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Jewish Journal

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August 19, 2019

ADL, Jewish Groups Criticize Omar, Tlaib for Sharing Anti-Semitic Cartoon

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other Jewish groups have criticized Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for sharing a cartoon on their Aug. 16 Instagram stories by an author who placed in Iran’s 2006 Holocaust cartoon contest.

The cartoon shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump silencing Tlaib and Omar, respectively. A Star of David is in the center of the cartoon.

Forward Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon noted on Twitter that the cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, “came in second in Iran’s International Holocaust Cartoon Contest.” She added, “Jews controlling and subverting world leaders is a classic anti-Semitic trope. So is Jews silencing critics. But no one has silenced the Reps. The ways in which it gets the story wrong fits into an aesthetic designed to give anti-Semites pleasure.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in an Aug. 19 statement, “Reps. Tlaib and Omar absolutely shouldn’t have lifted up the work of a cartoonist who frequently promotes hate toward Israel, mocks the Holocaust and traffics in #antiSemitic tropes. Doing so legitimizes his bigotry.”

Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal in a phone interview that Omar and Tlaib’s sharing of the cartoon shows that “they’re anti-Semites, they hate the state of Israel, and until now, they have no interest in being players in trying to work toward peace.” He added that if Omar and Tlaib were truly concerned about making sure Palestinians have their voice heard, they would have gone with the bipartisan 72-member congressional delegation that went to Israel earlier in August.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that they would [wind] up invoking, just naturally… a cartoon from a guy like Latuff because the credentials that incense us are the credentials that attract [Omar and Tlaib],” Cooper said. 

The Progressive Zionists of California said in a statement to the Journal, “Anti-Semitism from any political angle must be rebuked. Democrats rightly condemned Donald Trump when he invited anti-Semitic cartoonist, Ben Garrison, to the White House. The cartoon Representatives Tlaib and Omar shared clearly furthers the anti-Semitic trope of Israeli control of the United States–a bigoted lie that both women have previously reiterated they would refrain from using. Democratic leadership must also condemn their actions, and the representatives should apologize.”

Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief and Journal columnist Ben Shapiro argued in an Aug. 19 Fox News appearance, “Imagine if someone on the right had tweeted a cartoon out from a virulent racist and had done so knowing what that person was. There would be appropriate blowback. You’re getting none of that from the mainstream media today.”

Latuff defended his work on Twitter.

Latuff also tweeted out an interview with the Forward from 2008, where he explained his participation in the Iran Holocaust cartoon competition.

“The artwork with which I won second place was a depiction of an elderly Palestinian man wearing a Nazi concentration camp uniform, and some people said that I was ‘denying the Holocaust!’” Latuff said. “That was completely stupid, since I’m affirming the Holocaust with that illustration. Believe me, no matter what I draw and where I publish, there will be always someone who will point a finger and say it’s anti-Semitic.”

He added that he viewed the competition “as both a good chance for denouncing the suffering of the Palestinian people before the eyes of world public opinion and for raising questions about the West’s double standards. I mean, you insult the Muslims with a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bomber and then claim the right to ‘freedom of speech,’ but if you make drawings about the Holocaust, then it’s ‘hatred against the Jews.’”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has stated Iran’s Holocaust cartoon competitions “occur in the context of official Iranian policy and practice of promoting Holocaust denial” and “are insulting to the victims and memory of the Holocaust.”

Omar and Tlaib’s offices have not responded to requests for comment.

ADL, Jewish Groups Criticize Omar, Tlaib for Sharing Anti-Semitic Cartoon Read More »

Omar, Tlaib Criticize Israel’s Travel Restrictions, Call for Aid to Be Used As Leverage

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) criticized the Israeli government’s decision to bar them from visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories, and advocated for Congress to use aid to Israel as leverage against the Jewish state in an Aug. 19 press conference.

Omar began by saying that she, Tlaib and Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) had been planning “to travel to Israel and Palestine to hear from individuals on the ground about the conflict.” She also argued that they were going to meet with Israeli officials, contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had said otherwise. Their reported itinerary didn’t show any meetings with Israeli officials, although a spokesperson for Omar is claiming that the reported itinerary is outdated.

