Monthly Archives: December 2019

Is Antisemitic Graffiti a Hate Crime?

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CNN reported on a situation in London, England on December 29, 2019, of antisemitic graffiti being painted across the city.

The article read:

“Police in London are investigating anti-Semitic graffiti found scrawled across shop fronts, restaurants and a synagogue as a possible hate crime.

Images of the Star of David and messages apparently relating to the September 11 attacks were painted on buildings in the north of the city on Saturday evening, authorities said.”

Is there any question that anti-Semitic graffiti is a hate crime?

The FBI defines hate crimes by breaking down both “hate” and “crime.” It does this being mindful of the First Amendment noting “Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.”

Vandalism is clearly part of the definition, as is deliberately targeting a religious house of worship or tying the commentary to a group’s religion as it states: “FBI has defined a hate crime as a ‘criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.‘”

In England, the definition of a hate crime is much the same: “The term ‘hate crime’ can be used to describe a range of criminal behaviour where the perpetrator is motivated by hostility or demonstrates hostility towards the victim’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity. These aspects of a person’s identity are known as ‘protected characteristics’. A hate crime can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, assault and bullying, as well as damage to property.”

The case in London is seemingly so clear cut, why is there a question about the incidents being hate crimes?

When mosques were burned in Sweden, why was The New York Times quick to point out the anti-Muslim sentiment of the act, but when synagogues in France were fire-bombed and Jews attacked, the Times noted that there was just a “tinge” of anti-Semitism?

When vandals destroyed a Jewish cemetery in the United States, why was the Times reluctant to clearly label the attack on Jews?

Why does the United Nations go through great lengths to distance religion from hate crimes when the perpetrators are Muslim, but does it explicitly without pause if the extremists are Jews?

There are huge swathes of the world – including the United Nations and progressive politicians and media – which are having a very tough time recognizing hate crimes against Jews even as they magnify them against other minorities, while at the same time going out of their way to label Jews as perpetrators of crimes while minimizing crimes committed by other religious groups. These continuing actions make them accomplices to the war on Jews, and arguably subject to prosecution as well.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

Chanukah Donuts: Brooklyn 2019

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The annual Chanukah pilgrimage in search of great donuts went to Brooklyn again this year. Due to the horrible tragedy that struck the Satmar community in Jersey City, NJ a few weeks ago, the first leg of the trip was in Williamsburg where the Satmar community has a large presence. We set out to try the donuts of seven different bakeries of which two were standouts. Later we headed to Boro Park where we sampled four bakeries which were all very good.

Williamsburg

Oneg Bakery, 188 Lee Avenue

The best donuts of Williamsburg were at Oneg Heimishe Bakery.

The store is small and the selection of donuts is limited but that says nothing about the quality of the food. The caramel and custard filled donuts were outstanding. They were overflowing with delicious centers which were very tasty and not too sweet. The dough was light and the icing was very good. An overall rating of an 8. Considering that the donuts only cost $2.00, lower than many others, if felt like a 9.

Oneg also was the only bakery we visited that carried “frittle,” essentially small and light pieces of fried dough with sugar which are made only on Chaunkah. They were quite good. May I add that the babka from Oneg is among the very best in New York.

Black and White Bakery, 520 Park Ave

The Black and White Kosher Bakery is not that close to the other bakeries but worth the trip. There is a mix of dairy and pareve donuts, plain and fancy, with prices ranging from $1.75 to close to $5.

The donuts were heavily filled with the taste of the fillings getting a range of reviews from amazing to just OK. The dough was very good, perhaps not as good as Oneg due to the freshness of when we arrived (jelly donuts decline in value as rapidly as a BMW). Overall an 8.

Traditional Kosher Bakery, 123 Lee Ave.

A very simple store with a simple name. It serves a number of non-baked items as well as some other baked goods including a cinnamon stick (OK) and a nut/craisin/cinnamon loaf which was terrific. The plain jelly donut had a very tasty raspberry jam but the dough was tough, heavy and thick. Overall, a 6.

Steinberg’s 701 Bedford Ave.

Steinberg’s exterior has no signage whatsoever. The store is clean and decent size with a pretty good selection of donuts. Some of the jelly donuts were assembled in sandwich-format rather than center infused.

The donuts had a very nice amount of filling, but unfortunately, not that tasty. The icing fell apart and onto the floor on first bite and the dough was not that fluffy. Overall rating of 5.5.

Kaff’s, 73 Lee Ave.

Kaff’s was one of the largest bakeries we visited in Williamsburg and they had a nice selection including two fancy choices with elaborate toppings. Regrettably, the dough was too heavy and the filling, while plentiful, was not on par with the presentation. Overall score of a 5.

G’shmak 164 Wallabout Ave.

G’Shmak was a real disappointment. While thrilled to have a halavah donut which had great flavor, everything else was lacking: The donuts had very little filling and the dough was very heavy. Huge piles of garbage near the entrance did not add to the experience. Overall rating 3.

Sanders 159 Lee Ave.

We stopped into this nice store – twice. Each time we were told that donuts were about to be ready, and each time kept waiting. On the second visit, the person at the store said that he had three small donuts in the back which he could give us, and after five minutes he confessed he had none and that we should return yet again. Nope. Gets a 0. The gluten-free cookies were also not great.

Boro Park

Boro Park bakeries had a much better consistency of high quality donuts than Williamsburg. I would recommend any of the four we visited. Here they are in rank order:

Gobo’s, 1524 New Utrecht Ave.

Gobo’s is a new addition to the Boro Park donut crawl and it did not disappoint. They have a different kind of jelly donut which is based on a churro, a cinnamon fried dessert. It was magnificent, with a slightly crunchy exterior, light and flaky dough, with a light creamy inside. An incredible treat and different than every other donut on the crawl.

The more traditional donuts were also very good with excellent dough, heavily filled. Toppings and icings remained on the donut. Overall rating of a 9.0.

Sesame, 5024 13th Ave

We typically go to the Sesame in Flatbush, but decided to try the location in Boro Park due to the proximity of our other stops. The bakery was a knock-out, just like the Flatbush location.

There are dozens of flavors to choose from, including unusual ones like pistachio. The donuts score at the top of the charts in every category: delicious and plentiful fillings, light and tasty dough, flavorful icing that is not overly sweet that stays atop the donut. An incredible treat, whatever flavor one tries. Scores a 9.0.

Taam Eden, 4603 13th Ave.

