fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

December 13, 2023

Chosen Links – December 9, 2023

Chosen Links by Boaz, Community /

I’m proud to announce that these compilations I’m creating weekly on my personal feed are now featured on the Jewish Journal website, thanks to David Suissa and my digital editor Jonathan Fong. I will do my utmost to finish curating the links from Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube and more and post them each weekend, and I hope you’ll help me get the word out by sharing!

Please enjoy “Chosen Links From Boaz” – Issue #6, 12/9/23:

ARTICLES/THREADS:

1. Incredible article about the painful lengths Israel goes to avoid hurting civilians, and losing the military element of surprise in the process.

https://nypost.com/…/how-israeli-forces-take-big-risks…/

2. Really promising statistics showing that Israelis are banding together, and it’s about all of them, Arabs and Jews together identifying as Israel, fighting off Hamas. Not at all Jews versus Palestinians.

https://twitter.com/YosephH…/status/1731364792701424089…

3. A really interesting background on the educational goals and habits of Jews in America, and how those trends been affected by the anti-semitism of the time. Written by my friend Shai Grabie:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-appeal-for-jewish…/

4. An update about how many of hamas have been stopped, and the pros and cons of the idea of flooding the tunnels with sea water.

https://www.jpost.com/israel…/defense-news/article-776679

5. An amazing analysis showing how the numbers given by Hamas of daily deaths that the world reports, are mathetmatically impossible to be true. Using basic arithmetic of their own published numbers, it really illuminates the fabricated stats to gain world sympathy:

https://x.com/Aizenberg55/status/1731753062622982386

6. Asra Nomani, a proud Muslim journalist who was close friends with BBC journalist Daniel Pearl who was beheaded decades ago, takes Rashida Tlaib to task for yet another condemnation of violence against Palestinians without legitimizing Israel:

https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1731078584444305843

7. The world claims there isn’t sufficient evidence to the mass rapes? Really?!! Well here it is literally archived and gathered and handed to whomever needs it on a silver platter. Disgusting that this is necessary:

https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1732017043971375326

8. Seth Frantzman is Middle East analyst for J Post among other qualifications, and explains the sick, symbiotic relationship between organizations such as Hamas, and the international organizations within Gaza.

https://x.com/sfrantzman/status/1732715087398338876

9. David Makovsky, authority in Arab and Israeli relations, in a quick tweet gives a timeline of things changing in a few weeks in the war against Hamas:

https://x.com/DavidMakovsky/status/1732689785641222491

10. Fern Reiss, whose newsletter I recently recommended, writes a piece that not only takes the time to include every Israel-related UN Women tweet since October 7, but includes a timely piece of wisdom that ties it to the present holiday of Chanukah:

https://fernmusing.substack.com/…/war-day-62-what-cant…

11. Lt. Colonel Richard Hecht, whose newsletter I recently also recommended, gives a lesson about the rockets fired regularly at Israel, past and present:

https://idfspokesperson.substack.com/…/rockets-at…

12. This tweet speaks to me and so many Jews out there. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, if you defend any aspect of Israel or the Jewish community, or condemn any part of the communities that threaten us (including but not limited to Hamas), Jew-hating comments ensue. There’s never a safe space:

https://twitter.com/Joe_Roberts01/status/1732591059861971442

13. Rabbi David Wolpe explaining why he is resigning from the Harvard Antisemitism Committee, and what he thinks is needed to make actual change:

https://twitter.com/RabbiWolpe/status/1732847411175796747

14. Rabbi Mickey Katzburg is not only an old friend of mine from my college days when his family lived in LA, but he wrote this INCREDIBLE accounting of October 7, and the family response to the call to action. A must read:

https://jewishjournal.com/com…/366157/war-diary-homefront/

15. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg very helpfully explains what painstaking (and often strategically counterproductive) measures Israel and the IDF have taken over the years to try to minimize civilian casualties. It’s far beyond any other country on record:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/civilian-casualties-and…/

16. Gary Wexler captivated me with his story about a friend who turned her back on him thanks to her politics against Israel. This hits EXTREMELY close to home for so many of us, and is a must-read play-by-play:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/answering-a-friend-who…/

17. This goes more into depth than I’ve ever seen before, in the understanding of the sick tactic Hamas uses known as human shields:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/the-truth-about-human-shields/

18. The amazing Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy join up to write this piece about the small sects of Jews who eat up so much media coverage, those who join our enemies in hating Israel and Zionism:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/the-un-jews-two-years…/

VIDEOS:

1. UNRWA not even answering the question about one of their own staff reportedly holding a hostage for Hamas:

https://x.com/HonestReporting/status/1731975641145208854

2. In a similar vein, this interview is so insulting that it belongs somewhere between my Videos and Humor categories. Look at the accusation of nobody having power in Gaza, and what happens when the response contradicts that notion:

https://twitter.com/DoronSpielman/status/1731083081111441709

3. For over 40 minutes Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke about the history and present reality of antisemitism, and I so appreciate every one of those minutes:

https://youtu.be/21S2czD_vUU

4. John Kirby (National Security Council Spokesman), under heavy second-guessing by the interviewer, explains that Israel is “telegraphing” their moves to limit civilian casualties; something few if any other countries would do:

https://youtu.be/S-zzP0yMNDk

5. Elise Stefanik questioning the Dean of Harvard about how unprotected the Jews on her campus are during the calls for their genocide:

https://youtu.be/cSaJRyNZ_UI

6. The deans of Harvard, Penn and MIT all being asked to say yes, calling for the genocide of Jews violates the school code of conduct. A depressing must-watch (and the full hearing is linked within the thread so you don’t need to just watch the viral bit):

https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1732179418787783089

7. MIT student Talia Khan has a Jewish mother and Muslim father from Afghanistan, and she was invited to speak about the Jewish experience at MIT. Awful what she and so many have had to endure:

https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1732248539235786874

8. Bravo to Bianna Golodryga for picking up on the hypocrisy of womens’ groups for not condemning Hamas. In this excellent CNN interview, they even bring up footage of past weaksauce interviewees she met with, and of note, Jake Tapper points out that the UN does not deserve credit for finally holding the summit where the women gave their testimony – that was actually organized by Israel itself:

https://twitter.com/biannagolo…/status/1732878088747257896

9. Bianna Golodryga also interviews the Head of Palestinian Studies at Tel Aviv University Michael Milshtein. He gives insight into the sick strategy of the heads of Hamas, as well as how hard it will be to affect change in the general population:

https://x.com/biannagolodryga/status/1732883135061201327

10. Joshua Malina is not only an acclaimed actor, and fortunately a friend, but he wears his Jewish pride on his sleeve to the point where his Twitter profile literally has the word JEW in huge letters. Recently he added his voice to the ranks of the “Bring Them Home” campaign, with him speaking for an 8 year old child. Bravo to those like Joshua who are brave enough to do what’s right over what their publicist would likely prefer:

https://www.facebook.com/joshua…/videos/894786092220632

SPOTLIGHT:

In my first 5 of these posts, I have given the spotlight to Amy Schumer, Debra Messing, Jessica Seinfeld, Jon Lovitz, and Julianna Margulies. This time I award special mention to a controversial and super obnoxious one, but boy do I love having his incessant support. I’m talking about loudmouth actor Michael Rapaport, who supports the hell out of us!

https://www.instagram.com/michaelrapaport/

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

Here are 2 artists this week who released extremely personal and heartbreaking songs that are both amazing, and worth supporting:

1. It’s incredibly hard to imagine how Noam Cohen was able to take the time and emotional energy, after surviving the horrors of October 7, to create a beautifully tragic music video about his experience. A must watch:

https://youtu.be/7jH3beTrW44

2. Westside Gravy, real name Noah Shufutinsky, comes from Black and Russian parents, and sings about the hypocrisy of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which leaves him behind as a Black Jew:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRE6sP63xW4

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

1. The more things change the more they stay the same…. Here’s a funny clip from a decade ago of Joan Rivers being hounded by TMZ, and giving a brutally honest answer about Israel defending itself. Don’t miss her funny, sarcastic quips at the end:

https://youtu.be/j-5Q7yuaXjM

2. This is bad sketch comedy, but the satire of needing to pull teeth to get the world to care about raping Israeli women is on point:

https://x.com/LeviYonit/status/1732145678447497680

Today’s image is of a really fun spot in Israel, the top of Har Bental, in the Golan Heights. It’s where Israel won a battle against the Syrians during the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago, and now houses a cafe punnily called Coffee Annan, at the highest elevation in the country. Interesting and fun visit!

