee five years ago to bring attention to the club’s history and highlighting the power of sport for positive change in communities,” said Rudolf Vidal, FC Bayern Munich President of the Americas.
“When we decided to play a summer tour game in LA, we knew that the city was home to the second-largest Jewish population so it seemed fitting to bring this exhibition to California. By working with the AJC, California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Shoah Foundation and Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust we were able to create a unique moment, telling the story of perseverance and tolerance via soccer.”
The exhibit runs through the hallway of LAMOTH and includes a series of large panels containing historical photographs, biographies and maps illustrating the paths taken by team members when they fled or were deported from Germany.
“The majority of people in this exhibition are Jewish and this exhibition talks about who they were and gives a voice to them and uncovers this part of the history of the soccer club that really was not known until a few years ago,” said LAMOTH Director of Education, Jordanna Gessler.
At the time of the Nazis taking power in 1933, Bayern had just won the league title for the first time in its history under the leadership of Landauer, its club president and the coach Richard Dombi, an Austrian Jew. Less than a year later, the Nazis branded Bayern a “Jewish club” and Landauer resigned from his position as anti-Semitic legislation began to affect the everyday lives of Jews in Germany. TSV 1860, the other big Munich soccer club, immediately acquiesced to the Nazis, allowing SA men to take control of the club from 1934 onward. Players and members of FC Bayern, on the other hand, averted Nazi leadership up until 1943.
“It seems like the club was very inclusive. While other club teams when the Nazis came to power, they became part of the nationalist movement, this team did not. They really supported their fellow Jewish members,” said Kean. “It shows how when you have a leader like Landauer, you can create a team that is inclusive and promote tolerance and unbiased behavior.”
In 1938, the day after Kristallnacht, Landauer was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp. After a brief period of internment, he was released, and he used this opportunity to immigrate to Switzerland and survived the Holocaust. Following his exile, he returned to Munich after the war only to find his beloved team in shambles. Landauer led the effort to rebuild the stadium and the club. Today he is remembered as one of FC Bayern Munich’s most important figures and an important contributor to the club’s success.
“I think coming off this past summer, where soccer has got a new limelight in America, it is a great time and opportunity for Americans to think how soccer plays a role in history, plays a role in society today. How do sports, politics and other things that are going on in the world intertwine? And so here is an exhibition that does just that,” said Gessler.
“Venerated – Persecuted – Forgotten” runs through till October 31 at LAMOTH. Admission to both the museum and the exhibit is free. For more info visit the website.
Following the mass shootings on Aug. 3 in El Paso, Texas, and just hours later in Dayton, Ohio, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) had a lot to say.
Addressing pews packed with Jews, Christians and Muslims at All Saints Church in Pasadena on Aug. 5, Schiff denounced white supremacy, accused President Donald Trump of fomenting division and called on his colleagues in the Senate to pass common sense gun legislation.
“I wish this was not such a timely discussion, but after the terrorist attack in El Paso, where a white supremacist killed 22 people and injured many more, there is no escaping the clear and present danger of white supremacist violence in the United States and the terrible urgency to confront it,” Schiff said. “Simply put, it’s domestic terrorism.”
Schiff’s headlining appearance at the public forum, titled “Countering White Supremacy,” was coordinated by faith-based organizations IKAR, All Saints, the Islamic Center of Southern California and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) long before the weekend attacks. The tragedies were on the minds of all the panelists, including All Saints Rector Mike Kinman, musician activist Andre Henry and Brooke Wirtschafter, director of community organizing at IKAR.
Moderating the panel, MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati read from Trump’s televised statement from earlier that day condemning “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” as “sinister ideologies [that] must be defeated.”
Schiff, however, was not impressed. “Condemnations of white supremacist ideology ring hollow when they are bookended by tweets using the same language white supremacists use,” he said. “I don’t expect Trump to change. It’s up to us to mobilize, organize and demand better.”
Asked by Al-Marayati if he thought there was any chance for bipartisan action on some of the issues raised by Trump, Schiff said in normal times he would think so, but these are not normal times.
“We know implicitly courage is contagious. We have learned that so is cowardice,” Schiff said. “And there has been a contagion of cowardice in our Congress in the utter unwillingness to stand up to this president in any meaningful way. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know how wrong and how repugnant the president’s actions are. They understand the damage he is doing to this country but they refuse to do anything about it. They will express their private misgivings, but frankly, I am fed up with private misgivings.”