Ta’am Eden has long been a subtle favorite, a great counter-balance to Sesame. Both have fantastic dough and tasty fillings, but Ta’am seems to not want to overwhelm. The donuts seem smaller than Sesame and the filling doesn’t ooze out all over the place. But such amazing flavor, with new options like Passion Fruit and Pina Colada (seems like you can get some vitamins in donuts these days). The toppings were perfect in that they were very flavorful and remained in place. Overall an 8.5.

Weiss Bakery, 5011 13th Ave.

Weiss is simply an all-around great bakery. Compared to the other stores like Sesame which basically only serve donuts on Chanukah, Weiss adds donuts to its delicious repertoire, but doesn’t try to redefine its store.

The donut fillings are full and very tasty as were the toppings. The dough was not on par with Ta’am Eden or Sesame, and therefore got an overall score of 7.5. However, the store was handing out donuts to children who participated in a Boro Park scavenger hunt, worth an extra point for being a great member of the community!

Here is a chart summarizing the ratings for the 2019 Donut Crawl. Feel free to share the article and peruse and share the other articles on First.One.Through which focus on Jews, Judaism and Israel.

Happy Chanukah!

Related First.One.Through articles:

Brooklyn’s Holiday Donuts

The Last of the Mo’Kichels

A Sofer at the Kotel

Ruth, The Completed Jew

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Chanukah and Fighting on Sabbath

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Shuls, Jewish schools, community centers and kosher supermarkets have become battlegrounds in the United States over the past few years, much as they have been in the rest of the world for a long time. The spike in violent hate crimes against Jews has dwarfed those committed against any other group with recent murders in Pittsburgh, PA, Poway, CA and Jersey City, NJ.

Jewish communities all over the country are debating how to respond.

In 2015, New York City managed to push through a bill over the objections of several progressive politicians and organizations, to reimburse private schools – including Jewish day schools – for their security forces. That effort may have saved dozens of lives.

Synagogues are now debating whether they need to hire police officers to guard their houses of worship, or at least have people within the community be on alert, perhaps armed.

Many synagogues have turned to a group called the Community Security Service (CSS), which has been actively working with Jewish communities around the country for several years to help them prevent and prepare for emergency situations. As stated on their website:

“CSS provides a wide range of security services at no cost to the Jewish community. From securing thousands of events every year to helping secure facilities, we are the community security experts. Our teams are part of the community, trained by the community, here to protect the community, acting as a key force multiplier for law enforcement. CSS thrives to preserve our way of life and respect Jews from every walk of life. Our organization is supported by Jewish leaders, organizations, and law enforcement. Through our organization, the Jewish community receives the highest level of security training, our teams become the eyes and ears of the community, partnering up with law enforcement to help secure our community in an undisruptive, seamless way.”

Yet even with the training of the CSS and the spike in deadly attacks, many rabbis remain uncomfortable with Jews carrying weapons or using radios on the Sabbath, as it is considered a prohibited activity on the holy day.

It is therefore worth recounting the story of Chanukah, at least a particular one of the lesser known stories.

While many people are familiar with the story of the Maccabees defeating the Syrian-Greeks in battle and purifying the Temple of their pagan rituals, not all of the battles went well. As recounted by Josephus (37CE – 100CE), the Jewish historian in The Antiquities of the Jews in Book 12, Chapter 6, after the priest Matthias began the revolt, he and his sons fled into the desert:

“Many others did the same also; and fled with their children and wives into the desert; and dwelt in caves. But when the King’s generals heard this, they took all the forces they then had in the citadel at Jerusalem, and pursued the Jews into the desert. And when they had overtaken them, they, in the first place, endeavoured to persuade them to repent, and to choose what was most for their advantage; and not put them to the necessity of using them according to the law of war. But when they would not comply with their persuasions, but continued to be of a different mind, they fought against them on the sabbath day: and they burnt them, as they were in the caves, without resistance; and without so much as stopping up the entrances of the caves. And they avoided to defend themselves on that day, because they were not willing to break in upon the honour they owed the sabbath, even in such distresses. For our law requires that we rest upon that day. There were about a thousand, with their wives and children, who were smothered, and died in these caves. But many of those that escaped, joined themselves to Matthias, and appointed him to be their ruler. Who taught them to fight, even on the sabbath day; and told them, that “Unless they would do so, they would become their own enemies, by observing the law [so rigorously,] while their adversaries would still assault them on this day; and they would not then defend themselves: and that nothing could then hinder, but they must all perish, without fighting.” This speech persuaded them. And this rule continues among us to this day; that, if there be a necessity, we may fight on sabbath days.“

Over 2,100 years ago, Jews observed the Sabbath to such a degree that they allowed themselves to be slaughtered rather than put up any resistance. More men, women and children died during one of the first Sabbaths of the Maccabean revolt, than died at Masada 200 years later. But few remember the story.


Judas The Maccabee Defeats His Enemies,
painting by Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld (1794-1872)

During this Chanukah which is celebrated against a backdrop of terrible violence against Jews, let us remember all of the stories of the holiday, and make sure that every Jewish place of worship is completely prepared to handle any situation which may arise.

Wishing you a happy and very peaceful Chanukah.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Today’s Inverted Chanukah: The Holiday of Rights in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria

What Kind of Hate Kills?

Covering Racism

Where’s the March Against Anti-Semitism?

The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

I See Dead People

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

I Understand Why the Caged Jew Sighs

The Reform Movement’s Rick Jacobs Has no Understanding of Tolerance

The Holocaust Will Not Be Colorized. The Holocaust Will Be Live.

Calls From the Ashes

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The Tikkun Olam Brigade and the Taped Banana

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The fancy Art Basel art fair in Miami sold a remarkable item for $120,000 in December 2019: an actual ripe banana duct taped to a wall.


“Comedian” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan

The “work of art” called “Comedian” was produced by a famous Italian artist. The Perrotin gallery which featured the work stated that the work “offers insight [into] how we assign worth and what kind of objects we value.”

For the thinking individual, the insight is clear: in modern times, we defer to “experts” who put significant money behind ideas, regardless how patently foolish. The fact that an artist represented by an art dealer would feature a work at a large art fair and have someone pay a tremendous sum to purchase the work, seals the deal that this must be serious art. Any individual who would observe the stupidity of the scene would be mocked rather than the other way around as the experts and market have spoken.

Perhaps when this concept was broached by Marcel Duchamp one hundred years ago, the notion of challenging our idea of “art” was novel and thought-provoking. But we’ve already done that. Does this work cover any new ground?