The top of Har Bental, in the Golan Heights

Boaz Hepner works as a Registered Nurse in Saint John’s Health Center, and provides health education to the community at large. He grew up in LA in Pico/Robertson and lives here with his wife Adi, daughter Natalia, and son Liam. He helped clean up the neighborhood by adding the dozens of trash cans that can still be seen from Roxbury to La Cienega. He can be found with his family enjoying his passions: his multitude of friends, movies, poker and traveling.

Chosen Links – December 9, 2023 Read More »

Chosen Links – December 3, 2023

Chosen Links by Boaz, Community /

#5 in my series of links I’ve spent the past week curating and vetting to ensure you can read, watch and algorithm-maintain some fair info about Israel, to counter the rampant hatred that abounds.

In doing so, I will provide links to Facebook, Instagram, and X (the artist formerly known as Twitter). However I will continue to avoid touching TikTok, which has been proven to actively remove pro-Israel content, far worse than typical algorithm bias, and thus I will not touch the app (unless this is corrected).

In honor of our 10th wedding anniversary, I’m choosing this photo of myself with Adi during our 2019 Israel trip. This is the historic Roman Hippodrome of Caesarea, a gorgeous seaside town where my lovely relative Judie Pearl Fattal lives.

ARTICLES + THREADS:

1. Thanks in large part to David Suissa, the Jewish Journal has been providing great coverage on Israel and Jew Hatred. I’ll start by sharing a bunch of their great recent work…

I adore this piece, it’s from the invaluable perspective of someone who USED to join these marches against Israel, and explains the mindset of so many of those who now chant for the destruction of Zionism. A great read:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/why-they-dont-condemn-hamas/

2. “They focus on people, while we focus on ideas.” This piece gets into why our social media strategy has been far less effective than the ones who hate us:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/10-reasons-hamas-is…/

3. I’m proud to call Marcus J Freed an old friend of mine, and he took a break from his witty column to sincerely ask where his Non-Jewish friends have been, when he and we need our allies the most:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/serious-semite-dear-non…/

4. Inna Faliks spoke up about her experience at UCLA, where her pleas for help with antisemitism on campus fell on mostly deaf ears:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/ucla-response-to…/

5a. “It’s Jihadi Marxism: empower the rich, pampered, and privileged while their people starve and are used as human shields. Stalin would certainly have approved.” That quote comes from this clever piece from Karen Lehrman Bloch:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/colu…/365317/jihadi-marxism/

5b. The same journalist also writes one in which she realized that although much of Generation Z appears radically mobilized against Zionism, that same age group has motivated Jews to take greater pride for their Jewish and Zionist identity than in the past:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/fighting-hate-with-pride…/

6. My friend David Nimmer read the disgusting piece from the LA Times Editorial Board, and when they ignored his letter that carefully poked holes throughout their logic, the JJ published it instead. Bravo:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/a-response-to-the-los…/

7. This one gets into the infamously popular “From the River to the Sea” chant:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/the-debate-on-from-the…/

8. “Today, every prestigious university has become a Gazan hospital. Our top students and scholars have all become human shields.” An interesting read by David Hazony:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/some-ideas-are-worth…/

9. Dan Schnur does a great job week after week of being as critical of the right and the left, and here he spotlights weaknesses in both parties at the moment:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/israels-bipartisan-challenge/

10. I’ll finish off the Jewish Journal article recommendations by slipping in my own JJ piece that explains why I do these weekly posts in the first place:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/how-social-media-poisons…/

11. This article cleared up many things that have confused me for years, drawing a clear distinction between the Israel policy roadmap of Presidents Biden and Obama. It’s clear from recent events that the 2 Democratic Presidents are not at all on the same page, and this puts those pieces together more clearly than ever:

https://www.nbcnews.com/…/biden-obama-divide-closely…

12. I first saw this powerful article thanks to Mayim Bialik, and for that I’m grateful. This piece is about the deafening silence from the vast majority of organizations that speak up for women and against sexual assault. Where are they when it happens to Israelis, please read but beware there is language within that is easily triggering:

https://slate.com/…/israeli-women-victims-sexual…

13. Margaret Hodge is a member of the British Parliament’s Labour Party, and has spoken up in England about antisemitism:

https://www.politico.com/…/margaret-hodge-left-wing…

14. Thank you to Indigenous Bridges for making this extremely powerful statement in support of the existence of Israel:

https://indigenousbridges.com/official-statement-about…/

15. Where do we go from here when we reach post-war Gaza? According to anonymous sources in the Arab world, they have lost faith in Mahmoud Abbas and his so-called leadership:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pas-abbas-a-liability-in…/

16. To finish with a very current event, thank you to those who have actually made it clear that Israel was NOT the one to resume violence, including US Secretary Antony Blinken :

https://twitter.com/Yair…/status/1730646280127250436

NEWSLETTERS:

1. Fern Reiss has been writing blogs from Israel that range from heartbreaking to darkly witty, and I’ve really appreciated the chance to get this sort of insight from the POV of someone living there. Strong recommendation to “follow”, all of which you can “continue reading” for free if prompted. Here are some recent great examples:

1a. The torturous wait for the first hostages to be released:

https://fernmusing.substack.com/…/war-day-49-how-long…

1b. Finding out the process of getting the hostages, and what they were going through:

https://fernmusing.substack.com/…/war-day-54-hostage-up…

1c. Speculating about the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza when this war ends:

https://fernmusing.substack.com/…/war-day-55…

1d. The sort of piece I’m jealous I didn’t write. Incredibly witty, dark satire:

https://fernmusing.substack.com/…/war-day-56-welcome-to…

2. Lt-Colonel Richard Hecht is the spokesman for the IDF, and he has been writing updates that include video footage almost every day. I appreciate reading these news updates, and didn’t even realize until I heard him speak that he’s originally from Scotland! Here are some great recent examples of what you can have emailed to you for free:

2a. Details about what they knew and found at Shifa Hospital, along with video footage:

https://idfspokesperson.substack.com/…/nothing-left-to…

2b. Insight into the actual return of the first hostages:

https://idfspokesperson.substack.com/p/home

2c. I love this one, it’s all about the dogs who help them locate bombs and weapons, and even pays tribute to the ones who were killed on duty:

https://idfspokesperson.substack.com/p/the-dogs-of-war

2d. “We’re at War with Hamas. Here’s how we’re facilitating aid to Gazan civilians.” No need to further clarify this one:

https://idfspokesperson.substack.com/…/were-not-at-war…

VIDEOS:

