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Jewish Journal

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June 15, 2021

Goodbye Apu, May 1944

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Opinion /

Erika Jacoby is a survivor of Auschwitz. Soon after the Nazis occupied Hungary, her father was sent to a labor camp. She shares this memory on Father’s Day in his honor.

One morning, my father, whom we affectionately called “Apu,” received his call to report to the authorities, which meant to be taken to the labor camp. By now, most of the men had been taken away, most of them to the Eastern front, to serve in the labor units that were often attached to the Hungarian military, to do the most dangerous work. Just a few years prior, Jewish men were still drafted into military duty, but as the anti-Jewish laws took over, Jews were no longer accepted into the regular army. The harsh labor, the lack of proper clothing and food, the exposure to the elements and to the Soviet guns had taken the lives of many even before the German invasion.

Somehow I couldn’t believe that my father would be taken away. He was not a very physical type, no big muscles, never interested in the outdoors. He spent his days either working in our family’s restaurant or sitting at the table, reading the newspaper or some Hebrew books. He used to go to shul for the morning and evening prayers and then spend hours studying the Talmud. The only physical work my father did was shopping for the restaurant and carrying the large baskets of poultry or produce from the market. When my parents opened a satellite restaurant in a resort close to our hometown of Miskolc, my father learned to ride a bicycle to transport the supply. Kids made fun of him as he practiced this new skill in the yard of the synagogue when he was in his 40s, but he persevered.

My father was a mild-mannered man who spoke gently and never raised his voice. When he talked of strength he was referring to the spiritual kind. As the antisemitism grew in the early years of the war, there were many Jews who decided to convert to Christianity, hoping that would save them from persecution. One Friday evening at the Shabbat table, when I listened to the conversation of the adults, I heard my father say, “They that leave the religion have no faith in God; they are cowards.” I looked at my father and thought he was my hero.

My father was a mild-mannered man who spoke gently and never raised his voice. When he talked of strength he was referring to the spiritual kind.

But then some nights later, when some men were trying to break into our restaurant and were banging on the metal doors, it was my mother who took the big butcher knife from the kitchen to frighten the intruders away. In that moment, she was my hero.

On the morning my father received his summons, he read with a trembling voice where and when he needed to report. Then he took off his white shirt, hung it in the closet and put on some dark work clothes that he had borrowed from the building janitor. He got himself a backpack, loaded it with things he thought he would need, put in the cookies that my mother had hurriedly prepared for him, and was ready to go. He looked as if he was physically ready to meet the challenge. But I knew better; under the brown clothes, there was a snow-white body, untrained muscles, soft skin. I knew then that my hero may not make it.

Erika Jacoby, a survivor of Auschwitz, is an educator, therapist and writer.

Goodbye Apu, May 1944 Read More »

CUNY Professors Union Passes Anti-Israel Resolution

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

The union representing professors at the City of University New York (CUNY) passed a resolution condemning Israel on June 10.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC)-CUNY voted in favor of the resolution by a vote of 84-34, according to The Algemeiner. The resolution, which was obtained by the Journal, decried “the continued subjection of Palestinians to the state-supported displacement, occupation, and use of lethal force by Israel.” It went on to accuse Israel of being “a settler colonial state” and noted that Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem have accused Israel of apartheid.

“The PSC-CUNY condemns racism in all forms, including anti-Semitism, and recognizes that criticisms of Israel, a diverse nation-state, are not inherently anti-Semitic,” the resolution stated, adding that “state-sponsored policies of settler colonialism link the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to the struggles of Indigenous people and people of color in the United States.”

The resolution concluded with a condemnation of “the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state” and a statement that the union is going to begin discussions to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Jewish groups denounced the resolution’s passage.

“This resolution will hurt CUNY’s academic aspirations and integrity,” Baruch Hillel Executive Director Ilya Bratman said in a statement to the Journal. “By intentionally omitting that Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israel’s civilian populations, the PSC Union thereby has purposefully created a one-sided anti-Semitic statement that calls for BDS to be considered at each of our chapters. They have failed to represent 30,000 union members, by being disingenuous, dishonest, and discriminatory.”

He added that the union hasn’t said anything about the 100,000 civilians killed during the Syrian civil war or the Chinese government’s “imprisonment and torture of over a million of Uighur Muslims,” yet they “self-righteously claim that Israel committed a ‘massacre of Palestinians.’ The union has proven once again to base their decisions on headlines and slogans instead of facts and civil discourse.”

“It is extremely disappointing that the CUNY PSC, has adopted an extremely bigoted, one-sided and inaccurate resolution against Israel,” StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement to the Journal. “The priority of any academic should be to engage in and provide factual education free from bias and the CUNY PSC has failed to uphold this duty. Instead, they have chosen to promote hate and misinformation against the only Jewish state in the world under the guise of claiming this is simple criticism of Israel, when in fact they have crossed the line into promoting lies and antisemitism.