Is this work “Comedian” a joke on society which doesn’t get the opportunity to either ponder or laugh at the exhibition as it cannot fathom stripping the experts of their anointed titles? Is it the masochism we must endure to belong to the elite club? “I want to be in this community of the sophisticated, so will nod as a dutiful supplicant. Yes, we can see that art can take different forms. Yes, we can see that people value items differently. Yes, everything can be art, everything can be beautiful, everything can be valuable. Shame on me for being judgmental to view art as art and beauty as beauty. I hope that I didn’t say any of that aloud as thinking in such manner would exclude me from the very club I wish to join.”

OR… perhaps it’s the exact opposite: the experts are telling us – begging us – to no longer believe them. The masses will spend money as pleases them; the art dealers will feed the masses as they need to make a living too. And the artist, well he’s in on the joke. He named the artwork “Comedian” because he knows that people slipping on a banana peel is low brow humor, just as the work is a cheap poke at the art world and all of us that want to be a part of it.

Either way, pondering art and value is two sides of the same auction paddle. It’s a discussion that the art world has already rehashed for one hundred years.

No. This work is new for the post-2015 world, in which social media reigns. The goal is no longer art, it is popularity. Something that can be liked, shared and retweeted is the essence of value.

Society no longer values beauty or talent or experience. It wants the joke. A quick hit of something to laugh at, to share.

Consider that the United States voted a complete political novice to the presidency in 2016. Americans decided that they had too many politicians named Bush and Clinton already. Out with experience and in with the brash entertainer. Society reached a point that the number of Twitter followers is a better proxy for what the country craves, more than policy. Kim Kardashian for VP in 2020.

The “Comedian” was neither art nor beautiful nor “inherently” worth $120,000; it was simply Tweet-worthy. The artist and the purchaser got value from the work because the masses shared the picture and story repeatedly. As such, the answer to Perrotin gallery’s proposition had a range of answers: the value ascribed to items in a capitalistic society is based on the one outlier who pays the highest price, but also factors the wide attention of the public.

In the search for popularity, experts abdicate their leadership roles. They are now mere “influencers” who peddle their brands and platforms.

The echo chamber becomes a perfectly designed loop where the tastes of the masses is endorsed by their “experts” which in turn make the masses feel wonderful. The platforms become elevated by these same Twits who Tweet, encouraging more of the same.

Why actually lead and educate, when the re-tweets come so fast and furious?

Tikkun Olam

The situation of experts abdicating their positions based on knowledge and experience is not confined to the art world. Today’s religious leadership is being led by the masses as well.

Religious leaders do not talk about religion, a subject in which they are theoretically theological experts. Instead, they focus on politics, as that is what their congregants (read audience) really want to hear.

Consider the Union of Reform Judaism which had its biennial in December 2019. A main focus of the multi-day affair was to discuss reparations for American slavery. The rabbi leading the charge did not quote Leviticus nor the Talmud nor any rabbinic sages like Rashi or Rambam. He quoted Ta-Nehisi Coates, a Black atheist, to make his point.

There is a wide swath of American Jews who relate to Judaism only through the prism of peoplehood and not through the orientation of reading of the bible. As many non-Orthodox streams of Judaism do not believe in God, they view the bible as merely a divinely-inspired text written with the patriarchal philosophy of thousands of years ago. They have therefore comfortably shifted their prayer books and devotion to modern liberal artists like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Their values begin with political figures and opinions such as from Michelle Obama’s book, and then consider Judaism. Religion is redefined in their political image.

Like the provocateurs in the art world who questioned what makes art “art,” Reform Judaism of 100 years ago asked people to consider what makes Judaism “Judaism”?

Both questions have matured over one hundred-plus years, and like the art world, Judaism has its own “Comedian” for the world of social media and popularity: it’s called “Tikkun Olam.”

The leaders of the Reform movement are marketing Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world, to the rowdy receptive audience of liberals – Jews and non-Jews alike. These potential pew-sitters are highly engaged in politics – particularly since Donald Trump entered politics in 2015 – so they meet their congregants there on the political battlefield. The reformed rabbis know what the progressive crowd cherishes – “Social Justice” – and the clergy repeats back to the parishioners their own political credo with the blessing that it’s kosher. It’s an inversion of the old teacher-student model, where the teacher no longer educates the ill-informed student about Judaism, rather the teacher must learn and incorporate the students’ passions and find an anchor in the bible. Such is the activity of a movement trying to stop its rapidly declining numbers.

Both Value (as in art) and Values (from religion) as currently determined by the bold fringe and loud masses of a post-2015 politically-charged and social media-connected world are seemingly disconnected from historic teachings and knowledge.

Traditionalists are aghast and will have none of it, while the progressives welcome the change as they seize the day from the prior generation.

Traditionalists see the taped banana as an object of interest but not art, just as Tikkun Olam is an appealing notion but not Judaism. Being neither art nor religion does not mean they have no value, but are not characteristic.

Liberals see things in reverse, where value defines everything. For them, Tikkun Olam is the essence of Judaism; a taped banana is bold art.

Both the non-Orthodox progressive leaders and the Orthodox traditional leaders will give their targeted audience their want, so they can manage the chaos of a charged and changing world. But the traditionalists will be leading with the knowledge of experts over thousands of years, while the modernists will be leading with values of the masses at the moment.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Rick Jacobs’ Particular Reform Judaism

The Reform Movement’s Rick Jacobs Has no Understanding of Tolerance

J Street is Only Considered “Pro-Israel” in Progressive Circles

Beyond Judaism’s IPO

On Heretics and Slanderers

Fake Definitions: Pluralism and Progressive / Liberalism

The Non-Orthodox Jewish Denominations Fight Israel

An Orthodox Rabbi at the Capitol

Obama’s “Values” Red Herring

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Black Antisemitism: The Intersectional Hydra

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Antisemitism today is widely reported to come from three main sources: the alt-right; the radical Muslim community; and the far left. What is not covered is Black Antisemitism, which does not fit neatly into one of the standard categories.

And it must be discussed, as Black antisemitism is becoming one of the greatest threats to Jews in America.

Understanding Alt-Left Black Antisemitism:
Racist Gentrification

Gentrification, on its face, is purely an economics matter. The change that comes to a poor neighborhood as wealthier residents move in sometimes upsets the dynamic of the existing residents. Rents slowly inch up for apartments and stores, pushing the residents and businesses out in favor of those that could now afford the higher costs. This is true whether the wealthier newcomers are the same ethnic background as current inhabitants or different.

In Jersey City, NJ, where two black people shot up a kosher store killing a police officer and civilians last week, gentrification has been a vocal issue, and it has focused on race, as much as economics.