1. This was such an atrociously biased question to ask Eylon Levy, you have to do mental gymnastics to even legitimize it as a question. His resulting reaction has become a viral meme:

https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1727647670716518677

2. Assita Kanko is a European Parliament member, who I very much appreciate saying these words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPe-6vrq1g

3. I’m reluctant to share people who might be a gut-reaction turnoff, and Bill Maher definitely can be to many, but to be intellectually honest, he has over the years equal parts offended the left and the right, and that’s why I respect his candor even the times he annoys me. This clip from early November was not seen widely enough:

https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1720656399414473213

4. The story of a brave Muslim Arab whose wife was murdered by Hamas on October 7, our hearts are with you Hamid Abu Ar’ar:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0AWZrJrnYq/

5. Wow, having had our honeymoon in New Zealand, and falling in love with the country and the indigenous Māori population, their support of Israel is personally heartwarming, and awesome. This video takes place in Australia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFwLHY5gKBc

6. This was a nifty little clip that didn’t shock me, but was a nice way of showing the differences between the Pro-Israel and so-called Pro-Palestinian rallies:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0CXNZPL8GU/

7. What I’ve always appreciated about my friend Toby Ganger is that whether we have been on the same page about a topic or not, we’ve always managed to have really interesting and fun discourse – something that’s not easy in today’s age of turning arguments into bitter divisions. And I’m so impressed at him taking the time during the promotion of his new music, to turn his interview into a platform that educates about Israel. Thank you Toby:

https://youtu.be/o9fGh4x74RI?si=SQMMxM9i48xFciN_&t=2151

8. Fania Oz-Salzberger (notable for many reasons the least of which was her father being Amos Oz) shares this short interview between Wolf Blitzer and the head of an Arab party within Israel’s Parliament Mansour Abbas (please do not confuse him with the corrupt, Holocaust-denying Head of the PA Mahmoud Abbas!). In it, he says something historic, a call for Palestinian factions to throw down their weapons in the struggle. Mansour Abbas has since softened his words, no doubt under heavy pressure and pushback, but just saying them publicly in the first place could be a spark for a better future:

https://twitter.com/faniaoz/status/1730701211479773245

9. Not a video but a podcast, this is a must-listen between Julianna Margulies and Andy Ostroy. She’s taken a lot of heat from speaking as freely as I’m grateful she did. (To jump to the Jewish subject matter, it’s at the 3:22 mark):

https://the-back-room-with-andy-ostroy.podcast.radiofreer…

SPOTLIGHT:

Past celebrity accounts I’ve highlighted were Amy Schumer, Debra Messing, Jessica Seinfeld, and Jon Lovitz. All have posted dozens of posts that are risking their careers by taking a stance, but it has not deterred them from helping use their influence to support Israel and Jews. This week I will spotlight Julianna Margulies, who deserves our support right now as her podcast (linked earlier) is getting her “canceled” in many circles, to the point where she deactivated her Twitter/X account. So let’s “follow” her on Instagram and show her some love.

https://www.instagram.com/juliannamargulies

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

Please consider donating to Maayan Zin, whose husband was murdered on October 7, and thankfully got her daughters back after almost 2 months of being taken hostage:

https://twitter.com/ZinMaayan1007/status/1729772708269854828

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

1. I love me some dark, ironic humor, courtesy of the Babylon Bee:

https://babylonbee.com/…/hamas-awarded-nobel-peace…

2. Daniel-Ryan Spaulding is always a breath of fresh air:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/899569228192030

Myself with Adi during our 2019 Israel trip. This is the historic Roman Hippodrome of Caesarea, a gorgeous seaside town where my lovely relative Judie Pearl Fattal lives.

Boaz Hepner works as a Registered Nurse in Saint John’s Health Center, and provides health education to the community at large. He grew up in LA in Pico/Robertson and lives here with his wife Adi, daughter Natalia, and son Liam. He helped clean up the neighborhood by adding the dozens of trash cans that can still be seen from Roxbury to La Cienega. He can be found with his family enjoying his passions: his multitude of friends, movies, poker and traveling.

Chosen Links – December 3, 2023 Read More »

Chosen Links – November 22, 2023

Chosen Links by Boaz, Community /

Sorry for the delay, I’ve been busy, but here’s Round 4 of my curating links to videos and articles that I think IF you’ll take the time, will prove interesting and things you mostly haven’t already seen.

I would like feedback please – the previous times I tried to split up the videos and articles so it was kind of random, though always finished with something light/amusing. This time I’m going to do it differently, and do sections of articles, videos, and humor. Please let me know which one works better for those of you who find value in what I’m doing here.

As always sharing with a photo, this time it’s me with my mother in 1983 Israel, on what I’m sure was a really fun camel ride.

ARTICLES + THREADS:

1. Gil Troy wrote a great cover story for the JJ that went into detail about each of the common expressions being used against Israel:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/the-nine-big-lies-9…/

2. Gary Wexler discusses his unique experience from decades ago, when he watched the Palestinians change the PR narrative. Fascinating:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/the-inside-story-of-how…/

3. Remember my new friend Ariel Ein-Gal who I wrote about surviving the October 7 massacre, and connected his story to many in LA? He wrote about it, and here’s your chance to read it:

https://deadline.com/…/october-7-survivor-ariel-ein…/

4a. An interesting old thread about the general Arab-Israeli conflict:

https://twitter.com/K_AminThaabet/status/1081725205347790848

4b. A more recent post by him:

https://twitter.com/K_AminThaabet/status/1727445054493491281

5. A piece of Hillary Clinton’s strong piece for The Atlantic. I would share the article itself but I don’t share things that require subscription:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzolRBlsqO4/

6. Hen Mazzig showing that no matter how often Israel says up, the world will say down:

https://twitter.com/HenMazzig/status/1724588947400020445

7. Los Angeles hate crime statistics compiled:

https://xtown.la/…/anti-jewish-hate-crimes-surge-in…/

8. Tons of footage from Israel showing their findings at the Hamas headquarters wedged within the hospital:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-has-clear…/

9. Celebrities met with TikTok to yell at them for allowing the awful propaganda that exists on the app. Thanks, Borat:

https://www.rollingstone.com/…/tiktok-jewish…/

10. This thread painstakingly went through dozens of public leaders and organizations, showing if and when they said anything at all about October 7 or the hostages, versus jumping to condemn Israel’s response. Fascinating:

https://twitter.com/ZachLewis3187/status/1725850426371699107

11. This article by Dr. Rabbi Natan Slifkin is fascinating, and finds a way to offend literally everyone, from the right to the left, from Jews to Palestinians. In doing so, I’m extremely impressed by his intellectual honesty and thought process:

https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/…/israel-and-the…

12. A heartbreaking and eye-opening letter written by a very disappointed professor in Ottawa:

https://www.jewishpress.com/…/anonymous…/2023/11/22/

13. A thread giving the blow by blow of what it was like being one of the people shown Hamas footage recently at the Museum of Tolerance:

https://twitter.com/JonathanHa…/status/1726757922904875439

14. Asra Nomani responds publicly to Susan Sarandon about what it has meant to her family to be Muslims in America:

https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1726473436262715732

15. An incredibly well-researched chain by Yair Rosenberg, writer for The Atlantic, showing a wealth of evidence that different agencies and media HAVE known about the hospital being a headquarters for Hamas – none of this was new info, making their reporting and lack of immediate condemnation all the more unforgivable:

https://twitter.com/Yair…/status/1727020794176508000

16. Warning, this impassioned blog-post is compelling, but full of bad language:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1725798333074034785.html