“The decision to ban me and my colleagues, the first my colleague, the first two Muslim American women elected to Congress is nothing less than an attempt by an ally of the United States to suppress our ability to do our jobs as elected officials,” Omar said. “But this is not just about me. Netanyahu’s decision to deny us entry might be unprecedented for members of Congress, but it is the policy of his government when it comes to Palestinians. This is the policy of his government when it comes to anyone who holds views that threaten the occupation, a policy that has been edged on and supported by Trump’s administration.”

She added that she and Tlaib are not the only ones being barred from Israel and the Palestinian territories, saying that such actions “maintain the occupation and prevent a solution to the conflict. Fortunately, we in the United States have a constructive role to play. We give Israel more than $3 million in aid every year. This is predicated on their being an important ally in the region and the only democracy in the Middle East.” Omar used air quotes when describing Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

“We must be asking as Israel’s ally [for] the Netanyahu government [to] stop the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and ensure full rights for Palestinians if we are to give them aid,” Omar said.

Following Omar, Tlaib drew an analogy between herself and former Rep. Charles Coles Diggs Jr. (D-Mich.), who was denied entry from apartheid South Africa in 1972, saying that “history does have a habit of repeating itself.” She went onto recall instances where she and her family had to endure “dehumanizing checkpoints” to visit her family in the West Bank.

“Our delegation trip included meetings with Israeli veterans who were forced to participate in military occupation. They also desperately want peace and self determination for their Palestinian neighbors,” Tlaib said. “They could have shed light into injustices of raids, shootings, demolitions and child detention. The delegation would have seen firsthand why walls are destructive, not productive.”

During the Q&A, Tlaib said that her decision to not visit her grandmother came after a lengthy discussion her family.

“We all decided as a family I could not go until I was a free American congresswoman not just to visit my grandmother but to talk to Palestinians,” Tlaib said.

She also said that accusations of anti-Semitism against MIFTAH, one of the sponsors of the trip, were “distractions.”

The full press conference can be seen below:

Omar, Tlaib Criticize Israel’s Travel Restrictions, Call for Aid to Be Used As Leverage Read More »

What the Media Won’t Tell Us About Tlaib and Omar

Leave a Comment / Analysis, Online /

On Aug. 17, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar posted a political cartoon drawn by the second-place winner of Iran’s vile International Holocaust Cartoon Competition. If any question lingered about the motivational purity of these women’s desire to visit Israel, this pulls off the mask.

Yet, left-leaning news sources such as The New York Times have not said a word about it. All we are hearing about is Trump’s overbearing influence on Israel to refuse them entry. Such speculation is nothing but a well-calculated distraction from the unsavory truth, which is: Tlaib and Omar are anti-Semites.

If you don’t think so, you are redefining anti-Semitism and ignoring its ancient markers. These women hit every bullet point. Dual loyalty. Jewish hypnosis. Holocaust distortion. Rewriting Jewish history. Global conspiracies about Jews controlling the world. Jewish money bribing the powers that be. And most importantly, boycotts of Jewish owned-businesses.

Shamefully, CNN has not mentioned Tlaib’s support for advocates of Hezbollah, the terror group that currently has more than 130,000 missiles pointed at Israel and has, for the past 40 years, wreaked havoc on international Jewish institutions around the world in multiple terror attacks. We haven’t heard an NPR report on Tlaib’s outspoken support of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who murdered two American students in Jerusalem in 1969.

Underlying reasons such as these are why Israel will not let them cross its border. 

With all this talk of Trump’s hateful rhetoric inciting violence, shouldn’t we be holding our elected officials to the same standard? Yet, The Washington Post was silent when former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke lauded Omar on Twitter, defending and praising her anti-Semitism.

The Democratic party and its media mouthpieces continue to hold Israel to a double standard, persisting in selective moral outrage. Why else would they omit, as online Tablet Magazine and others have documented, that there is nothing unusual about democracies turning away foreign politicians? The Obama White House denied entry to Israeli politician Michael Ben Ari. The United Kingdom has prohibited Menachem Begin and Geert Wilders from visiting. And there are 16 Muslim countries that have a de-facto ban on all Israelis, whether politicians or ordinary civilians, and in some cases, Jews.

The truth is, Omar (D-Minn.) and Tlaib (D-Mich.) forfeited their rights to be treated as ordinary congresswomen the moment they rejected an invitation to join a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit Israel two weeks earlier. They opted to go separately, with their own agenda — an agenda that reveals this was no peaceful, diplomatic mission.

“There is nothing unusual about democracies turning away foreign politicians.”

