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Jewish Journal

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December 20, 2023

2023: Another Year of Horrible Men

Editor's Note, Featured /

As we enter the final week of the year, usually a time of holiday cheer, my mind is with Samira Sabzian, a child bride who was hanged Dec. 20 in Iran. Sabzian, at 15, was forced to marry a much older man. After years of violence and abuse, she defended herself and killed him. She was subsequently jailed and sentenced to death, the seventeenth woman hanged in Iran since the beginning of the year.

Who is behind her killing and other atrocities of her country? It’s an 84-year-old man, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who seems to enjoy wreaking violent havoc throughout the region, with a special place reserved for Jews. Not only does Khamenei run the world’s number one sponsor of terror, he terrorizes his own people to ensure his regime stays in power.

Have you noticed how the worst mass horrors in the world are led by men?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops. Who was behind the invasion? A macho egomaniac, President Vladimir Putin, who prides himself on his virility and longs for the glory days of the Soviet empire. Whatever turns him on, it’s worth sacrificing 315,000 of his own people.

Meanwhile, not far from where I’m visiting family in northern Israel, a trained ophthalmologist has presided over the killing of more than 500,000 people in a prolonged civil war. He is Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria and the son of another mass murderer. Al-Assad in Arabic means “the Lion.”

Another civil war has been raging in Sudan, where six million people have fled their homes and half of the population needs urgent aid. Who is responsible? Two men: Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, former allies who overthrew the government and then turned on each other.

In China, a Human Rights Watch report in 2021 concluded that “since 2017, the Chinese government has carried out a widespread and systematic attack against Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. It includes mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.”

Who runs China? Xi Jinping, a driven control freak with visions of spreading Chinese influence around the globe.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions have died in local conflict and more than 1,000 women are raped every day, according to Jewish World Watch, one leader, Felix Tshisekedi, is happily ensconced in his presidential palace. If he is bothered by the carnage under his watch, he’s hiding it well.

Closer to home, who was behind the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Two Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal, who are worth billions and live in luxury in the sanctuary of Qatar, and one military leader, Yahya Sinwar, who decided it would be a good idea to invade Israel on October 7 and murder 1200 Jews.

In all of these horrors, among many others I’m leaving out, I keep looking for women leaders. I haven’t found any. Women come up mostly as rape victims.

It’s politically incorrect these days to suggest there are biological differences between men and women. Isn’t gender now supposed to be fluid? Maybe so, but a scientific study from the University of Chicago concluded that “across all cultures, men are more physically aggressive than women,” and that “of the various behavioral differences between males and females, physical aggression is one of the largest.” That doesn’t mean there are no exceptions; it means this is the clear biological inclination.

I know what you’re thinking: No kidding.

Gender theory or no gender theory, it’s hardly a mystery that the worst perpetrators of mass violence throughout history—from Genghis Khan to Hitler to Stalin to Mao Zedong— have had one thing in common: the Y chromosome present in males.

It’s tragic, really, that this primordial masculine trait to hunt, protect and defend, crucial to the survival of our species, has an ego-driven dark side that has led to the untold deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

But men don’t need two X chromosomes to embrace the less violent female trait. The great majority of men don’t succumb to the dark side. If I have one wish for humanity during this holiday season, it’s not that male monsters become female, but that they be replaced by leaders who value the female inclination not to mass murder and conquer people. That would make for a much nicer world.

It would also bring empathy for child brides like Samira Sabzian, for whom that empathy sadly will be too late.

2023: Another Year of Horrible Men Read More »

Former NBA Center Talks About Fighting Antisemitism

Community /

Collect your millions of dollars and keep quiet. That’s what many famous people are advised as there can be a price for speaking out about issues. Enes Kanter Freedom, a center who played in the NBA for 13 seasons, said it was important to speak about the dangers of antisemitism and the plight of the Uyghur Muslims in China because he thought it was the right thing to do.