17. Tabby Refael has been writing nonstop about her experience as an Iranian/Persian Jew in America, and this piece from last week’s JJ was on point:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/its-the-intifada-stupid/

18. Actual audio showing the IDF trying to guide people safely out of the Hamas-run hospital region in Gaza:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/…/idf-publishes-audio-of…/

This Twitter thread is basically Snopes for what’s happening in Israel. If you aren’t sure if something is true or real, this BBC journalist figures it out:

https://twitter.com/Shayan86

VIDEOS:

1. This captivating (and always fiery) “Son of Hamas” spoke to the UN, and although this speech is long, I couldn’t stop watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CZI4K4A1k

2. Leo Dee is incredible. His wife and daughters were murdered earlier this year in a highly publicized tragic terrorist attack. And here he is being one of the most optimistic, well-spoken, positive people, truly believing in a better future for Israel and Palestinians:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&v=781267323723514

3. Noa Tishby shares footage proving Hamas using schools and schoolchildren as human shields:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/196986010114770

4. Pentagon footage backing Israel’s claims:

https://twitter.com/Madhubanti…/status/1724600562476556679

5. Douglas K Murray has an incredible interview with Piers Morgan, and look what happens at the 4:15 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcNEnjVa4E

6. Here he is funny and on point about the irony of “Gays for Gaza”:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzW7jG_oLiE/

7. British Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps explaining why a ceasefire is an awful idea:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzjbmKWLphY

8. A very helpful comparison for Americans to imagine if what happened in Israel had been here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzH9H0iLr2N/

9. This incredible man Oz Davidian saved SO many lives, and there’s footage of this amazing man:

https://twitter.com/Yossi_eli/status/1725156991658549597

10. “Biggah” as he calls himself, is putting up with SO much hatred on the internet, but he continues to stand up against anti-semitism, and battling the many lies being spread:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Czw4P-tPUwW/

11. An incredible interview that I couldn’t stop watching. It’s Prime Minister Golda Meir being challenged about Israel’s tactics in defending itself against violence from their neighbors. SO much of this may as well have been an interview from today. I’m starting it from a question about Israel bombing civilians but feel free to watch from start to finish:

https://youtu.be/w3FGvAMvYpc?si=nBBHsA_e0werxjVS&t=617

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

1. Ridiculous, silly sketch of the BBC interviewing a Hamas leader:

https://twitter.com/eylonalevy/status/1724534782455882179

2. Daniel-Ryan Spaulding using his special brand of humor to call out the hypocrites:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/6944611852248490

3. This Twitter page is a really funny account parodying the so-called Gaza Ministry of Health, posing as the Hamas-led organization:

https://twitter.com/GazaHealth

SPOTLIGHT:

I like to spotlight people with big followings who have bravely taken consistent stands for Israel with countless posts. So far there was Amy Schumer, Debra Messing and Jessica Seinfeld. This time let’s appreciate Jon Lovitz who keeps quipping to make Hummus out of Hamas:

https://twitter.com/realjonlovitz

Me with my mother in 1983 Israel.

Boaz Hepner works as a Registered Nurse in Saint John’s Health Center, and provides health education to the community at large. He grew up in LA in Pico/Robertson and lives here with his wife Adi, daughter Natalia, and son Liam. He helped clean up the neighborhood by adding the dozens of trash cans that can still be seen from Roxbury to La Cienega. He can be found with his family enjoying his passions: his multitude of friends, movies, poker and traveling.

Chosen Links – November 22, 2023 Read More »

Chosen Links – November 11, 2023

Chosen Links by Boaz, Community /

Part 3 in my series of compiling good info about Israel, and I strongly recommend you click on them and SHARE this with others. Doing so both adjusts your algorithms, and gives you info that you likely haven’t already seen online.

As always, I will finish off with some less heavy links at the end, and I am including a personal photo so that this post will more likely be seen. This one is from the 2009 Israel/Gaza rally here in LA that I attended, and the signs people held up are as fitting today as they were 14 years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same…

Without further ado:

ARTICLES/THREADS:

1. Noa Tishby has been a force for years trying to battle anti-semitism, and spoke up against Tlaib claiming “From the River to the Sea” is not an anti-semitic chant:

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-771642

2. A great look back at variations of “From the River to the Sea” over the years, and its consistent meanings of Jewish genocide:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Czd6GvBuD3Z/

3. A fascinating analysis from an “Urban warfare expert”, John Spencer analyzes the tactics being used by Israel vs Hamas:

https://edition.cnn.com/…/israel-hamas-gaza-not-war…

4. Richard Landes is a former Boston University professor and historian of Medieval France, and he wrote a book titled, “Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad (Antisemitism in America)”. This is some perspective on recent events unfortunately proven correct by his research:

https://www.tarb.co.il/the-premodern-roots-of-the…/

5. An interesting analysis of what needs to happen next, from former Prime Minister Ehud Barak:

https://www.politico.eu/…/ehud-barak-israel-palestine…/

6. Bari Weiss years ago resigned from the NY Times quite famously due to her disgust at their biased reporting of Israel. This recent piece is an in-depth analysis at college campuses receiving extremely high amounts of money from countries such as Qatar which support Hamas, and the correlation to those campuses stance on Israel:

https://www.thefp.com/…/campus-rage-middle-eastern…

7. Consider this a darkly funny story. This horrible woman deliberately crashed her car into a school thinking it was Jewish, but it was ironically a Jew-hating hate group that she plowed into, you can’t make these things up:

https://abcnews.go.com/…/indiana-woman…/story…

VIDEOS:

1. Jake Tapper on CNN did a very thoughtful broadcast including providing some insightful analysis about the risks of a ceasefire:

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1721715138925899944

2. I like to share things from non-Jewish sources, and this is a tweet from Zaher Abu Elnaser who works on Israeli-Arabic television, showing actual footage of Hamas posing as IDF soldiers torturing an Arab-Israeli, and showing that Hamas is an enemy to Jews and Arabs. This footage is disturbing, please be warned:

https://x.com/zaherabuelnaser/status/1722292115139396018…

3. Eylon Levy did a great job answering questions to a pretty hostile interviewer here:

https://twitter.com/emilygian/status/1722192448431280466

4. This is an INCREDIBLE video of Aya Meydan, telling how she managed to survive the tragic events of October 7 thanks to a group of Arabs who risked their lives to save her and others from the evil hands of Hamas. A must watch:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzTvmeNAZtb/

5. Hillary Clinton has given a few really great interviews lately, explaining why Israel needs to destroy Hamas, and how a ceasefire would play right into their hands. This week on The View was excellent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czN4E-CTJ_E&t=49s

6. “Make hummus, not war.” That’s the motto of Berlin’s Israeli-Palestinian restaurant “Kanaan”. It’s incredible to see a place like this in existence, and it warms the heart to watch this piece and pray for a better tomorrow:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzTuACJNBV1/

7. Musician Ari Lesser made this video a decade ago to counter the anti-semitic BDS movement, and it is as worth watching today as ever, and so catchy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se3PaCX7sjI

SPOTLIGHT:

I always offer a celebrity influencer to “follow” who’s posting tons of great content, first was Amy Schumer, last week was Debra Messing, this time I offer Jessica Seinfeld, who is so much more than just Jerry Seinfeld’s wife:

https://www.instagram.com/jessseinfeld/

From the 2009 Israel/Gaza rally here in LA that I attended, and the signs people held up are as fitting today as they were 14 years ago.