“This is especially disturbing given the steep rise in antisemitism and attacks on Jewish people in cities around the world in the name of ‘anti-Israel’ activism. We call on the CUNY PSC to apologize for promoting hate and misinformation against the Jewish state, to retract this abhorrent resolution, and to take measures to engage in unbiased education about Israel, the ongoing conflict and antisemitism.”

AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin similarly said in a statement to the Journal, “It is now critical that CUNY administrators ensure faculty do not bring their vile anti-Zionism into the classroom and onto the campus. Student reports of antisemitic bullying, harassment and genocidal threats are through the roof, and we know there is a direct connection between faculty statements like this and incidents of antisemitic violence. CUNY administrators must guarantee that Jewish and pro-Israel students, and all students, will be equally and adequately protected from the harassment and harm that will inevitably result from reprehensible faculty behavior like this.”

Jack Saltzberg, President and Founder of The Israel Group called for the Jewish community to take action. “1930s German Jews told themselves it would get better,” he said in a statement to the Journal. “We know the outcome, and their strategy worked, to a large part, with academia’s backing. So, when we see CUNY professors and teachers from the Los Angeles and San Francisco school districts work to push Zionophobia agendas and antisemitic propaganda, Jews better start to take action.”

He called for the Jewish community to “publicly pull their donations from CUNY, and Jewish students should consider looking for different schools. However, what’s most reprehensible and scary is the lack of government support that has been on the frontlines protecting… every minority other than Jews.”

David Lange, Executive Director of Israellycool Israel advocacy, also said in a statement to the Journal, “Unfortunately, US college campuses have become cesspools of antisemitism. With college professors like this teaching students, is it any wonder?”

Former CUNY Board Trustee Jeff Wiesenfeld similarly denounced “the racist, anti-Semitic and academically useless PSC of CUNY” in a statement to the New York Post, adding that the PSC “serves only to poison the minds of future leaders inside and outside the classroom.”

Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who is currently running in the New York gubernatorial race, tweeted that the resolution was “insane” and that the PSC “shouldn’t have any ability at all to brainwash students, especially in a publicly funded university.”

In subsequent tweets, Zeldin noted that the New York state government is barred from conducting business with those who engage in boycotts of Israel and shared screenshots of emails between faculty members expressing support for the resolution. “These ignorantly argued emails illustrate who your tax dollars are funding to ‘educate’ our sons and daughters in public universities. This must be stopped ASAP!”

 

James Davis, president of the PSC, told the Post, “We are opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, and we condemn the displacement, occupation, and violence perpetrated by the Israeli state against Palestinians. The resolution adopted by the delegates will facilitate discussion among our members of initiatives and campaigns that seek to influence the United States policy of support for Israel.”

CUNY did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

CUNY Professors Union Passes Anti-Israel Resolution Read More »

On This Day of California’s Big Re-Opening

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

The Quiets of the world are in grief right now.

Someone is about to yell that that’s pure privilege, so before they yell it, I will agree with them, it is so.

But it is also the truth. I happen to like telling the truth.

To be clear, on this celebratory day of California’s big re-opening: I am so very thankful that those of us who were given the worst of financial blows can work and make money again. I am so grateful that the lonely can connect. I am so grateful we can hug. I am so grateful the economy is bouncing back. And that our little ones can be in school with their friends. I am so grateful that those of us who experienced devastating personal loss can go out and be comforted by our community, by our synagogues, churches, yoga classes, by the circles that hold us. I am deliriously grateful that live music is back.

Still, I am filled with sadness.

How can we all just go “Whelp, that year was intense, let’s just pick up where we left off?”

There is no picking up where we left off.

We are marked now. I am, at least. Changed. Our cellular structures have shifted. Our mortality has been shoved up under our nose and we can’t un-know the things we know now.

I like my current self, better. The fabric of her is so much softer. Her feet touch the ground differently, when she walks. Her songs have more praise in them.

So things must matter more, or matter differently. Energy allocated differently. Situations accepted or not, knowing that the only certainty is we all check out of this hotel sometime.

I am so happy we can hug again. But I need it to keep being OK to rest, and say no, and go slow, and choose. I need those things not to go away.

I need it to still be OK to ask if I am doing something because it will make me look good, or puff my ego up in some other way, or whether it actually feels good in the quiet of my bones.

On This Day of California’s Big Re-Opening Read More »

Marjorie Taylor Greene Apologizes for Comparing Mask Mandates to Holocaust

Leave a Comment / Featured, News, United States /

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) issued an apology during a June 15 press conference for comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust.