In April 2019, the President of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference penned a letter to a local New Jersey media outlet. The article chastised the mayor of Jersey City, Steven Fulop to do something about the gentrification of the city where “lower-income African American and Latino families are being particularly threatened with displacement as investment floods in.” That same month, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century met in Newark, NJ, for a weekend “emergency summit on gentrification.” As covered by Brentin Mock in CityLab:

“The emergency is that too many white people have been moving back from wherever they fled to into inner-city neighborhoods that have been culturally and racially defined as black communities for the past few decades. This white invasion is an “insidious onslaught” to African-American life as we know it, as Daniels spelled out in a blog he penned last November, and so walls must be built, or rather, policies must be built to stop the occupation.”

This opinion is not a matter of economics, but one of racial warfare, and it is a belief held by many people in the black community.

Consider the comments of Joan Terrell Paige, a member of the Jersey City Board of Education after the shooting in the city targeting its Jewish residents for slaughter:

“Where was all this faith and hope when Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the jewish community?… If we are going to tell a narrative it should begin with TRUTH not more cover up of the truth. Mr. Anderson and Ms. Graham went directly to the kosher supermarket. I believe they knew they would come out in body bags. What is the message they were sending? Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the Black communities in America?”

When Terrell Paige was criticized for her antisemitic remarks, people from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network jumped to her defense, saying “How dare they speak out against someone saying how they feel. She said nothing wrong. Everything she said is the truth. So where is this anti-Semitism coming in? I am not getting it.” While the non-black public was aghast that someone would blame the victim for their own demise, the black community was focused on the perceived threat of a “white invasion” threatening the “Black communities in America.”

The Black community argued that the attack on the kosher supermarket wasn’t about hating Jews per se, it was about defending their communities from an “invasion.” It was a defensive action, not an act of persecution.

This is the identical language that progressives use against Israel. The progressives stand against the “insidious onslaught” of Jews coming into “Arab lands,” and want to “stop the occupation” of communities of color by European colonialists. Do the Arabs shoot the Jews dead? Yes, but it’s not based on antisemitism as much as defending their community of color from “too many white people.” The alt-left logic is that the blacks in New Jersey and the Arabs in Jenin would shoot to kill white invaders if they were Polish or Danish, so the fact that they were Jewish is inconsequential.

Progressives believe that there are particular people who deserve land, community, safety and wealth, and they are not wealthy white people. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio summed up the thinking of his alt-left comrades well in June 2019 when he said “There is plenty of money in this world, and there’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands. Democrats have to fix that.” Progressives aren’t looking for communities of coexistence, they seek a radical transfer of wealth, property, jobs and “justice” to minorities.

The progressive racist approach to gentrification is clear: they want the politicians to take tax dollars from the wealthy white communities and pour the funds into the poor minority urban communities, however, they don’t want those white people moving alongside them. Say no to Amazon’s 25,000 high-paying jobs if it will disrupt the communities of color (thanks AOC). Claim that Jews in the neighborhood are endangering your own black kids because they’re bringing out the haters. If the politicians fail to stop the “white invasion,” then you cannot blame the black community for rising up and shooting a bunch of white Jews shopping.

Tacitly and/or explicitly, the alt-left finds common cause with people of color who gun down white people in defense of their homogeneous minority community, whether in Jersey City or Jerusalem.

Understanding Racist Black Antisemitism:
Hatred of Jews and Judaism

The “alt-right” is often described as being a bunch of “white supremacists” but can be defined more broadly as people who believe in the racial superiority of their own group.

The alt-Right and the alt-Left share a common goal of exclusion. The alt-Right wants to limit immigration to the United States to countries from Europe to keep it a majority white country, while the alt-Left uses the war on racist gentrification to keep white people out of minority communities. The silent separator of the two extremist groups is that the alt-left wraps itself in a shroud of “justice” since it is advocating for minority groups while the alt-right fights to keep its majority status.

Beyond keeping country and community static, the premise of racism and antisemitism is also central to the alt-right vision.

While many of the black people defending the slaughter of Jews in Jersey City could not see their own antisemitism since they believed they were just defending the culture of their neighborhood, many black people have no qualms about voicing their disgust with white people and Jews.

The Nation of Islam is a notorious antisemitic organization which is headed by the black preacher Louis Farrakhan who loudly smears Jews, Judaism and white people to standing ovations in the Black community. Many African Muslim countries also have cultures of Jew-hatred, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in the Wall Street Journal in July 2019 about Somalia. ADL polls confirm that European Muslims are two to five times more likely to be antisemitic than Christians and that the Muslims from Africa and the Middle East are the most antisemitic people of all.

Black antisemitism is not limited to Muslims.

The two black murderers who killed people in New Jersey belonged to a fringe group called Black Israelites. They believe that blacks and Latinos are the true “chosen people” mentioned in the bible and that today’s Jews are imposters. The black Israelites view themselves as righteous and superior to white people and Jews.

These various racists and antisemites receive protection from the broad black and progressive communities under the guise of intersectionality. Many black Democratic politicians refuse to denounce Louis Farrakhan as he is considered a voice of empowerment to the black community. The leaders of the Women’s March proudly associated with Farrakhan. The racism and antisemitism of the black alt-right gets excused because they are a minority group, so The New York Times and Don Lemon on CNN will report that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men,” even while the growth in hate crimes today is being driven by violent black hatred.

Jersey City’s Brooklyn Jews

The Jersey City Massacre deserves some backdrop and context.

Over the past decades, the rental prices in Manhattan became prohibitive for many people so they flooded into cheaper neighborhoods in Brooklyn which were long occupied by a diverse group of people including Chasidic Jews, Pakistani Muslims, Puerto Ricans and others. The gentrification of Brooklyn pushed many of these people to seek cheaper rents in nearby communities.

Jersey City, NJ looked much like Brooklyn twenty years ago with its views of and proximity to Manhattan, but with cheaper rents. Long a home for blacks and Latinos, many of the poorer residents of Brooklyn came to Jersey City as a place near Manhattan which was more affordable.

Chasidic Jews are not like every other group of people seeking more affordable places to live. They not only dress differently, they eat different foods not carried by local establishments, send their children to different schools which teach Jewish studies and need to be within walking distance to a Jewish house of worship. This means that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, for one or two Chasidic families to move to a place without Orthodox Jews. They need to enter a community with a minimum of twenty to fifty families to support basic Jewish and kosher infrastructure.