With the recent deadly shootings at the Chabad of Poway and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the panelists weighed the threat white supremacy and domestic terrorism pose to synagogues and other religious institutions.
“I wish this was not such a timely discussion, but after the terrorist attack in El Paso, where a white supremacist killed 22 people and injured many more, there is no escaping the clear and present danger of white supremacist violence in the United States and the terrible urgency to confront it.” — Rep. Adam Schiff
In the Los Angeles Jewish community, armed guards stationed at the entrances of synagogues have been a reality ever since a white supremacist opened fire on the North Valley JCC 20 years ago, Wirtschafter said, adding that while guards may make synagogue-goers feel more secure, any motivated and armed individual could pull off an attack against a house of worship, guards or no guards.
“It is mostly ‘security theater,’ unfortunately,” Wirtschafter said. “If somebody is really coming after us with a machine gun, they will be able to get in and kill a lot of people. We make ourselves feel a little better maybe by putting that security guard at the door but, ultimately, I don’t think it makes us safer, and I think it drains resources we can be spending on something else. I think it frightens people away who want to have doors open to be able to welcome people.”
The wide-ranging discussion also explored how gun violence has affected the African American community, with Henry, a racial justice activist, highlighting the distrust that the community feels toward law enforcement.
Striking a more optimistic note, Kinman said, “If people can be radicalized to extremist hate, then people can be radicalized to radical love.”
From left: MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati; musician-activist Andre Henry; Rep. Adam Schiff; IKAR’s Brooke Wirtschafter and All Saints Rector Mike Kinman discuss “Countering White Supremacy” at All Saints Church in Pasadena. Photo courtesy of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
Rev. Gary Bernard Williams of Saint Mark United Methodist Church, who attended the event, told the Journal that people from different backgrounds have to come together despite their differences if any change is going to happen.
“Most people look at differences more than similarities and we need to look at the similarities rather than the differences,” Williams said. “If we can do that, we can build the community up, which I believe God intended for us to do.”
Anastacia Stewart, an Eagle Rock resident, echoed his remarks. The member of First Congregational Church in Pasadena — who wore a T-shirt proclaiming “This nightmare must end. The Trump and Pence regime must go” — said she was inspired by the forum.
“I thought the best thing is we were called to individual action of our own, regardless of what our religious affiliation is, whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish,” Stewart said. “The way things will go will be up to us. I appreciate Adam Schiff being so down to earth, caring and forthright.”
Not everyone was so taken with the Jewish congressman, however. At the end of Schiff’s panel, a man stood up and yelled, “Are you afraid of the president? When will you hold the president accountable?” before security escorted him out of the building.
Rabbi Len Muroff, a chaplain and IKAR member, remembers too well how his now 25-year-old daughter was taking swimming lessons at the North Valley JCC the day before the 1999 shooting there. Consequently, white supremacy “has been on my mind for 20 years,” Muroff said. “This is a cancer in the body of the American populace that has to be rooted out.”
Speaking with the Journal following the panel, Schiff said he believed Congress would eventually pass what he called “common sense gun legislation,” despite years of inaction.
“The only question,” Schiff said, “is how many more lives will be lost before the members of the Senate do the right thing.”
(JTA) — An ethnic studies curriculum proposed by the California Department of Education is “inaccurate and misleading” and reflects an “anti-Jewish bias,” Jewish members of the state’s legislature wrote to the head of the committee writing the curriculum.
The California Legislative Jewish Caucus says that the curriculum “effectively erases the American Jewish experience,” “omits anti-Semitism,” “denigrates Jews” and “singles Israel out for condemnation.”
Their eight-page letter to the chair of the department’s Instructional Quality Commission, Soomin Chao, was dated last week.
A law that passed in 2016 ordered the state’s board of education to create a curriculum that would highlight the contributions of minorities in the development of California and the United States. The board has put the model curriculum up for public comment and is expected to approve it next year.
The draft provides sample courses in four main areas: African-American Studies, Hispanic Studies, Native American Studies and Asian American Studies. Supporters say the goal is to create inclusive and supportive environments for children of color.
The newspaper also notes that the curriculum discusses activist groups like the Black Panther Party and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, but “usually offers one side and one side only.”
The Jewish Caucus offered similar criticism, saying the section on BDS presents “a single viewpoint on an extraordinarily complex international political dispute” and “singles out Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — for special critique and condemnation that is both out of context and factually inaccurate.”