Greene had said in May regarding the requirements to wear a mask on Capitol Hill: “We can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that [Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”

In her press conference, Greene said that one of the lessons she learned from her late father is that “when you make a mistake, you should own it.” She said that after visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. earlier in the day, she realized “there’s nothing comparable to it. It happened, and you know, over six million Jewish people were murdered. More than that, there were not Jewish people–Black people, Christians, children, people the Nazis didn’t believe were good enough or perfect enough.”

Greene added that some people deny the Holocaust occurred altogether. “There is no comparison to the Holocaust, and there are words that I have said and remarks that I’ve made that I know are offensive and for that I want to apologize for.”

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1404561740365537283?s=20

 

Former New York Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who also heads Americans Against Antisemitism, commended Greene for her apology in a tweet. “@SpeakerPelosi should take note of what a sincere apology and teachable moment looks like! It takes great courage to not only admit an error but to fix its cause. Well done @RepMTG.”

He added that Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “isn’t capable of such an apology [because] she’s ideologically ‘anti-Israel’ (anti-Jewish)…”

 

The American Jewish Congress announced in a statement that they are not accepting Greene’s apology, as the organization’s president, Jack Rosen, called for Greene to “find a different career. “Her values don’t align with what we expect out of our Congresspeople. There should be no place in American political dialogue for equating the extermination of six million Jews with life-saving medical intervention. This type of theater is not merely outrageous, it is dangerous: diminishing the atrocities committed by Nazis is tantamount to denial. The Holocaust is a not a stain that can or should be wiped clean, lest it happen again.”

Journalist Ben Jacobs asked Greene if she still stood by her comparison of the Democratic Party to the Nazis; Greene replied that “socialism is extremely dangerous,” criticizing “censorship with social media” as well as “things being taught where one race is being told it is racist like critical race theory.” “These are things we’re seeing and policies coming out of the Democratic Party that I think are dangerous for everyone.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene Apologizes for Comparing Mask Mandates to Holocaust Read More »

The Moral Equation

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Israel, Opinion /

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” – George Orwell, “1984”

As a Canadian who moved to Israel six years ago, I have had a second-row seat to the recent round of fighting between Hamas and Israel. I don’t live on the front line near Gaza, but in the sleepy suburbs of Tel Aviv where the most dangerous thing before the rockets starting flying was speeding Uber Eats drivers on electric scooters. The older I get, the more I appreciate that most things in life are nuanced. Rarely black or white, rather shades of grey. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is not one of these things. If ever there was a black and white issue, this would be it. The rhetoric evident in major news outlets supports the assertion that this is, in fact, a black and white issue, yet the media have completely misplaced blame, inverting good and evil. The anti-Israel crusade being amped up on social media is now creating a horrifying Orwellian phenomenon.

The storyline in most media goes more or less like this: Israel is to blame for this conflict because: (i) Israel (and Egypt) enforce a military blockade on Gaza; (ii) The Gazans live in dire circumstances; (iii) In this round of fighting, as in previous rounds, there are many more Palestinians being killed by Israeli airstrikes than there are Israelis being killed by Hamas rockets; (iv) The Palestinians living in Gaza are the much weaker of the two sides; (v) Israel has the Iron Dome, which stops a high percentage of the incoming Hamas rockets and the Palestinians do not have such as system—this puts Israel (Hamas) at a huge advantage (disadvantage) in this conflict.

Each of statements (i) through (v) is 100% true! So much so that Hamas has succeeded in turning the tables on the Jewish biblical narrative; Hamas has become the modern-day embodiment of David leading the fight against oppressive Israel, which has ironically morphed into the ancient Goliath.

Let me say it again. Each of statements (i) through (v) is 100% true.

There is just one problem with drawing the conclusion that Israel is the oppressor and is to blame for what is going on in Gaza, easily summed up in one term: The Moral Equation.

There is just one problem with drawing the conclusion that Israel is the oppressor and is to blame for what is going on in Gaza, easily summed up in one term: The Moral Equation.

The moral equation has four elements: (i) moral vision, (ii) moral intention, (iii) moral actions and (iv) moral consequences. Assigning blame without considering the moral underpinnings is not just disingenuous; it’s extremely dangerous.

So let’s unpack this:

Moral Vision:

The best way to judge moral vision is to look at founding documents that outline an organization’s vision and purpose. A charter is a foundational code—a carefully constructed and worded document meant to extoll the virtues and dreams of a society or organization. A vision intended to bring people together, transcend generations and create a common sense of purpose. Let’s take a look at the two sides’ founding documents:

Highlights from the Hamas Charter (1988/2017)

    1. ″Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam invalidates it, just as it invalidated others before it.″
    2. “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”
    3. “[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement … Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam … There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.”