So when Chasidic Jews “got gentrified” out of their own communities in Brooklyn, they could not move to Jersey City as individuals as many in the Latino community did, but came looking for a significant quantity of housing. Their move clearly alarmed the existing minority community which saw a “white invasion” and a Brooklyn-ization of their city. It galvanized the hydra of hatreds from across the spectrum of right-wing and left-wing to protest the Jewish presence in their city and to defend the antisemitic murderers.

EMT cleans the area outside a kosher supermarket on December 11, 2019 (photo: Tariq Zehawi/NorthJersey.com)

Whether motivated by racism, antisemitism or fears of gentrification, black people will be attacking Jews again. And until society, the media and political leaders clearly state that being a minority does not provide absolution for hatred and violence, everyone will be complicit in the heinous crimes against the most persecuted people on earth.

Related First.One.Through articles:

I See Dead People

First the Attackers Were Radical Islamic Extremists

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

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Is Columbia University Promoting Violence Against Israel and Jews?

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Columbia University has claimed to be a champion of free speech. It was in that spirit that it invited the noted anti-Semite Malaysian Prime Minster Mahathir Mohamad to speak on campus in September 2019. Mohamad has called Jews “hook-nosed,” said they “rule the world by proxy” and questioned the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He has even said he is “glad to be labeled anti-Semitic.”

That same week, seemingly to make the Jewish students on campus feel particularly unwelcome, one of Columbia’s professors, Lis Harris, released her book “In Jerusalem.” The student-run Columbia Spectator magazine reviewed the book in its Winter 2019-20 edition.

The review was shocking in seemingly endorsing the author’s contentions that Israel is an oppressor of Palestinians without adding any facts or context.

The article is set up to inform the reader that the book will have a natural “pro-Israel” tenor, as the author Lis Harris “grew up in a secular Jewish family in the United States fully alert, she says, ‘to the wrongs done to the beleaguered Jews across the ocean,’ but with little sense of the ‘wrongs done to the Palestinian people.’” Ah, if someone with a pro-Israel bias can see how terrible Israel is, it certainly must be true. The birth of a woke anti-Zionist is a cause for a progressive party.

Facts in the review and/or the book were seemingly few in the offering.

We are told that the book tries to look at the conflict through the lens of two families, a Jewish one living in “West Jerusalem” and a Palestinian one “living across the border wall in East Jerusalem.” This is fiction. There is no “border wall” between “West Jerusalem” and “East Jerusalem.” In 1967, Israel tore down the fence that divided the Jerusalem after Jordan illegally attacked Israel, and reunited the holy city. There is no West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, and the fence which had existed from 1949 to 1967 was explicitly declared to NOT be a border by Israel and Jordan in their Armistice agreement. The “security barrier” which Israel began to erect in 2002 to stop the terrorism of Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank is to the east of unified Jerusalem.

Perhaps the facts make the author’s shuttle diplomacy seem less daring, but it’s a sad intro for a writer “who spent more than ten years gathering research and interviews for the book.” The book established zero credibility from the outset.

The review then moves from the gross inaccuracies to ignoring Jewish history and blessing Arab terrorists.

We are informed that the stories in the book are told by “accomplished women” and intelligent and respected family members who “want peace and a fair solution to the conflict.” The Jewish woman’s aunt escaped Nazi Germany who found asylum in Mandatory Palestine “as a refuge from violence.” There is no mention that Mandatory Palestine was designed to REESTABLISH the Jewish homeland years before Nazis came to power. Jews were not dumped into Mandatory Palestine in a reaction to the Holocaust; the land of Israel has been the Jewish homeland for 3,700 years. Modern Zionism pushed for Jewish sovereignty in that land decades before the State of Israel came into being. That’s why Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority since the 1860’s, all facts not covered in the review and presumably not in the book.

This Jewish aunt “is juxtaposed with the experience of Niveen’s [the Arab’s] aunt. At twenty-one, Rasema Odeh was accused of terrorism, illegally tortured, and served ten years at the Ramla prison… Rasmea’s story is shocking, but the chapter devoted to it is one of the book’s best.” The review made it sound like Odeh was a poor victim, unjustly “accused of terrorism.” It neglected to state that she was convicted of terrorism in which she placed a bomb at a supermarket killing two civilians (her accomplices openly admitted such on Palestinian TV). It failed to state that Odeh lied about the events in getting a visa into the United States in 1994 and was stripped of her citizenship in 2017 and deported. It failed to note that many countries – including Germany in 2019 – banned her from speaking in public and denied her a visa as she calls violence against Israel. The mayor of Berlin said about Odeh that “anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic resentments, wrapped up in liberation rhetoric, have no business here. I am glad that we have found a way to stop this propaganda.”

This “juxtaposition” of a Holocaust survivor finding refuge at the expense of Palestinian Arabs seems to take a page out of the book of pathological liar U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) who claimed she found comfort that her ancestors created a “safe haven for Jews“ when they actually did everything they could to kill the Jews and/or keep them out of Palestine. It is called Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes, which turns the Jews from victims to oppressors, and the Palestinians from participants in the Holocaust to victims themselves.

The article continues with more inanity such as “Harris is clear-sighted and firm in her own view that the Israeli government is more oppressor than victim. She does not condemn the Palestinian people fighting to live in their occupied home of East Jerusalem (but neither will she excuse the violence of Hamas).”  No commentary that the Arab population in the eastern part of Jerusalem has grown FOUR TIMES since 1967, a rate that surpasses the population growth of Arabs in any neighboring country. It also neglects to mention that Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem have the option of becoming Israeli citizens and thousands have opted to do so. Palestinians aren’t “fighting to live;” they are fighting to evict the Jews and destroy the Jewish State.

The Spectator adds that “Harris was able to comment on President Trump’s rash recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Rash? Was President Truman’s recognition of Israel in 1948 also rash? The snide comment didn’t even attempt to hide the reviewer’s bias.

In summation, the review states that “through the people she comes to know in Israel and Palestine, Lis Harris sees hope, and this brave new book ultimately helps us see it too.” Palestine? The United States recognizes no such country. And to the extent that it recognizes “Palestinian Territories,” those are limited to Gaza and Areas A and B, and certainly not “in Jerusalem.”

Columbia University has chapters of anti-Israel hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace as student-run groups on campus. Their voices seem to have penetrated not only the student-run paper and magazine but the University itself which includes a faculty with anti-Israel authors and promoters of boycotts of Israel, and enabled the invitation of proud anti-Semites like the Prime Minister of Malaysia onto its campus. Beyond the student agitators, maybe the university’s anti-Israel platform was purchased by foreign donors like Saudi Arabia who pumped more than $193 million into Columbia between 2011 and 2017.