The women were not even planning to visit the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem. Even worse, the trip was planned by Miftah, an organization that has been accused of encouraging violence against civilians and promoting neo-Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. One meeting included members of the PFLP, a designated terror group by the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada and the European Union. In other words, Omar and Tlaib would have been in violation of U.S. laws by meeting with these groups. Why isn’t MSNBC telling us this?

What about Omar and Tlaib’s refusals to apply for visas to visit “Israel,” instead listing “Palestine” as their destination? These two can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge Israeli sovereignty, viewing the entire nation-state as illegitimate. Not a word from the Los Angeles Times.

Quick to play the victim card, Omar and Tlaib now peddle the lie that Israel turned them away because they are Muslim. But Israel regularly turns away advocates of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, regardless of race or religion, in accordance with a law that prohibits entry to those who support a national boycott. Despite Omar’s and Tlaib’s insistence, BDS is not reminiscent of boycotts against South African apartheid; it is reminiscent of Nazi boycotts against Jewish-owned businesses. We need only look to the U.K., where Jewish-owned businesses are targeted and shut down as a result of BDS riots.

Contrary to the media-friendly cover story, BDS has never been a nonviolent liberation movement. In fact, if it were to be implemented in full, it would jeopardize Palestinian livelihood more than anything else it accomplishes. This is why so many Palestinians, including Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, have spoken out against it. The real aim of the movement, according to prominent BDS activist As’ad AbuKhalil, “is to bring down the State of Israel.”

BDS advocates cram their social media pages with repackaged neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda, and recent investigations reveal the movement’s ties to terrorist organizations such as the PFLP and Hamas, both of which call for the elimination of the Jews. Currently, BDS groups employ at least 30 former or current members of Hamas and the PFLP. BDS founder Omar Barghouti is on record encouraging violence against Israeli civilians and repeating the bigoted lie that the “Jews are not a people,” despite their shared culture, language, religion, history and nation-state on a land where they have maintained a continuous presence for 3,000 years.

“Despite Omar’s and Tlaib’s insistence, BDS is not reminiscent of boycotts against South African apartheid; it is reminiscent of Nazi boycotts against Jewish-owned businesses.”

Let us be clear: Anti-Zionism is the denial of Jewish peoplehood, not criticism of Israeli policy. In the words of Judea Pearl, father of martyred journalist Daniel Pearl, “anti-Semitism targets Jews as individuals; anti-Zionism targets Jews as a people. Anti-Zionism would ban Israel from equal membership in the family of nations. If we examine anti-Zionist ideology closely, we see that its aims are: to uproot one people, the Jewish people, from its homeland, to take away its ability to defend itself in sovereignty, and to delegitimize its historical identity.”

No one can claim the right to cross a sovereign border without approval. How ironic that in this case, it is a border Tlaib and Omar don’t recognize. The media’s distraction game is a sinister cover-up, a willful denial of the fact that two women who claim to share liberal values in reality, espouse the same views as the white supremacists they claim to despise.

Karys Rhea is a writer and musician living in Brooklyn. She is the New York associate of the Counter-Islamist Grid. Keren Toledano is an artist and writing instructor at The Cooper Union. She lives in Manhattan.

What the Media Won’t Tell Us About Tlaib and Omar Read More »

PA Bans LGBTQ Group’s Activities

Leave a Comment / Israel, Online /

The Palestinian Authority (PA) police banned a Palestinian LGBTQ group from conducting activities in the West Bank, announcing in an Aug. 17 statement the group’s activities are against “the higher principles and values of Palestinian society.”

PA police spokesman Luay Zreikat said in the statement that the Al Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society’s upcoming “Queer Camp” in Nablus on Aug. 30-31 are part of an effort to “create discord and harm civic peace in Palestinian society.” He added that anyone with information about the group’s activities should come forward and that the police will be going after Al Qaws members.

Al Qaws responded with an Aug. 18 statement that read, “It’s very strange that they are accusing us of being a suspicious entity working to take apart Palestinian society. Al Qaws is a Palestinian organization that has been operating since 2001, and is carrying out educational and professional programs on sexual and gender diversity. We totally reject the attempt to create an atmosphere of prosecution and intimidation, as well threats of arrest.”

Various members of the LGBTQ organization told the Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post that they have been subjected to online harassment following the PA’s announcement; however, Al Qaws Director Haneen Maiki told Ultra Palestine that the group would continue operating in the West Bank in a cautious manner.