Highlights of Israel’s Declaration of Independence (1948)

    1. “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
    2. “We appeal—in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months—to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
    3. “We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”

Read this again. Can you spot the differences? Which side communicates a moral vision as it relates to its own purpose and how it relates to its neighbors and minority populations?

Moral Intention:  

Moral intention refers to the degree to which a mental state indicates a commitment to carry out a future course of action. It is what distinguishes murder from manslaughter. The former carries intention and malice, the latter does not. In the lead up to Hamas initiating rocket fire on Israel on May 10 shortly after 6 p.m. local, Hamas made known its intentions. It issued a clear, violent ultimatum—that it would fire rockets into Israel if police (who were responding to days of violent rioting by Israeli Arabs) did not leave the Temple Mount. Hamas then made good on its ultimatum, launching over 150 rockets at Israel.

In the lead up to this round of fighting, Israel made no such threatening statement of intention to attack Gaza or any other Palestinian area in the West Bank because it had no intention to do so. In fact, the political leadership in Israel is now under heavy criticism from its citizenry for failing to prepare properly and anticipate that Hamas would carry through on its violent ultimatum.

Hamas declared its intention to launch a violent attack. Israel did not declare any such intention because it had none.

Moral Action:

Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world. If Israel wanted to conquer Gaza and reduce the entire area to rubble it could do so in a matter of days, maybe hours. But it does not do that. Why is it that after 11 days of heavy fighting that the overwhelming majority of the 250 Gazans killed have been Hamas terrorists or civilians killed by misfired Hamas rockets? Each civilian death is a tragedy, a world lost, but the numbers of civilian deaths in comparison to the massive firepower that Israel unleashed is low.

Why is that?

It is because Israel goes to extreme, unprecedented lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It’s not that Israel has higher standards than Hamas (that’s a very low bar), it’s that Israel has higher standards and lower civilian to combatant death ratios than pretty much any other country fighting a prolonged conflict in modern times. According to Colonel Richard Kemp, a senior officer in the British army, Israel is the most moral army in the world because of the exorbitant lengths it goes through to select targets and minimize civilian casualties. The ratio of civilians to combatant deaths when Israel fights are some of the lowest, if not the lowest, in the world. In WW2, Vietnam and Korea it ranged between 2:1 and 3:1. In NATOs action in Yugoslavia it is estimated to be 5:1. When Israel fought Hamas in 2014 it was estimated to be between 1:1 and 1:2, a significant difference considering that some of the civilian toll resulted from Hamas’s own rocket misfiring. Yet Israel is implicated in Hamas’s killing of their own people in attempt to murder Israelis. When the dust settles on this round of fighting the ratio will likely be less than 1:2 when accounting for the fact that many Hamas rockets continue to misfire, killing their own people yet again as they have repeatedly. Challenge yourself to find one other army that goes to such lengths to avoid civilian casualties in the heat of battle.

Israel only targets Hamas’s operatives, its military equipment, and terror infrastructure. Hamas knows this and so it strategically embeds itself among the most sensitive population centers in Gaza—hospitals, schools, mosques. This is the first of Hamas’s double war crime: embedding terror assets in civilian centers, launching rockets from these areas knowing it will provoke a response by Israel—a response that will inevitably cause civilian casualties that will paint Israel as the aggressor. Hamas does this because it knows that the IDF will, in many cases, avoid hitting these assets—and when Israel has no choice but to do so, it provides Hamas with the upper hand in the blame game. A brilliant strategy, especially in the face of the media’s amorality. Civilians serve Hamas’s dual purpose of protecting their rockets that rain physical destruction on Israel while making “great” content for media highlights that rain down international condemnation on Israel.

Unlike Israel, which uses precision-guided munitions with an elaborate strategy of warnings, Hamas uses crude rockets launched indiscriminately at Israeli civilian centers. This is the second of Hamas’s double war crime: Intentionally and indiscriminately firing salvos of rockets at Israeli civilian centers to terrorize and kill Israelis. The only reason there is not mass Israeli casualties is not because Hamas is taking care to avoid hurting civilians; it is because the Iron Dome intercepts 90% of rockets projected to hit civilian areas. Because Israel has developed the capability to protect itself from indiscriminate rocket fire this somehow shifts the morality equation?  It’s like arguing that a perpetrator is not guilty of attempted murder because his victim wore a bulletproof vest that created a very low likelihood for the perp to succeed in the attempt to murder.

It’s like arguing that a perpetrator is not guilty of attempted murder because his victim wore a bulletproof vest that created a very low likelihood for the perp to succeed in the attempt to murder.