Boaz Hepner works as a Registered Nurse in Saint John’s Health Center, and provides health education to the community at large. He grew up in LA in Pico/Robertson and lives here with his wife Adi, daughter Natalia, and son Liam. He helped clean up the neighborhood by adding the dozens of trash cans that can still be seen from Roxbury to La Cienega. He can be found with his family enjoying his passions: his multitude of friends, movies, poker and traveling.

Chosen Links – November 11, 2023 Read More »

Chosen Links – November 5, 2023

Chosen Links by Boaz, Community /

Part 2 in what I hope to be a series of informational links to videos, articles and threads about Israel. Help improve you and your friends’ algorithms by sharing this post, AND clicking on the links.

Each time I do this I will attempt to find things from different social media platforms (to improve algorithms on more than just Facebook), and help counter the multitude of anti-Israel propaganda circulating the internet.

-I will not be sharing lazy memes.

-I will attempt to always include pieces by non-Jews, and ideally the Muslim community.

-I will for the most part avoid sharing things that I have already seen as widely circulated on my feed.

-I will attach a pleasant photograph to improve the chances of it being seen, since social media prefers not to highlight links that take you off their platform. This one being my family visiting Israel in 1983, that’s me with no shirt!

-I have no objection including things that are critical of Israel, as long as they add value, and feel thoughtful and fair. Nobody claims Israel is perfect, however I stand-by steadfastly that like America, it is an extremely well-meaning country trying to do what’s right, protecting its citizenry of all religions; and when its people commit crimes, as with any civilized country, they are punished with due process. Quite impressive for a tiny country to hold these moral, democratic values when surrounded by enemies who do not have freedom of press, religion or sexuality.

Without further ado, I present to you my next array of links that I think you will appreciate:

ARTICLES/THREADS:

1. Once again, my article that explains why I decided to do this:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/how-social-media-poisons…/

2. Are you seeing US Representative (D) Ritchie Torres Twitter feed? He’s being a one-man education team about Israel, it’s epic. Follow him:

https://twitter.com/RitchieTorres

3. Know about the Druze? They make up under 10% of the Arab population in Israel, about 150,000 people strong, and here’s a wonderful interview showing their community stance during this war:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/israeli-druze-woman…/

4. You’re likely more familiar with CUFI (Christians United For Israel), but might want to know about their efforts since October 7:

https://jewishjournal.com/…/american-christians…/

5. Shifa Hospital is the largest in the Gaza Strip. “Hospitals, medical clinics, and facilities are exploited, he said, because Hamas knows that Israel won’t target them. The sites can be used to pass “explosives, weapons, food, medical equipment” for use by the terror group.” Read more here:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-interrogation-video…/

6. Amjad Taha, a British Arab journalist, has been trying to improve normalization between Israel and Muslim countries, and has a great feed to follow. Here he reports how Hamas were assassinating their own citizens who are trying to get safe passage, and as usual, trying to pin it on Israel:

https://twitter.com/amjadt25/status/1720425819305070821

7. A really important piece exposing some so-called journalists, who are simply mouthpieces for Hamas with large social media followings. “Many media watchdogs and Israeli activists have written about Hind Khoudary (@hindkhoudary), a self-proscribed journalist. HonestReporting recently revealed that Khoudary, who has been quoted by the Washington Post, Associated Press, and others, turned a group of Palestinian peace activists over to Hamas, which led to their arrest.” Despicable in every way:

https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/article-771443

8. While I don’t love the well-meaning but totally counterproductive final recommendation for ceasefire (sounds nice on paper, but plays directly into the hands of Hamas who admitted they will just attack again and again until there’s no more Israel), this message coming from an Arab MK is amazing, and shows how well integrated Muslims and Jews actually are within Israel: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/for-arabs-and-jews-in…/

VIDEOS:

1. Amjad Taha reporting a relevant video showing Abbas, the head of the PA, announcing weeks ago that Hamas fled using ambulances, and as usual trying to make Israel look bad when they need to attack those ambulances:

https://twitter.com/amjadt25/status/1720582816742637767

2. Eyal Hulata, Israel’s national security advisor until January who is now based in the U.S. giving a good interview about Israel’s realistic options:

https://jewishinsider.com/…/eyal-hulata-israel…/

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

1. I shared another video for some levity last time, and once again I give you the hilarious and on-point Daniel-Ryan Spaulding:

https://www.facebook.com/danielryanspaulding

2a. Back in April I was already excited to see Brett Gelman (from Stranger Things and many other things) propose marriage in Israel:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrlIFWErf81/

2b. Now I’m cracking up at the simplicity of this video by him:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/s1BayMyNCAc9rpdC/

SPOTLIGHT:

Last time I recommended following Amy Schumer for her unrelenting posts about Israel. This time I’ll make an equal recommendation for actress Debra Messing (Grace from Will & Grace) for her efforts which started years before the October 7 attack.

https://instagram.com/therealdebramessing

My family visiting Israel in 1983, that’s me with no shirt!

Boaz Hepner works as a Registered Nurse in Saint John’s Health Center, and provides health education to the community at large. He grew up in LA in Pico/Robertson and lives here with his wife Adi, daughter Natalia, and son Liam. He helped clean up the neighborhood by adding the dozens of trash cans that can still be seen from Roxbury to La Cienega. He can be found with his family enjoying his passions: his multitude of friends, movies, poker and traveling.

Chosen Links – November 5, 2023 Read More »

Rosner’s Domain | The Politics of War

Rosner's Domain /

The least secretive secret of Israel’s war is politics. Ask a politician, right or left, and get a generic answer: When the war ends, we will turn to politics. Why are they saying such things – why are they, well, not telling the truth? Because this is what the public expects them to do. Or, to be more accurate: the public expects them to forgo all political considerations and machinations until the war is over, but since such hope is unrealistic (politicians always – always – think about politics), the next best thing is to pretend: Play politics – without admitting to do it. And when asked about it, by a nagging journalist or a political rival, deny it with manufactured fury and claim that the mere questioning about politics is the problem – that’s the real disruption!

They all do. Some of them more than others, some with less style than others. This week, the finance minister mounted a battle aimed at providing one of his party’s ministers the funds necessary for supporting settlement activity. He argued that the funds are necessary, essential, for the protection of the settlers. That might be true for some of it, and yet, the funds slated for the defense of Israelis are normally handled by the Defense Ministry – what the finance minister is insisting on is the extra funds that are handed out by a ministry whose mission is not defense, it is support for political allies.

All parties are buzzing with political activity and with rumors about this or that leader and what they intend to do after the war. 

He is not alone. All parties are buzzing with political activity and with rumors about this or that leader and what they intend to do after the war. The polls are already examining various scenarios: what happens if former PM Naftali Bennett reenters the fray (as everyone expects him to do). What happens when former head of Mossad Yossi Cohen enters the fray (same expectation). What happens if they join current parties (Bennett with Gantz – Cohen with Likud), what happens if they form their own parties, separately or jointly. And what will Gideon Saar do: He is currently a minister and a member of the Mamlachti party (Gantz), but he seems to search for a way out – possibly back to Likud. The first sign of such a move will be his decision to stick with the coalition when the other Mamlachti ministers, who joined the government for the war, decide its time for them to leave. 