Jerusalem Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum invited Al Qaws to host their camp in her city “or closer to home in one of the Jewish community centers in Judea and Samaria. This should not be happening to you and Israel stands with you.”

Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper called on LGBTQ groups worldwide to condemn the PA for its attempt to crack down on Al Qaws.

“Memo to LGBTQ leadership-will you denounce Palestinian Authority’s repression of gays or double down on Palestinian narrative to ALWAYS blame Israel?” Cooper said.

Progressive Zionist and LGBTQ activist Hen Mazzig tweeted, “This is horrible. Speak up @RashidaTlaib. Speak up.”

PA Bans LGBTQ Group’s Activities Read More »

Mountain’s Corky Laing On His New Book ‘Letters To Sarah’

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Corky Laing first came into international prominence as one-third of the band Mountain. Considered forefathers to heavy metal, “Mississippi Queen” is just one of the timeless Mountain anthems that classic rock radio continues to embrace in the 21st century. After leaving Mountain in the early 1970s, Laing continued to work with a “who’s who” of rock greats including John Lennon, Bo Diddley, Meat Loaf, Ian Hunter and The Velvet Underground’s John Cale.

Fast-forwarding to 2019, Laing – a French-Canadian Jew who calls Long Island, New York his home these days – has an excellent new book, “Letters To Sarah,” in stores. “Letters To Sarah” is unique, not just because of who penned it, but that it is literally a collection of letters which Laing had written over the years to his mother Sarah. He had no idea that his mother had kept these letters.

Book aside, Laing still keeps busy as a musician. He continues to gig alongside Mountain bandmate Leslie West on occasion, play with his band, and even premiered a rock opera (“Playing God — The Rock Opera”) with Finnish bioethics professors Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry a few years back. He also plans on doing some vinyl releases soon.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Corky Laing himself by phone, and below is an exclusive excerpt from that chat, while the full interview will be broadcast via a later edition of the Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz podcast.

Jewish Journal: Before this book was realized, I’ve read that you needed to be talked into doing such a personal project. I’m curious how long that took to talk you into it. Was it months or was it years?

Corky Laing: Four years… At that point, I stored on all my things at my mother’s and she passed away… Tuija [Takala] happened to be messing around, looking around, she found a box of letters. So that was the beginning of her saying, “Well, wait a second, this is like a timeline.” Because it’s 30 years of letters, which by the way that I did not know my mother would save them, you know? I wrote her all those nights and I didn’t know she was saving them.

She says, “Wait a second, we have an idea here. This could be instead of doing a typical rock n’ roll memoir where you’re snorting ants off the street with Ozzy Osbourne”… She’s a writer. She’s a professor. She has a doctorate. So she wanted to do something proper with the approach of the book.

JJ: It’s interesting to me that this is actually somebody else who collected your stuff. Now I’m curious if you, as a world-traveling person for pretty much 50 years if you yourself collect a lot or you’re more of a minimalist because you’re used to having to pack up and keep moving.

CL: I mean we get travel a lot, and in terms of paraphernalia and posters and all of that, I kept that… I wasn’t a pack-rat, but I did accumulate things. Leslie West said, “Where’s your museum?” I would pull out stuff that he couldn’t believe… I have stuff that I liked and I appreciated all the moments… I’ve got stones from the Berlin Wall. I save stuff like that. Just trying to save money didn’t work too well. (laughs)

More on Corky Laing can be found online.

Mountain’s Corky Laing On His New Book ‘Letters To Sarah’ Read More »

Immigration to Israel Up by Nearly 30% Thanks to Russian Speakers

Leave a Comment / Online /

(JTA) — Immigration by Jews and their relatives to Israel rose by nearly 30 percent in the first half of 2019 over the corresponding period last year.

The 29 percent jump to 16,005 arrivals owed largely to movement by Russian speakers from countries facing financial problems, nationalism and crackdowns on civil liberties.

Immigrants from countries that were part of the former Soviet Union or were under its influence that have not yet joined the European Union accounted for two thirds of the 12,366 immigrants in the first half of 2018. They comprised 74 percent of the figures for this year.

The vast majority of Russian-speaking immigrants came from Russia, where aliyah rose by 72 percent to 7,884 arrivals this year, and Ukraine, which saw a 9 percent rise to 3,007 immigrants.

Aliyah from the United States remained without major changes with 910 arrivals in the first half of 2018 and 843 in the months January to June of 2019.

French aliyah dropped by 21 percent, to 795 arrivals.