Moral Consequences:  

Israel will come out of this round of fighting, asking how the IDF can perform better. It will work to develop more accurate means of intercepting Hamas rockets, and investigate how to gather more intelligence to better target Hamas’s weaponry and avoid civilian casualties. There will be a record of military accomplishments in degrading the terror infrastructure, but there will be no celebrations over the fighting or destruction in Gaza. Israel celebrates life. In Gaza, Hamas is already celebrating their accomplishments with chants of “God is Great”—launching thousands of rockets and catching Israel off guard. Hamas sunbathes in the heat of violence that they have stoked between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews in Israel. The violent struggle between Muslim and Jew is their raison detre. No doubt, in the aftermath of this battle, they will continue to use the hundreds of millions of dollars given to them by the international community to replenish their rocket stockpiles and re-dig tunnels instead of using the funds to build schools, agricultural capabilities, and peaceful infrastructure.

The moral consequence is clear: If Hamas were to agree to lay down their arms, there would be no more conflict, no more blockade, no more destruction. If Israel were to lay down its arms it would be attacked mercilessly and over-run. The words that Elie Wiesel spoke back in 2014 in the midst of Operation Protective Edge rang true then and continue to ring true today: “What we are suffering through today is not a battle of Jew versus Arab or Israeli versus Palestinian. Rather, it is a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. It is a battle of civilization versus barbarism.”

When you put the elements of the moral equation together it is clear that Hamas is a terrorist group not because Israel says so, but because it uses terror to advance its religious and political agenda. The U.S., EU, Japan, and Canada recognize Hamas as a terror organization. There is no social liberalism in Gaza. Section 152 of the Gaza penal code rules homosexuality to be illegal. Levels of women’s rights are some of the lowest in the world. There is no free press. Gazans live in poverty because they are ruled by a theocratic organization bent on Israel’s destruction—a life mission that requires Israel to enforce a blockade to reduce the import of materials used to export rockets into Israeli airspace. If only Hamas would listen to the words of Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

When you put the elements of the moral equation together it is clear that Hamas is a terrorist group not because Israel says so, but because it uses terror to advance its religious and political agenda.

Israel, like all Western countries, is an imperfect democracy. It is a relatively young country with flaws that need attention. But it is among the countries with the highest human development indices in the world and the highest in the Middle East. An independent and highly active judiciary, a vibrant free press, freedom of religion, and a never-ending series of protest movements that embody the country’s diverse political landscape with full freedom of expression. Israel is a world leader in R&D per capita, Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBTQ friendly cities in the world and women serve in the highest capacities in society. While more work needs to be done to reduce civil inequities within Israel, Israeli Arabs are equal citizens under the law, serve throughout the judiciary (including the supreme court) and have risen through the ranks to become senior officers in the military and police. Arab Israelis also serve as ambassadors and represent a respectable proportion of doctors, pharmacists and professors in the health system and universities across Israel.

Now ask yourself: After considering the moral equation, which side carries the light and which the dark? Elie Wiesel knew the answer and George Orwell feared those who did not.

Todd Sone is a Canadian-Israeli who moved to Israel in 2015 with his wife, Shawna. Together they are raising three boys who can almost beat him in Catan. When he’s not listening to Steely Dan, obsessing about his next antique map of Israel, or bemoaning the fortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he works as a venture capitalist in Israel’s healthcare sector.

The Moral Equation Read More »

Israeli Singer Miki Gavrielov Joins Rocker David Lowy To Capture the World’s Craziness

Leave a Comment / Music /

It’s safe to say that the world has been crazier than usual over the last year and a half. The shared pandemic-induced struggles throughout the world will continue to be a morbid bond among the survivors. As the pandemic recovery turns a corner, expect the arts to reflect on this troubling time for years to come.

That is precisely what famed Israeli folk rock singer Miki Gavrielov has done. After recording over twenty solo albums in multiple languages since the 1960s, he has recorded his first song in English, “A World’s Gone Crazy.” It’s a 70s-style pensive ballad, reflecting on the discouraging, raw, rough society in which we live.

Album art for the single, A World’s Gone Crazy.

Gavrielov is well-known throughout Israel for being the founding bassist of the psychedelic rock band The Churchills in the mid 1960s. He is also known for his collaborations with the late Arik Einstein, with whom he began performing in the early 1970s. Gavrielov has written, performed, toured and recorded in the music scene for decades. He’s lost count of exactly how many songs he’s worked on but estimates that it has been hundreds.

Gavrielov is well-known throughout Israel for being the founding bassist of the psychedelic rock band The Churchills in the mid 1960s.

While he usually writes his own lyrics and music, this time around the lyrics were brought to Gavrielov by his own daughter, Shira, an “American Idol” contestant from 2013.

Shira’s lyrics capture the feeling of bleakness that consumes so many of us, especially over the last year and a half. Perhaps the world has always been crazy, but society has added 4K cameras in every pocket to document the craziness, which leads to the song touching on the tender human faces behind all of the madness:

The streets are bleak and cold / All faces look so sad within this precious world / I want to hear your laughter / I want to see your smile keep on feeling my love.