“It would be a cruel irony if a curriculum meant to help alleviate prejudice and bigotry were to instead marginalize Jewish students and fuel hatred and discrimination against the Jewish community,” the letter concludes.
The caucus also said the curriculum ignores the Jewish contributions to California and anti-Semitism, saying it “effectively erases the American Jewish experience.” The omission, they note, is “indicative of an anti-Jewish bias.”
The letter also noted that when the curriculum does acknowledge Jews it does so in a “derogatory and discriminatory manner.” The curriculum’s Arab American Studies Course, for example, quotes a lyric by a British Palestinian rapper named Shadia Mansour, reading “For every free political prisoner, an Israeli colony is expanded / For each greeting, a thousand houses were demolished / They use the press so they can manufacture, but when my sentence is judged, reality presents itself.”
The curriculum does not offer an Israeli Jewish perspective on the Middle East conflict, the caucus notes, and the rapper’s phrase “use the press so they can manufacture” is “a classic antisemitic trope abut Jewish control and the media.”
The Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, a coalition of community relations councils, has also communicated its concerns to the education department, the Jewish News Syndicate reported.
“We have concerns that include the curriculum’s omission both of Jews as an ethnic group and of anti-Semitism as a concept. The curriculum should reflect the true diversity of California’s population,” Jeremy Russell, spokesman for the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, told JNS.
Other Jewish groups both in and outside of California expressing concerns about the proposed curriculum include the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee and Camera, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Lady Bird”) has been cast as infamous White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the third season of FX limited series “American Crime Story.” Titled, “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” the show will follow the scandal surrounding the Bill Clinton presidency. Lewinsky is among the producers.
Clinton has not yet been cast, but Sarah Paulson will play Lewinsky’s confidante Linda Tripp and Annaleigh Ashford will portray Clinton harassment accuser Paula Jones.
Based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book “A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President,” the third installment in the “American Crime Story” franchise is written by Sarah Burgess and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk, Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, Alexis Martin Woodall and Paulson.
“This franchise re-examines some of the most complicated, polarizing stories in recent history in a way that is relevant, nuanced and entertaining,” FX Chairman John Landgraf said. “‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’will likewise explore the overlooked dimensions of the women who found themselves caught up in the scandal and political war that cast a long shadow over the Clinton Presidency.”
The premiere has been set for Sept. 27, 2020 on FX.
In the latest screen adaptation of Ann M. Martin’s best-selling book series “The Baby-Sitters Club,” Netflix announced that Mark Feuerstein and Alicia Silverstone will play the mother and stepfather of club member Kristy Thomas.
The 10-episode family-friendly series follows the adventures of five junior high school best friends who run a babysitting service. The books were previously adapted for a 1990 HBO series and a movie in 1995.
Feuerstein was last seen on TV in the CBS series “9JKL” and Silverstone’s most recent series was “American Woman.” She also has the comedy “Judy Small” and drama “He Pleasure of Your Presence” awaiting release.
The Israeli Defense Ministry is moving forward with the construction of more than 2,300 settlements in the West Bank, the Times of Israel reported on August 6.
Of the 2,304 settlements that were approved, 1,466 are still in the initial stages of planning while 838 gained final approval. More than 70 percent of the settlements will be built away from the West Bank security barrier, including in the Gush Etzion region as well as Givat Silat outpost in the Jordan Valley.
The European Union (EU) denounced the planned settlements.
“All settlement activity is illegal under international law. It erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the prospects for a lasting peace,” the EU said in a statement. “The EU expects the Israeli authorities to fully meet their obligations as an occupying power under International Humanitarian Law, and to cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, of designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and of denying Palestinian development.”
Peace Now, a leftist NGO that promotes a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, said in a statement, “The approval of settlement plans is part of a disastrous government policy designed to prevent the possibility of peace and a two-state solution, and to annex part or all of the West Bank. The linkage of thousands of housing permits for settlers and a negligible number of housing units for Palestinians cannot hide the government’s discrimination policy.”
On July 31, the Israeli Security Cabinet green-lighted the building of 700 Palestinian homes in Area C, which the Israeli government controls, as well as 6,000 Israeli settlements, 2,304 of which were approved on August 5 and 6.
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director and CEO Jonathan Greenblatt praised the Internet security platform Cloudflare for cutting ties with 8chan, a message board website that allowed white nationalist rhetoric to spread on its site.