The Turkish native told the Journal “If you’re a politician and wanted to be elected again, the first thing you do is attack America and attack Israel. The base is so uneducated. People are like, ‘wow look at our leader. He’s standing tall against America. He’s standing tall against Israel. Let’s vote for him.’”

He said when he was a child, his friends would burn American and Israeli flags.

“I asked them what they were doing,” he recalled. “They said ‘we should hate America. We should hate Israel. We should hate Jews. They gave me an American flag and a lighter, then said ‘burn it.’”

He ran upstairs and told his mother, who said not to hate anyone unless you meet them and they do something terrible.

Freedom, who appeared at StandWithUs’ Festival of Lights gals on December 17th, said that when he first came to America, he was on the phone with a woman. When she told him he was Jewish, he hung up the phone in fear. He called her back, and she invited him for a Shabbat dinner. He went, but called a Turkish friend before going and said if he didn’t hear from him in the next two hours, he should call the police.

“It was one of the greatest nights,” he said, adding that the family gave him grape juice instead of wine, knowing that as a Muslim, he would not drink alcohol, which is forbidden. “I realized this is not what I was taught growing up in Turkey, so I have to change that.”

Freedom said he was the first athlete and likely the first celebrity to condemn Hamas and speak out about the horrific attack of October 7. He said there was a lot of backlash for his stance.

“I know my religion better than anyone,” Freedom said. “In our religion, it says killing someone is equal to killing humanity. I said what Hamas did on October 7 is not for Islam.”

His stands have affected his family. After speaking out against the civil rights abuses of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his father was arrested, a warrant for his arrest was issued in Turkey and a bounty was placed on his head.

Freedom warned that Erdogan would “backstab” Israel — Erdogan met with Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September but was the first leader to publicly say that Hamas was not a terrorist organization; he also called Netanyahu a terrorist.

“This is a NATO ally,” Freedom said. “I don’t understand how some in the Israeli government were meeting with him. He raises money for Hamas and Hezbollah. He gives terrorists a Turkish passport. You can’t trust him. Seventy-two days before Oct. 7, he met with a Hamas leader in his house and there is a picture of it.”

Muslim leaders urged him to protest against Israel in a manner he said would achieve nothing.

“Me going in front of a kosher restaurant and putting a Palestinian flag there will not end the war or the conflict,” he said, adding that while many are calling for a ceasefire to end the fighting, a solution is “tricky, because if Hamas is left in power they  can attempt another attack.”

Freedom said he prays for the safety of the hostages taken by Hamas, for Israelis and Palestinians and all innocent people who are suffering. He worries about rising antisemitism and thinks it is important for him to speak out against it in an effort to prevent violence. He is also concerned about Islamophobia, and works against that as well. He said leaders who promote peace are needed and he will defend anyone who is oppressed.

Freedom said speaking out against China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims cost him millions of dollars and his career. While a member of the Boston Celtics, in October 2021, he railed against the torture of Uyghurs, posted that the genocide should be stopped.

Freedom said numerous NBA players have privately told him they support the fact that he has stood up for justice, “but they can’t say things in public because a lot of money is on the line.”

Freedom, who averaged 11.2 points and 7.8 rebounds over his career, is hoping to open a school/basketball camp in either Los Angeles or New Jersey that will include Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, Jewish and Christian youths of all races and he will take them to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. Last year, he went to Israel and organized a basketball camp for Israelis and Palestinians. Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple helped run a basketball clinic with Freedom and Ryan Turell for youths of all faiths, and had Freedom as a guest on his podcast that combines faith and sports called “Rabbi On The Sidelines.”

Ryan Turrell with Rabbi Erez Sherman and Enes Kanter Freedom

“Using basketball to bring people together is not new to Enes Freedom,” Sherman said.” That is what he started years ago, and this formula is necessary. Coming together must begin with our youth, and the court is a gathering space that strips away differences and bring out the good in humanity. Especially now in the most difficult times, his work is ever more crucial.”