Immigration to Israel Up by Nearly 30% Thanks to Russian Speakers Read More »

Trump Said He ‘Probably’ Will Wait Until After Israeli Elections to Roll Out Peace Plan

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(JTA) — President Donald Trump said he “probably” will wait until after Israel’s national elections next month to release his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

“I probably will wait, but we may put out pieces of it,” Trump told reporters on Sunday while aboard Air Force One, Reuters reported.

Israel’s national elections are scheduled for Sept. 17.

“That’s probably the toughest deal of all — peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians — because they’ve been decades of hate,” he also said. “And it’s tough to make a deal when there’s that much hate.”

Trump added, “I think I’ve helped it very much by saying, ‘Look, until there’s a deal, we’re not going to pay you anymore.’ And other people should have done that long before me.” Earlier this year Trump’s administration ended more than $60 million dollars in annual funds for the Palestinian security services. Previously it ended all U.S. funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The economic component of the Trump administration’s peace plan was rolled out in June at an economic peace summit in Bahrain, which the Palestinians boycotted and to which no Israeli officials were invited.

The “Peace to Prosperity” plan calls for $50 billion in investment to transform the Palestinian economy and build democratic infrastructures, including making the Palestinian judiciary more independent and expanding Palestinian higher education.

Trump Said He ‘Probably’ Will Wait Until After Israeli Elections to Roll Out Peace Plan Read More »

Israeli Schools to Teach About fate of North African Jews in the Holocaust

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JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel has reinstated study of the Holocaust as part of a mandatory schools curriculum that will include the persecution of North African Jewry under the Nazis.

The Holocaust was removed four years as part of the mandatory program of study by former Education Minister Shai Piron, though teachers were allowed to assign the Holocaust as a research project. Academics and history teachers publicly criticized the move.

Former Education Minister Naftali Bennett reinstated the Holocaust as a mandatory subject shorty before he was fired from his position in early June by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ynet reported.

Netanyahu’s current pick for Education Minister, Rabbi Rafi Peretz, decided to include in the curriculum the experience of North African, or Mizrahi, Jews during the Holocaust.

The material will be studied in the 12th grade and will be part of the national matriculation exam, Ynet reported.

“For years, the story of Jews living in Muslim countries under the Nazi occupation has been absent from our discourse,” Peretz said in a statement. “The painful stories of thousands of Jews who were sent to concentration camps and forced to participate in the death marches.”

Israeli Schools to Teach About fate of North African Jews in the Holocaust Read More »

STAY TUNED: Director Kymberly Harris Answers Questions Actors Really Want to Ask

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Dear Actors-
I’ve been working with actors on their craft, projects and auditions for 15 years. This year, my first actor won an Emmy, I became an Ovation voter, and feel inspired and propeled to do what I’ve been requested to do for a long time which is to start a collaborative blog.
My passion is helping actors find a truthful and visceral connection to their parts, while also serving the creative circumstances and the broader vision for the project.  As a director, I have a specific process I’ve created to work through the actors. But, I can help you to find fulfillment in every project and audition! I want to give you agency to understand how to instill what’s uniquely YOU into your roles, to serve the story, and to survive and thrive in your creative life with the fullest human experience possible.
A football player has a football, a violinist a violin, but you, you are your own instrument. So, each Sunday I’m giving you an opportunity to ask me a question, and I will answer it on Monday to help you tune your instrument. There are no dumb questions! As long as the answer helps you continue your creative journey with courage and knowledge, I will guide you to an answer.
I respect the privacy of all of my clients so I won’t publicize your names unless you ask me to. But, I will respond to you, and hopefully lend some inspiration as well. I will choose one of your questions each week, so if you don’t see your answer right away, STAY TUNED. Be as specific as you want, asking about character preparation, actor choices, interpersonal conflicts, script points, anything!

Send me your questions by Sunday at: staytunedLA@gmail.com. Answers will be posted on Monday!

Kymberly Harris is an actor’s director. She specializes in character driven stories, whether the genre is drama, comedy, thriller, or action. Her extensive experience as a method acting coach to professional actors of all ages has led actors to seek her out to direct them towards their best performances in film, television, and theatre projects. Kymberly is a private coach to select clients and an instructor at The Lee Strasberg Film and Theatre Institute. She is also the founder of @firsthand.films.

STAY TUNED: Director Kymberly Harris Answers Questions Actors Really Want to Ask Read More »