In an Aug. 5 appearance on CNN’s “New Day,” Greenblatt said, “The front line in fighting hate is really the internet. All of us should take steps to stop it.” He also called on financial institutions and internet hosting companies to ensure that sites like 8chan don’t see the light of day online.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince wrote in an Aug. 5 blog post that the 21-year-old who allegedly shot and killed 22 people and injured 22 others at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3, “posted a screed” on 8chan before the shooting.
“Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Nearly the same thing happened on 8chan before the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand,” Prince wrote, referring to the March 15 shootings of two New Zealand mosques. “The El Paso shooter specifically referenced the Christchurch incident and appears to have been inspired by the largely unmoderated discussions on 8chan which glorified the previous massacre. In a separate tragedy, the suspected killer in the Poway, California synagogue shooting also posted a hate-filled ‘open letter’ on 8chan. 8chan has repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate.”
He added that Cloudflare would not provide a platform to websites “that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design. 8chan has crossed that line.”
“The front line in fighting hate is really the internet. All of us should take steps to stop it.” — Jonathan Greenblatt
According to The New York Times, software developer Frederick Brennan created 8chan in 2013 because he thought the message board site “4chan had become too restrictive.” Over time, 8chan became a hub for internet users who have been banned from “more mainstream sites,” causing the site to morph into “a venue for extremists to test out ideas, share violent literature and cheer on the perpetrators of mass killings.”
ADL Center on Extremism Director Oren Segal told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that even “a thread about fluffy bunnies” will turn into a thread of “hate” on 8chan.
“The fact that 8chan is used as a place to disseminate these hateful explanations for violence is because those shooters know and hope that the users will copycat,” Segal said.
Brennan, who stepped down from 8chan in 2015, called for the current owners of the site, Jim Watkins and his son Ron, to shut down 8chan. “It’s not doing the world any good,” Brennan told The New York Times on Aug. 4. “It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too. They just don’t realize it.”
He added that shutting down the site would help prevent such shootings from happening “every few months.”
Prince acknowledged in his blog post that deplatforming 8chan would do little to stop future mass shootings or “hateful sites” from appearing on the internet. He pointed out that Cloudflare dropped the Daily Stormer website in 2017. BitMitigate subsequently picked up the Daily Stormer, allowing it to remain online.
“I have little doubt we’ll see the same happen with 8chan,” Prince wrote. “While removing 8chan from our network takes heat off of us, it does nothing to address why hateful sites fester online. It does nothing to address why mass shootings occur. It does nothing to address why portions of the population feel so disenchanted they turn to hate. In taking this action we’ve solved our own problem, but we haven’t solved the internet’s.”
BitMitigate did pick up 8chan as a client on Aug. 5, but BitMitigate went offline shortly thereafter.
(JTA) — A rabbi and his two sons said they were spit on and verbally attacked as they left a synagogue in Munich, Germany.
A man approached the rabbi, 53, and his sons, both 19, and yelled anti-Semitic slurs as they left a central synagogue on Saturday, The Associated Press reported. A woman in a car then also began to yell at them and spit on one of the teens.
Police are looking for the two suspects, according to the report.
The attack comes a week after a Berlin rabbi was verbally abused and spit on. Yehuda Teichtal, a Berlin community rabbi and president of Chabad Lubavitch in the German capital, was with one of his young children when the attack took place.
On Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Teichtal in his home to offer his support.
“I have come here to say that there is no place for anti-Semitism in Germany,” Steinmeier said at the start of the visit. “I am here to declare this as well as to visit a friend.”
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Hamas cell in Hebron was planning a bomb attack in Jerusalem but was thwarted, the Israel Security Agency said.
The cell, operating under the direction of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip, had been ordered to carry out attacks against both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
“The operatives in the West Bank were instructed to form cells in order to carry out kidnappings, shootings and stabbings, purchase weaponry, and find and recruit additional operatives for terrorist activities,” the agency, also known as the Shin Bet, said in a statement Tuesday.
The agency arrested a member of the cell, a college student at the Polytechnic College in Hebron, in June, which led to the arrest of other members, including at least one other college student. A 6.6-pound bomb filled with metal fragment that was to be used in a bomb attack also was discovered. The metal fragments would have caused more serious injury to victims.
The investigation and arrest of the cell was a joint operation with the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police.