A music video accompanies the song, serving as a montage complementing the song with imagery of the best and worst of this crazy world: pollution, riots, a dog scavenging a dumpster, floods and fighting. All of these dark images are contrasted with scenes of recycling, hugs, doctors caring for patients, troops returning home safely, and ending with a silhouette of a person who is rejoicing on top of a mountain during sunset.

https://youtu.be/QEBRBGr9lZY

The guitar chords for “A World’s Gone Crazy” came to Miki from an unlikely source: David Lowy, a hard-rocking Australian guitarist from the band The Dead Daisies. Lowy closes out the song with a guitar solo that weeps the song to an uplifting end.

Together, Gavrielov and Lowy could hardly have more different upbringings in music.

Gavrielov grew up in Tel Aviv, as the son of parents who made aliyah from Turkey. His father worked hard to support young Miki and his six siblings, and life wasn’t exactly easy—sometimes they had to buy groceries on layaway. As the only sibling to take a deep interest in music, Gavrielov remembers the moment he knew he wanted to be a guitarist. And it involved an Elvis impersonator.

“We had this gibberish Elvis in our neighborhood who used to play the guitar. An Israeli singing Elvis in gibberish!” Gavrielov recalls, still speaking as if he is still amazed by what he saw. “I saw him playing a red plastic guitar and my eyes went out when I saw him.” By the time Gavrielov had his bar mitzvah, his father had bought him his first guitar. His earliest gigs were backing a friend’s band doing covers of English singer-guitarist Cliff Richards. Looking back, he also cites The Beatles and Rolling Stones as some of his early influences.

But an even greater influence on Gavrielov was his immersion in four different cultures. Between home and his Tel Aviv community, he grew up hearing Turkish, Hebrew, Spanish and Arabic. The blending of the cultures in his neighborhood with those of his family led to him developing a multicultural, multilingual sound.

“I learned music from all four cultures. I made albums translating from Turkey to Hebrew … in Israel, you can see and listen to many cultures from all over the world, and understand all the cultures’ music. When I became older, and I started to write music, it helped me very much.”

Lowy’s music genesis is vastly different from that of Gavrielov. He grew up in Australia, started playing the piano around age five, played as a bassist in a garage band in his teens, and then stopped playing music altogether. For the next twenty-five years, Lowy was primarily a businessman. He went into the investment side of the family business, Westfield Corporation. Lowy even recalls a time in the 1980s when his father had a guest he met while playing tennis at a resort over for shabbat dinner. It was George Harrison. Lowy and his mother Shirley (who passed away in Israel last December) were awestruck. His father Frank, who didn’t realize that Harrison was a famous musician, had to be told what his tennis buddy did for a living.

Lowy even recalls a time in the 1980s when his father had a guest he met while playing tennis at a resort over for shabbat dinner. It was George Harrison.

During that musical hiatus, Lowy also found his way into aviation and became a pilot. He still trains and flies to this day.

“I like to say that I’ve done my life in reverse,” Lowy says. About twenty years ago, after nearly a quarter-century hiatus, Lowy returned to playing the guitar as part of a “battle of the bands” corporate fundraiser, where each band was paired with an established rock star. That put Lowy in the orbit of some of rock music’s top brass. In 2012, he started his own band called The Dead Daisies—a hard-rock supergroup featuring a rotating cast of bandmates, many of whom have played in some of the most multi-platinum bands of rock music. Currently, The Dead Daisies lead singer is Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple, the guitarist is Doug Aldrich who was in Whitesnake for many years, and the drummer is Tommy Clufetos from Black Sabbath.

And unlike Gavrielov, Lowy doesn’t prefer to write lyrics. And while Gavrielov typically plays solo shows, Lowy is more of a band guy and prefers to write in odd time signatures, seldom seen in popular rock. The two met by chance at a dinner in the New York area a few years ago, and re-connected in Israel during the early days of the pandemic. Lowy had a chord progression that he had written for the guitar and offered it to Gavrielov.

And while Gavrielov typically plays solo shows, Lowy is more of a band guy and prefers to write in odd time signatures, seldom seen in popular rock.

That chord progression would be the first part of “A World’s Gone Crazy.” In time, Gavrielov recorded the song in his studio, with a session band and his daughter’s lyrics. Lowy’s guitar solo was the last part to be added.

The two musicians have their similarities, too. Both Lowy and Gavrielov prefer to do small, intimate concerts with no more than 100 people—the kind of shows that have been forbidden due to the pandemic. Even after experiencing the thrill of playing on stage for tens of thousands of people, they both agree that it’s the small shows where they connect best with their fans. And of course they both are committed to instilling the love of music in their offspring. In fact, Lowy has proudly gifted instruments to his grandchildren.