In October 2019, a report entitled “A Hotbed for Hate” produced by the Alumni for Campus Fairness listed over 100 anti-Jewish incidents at Columbia and Barnard since the 2016/7 academic year. In addition to the on-campus activities like a swastika painted on a Jewish professor’s office, the report listed numerous faculty members who deny the history of Jews as well as peddle forms of Holocaust denial.

At the very moment when antisemitism is on the rise, the murder of Jews is becoming commonplace and the demonization of Israel is accepted, it is a travesty that New York City’s only Ivy League school gives credibility, honor and an open mic to such vile sentiments.

Related First.One.through articles:

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The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

Ending Apartheid in Jerusalem

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

Students for Justice in Palestine’s Dick Pics

A Response to Rashid Khalidi’s Distortions on the Balfour Declaration

The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

The Remarkable Tel Jerusalem

Both Israel and Jerusalem are Beyond Recognition for Muslim Nations

750 Years of Continuous Jewish Jerusalem

Today’s Inverted Chanukah: The Holiday of Rights in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria

The Arguments over Jerusalem

“East Jerusalem” – the 0.5% Molehill

Jerusalem, and a review of the sad state of divided capitals in the world

When You Understand Israel’s May 1948 Borders, You Understand There is No “Occupation”

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The Green Line (music by The Kinks)

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The New Trend in Hate Crimes: Black Murderers and Jewish Victims

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The terrible murders at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, NJ in December 2019, was a continuation of a number of trends in hate crimes: more murders, more Jewish victims and more Black murderers.

EMT cleans the area outside a kosher supermarket on December 11, 2019 (photo: Tariq Zehawi/NorthJersey.com)

The FBI reports its findings about hate crimes in the United States every November. While Jews have always been the most likely to suffer from hate crimes, the nature of the attacks were often in the form of vandalism, intimidation and assault.

This trend has changed over the past few years.

Murder: The average number of hate crimes from murder was high between the years 2000 and 2003, averaging 13.5 murders per year during those four years. The average number of hate crime murders dropped significantly between 2004 and 2014, to just 6.2 killings per year. However, from 2015 to 2018, the average number of hate crime murders jumped to 16.5 people killed per year, a staggering figure.

Religion: Hate crime murders are typically not based on religious bias, as the murderers are more frequently motivated by hatred against the victim’s race and/or sexual orientation. Between 2000 and 2015, murders targeting religion accounted for an annual average of 10% of the total hate crime murders, but that figure jumped to 19% in the years 20016 to 2018. During the sixteen years 2000 to 2015, one Jew and six Muslims were killed. That has flipped, with eleven Jews and no Muslims killed as a result of hate crimes from 2016 to 2018.

Race of Murderers: While White people have been the majority of the murderers in all hate crimes, it is lower than one would expect based on demographics. There are roughly 5.7 times more White people than Black people in the United States so one would expect a similar rate of hate crimes. However, from 2000 to 2015, White people committed 3.4 times the number of hate crime murders (96 to 28), implying that an average Black person was committing 66% more hate crime murders than an average White Person. From 2016 to 2018 the trend accelerated, when White people committed 1.75 times the number of hate crime murders by Black people (28 to 16), suggesting that Black people were 226% more likely to commit a hate crime murder than White people.

The brutal shooting of innocent Jews by Black anti-Semites last week in New Jersey horrified all decent people but the trendlines over the past three years should make it less surprising. The U.S. is seeing an uptick in hate crime murders, more of them targeting Jews and more of the killings committed by Black people.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Black Hate Crimes of 2018

Mayor De Blasio is Blind to Black Anti-Semitism

What Kind of Hate Kills?

Don Lemon, Here are Some Uncomfortable Facts about Hate Crimes in America

Covering Racism

NY Times Discolors Hate Crimes

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

First the Attackers Were Radical Islamic Extremists

Muslim Women Debate Anti-Semitism

Rep. Ilhan Omar and The 2001 Durban Racism Conference

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Sources:

FBI Hate Crimes 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000

Opinions on Facebook

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On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 217A, known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The backdrop behind its passage was the Holocaust of European Jewry, in which an entire people was dehumanized, hunted and slaughtered, and the consequent global goal of making sure that it never happens again.

The first two stances in the resolution’s preamble make this clear:

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,”

All people inherently deserve “freedom, justice and peace” and the common goal of humanity is the enjoyment of “freedom of speech and belief” as well as “freedom from fear and want.”

The resolution goes on to enumerate many ways to achieve such goals, such as banning slavery (Article 4) and torture (Article 5), the ability to marry and divorce (Article 16) and change one’s religion (Article 18). While these seem fundamental rights in the western world, they are unfortunately not present in much of the Middle East and Africa.

But the western world has its own challenges with other items published in the UDHR, that of freedom of speech in the world of social media. Article 19 states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The notion that people have the right to “impart information… through any media… regardless of frontiers” is specifically being called out in the western world today.

The CEO of Facebook has been called before Congress and people have argued that Facebook must fact-check items before posting them as well as ban political ads.


Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress

At a speech before the Anti-Defamation League, the actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen argued that Facebook, Twitter and Google have created “the greatest propaganda machine in history,” one that would have allowed Hitler to run 30 second ads contributing to fringe ideas “going mainstream.”

But such condemnation should be addressed towards the individual or group posting the vile viewpoints, not the platform itself. Facebook is a megaphone / modern soapbox for ideas. It is not a newspaper with a staff which writes opinions of its own.

We have become enamored with attacking the large social media giants by adopting false progressive notions that: 1) social media is media; 2) any kind of “fear” is real and should be considered; and 3) simply being large and powerful is inherently evil.

Social Media versus Media

Social media enables millions and billions of people to connect with each other. The platforms enable third parties to share ideas and pictures with both friends and family as well as people they’ve never met. The interactions may be cordial or hostile; the content, funny or sad.

The social media companies are distribution companies. This is vastly different than a media company which either writes and produces its own content or pays people to write content for them. As companies like Google begin to hire professionals to produce content on platforms like YouTube, it is only at that point that they become media companies themselves.

These distribution companies decide for themselves whether they wish to publish particular content. If Twitter opts to not publish political ads, that is its choice. If Facebook does not want to be a platform for nudity, it has full discretion to do so.

But it is the content itself which should be the focus of attention and possible derision.

Freedom from Fear

While Article 19 of the UDHR clearly articulates that all opinions should be available on any media, the preamble to the resolution makes clear that people should be able to live with “freedom from fear.” As such, any content which calls for violence against any person or group should be banned from all platforms. No ifs, ands or buts.