In the meantime, the leader of the Labor party announced her decision to retire. So, the left is reanimated by the prospect of renewal, probably a merge of Labor and Meretz, possibly headed by former General Yair Golan, a hero of Oct. 7th (he acted courageously to rescue civilians from the killing fields). A party headed by him is expected to get a hefty number of seats. What can he do with those seats, that another question. That’s the important question. Because the day after – at least, this is what the current polls tell us – is a new day. The current coalition of right-wing/religious parties will not be able to reemerge as a ruling coalition. A different political landscape would open new options: A centrist coalition (from Likud to Yesh Atid), a Zionist coalition (no Haredis and Arabs), a center-left coalition supported by the Haredi parties, who knows what.   

But that’s the real question. That’s the real question for us Israelis who aren’t running for office and therefore are less concerned with personal ambitions and more with the nature of policy and politics on the day after. The personal fate of Yossi Cohen, or Bennett or Sa’ar or Golan is of little interest – but these people are going to have the power to reshape Israeli politics, to set its priorities, to dictate a new tone for public discourse, to design a functioning coalition, to tackle Israel’s challenges. Oh, and there’s Netanyahu … lest we forget. The public expects his removal, but he might have other plans, and still has staunch supporters who could help him do whatever it is that he plans to do.

Deciding what challenges must be dealt with, and in what sequence, and how – that would be the most pressing and difficult mission of the next coalition when it emerges, possibly after a new election. Most Israelis believe that having new leadership when the war is over is essential. The coalition might want to avoid an election, because it is not in good shape to win that round, but it’s hard to see how any coalition could pull off such a maneuver after the shocking events that it is going through. Ask politicians in public and they’ll tell you they don’t think about politics. Ask them in private and they’ll say that they expect Israel to have a new election between April and October of 2024.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

Merav Michaeli, the head of the Labor party, is on her way out. Here’s what I wrote when she announced her decision to quit:

Michaeli is not Yitzhak Rabin, nor Shimon Peres, nor Isaac Herzog. She is not made of the material of which leaders of significant parties are made of. Her announcement … is a kind of admission of this. Michaeli recognizes that she will not be able to lead the party, and there are doubts there will even be a party left to lead. Maybe … if it reunites with Meretz, it can maintain some semblance of revival. But a real revival is currently not in sight. It might have been better to just close it down. The slow dying of such a party is a nuisance to the political camp of which it is a part.

A week’s numbers

Political scenarios force Israelis into thinking about their preferences and priorities. Here’s one survey that asked about three possible new parties:

A reader’s response:

Eva Rosenfeld asks: “When will Israeli ‘refugees’ go back to their homes?” Answer: When it’s safe and, in some cases, rebuilt. Of course, the later part of the answer is the easier to define. 

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.

Rosner’s Domain | The Politics of War Read More »

Healing Through Harmony

Music /

Music has the extraordinary power to heal, inspire, and unite. For singer-songwriter Aliza Hava, music became not only a refuge but a transformative force that helped her navigate through childhood trauma and later prompted her to share a heartfelt message of peace with the world. Following the terror attack in Israel, Aliza released her rendition of White Lion’s soulful ballad, “When the Children Cry,” a song that has resonated with her since childhood. It’s one of 10 songs in her new album, which she plans to release in 2024. The song’s message of peace is even more poignant today than it was when it was originally released in the late ’80s. The song resonates through the generations with a message of healing and hope for the children of the world.

 “The first time I heard it, I was nine years old and was experiencing tremendous violence in my household. The lyrics rang true for me in a way I’d never experienced before and was the first song I ever heard that spoke directly to my soul. It helped me find my voice by inspiring me to start writing my own songs as a kid. It made me want to write songs that made a difference and is, ultimately, the song that inspired me to become a musician.”

Hava recruited her husband to help her film the music video in the small town in South Oregon where they live. Prior to her move there, she had spent several years in California and prior to that, in Israel where she had dedicated eight years to peace work. “I moved there when I was 19 and worked with Muslims, Christians and Jewish musicians and produced the internationally live-streamed concert, ‘Harmony in the Holy Land.’”

Watching Palestinians and Israelis meet as strangers and part ways as friends after working on music together, Hava felt the reaffirmation of her calling to build bridges through the healing power of music.

Watching Palestinians and Israelis meet as strangers and part ways as friends after working on music together, Hava felt the reaffirmation of her calling to build bridges through the healing power of music.

The new record is a very personal one as it deals with her difficult childhood. “Most people don’t know what I went through as a child except for very close friends,” Hava admitted. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Hava believes that the trauma they carried from their childhood affected their parenting and as a result her parents’ treatment of her was affected by their own childhood trauma. “That’s what happens when we keep the cycle of trauma and violence,” she said. “My father was also in Vietnam and carried trauma from there as well. It’s not an excuse of course but it shows you what happens if people don’t heal themselves. Without my music I don’t know how I would be functional, it has been very powerful medicine for me. I recorded my record in Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles with music producer Mikael Blue.”

Through her music, Hava aims to uplift minds, bodies, and souls while reclaiming our natural state of universal love and peace. “I hope the album can be healing to people and help them find their voice on a personal level, just like the song ‘When the Children Cry’ had helped me as a child.”

Producing the album by herself was an expensive process. Hava now hopes to find sponsors who would understand the importance of the story she wants to tell and the power of the music to heal.

Aliza Hava songs are available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Healing Through Harmony Read More »

The Genderfluid Quran Scholars of TikTok

Commentary, Opinion /

In a recent TikTok, a transgender woman with a faint beard stares into the camera and announces that she has started studying the Quran. “I am really having a revolution of self,” she proclaims, holding up a copy marked with pink sticky notes. Apparently, this individual has recently realized that “The way that I describe the universe and the things that I believe in are actually describing the Quran of believing in Allah.”

This may seem a bit odd for someone who operates an online store selling “Trans People Are Divine” prints, and who otherwise makes TikToks with titles like “Femmes with Facial Hair” and “Having a Gay Day.” But according to her, “The way that the Quran describes things actually makes sense to me. Like, did you know that Allah is beyond gender?”

This transgender person is certainly not the only one with a newfound interest in Islamic studies. A few weeks ago, TikTokers discovered Osama bin Laden’s 2002 anti-America manifesto and made so many videos praising his “alternate view on the Middle East” that the app had to start banning and deleting the content. Now the Quran has become TikTok’s newest trend, as legions of woke, mostly white Gen Z-ers have started encouraging each other to study Islam’s holy book. They use hashtags like #quranbookclub, which has 2.4 million views, and make playlists like “Atheist Reads the Quran.” In fact, when you search “reading” on TikTok, “reading the Quran” is the first auto-suggestion. 

What’s particularly bizarre about this fad is that the overwhelming majority of these new Quran readers are also extremely progressive, with profiles trumpeting every left-wing cause under the sun. One creator making Quran videos provides a self-description of “trans-fem genderfluid mystic” and says that reading has led her to conclude that she’s “felt Muslim [my] whole life.” It seems that these TikTokers, whose pages sing about microaggressions, unexamined biases, and systemic inequality, have not yet stumbled across Quran Verse 4:34, about how “men are the protectors and maintainers of women” who should “beat [them] lightly” if they fear “disloyalty and ill conduct.” Or Verse 33:50, which permits men to have sex with “slave girls [they] possess from among the prisoners of war.” Or Verse 9:5, which exhorts believers to “… slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.” 

And even if they have, they probably wouldn’t mind, because this isn’t actually about a genuine religious interest. Just a few months ago, the same readers insisting that Allah is beyond gender or that they’ve always felt Muslim were cranking out TikToks smearing Christians as white supremacists, colonists, and homophobes, or criticizing organized religion as an oppressive sham. What could have possibly changed since then that encouraged them to begin reading Muslim holy books? Islam isn’t exactly known for its commitment to decolonial projects or gay rights.