Hope for the next generation is how “A World’s Gone Crazy” closes:

We’ve got to win this fight / We’ll keep on ‘till we’ll see the light / We’ll say our prayer and then we’ll cry / We’ll grow white wings and fly up to the sky 

Together, their new song is a joining of two distinct styles from opposite ends of the world, coming together in Israel to offer the world a message of empathy for the bad times and optimism for the better—even if that world is still a bit crazy.

Brian Fishbach is a music journalist in Los Angeles. 

Israeli Singer Miki Gavrielov Joins Rocker David Lowy To Capture the World’s Craziness Read More »

Israeli Camouflage Tech Makes Soldiers ‘Invisible’

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, Wires /

(The Media Line) Israeli survivability products company Polaris Solutions has developed a camouflage technology that renders soldiers on the battlefield virtually undetectable.

In cooperation with the Defense Ministry, the company recently unveiled Kit 300, an innovative camouflage sheet made out of a material that provides multispectral concealment.

According to Polaris Solutions, nothing else like its camouflage sheet exists on the market today.

“As far as we know, or as far as we saw in other armies around the world, we are very unique,” Asaf Picciotto, co-founder and CEO of Polaris Solutions, told The Media Line. “To establish that, we actually registered a patent on it in many countries around the world.”

The lightweight sheet is made out of a special thermal visual concealment (TVC) material, comprised of metals, polymers and microfibers. Thanks to TVC, soldiers are much more difficult to see both with the naked eye and with thermal imaging equipment.

Polaris Solutions demonstrates how its TVC sheet can be used as a lightweight stretcher on the battlefield. (Maya Margit/The Media Line)

Thus, it can be used for countersurveillance in a wide variety of military scenarios.

The idea for the technology was born in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War. At the time, Picciotto was in a special IDF unit and saw firsthand that soldiers on the ground required better protection from their enemies’ thermal cameras and night-vision equipment.

“You have to be better than the enemy and we understood that there were big gaps in the survivability part,” Picciotto recalled.

Polaris Solutions was founded a few years later, in 2010, and is now headquartered in the Israeli port city of Caesarea. Several former IDF soldiers with special forces training have lent their expertise to the company, which also produces a range of tough and durable tactical textiles and patented military products.

Kit 300 was specifically developed to counter new and ever-evolving challenges on the battlefield.

“Camouflage nets haven’t changed too much in the past 50 year,” Yonatan Pinkas, director of marketing at Polaris Solutions, told The Media Line.

“We wanted to bring in a new type of material,” he added. “So TVC was born.”

Each sheet comes with different coloration on each side: one for dense vegetation and the other for more desert-like landscapes. In addition, the company customizes patterns and coloring based on client needs and geographic region.

The sturdy material can be molded into three-dimensional shapes or folded into a compact roll. It also is waterproof, can provide shelter or be fashioned into a stretcher to carry wounded soldiers on the battlefield.

“It has additional value in medical use,” Pinkas noted. For example, he said, it can carry weight up to 250 kilograms, can be used as a splint to immobilize a broken bone and can serve as a hypothermia blanket.

Polaris Solutions is working with Israel’s defense industry as well as government agencies abroad, including special forces units in both Canada and the United States. Internationally, Kit 300 is known as Jag Hide.

“Our products are being tested by some units, which I cannot name, and we have several mutual operations there,” Picciotto said.

Guy Cramer, president/CEO and Inventor of Quantum Stealth, steps out from behind Version-1 of the Hyperstealth light-bending material. (Hyperstealth)

Though the company’s TVC products are unique, other tech innovators have recently made groundbreaking forays in the stealth materials arena.

Last year, Canadian company HyperStealth Biotechnology Corporation revealed a light-bending material called Quantum Stealth that appears to make a person vanish. The company refers to the invention as a “broadband invisibility cloak,” though its efficacy largely depends on the angle and distance from which it is viewed.

A number of technical hurdles remain before a true invisibility cloak is developed.

While invisibility was once the realm of science fiction or fantasy, Polaris Solutions has revealed that it is in the process of developing products that could soon turn the idea into a reality. But it’s going to take between five years and 10 years to develop “real deep tech” that can be turned into a line of products, according to Picciotto.

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Complaint Alleges Stanford’s Diversity Program “Has Advanced Anti-Semitic Tropes”

Leave a Comment / California, News /

A complaint filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) alleges that Stanford University’s diversity program “has created and fostered a hostile and unwelcoming environment for Jews.”

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced on June 15 that they are among those representing Dr. Ronald Albucher and Sheila Levin, both of whom are Jewish employees at Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) division. According to the complaint, which was obtained by the Journal, CAPS employees were required to attend weekly meetings starting in January 2020 as part of the division’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program.