But what constitutes “fear?” A perceived insult or slight might trigger “microaggressions” such as using the wrong pronoun for a transgender person. But that cannot truly be the benchmark of what the UDHR had in mind.

Many videos by the conservative Prager U have been banned by YouTube, despite the videos not advocating any violence. Dennis Prager testified before Congress in July 2019 that the social media platforms have been banning conservative voices because the media outlets are run by “coastal liberal latte-sipping politically-correct out-of-touch folks,” as President Obama called them. Prager said that “liberals and conservatives differ on many issues but they have always agreed free speech must be preserved. While the left has never supported free speech, liberals always have.”

Prager considered that “the left” has become overly sensitive about a wide range of issues and have used that as an excuse to shut down free speech with which they disagree. The notion of “freedom from fear” is being abused to shut down free speech.

The Powerful Institutions versus the Common Man

These same alt-left progressives have taken to the notion that large institutions like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Walmart are inherently evil. The socialists in Congress have been looking to pass numerous laws to punish them, tax them and break them apart. While Prager sees the social media companies as liberal outlets, the left sees them as corporate thieves who helped defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

As such, the left-wing socialists have waved the banner of support for the failing media companies who have peddled their half truths for years, arguing that they are on the front lines of democracy. (If only it were true.) But these media outlets can still write their pieces – and use the social media companies as outlets for distribution.

The big social media companies should NOT be in the fact checking business. However, they can improve upon their core distribution business by allowing people to see the source of the content placed before them and have greater control of the algorithms which tailor the content they see.

Allow people to have “freedom from fear” but not freedom from opinions of which they disagree.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Uncomfortable vs. Dangerous Free Speech

The Noose and the Nipple

Students for Justice in Palestine’s Dick Pics

The Press Are Not Guardians of the Galaxy

New York Times: “Throw the Jew Down the Well”

Ban Ki Moon Defecates on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Elie Wiesel on Words

Apostasy

Selective Speech

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The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

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Antisemitism has always been a problem around the world. In the United States, an average Jew is three times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an average black person, and twice as likely to be attacked as an average Muslim person. Yet the media often fails to call out the antisemitism (even while it calls out racism and highlights anti-Muslim sentiments). Americans are also much more likely to believe that there is more anti-Muslim bigotry (82%) than anti-Jewish (64%) according to a Pew Report, even though the statistics clearly indicate otherwise regarding actual hate crimes.

There is a real gap between perception and reality in both the general public and media.

Some of this difference may be due to the belief that violence is warranted in some cases and is consequently not based on discrimination.

A Gallup study showed that a society’s inclination towards violence against civilians was most directly correlated towards human development and governance. In particular, it noted a sharp increase in support for killing civilians in places with “social unrest and national instability.” Indeed, according to a Pew Report, the places with the highest support of suicide bombings against civilians are the Palestinian territories at 40% and Afghanistan at 39%. That compared to other Muslim countries of Indonesia and Iraq which are almost uniformly against suicide bombings.

The calls for the destruction of Israel and violence against Jewish civilians among Palestinian supporters are not confined to the streets of Gaza. In November 2019, Muslim protesters screamed in the center of New York’s Times Square that Israel had no right to exist and should be destroyed. They called for an “initifada” and “resistance until the end – until every inch of Palestine is free.” The celebrated “intifadas” are guerrilla wars against soft targets in Israel which have raged on and off since 1987. From 1967 until 1985 much of that guerrilla warfare happened in the international sphere, such as the Palestinian Arab assassination of U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, the murder of athletes at the Olympics, and the hijacking of airplanes and cruise ships.

The movement to attack Jews around the world based on the solidarity with “Palestinian rights” has been gathering momentum since 2014, when Israel was last engaged in an all out war with Hamas in Gaza. At that time, thousands of people attacked Jews throughout Europe, even as the media refused to label the attacks as anti-Semitic.

In the United States, social unrest brought its own version of crimes against Jews.

Black Americans are attacking Jews in ever greater numbers, with a spike of 58% in Black-on-Jew hate crimes in 2018. Black people might view these attacks as justified and not particularly based on religious hatred, as the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan said (to a standing ovation) “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m an anti-termite.” Farrakhan and his followers believe that they are a resistance movement against the tyranny of Jewish power, and not driven by antisemitism.

This is the oxymoronic logic that festers in social unrest.


Louis Farrakhan talking about Jews
(November 2018)

Black people have no monopoly on channeling social unrest to attack Jews. The alt-right has shot Jews in synagogues and marched in the streets because they were worried that Jews were facilitating Muslim immigration into the United States, pushing White people into a minority (they fail to note that Muslims are expected to surpass the number of Jews in the U.S. by 2050, and Muslims are much more likely to be anti-Semitic than Christians according to ADL polls). Perhaps they feel that Jews are masochists.

People who feel wronged cannot recognize their own hatred, and hold their aggrieved status as a bold pardon to lawlessness. The “woke” progressive and alt-right communities demand that Jews give up their land, their wealth, their power, their privilege, their victimhood, their rights and opinions, and anything else that they deem illegal, unearned, undeserved, disproportionate or incorrect as their terms of coexistence.

Social unrest bleaches racism, and always, always comes for the Jews.

Related First.One.Through articles:

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The Crime, Hatred and Motivation. Antisemitism All The Same

Considering Nazis and Radical Islam on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

Bitter Burnt Ends: Talking to a Farrakhan Fan

Mayor De Blasio is Blind to Black Anti-Semitism

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War

For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

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Ramifications of Ignoring American Antisemitism

I See Dead People

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Jews, Judaism and Israel

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There are many debates being waged around the world about whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, how it is possible that some Jews may be against Israel, and why some Jews who do not believe in either God or religion are still considered Jews. This article will not tackle all of those issues but will seek to define, segment and size the nature of Jews, Judaism and Israel to better frame discussions on those topics.

Judaism

Judaism is a religion that takes the source of its teachings from the Five Books of Moses. Biblical scholars over thousands of years have interpreted the various events and commandments found in the Old Testament to frame how a Jewish person should act and live. The approaches changed over the millenia, with some sects like Sadducees, Essens and Karaites fading away while the Pharisees survived with the publication of the Talmud.

Over the last few hundred years, newer religious denominations came about including Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism. Each adopted different approaches as to whether the Bible was written by God or was simply divinely-inspired, and how to translate the ancient stories into relevant lessons for today.

Jews

Jews are most often defined by their lineage. Abraham, the father of monotheism, is considered the first Jew in Judaism. His grandchild Jacob became known as Israel and Jacob’s sons were the basis for the twelve tribes and the nation of Israel. Jews consider themselves direct descendants of these biblical characters.