Former NBA Center Talks About Fighting Antisemitism Read More »

Rare Victory: Dangerous Ethnic Studies Proposal off the Table — for Now

Commentary, Opinion /

The Jewish community and its supporters helped dodge another dangerous ethnic studies bullet, and they likely don’t even know it.

But there it is, buried deep in the November 3rd minutes of an obscure, 12-member committee of the University of California academic senate known as BOARS (Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools). Committee members voted 6 to 5, with one abstention, to halt further consideration of a disastrous proposal for establishing a UC ethnic studies admissions requirement that would result in every high school in the state being forced to offer a “critical” ethnic studies course likely to include antisemitic portrayals of Jews and the Jewish state.

What did the Jewish community and its supporters have to do with this outcome? Here’s the backstory.

In the weeks leading up to the BOARS meeting, the Jewish community was on high alert. Deeply alarming revelations were surfacing about the dangerous antisemitic activity and intentions of the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, the group behind the admissions proposal whose leaders were responsible for drafting the proposal’s course criteria that would serve as the de facto standard for all high school ethnic studies curricula if the proposal was approved.

In September, the Faculty Council sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond contending that anti-Zionism should be one of the “animating commitments” of state-mandated high school ethnic studies courses. The Council also stated their firm opposition to the “guardrails” that legislators had added to the ethnic studies graduation requirement bill to ensure that these courses do not “reflect or promote…bias, bigotry, or discrimination,” especially antisemitism.

As if that wasn’t concerning enough, in mid-October, less than one week after Hamas’ horrific massacre, mutilation, rape and kidnapping of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, the Faculty Council co-sponsored the inaugural conference of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ), an organization committed to delegitimizing Zionism and working towards the dismantling of the Jewish state. The Council-sponsored conference, entitled “Battling the ‘IHRA Definition’: Theory and Practice,” was intended to provide “academics and activists” with tools for delegitimizing the most authoritative and widely-accepted definition of antisemitism, and for denigrating those who use it. Conference participation, and presumably conference sponsorship, was limited to those committed to the ICSZ’s anti-Zionist mission.

Finally, a few days after the conference, the Faculty Council sent a letter to the UC Regents, President and Chancellors that vilified these leaders for issuing statements condemning Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7th and demanded that the leaders “retract charges of terrorism” and “stand against Israel’s war crimes… and ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.”  The Council’s letter also condemned the UC leaders for their opposition to BDS, with the Faculty Council claiming BDS “should be celebrated,” not opposed.

By late October, the outrage of the Jewish community reached a boiling point. How could a group of UC faculty who refuse to acknowledge that the Hamas massacre was terrorism and contend that anti-Zionism and efforts to dismantle the Jewish state are core components of their discipline be trusted to establish state-wide ethnic studies standards for all California students? These were the sentiments expressed by 115 groups from the Jewish and allied communities in a letter to the UC Regents and other leaders, urging them to unequivocally reject the ethnic studies admissions requirement proposal that was soon to be considered by BOARS. One week later – and two days before the fateful BOARS meeting – these sentiments were supported by more than 10,000 individuals in a petition to the Regents, that was also copied to every BOARS member.

Although the Regents did not respond publicly to the letter or petition, the message was received. A careful perusal of the November 3rd BOARS minutes reveals that at the very beginning of the meeting, the chair of the academic senate brought word from the Regents that the ethnic studies proposal to be voted on that day “has raised concerns among the Regents due to its association with the recent letter about the war in the Middle East from the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council.” Despite the minutes’ vague language, the Regents’ disapproval of the ethnic studies proposal comes through loud and clear.

For now, the Faculty Council’s disastrous ethnic studies admissions requirement is off the table, and the Jewish community can breathe a collective sigh of relief. But vigilance is in order. The fact that nearly half of the committee voted to approve the proposal despite the Regents’ disapproval and the outrage of the Jewish community suggests it might not be too long before the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council and their enablers on the BOARS committee come up with a new proposal for forcing their antisemitic discipline into every high school in the state.

Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a UC faculty member for 20 years.

Rare Victory: Dangerous Ethnic Studies Proposal off the Table — for Now Read More »