The program “created racially segregated affinity groups” between white individuals and people of color; no such group was created for Jewish employees. Levin didn’t want to join the white group because she does not view herself as having a “white identity,” yet her colleagues continuously pressured her to join the white group. When she filed a complaint to a redacted individual, she was told nothing could be done about it.

In February 2020, Albucher’s colleagues accused him of having “inherent privilege” and “co-opting the [DEI] meeting” because he hadn’t read Robin Diangelo’s book “White Fragility,” which the DEI program encouraged employees to read. He too filed a complaint that was not acted upon.

The complaint then addresses a May 16, 2020 virtual town hall for Stanford’s student government candidates that was interrupted, or “Zoombombed,” with swastikas and the “N-word.” In a DEI seminar addressing the matter a few days later, DEI members frequently raised concerns over the racist content of the Zoombombing, but not the antisemitism associated with the swastikas. When Albucher pointed out the disparity, DEI members accused him “of trying to derail the agenda’s focus on anti-Black racism” and that “unlike other minority groups, Jews can hide behind their white identity.”

Albucher was subsequently accused of being a racist after countering claims from other DEI members that Jews “possess privilege and power” and therefore do not warrant the DEI’s attention. Both Albucher and Levin, who also attended the meeting, told the university that they didn’t feel safe attending such seminars; the university did nothing about it, according to the complaint. Similarly, a July 2020 incident in which Stanford’s Memorial Church was vandalized with swastika graffiti was ignored altogether by the DEI, the complaint alleges.

Albucher was subsequently accused of being a racist after countering claims from other DEI members that Jews “possess privilege and power” and therefore do not warrant the DEI’s attention.

Additionally, the complaint focuses on a January 8 event informing pre-doctoral students about CAPS internships and training programs; that event allegedly featured DEI members overseeing a “social justice training rotation” where they discussed “how Jews are connected to white supremacy and will address anti-Semitism.” The DEI committee leader urged participants to read an anti-Zionist book that “portrays the Jewish State of Israel as a racist endeavor,” according to the complaint.

The university’s failure to act on Albucher and Levin’s concerns constitutes a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination, the complaint alleges, arguing that the university allowed a climate of antisemitism to “fester” on campus for more than a year. And while the university stated in May that they would look into Albucher’s concerns, the complaint accuses the university of doing so only to protect themselves after the Department of Education informed them in March that a complaint had been filed against the university.

“The DEI program advanced the stereotype that Jews, including Ms. Levin and Dr. Albucher, are ‘white’ or ‘white passing,’ and invoked the classic anti-Semitic trope that Jews are powerful, wealthy and privileged,” the complaint alleges. “By promoting this anti-Semitic narrative about Jews, denying and attempting to erase Jewish ancestral identity, and silencing any mention of anti-Semitism, the DEI program has fostered hostility toward Jews and delegitimized Jewish identity and experience.”

Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, told the Journal in a phone interview, “If this is how you’re training your staff that provides mental health services, what happens when you have students on campus who experience antisemitism and who require support to deal with that? If you’ve trained your therapists to ignore or to dismiss antisemitism, then what’s going to happen? Will they be able to recognize or provide adequate care for the students who are experiencing antisemitism?”

Lewin added that recently there were students on campus who were allegedly told by classmates, “I’m not going to talk you, Nazi” and “don’t talk to me if you’re Jewish.” The training of university therapists to “understand” the “type of marginalization” faced by Jews is “the broader problem,” she said.

Lewin also said that she has seen evidence suggesting that the issues with Stanford’s DEI program are “not unique to Stanford,” though she didn’t have any specific information about DEI programs at other universities.

The complaint calls for the university to issue a statement denouncing antisemitism that includes “efforts to demonize and exclude members of the Stanford community on the basis of their Jewish identity” and that will endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. It also calls for the DEI program to be revamped to include training “devoted to defining, understanding and combatting anti-Semitism.”

The complaint calls for the university to issue a statement denouncing antisemitism that includes “efforts to demonize and exclude members of the Stanford community on the basis of their Jewish identity.”

A university spokesperson told the Journal, “We are deeply committed to nurturing a diverse and inclusive work environment, one free from harassment and discrimination of any kind. We value and respect the dignity of every member of our community.”

Dee Mostofi, Stanford University’s Assistant Vice President of University Media Relations and Communications, also said in a statement to the Journal, “Traditionally, DEI programs at Stanford have been managed by individual units.  As part of our long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, we are launching a centralized DEI learning program this summer and fall aimed at recognizing and addressing bias and discrimination.  The program is designed to build awareness, further establish inclusive behaviors, and foster a more inclusive mindset.”

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