According to the Orthodox and Conservative streams of Judaism, a person’s religion is decided by matrilineal descent (the religion of the mother), while the Reform and Reconstructionist groups have a broader allowance, in that they include patrilineal descent as well. Converts are also welcomed as Jews (although they are not encouraged) and tradition maintains that the new Jews do not only take upon themselves the religion, but the ancestry of Jews as well. A convert’s new Hebrew name will be “______ son of Abraham” or “_____ daughter of Sarah” to show that they are now included as part of the heritage of Jewish peoplehood.

Israel

Judaism is a unique religion in that it has ties to a specific piece of land. The Bible clearly relays to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the descendants afterwards that the land of Canaan is their inheritance. The Bible describes specific commandments that can only be kept in Israel, and to this day, every Jew around the world prays facing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel.

Jews have always lived in the LAND of Israel. Indeed, they were the only religious group to move to the holy land throughout the 19th century and Jews have been a majority in the city of Jerusalem since the 1860’s, BEFORE the push for Jewish sovereignty and advent of Modern Zionism.

Jews, Judaism and Israel

Despite the intersection of Jews, Judaism and Israel, not every Jew follows the religion nor lives in Israel.

Religion and Zionism In Israel

There are roughly 14.2 million Jews alive in the world today. Of that total, roughly 6.7 million live in the Jewish State of Israel. There are another 2.3 million non-Jews that live in Israel, with a population that now exceed 9 million.

  • Religious Jews 3.4 million
  • Secular Jews 3.3 million
  • Non-Jews 2.3 million
    • Total 9.0 million people in Israel

The Pew Forum estimates that Haredi and Orthodox Jews account for 10% and 12% of Israeli Jews, respectively, with Conservatives and Secular Jews accounting for 28% and 49% of the Israeli Jewish population, respectively. Using a Venn diagram, one can plot the 3.3 million Secular Israelis as being Jews connected to the land of Israel (People + Land) but not to the Religion.

Among the religiously-affiliated Israeli Jews, the Haredi Jews are the least Zionistic, while most of the other streams are very passionate about Israel having Jewish sovereignty. The black hat/ Haredi community is less enamored with the Modern Jewish State as it is not based on Orthodox religious law and many believe that such a state should only come into being with the arrival of the Messiah.

Denomination Population% Total Zionist% Total
Haredi 10% 0.7 10%            0.1
Orthodox 12% 0.8 100%            0.8
Conservative 28% 1.9 95%            1.8
Secular 49% 3.3 90%            3.0
Total in millions 6.7 5.7

If one were to assume that only 10% of the Haredi population are Zionists and almost all of the other denominations are Zionists, roughly 1 million Jews in Israel today would not be considered ardent Zionists.

This is not an oxymoron, and goes to the nature of the confusion of different people’s opinions about Zionism. Many Jews living in Israel are against the GOVERNMENT, not the idea of Jews living in the land. Haredi Jews consider themselves anti-Zionist because they think a secular Jewish state has no legitimacy in the Jewish holy land. However, they believe very strongly that the land is the Jewish holy land and they have the right to live Israel. This is in sharp contrast to Muslim anti-Zionism around the world which believes both that the Israeli government should be destroyed and that Jews should be expelled from the land.

Diaspora Jewry on Israel and Judaism

A little more than half of world Jewry lives outside of Israel, roughly 7.5 million people. The vast majority of diaspora Jews live in the United States (over 5 million) with France, Canada and the United Kingdom accounting for over 1 million more.

The United States is a bit of an anomaly compared to Jews around the world, with strong Conservative and Reform movements. In much of the rest of the world, Jews are either Orthodox or secular. In considering the breakdown of Jews in the Venn diagram, assumptions are made for the 5.3 million Jews in the U.S. and then for the rest of the world.

America Population% Total Zionist %  Total 
Orthodox 10% 0.5 50%            0.3
Conservative 18% 1.0 70%            0.7
Reform 35% 1.9 40%            0.7
Unaffiliated 37% 2.0 20%            0.4
Total in millions 5.3 2.1

The Pew Forum estimated the breakdown of Jewish denominations in the United States and the percentages for people who consider themselves Zionists are educated guesses. The Conservative denomination is assumed to be the most pro-Israel, as the Orthodox group includes Anti-Zionist Haredi factions. Using these figures would suggest less than 40% of American Jewry is pro-Israel.

Different percentages are used in making estimates in the rest of the world, below:

ROW Population% Total Zionist %  Total 
Orthodox 25% 0.6 60%            0.3
Conservative 10% 0.2 70%            0.2
Reform 30% 0.7 40%            0.3
Unaffiliated 35% 0.8 40%            0.3
Total in millions 2.2 1.1

The figures for the 2.2 million Jews in the rest of the world are broad estimates. In some countries like France, 60% of the population is Sephardic which almost always considers itself Orthodox, even when not actively practicing Judaism. In general, the unaffiliated/ Reform account for a majority of the population.

Among the diaspora Jews outside of the U.S., Israel holds a more significant role as they suffer more discrimination and are much more likely to emigrate to the Jewish State. Using these figures – which are arguably low – approximately half of the Jews in the rest of the world would be considered active Zionists, 10% more than American Jewry.

Laying out these figures in the Venn diagram above shows that there are about 5.6 million affiliated Jews, of which roughly three-quarters are pro-Israel. This compares to approximately 8.5 million unaffiliated Jews of which only 45% are pro-Israel.

**This breakdown might be viewed by many as unfair. For example, according to Pew, 87% of American Reform Jews consider themselves only Jews through Peoplehood and not religion, while 50% of Unaffiliated Jews felt the same way. This would suggest 4.0 million Affiliated American Jews (both People and Religion) as opposed to the 1.5 million used in the chart above.**

However, the concept remains the same. There are Jews who consider themselves only Jews in the notion of peoplehood, those who consider themselves both Jews by peoplehood and religion, and further, those within each camp who consider themselves tied to Israel (whether they live there or not) and those who do not. The warring factions within the Jewish people of Zionist/anti-Zionist and Jewish anti-Semites often breakdown among these categories.

Jews, Judaism and Israel are all deeply connected yet are distinct at the same time. Before delving into the nuances related to antisemitism and anti-Zionism, it is important to understand the important interrelationship of land-government, people and religion while also acknowledging the varied preferences among Jews in how they define themselves and convey their passions.

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The Non-Orthodox Jewish Denominations Fight Israel

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