It’s no coincidence that nearly all these budding Islamists also happen to have accounts full of #FreePalestine hashtags, Palestinian flag emojis, and five-minute explainers about Israeli apartheid. This is just the latest example of the phenomenon in which the woke warriors assume the mantle of a fashionable culture to which they do not belong in a self-serving ploy for cultural caché. In 2020, everyone was donning kente cloth, taking a knee, and checking their privilege. In 2023, this crowd is wearing keffiyehs, reading the Quran, and joining Queers for Gaza.

This trend is the millionth example of something dangerous and pathological at the heart of the social justice warrior psyche — a complete inability to grasp nuance, and a subsequent insistence on reducing the world to a simple struggle between “oppressed” and “oppressor.”

This trend is the millionth example of something dangerous and pathological at the heart of the social justice warrior psyche — a complete inability to grasp nuance, and a subsequent insistence on reducing the world to a simple struggle between “oppressed” and “oppressor.” These people have decided that Palestinians — and, by extension, Muslims — are the oppressed, and that therefore they must be allies in the wide progressive crusade for justice, standing alongside gays, transgender people, and other people of color (except Middle Eastern Jews). This requires disregarding overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The transgender Quran scholar, for example, also made a viral video arguing that Queers for Palestine is a legitimate form of solidarity because “America for trans people is in stage 7 and 8 of genocide, and Palestine is in [stage] 9 and 10.” 

You can see this logic everywhere, from buzzy think pieces proclaiming that “the queer liberation struggle cannot be disentangled from the anti-imperialist struggle” to colorful viral infographics announcing that “Free Palestine is a Feminist Issue, it’s a Reproductive Rights Issue, it’s an Indigenous Rights Issue, it’s a Climate Justice Issue, it’s an Abolitionist Issue.” They will bend over backwards to justify the glaring contradictions in this framework: like being a feminist who stands with the rapists of Hamas, or a human rights activist who wouldn’t condemn the Oct. 7 massacre. And they will use this logic to bully anyone who dares question their ever-more-sweeping allegiances, accusing them of being a colonizer, a racist, or an Islamophobe.

So does this mean we’re about to have a new generation of gender-fluid Muslim converts? I think not.

Just as they did in 2020, these radical activists will eventually tire themselves out, and find a newer, trendier cause to derive self-worth and a sense of purpose. I give the Quran book club another month before these uber-progressive readers get bored of studying the laws of Islam — even if it makes them sound super-accepting and enlightened on TikTok.

But putting down the Quran won’t solve the problem, because the real issue is why they’re picking it up in the first place. Hardened by propaganda, blinded by misplaced solidarity, and brainwashed by the algorithm, these young social justice crusaders have already decided who is on the right side of history, and they’ll stoop to the most cynical, nonsensical forms of social media gamesmanship to advance the causes they’ve deemed worthy.  It’s a shame — and a real, looming threat to our democratic order — that they’ve been too busy scrolling TikTok to read any history at all.

Dr. Sheila Nazarian is a Los Angeles physician whose family escaped to America from Iran. She stars in the Emmy-nominated Netflix series “Skin Decision: Before and After. “

The Genderfluid Quran Scholars of TikTok Read More »

Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors

Judaism /

Oh, how Donny Osmond loved his coat of many colors. To countless preteen Jews of a certain era, raptly watching the future “Dancing with the Stars” winner and runner-up on “The Masked Singer” play the titular role in 1999’s direct-to-video “Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” 12 or 13 times marked their becoming a bat or bar mitzvah. While discovering later in life that Osmond wasn’t actually a member of the tribe (he’s Mormon) might have been the moment they actually became adults, it will likely come as a further surprise that the most famous frock this side of the black and blue — or was it white and gold? — dress that broke the internet almost a decade ago might not actually have been red and yellow and green and brown and blue after all.

The ancient Talmudic rabbis, those expert readers of the Bible, struggled to understand the phrase ketonet pasim, which the text uses to describe the garment that Jacob bestowed upon his favorite son in Genesis’ 37th chapter, sparking the jealousy of Joseph’s siblings. 

Perhaps it was a reference to pas, meaning palm. A coat whose sleeves extended past one’s wrists would signal that its wearer was of noble stature, an aristocrat with no need to literally roll up his sleeves and work the fields. Maybe it was of such fine material, exceedingly thin and light, that it could be hidden in the palm of a hand.

The garment was ornamented by God Himself during humanity’s earliest days, went another midrashic tradition found in a Yemenite collection and published in the Torah Sheleima. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they realized they were nude and in need of clothing. God fashioned a special cloak for them from the skin sloughed off from the snake who had tempted them into sinning. This divinely designed attire appeared superimposed, Forrest Gump-like, throughout subsequent biblical tales. It adorned Nimrod, the king who threw Abraham into a fiery furnace to test his faith. Esau stripped Nimrod of it, only to have Jacob wear it while stealing the blessing from their father, Isaac. It was then gifted by Jacob to Joseph. After the brothers tore it from Joseph and dipped it in blood as fabricated proof of Joseph’s demise at the paws of a wild animal, it was eventually repaired, cleaned off, and, after the Iraelites exited from Egypt and built the Tabernacle, it adorned the High Priest.

Some suggested the word was an almost Freudian slip, a signal of larger forces at work. Pasim was an unintentional acronym, referencing the four troubles that Joseph would have to overcome on his journey from brotherly betrayal to second-in-command to Pharaoh. The Hebrew letter pey referred to Potiphar, the Egyptian official whose amorous wife’s attempted seduction of Joseph landed him in jail. The samech shouted out the sochrim, merchants, who shlepped Joseph from Canaan to Egypt. The remaining two letters, yud and mem, referred to the hairy bunch of Ishmaelites and the Midianites, those slave-traders who swapped Joseph back and forth on the trek towards the Nile.

To Reish Lakish, pasim was a peek far into the future. Decades after Jacob, Joseph and the brothers reunited happily in Egypt, a new Pharaoh arose and enslaved their descendants. When Moses eventually led the exodus of those slaves, he took the casket of Joseph with him, to be buried back in the Holy Land. It was, went the tradition, the sight of the righteous Joseph’s bones that caused the Red Sea to split, allowing the Israelites to pass through on dry land. Pasim was actually a portmanteau of pas and yam, strip of sea.

In what comic book fans would call retconning (as in “retroactive continuity”), another suggestion was made that pasim might derive from payis, the post-Biblical Hebrew word for lottery. The brothers, nervous over their father buying their concocted tale of Joseph’s death, drew lots over who would attempt to delude Jacob.

Later biblical commentators continued parsing pasim. Perhaps it meant painted, or embroidered with some special design. To Radak, it meant striped. Rashi thought it referred to fine wool. Bechor Shor hypothesized that it derived from the same Hebrew word as lephayes, to appease, since Joseph would be pleased with the special gift. Sforno thought it a symbol of authority, a cloak to connote Joseph’s being elevated above his siblings in the family hierarchy. The Malbim, standing on ceremony, suggested the cloak was meant to bestow honor not on its wearer but on Jacob himself. With the other brothers out shepherding their flocks, Joseph would attend to his father. He who stands before a patriarch should have dignified dress for the occasion. 

Modern scholars, turning to ancient Near Eastern languages for insight, looked to Akkadian. In that now extinct tongue, “‘kitu pishannu” described “a ceremonial robe which could be draped about statues of goddesses and have various gold ornaments sewed onto it.” This jives with many of the suggestions hypothesized by the rabbis millennia ago that the garment signaled special standing and bore an elaborate design. 

It was the Septuagint, that ancient Greek translation of the Bible composed around the third century BCE who gifted us with the idea that the coat was polychromatic. It translates pasim as “poikilos,” meaning many-colored or spotted. 

While the latest film iteration of Jacob and sons’ Pharaoh-as-Elvis and calypso-music-filled tale will go, go, go soon enough to a theater near you, we can spend the meantime considering the coat’s legacy.

On Passover, Jews dip a piece of vegetable known as karpas into salt water. Some have suggested this is a callback to that ketonet pasim, that gift which sparked the brothers’ jealousy, led to Joseph’s sale into slavery and foreshadowed the Jews’ subsequent enslavement in Egypt. By celebrating our liberation at the Seder, we express the realization that true freedom can be found in a social dynamic that cultivates feelings of fellowship over favoritism. 

The teaching that the High Priest, bedecked in Joseph’s old coat, leads the Yom Kippur service in which the Israelites are forgiven for their sins, also offers insight. It was a slaughtered goat whose blood was used to trick Jacob into believing Joseph was dead. The subsequent mandate that the High Priest is to slaughter a goat as part of the Temple service on the Day of Repentance reminds us that even if our sins aren’t on the level of brotherly betrayal, they can still echo for generations. Before minor disagreements escalate into full-scale four-hundred-years-of-slavery-level disasters, best to put aside pride and proactively seek forgiveness when the opportunity arises.

Finally, whether it was polka-dotted, painted, striped, or made of the smoothest silk, what Joseph wore, like what we wear, shapes how we are perceived. When we close our eyes and draw back the curtain to see for certain what we want others to know about us, our style and status will no doubt jostle their way into our decision making. But best to make like Jacob’s favorite son and realize that it’s less about how we dress and more about what we dream.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is the Senior Advisor to the Provost and Senior Program Officer of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, and the editor of “Esther in America” (Maggid Books).

Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors Read More »

How Human Rights Morphed into Antisemitism

Commentary, Opinion /

In December 1948, the members of the United Nations adopted two important statements — the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Both were written in the shadow of the Holocaust, ostensibly to ensure that the horrors of Nazi Germany and its allies would not be repeated.

After 75 years, these idealistic texts and the institutions created to implement them are clearly a total failure, and worse — the language of human rights has been weaponized for the most vicious antisemitic attacks since the Holocaust. 

However, after 75 years, these idealistic texts and the institutions created to implement them are clearly a total failure, and worse — the language of human rights has been weaponized for the most vicious antisemitic attacks since the Holocaust. Real and horrible human rights abuses in Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere are all but ignored, while armies of haters march through university campuses and city streets attacking Jews, and chanting slogans labeling Zionists (most Jews) and Israelis as guilty of war crimes, genocide and apartheid. 

The U.N. Human Rights Council is a center for hate propaganda and 21st-century blood libels, accompanied by a powerful and corrupt industry of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), led by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International. These organizations publish pseudo-reports citing invented evidence (lies) painting Israel and self-determination for the Jewish people as “apartheid,” and self-defense as “genocide.” Israelis who were brutally slaughtered and kidnapped as hostages by Hamas are erased or reduced to token mentions used to claim “balance,” and quickly forgotten. University programs advertised under the headings of “human rights and international law” are often staffed by propagandists who share and promote this form of hate. 

Looking back over the past 75 years, the causes of this travesty are clearly visible. Not surprisingly, antisemitism is central, beginning with the Soviet Union and the Arab League. In U.N. debates on human rights and racism during the 1960s, when the U.S. and Israel condemned the USSR for oppressing its 3 million Jewish citizens, the Kremlin countered with attacks against Zionism. These forces produced the infamously antisemitic 1975 “Zionism is Racism“ Resolution 3379 in the General Assembly. And although the resolution was repealed in 1991, the accompanying U.N. committees and funding mechanisms for demonizing Israel and any form of Jewish self-determination remain. 

In 2001, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, headed by Mary Robinson, revived the antisemitic attack at the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa in September 2001. Representatives of 1,500 NGOs repeated accusations of war crimes, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, as well as blocking representatives of “Zionist” NGOs from participating. The hate campaign gained momentum and visibility, backed by massive budgets. The U.N. Human Rights Council (renamed in 2006) has an automatic majority of states from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and allied dictatorships, controlling the agenda and appointing officials, such as Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, and the members of a permanent Commission of Inquiry – a 21st-century version of the Inquisition. Their ritual condemnations are parroted by journalists and U.N. officials, including the head of UNICEF and Secretary General António Guterres. For the most part, the hypocrites from European democracies add their votes to signal “solidarity” with the Palestinians, or, at best, abstain.   

In parallel, organizations linked to Christian and Moslem religious frameworks have joined in singling out Israel. Under headings such as “liberation theology,” church groups have combined classical theological antisemitism with the terminology (or slogans) of international law and embraced the myths of Palestinian victimhood. Israel (the Jewish State) is denied the right to self-defense against heinous pogroms, and the IDF is portrayed as bloodthirsty killers of children. Similarly, in mosques around the world, imams quote verses of the Quran that portray Jews as treacherous idolaters, and have adopted many of the Christian themes, particularly blood libels.

Human rights antisemitism is accompanied and amplified by the theology of the neo-Marxist left, which is focused on opposing “racist, capitalist, imperialist, colonial oppressors.” Under slogans such as “intersectional solidarity” and DEI, (diversity, equality, and inclusion — except for Jews) these ideologues have conquered the leading universities, claiming to speak for ostensibly oppressed peoples (many of which are led by terror regimes) in the “global south,” while Israel, particularly after the 1967 war, is branded as the tool of American and European imperialism. In this tortured version of morality and human rights, western nationalism, including Zionism, is automatically “evil,” but Third World nationalism and “liberation” movements are good — the victims can never be unjust oppressors (even when they engage in indescribable brutality), and the “colonialists” cannot be righteous victims. 

Top officials of organizations such HRW and Amnesty International are among the high priests of this ideology, replacing the universality that was declared to be the moral foundation of the post-Holocaust human rights movement in 1948. Ken Roth, the 0former executive director of HRW, and other activists alienated from their Jewish backgrounds and harboring an obsessive hostility towards Israel and Zionism join the antisemites in demonizing Israel through the exploitation of human rights and international law. Backed with an annual budget of $100 million, including evidence that Qatar is among Roth’s main funders, the NGO role in the irrational hate directed at Israel is crucial.  

The results of this combination were highlighted a few weeks ago, when Danielle Haas, a long-time senior employee at HRW turned whistle-blower, condemned the “years of politicization” on Israel, violating “basic editorial standards related to rigor, balance, and collegiality.” As she wrote, HRW’s response to the Oct. 7th Hamas massacre referenced “the ‘context’ of ‘apartheid’ and ‘occupation’ before blood was even dry on bedroom walls.” Although Haas did not mention Ken Roth by name, his role was reflected in her description of the “shattered professionalism, abandoned principles of accuracy and fairness,” and the multiple ways in which HRW has “surrendered its duty to stand for the human rights of all.”

For these reasons and more, a powerful group of hypocrites has subverted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and exploited its principles and institutions to demonize Israel and the Jewish people. The brief window of morality after the Holocaust has been slammed shut. Restoring these principles will require a long and consistent campaign, beginning with the replacement of the “experts” and officials that have installed themselves as the arbiters of human rights.

Gerald M. Steinberg is professor emeritus of politics at Bar-Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor in Israel.

How Human Rights Morphed into Antisemitism Read More »