Orthodox Institutions Should Rally To The Westchester Reform Temple

Posted on February 9, 2022 by First.One.Through

An anti-Zionist teacher was fired from the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York, and is now suing the institution. Religious organizations should support the Reform Temple in this lawsuit.

Jessie Sander wrote an article in May 2021 in which she “call[ed] for American Jewish institutions to revisit their educational philosophy and curriculum about Palestine and its history,” and that American Jews must stop their “racist practices and beliefs” and support of Israel (which she spelled each time with a lower case “i”) in its “settler-colonial violence” and “genocide in Palestine.” She added that “israel actively trains the actors of our military state to enact violence against our Black and Brown siblings,” portraying Israel as committing racist violence both in Israel and the United States.

A few weeks later she was hired as a Hebrew teacher at the Westchester Reform Temple before the school was aware of her writings. Once the administration found out about it, she was questioned and then dismissed. She is now suing the school for reinstatement plus compensatory damages.

*February 6, 2022 New York Times article on a Jewish school firing an anti-Israel teacher*

The New York Times covered the story in its typical anti-Israel jaundiced fashion. It noted that Sander is like many younger American Jews, who are not emotionally attached to Israel, as it cited a poll which found that 25 percent of Jews believed Israel to be an “apartheid state” and 22 percent said it was “committing genocide against the Palestinians.”

Those aren’t “beliefs” any more than Holocaust denial is a belief. They are simply wrong. When 25 percent of a class gets a question wrong on an exam, we don’t reorient the narrative to accommodate the incorrect.

Schools must be able to evaluate the teachers they hire and whether they pose a threat to the students and mission of the institution. This teacher was not simply stating that she was concerned about Palestinian self-determination but sought to change the “educational philosophy and curriculum” with her false impressions about the state of Palestinian “genocide.” Together with her deliberate refusal to capitalize the state of Israel, the institution was rightly concerned about what she was going to teach in her classes.

While liberal anti-Zionists like Peter Beinart may run to defend this teacher, it is important for other religious denominations – especially the Orthodox – to rally to the side of the Reform Temple.

Jewish institutions have long hired a variety of people from different backgrounds. Yeshiva University, the flagship Jewish university in the United States, hires many non-Jewish faculty. Jewish Day Schools hire people with a range of political views from conservative to progressive.

But they do not hire someone who seeks to instill a false narrative into the cirriculum.

Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America and other Orthodox organizations do not always have an opportunity to bond with the Reform movement. These mission-driven groups – as well as non-Jewish ones – should rally to support the Westchester Reform Temple in the suit by an anti-Israel extremist, in an important defense of their religious rights.

Unity – not Unanimity – in the Pro-Israel Tent

The Root of Left-Wing Anti-Zionism in Congress is Left-Wing Jews

The Anti-Israel Community in a Jewish House of Worship

A Disservice to Jewish Community

Jews, Judaism and Israel

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Pray for a Lack of “Proportionately” in Numbers. There will never be an Equivalence of Intent.

Roots Of The Denial And Falsification Of Jewish History

Posted on February 4, 2022 by First.One.Through

Holocaust denial is so commonplace, that we don’t contemplate its uniqueness. There is no other broad-based denial of a particular event in history other than the genocide of European Jewry, even while Survivors are still alive.

Why is that?

Certainly there is bigotry and racism. But many people harbor biases against a group and still do not deny their history.

A person may dislike Black people but won’t deny that there was Black slavery. A person might be a misogynist, but will readily admit that women once did not have the right to vote.

Yet the deliberate effort to deny Jewish history happens so frequently, that even the United Nations General Assembly – no friend to the Jewish people – passed a resolution to combat this evil.

Why do people deny and falsify Jewish history?

A Religious Perspective:
Change in Gospel and Fake History

Christianity views itself as an extension of Judaism. The Christian Messiah was a himself a Jew in Jerusalem, who took the religion in a new direction. The Christian bible is called the ‘New Testament,’ built upon the ‘Old Testament’ of the Jews.

For centuries, Christianity viewed Jews as those who rejected their Messiah. Until the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholic doctrine felt that Jews should be punished for killing Jesus and continuing to reject him.

Muslims’ approach to Judaism is quite different. Islamic tradition views the Hebrew Bible as a complete fabrication. They believe that Abraham’s covenant ran through his son Ishmael, the patriarch of the Arabs, not Isaac.

It is therefore not surprising that Muslims are twice as likely to harbor anti-Semitic attitudes as Christians according to an ADL poll. That the Islamic Republic of Iran mocks the Holocaust as a fabrication can perhaps be seen through the lens that it views itself as the vanguard of Islam, which rejects the entire story of the Jewish people from its foundation.

Christians falls into two camps: those who accept the Second Vatican Council and are not likely to deny the Holocaust, and the “ultra-traditionalists” – like some of the people from the Society of St. Pius X – who actively deny the Holocaust. This second group are angered that the Church altered its own foundational texts and the history of Jews and Jesus, so they actively deny the genocide of the Jews.

For Muslims and ultra-traditionalist Christians, Jewish history is either built on a fiction, or has become fictionalized, so think nothing of denying Jews of their history.

A Secular Perspective:
Schemers and Scapegoats

The falsification of Jewish history occurs outside of religious denominations as well.

“The Protocols of The Elders of Zion,” was a notorious anti-Semitic forgery written in the Russian Empire in 1903. It attempted to portray Jews as schemers who were plotting to create havoc to control the world through the banks, media and provoking wars. It spread throughout the world by radical anti-Semites including Henry Ford and the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas.

While some people might hate Hindus, no one took time to create a false document about Hindu community leaders to make them look evil.

So why the Jews?

Jews were often viewed with suspicion because of their position.

The Jewish diaspora spread a small people to the corners of the earth. While some assimilated and converted (forcibly and otherwise), many held on to their traditions. They did so in clustered communities – both voluntary and forced – to facilitate the production of kosher foods and participate in communal prayer.

That insularity bred suspicion. A small group that insisted on holding onto an unpopular belief system either lived on one extreme of abject poverty or became leaders in various professional fields. They were resented for both because they were considered as foreigners.

Anti-Semites were ready to embrace the Protocols forgery. They jumped at the opportunity to believe blood libels that Jews stole babies for baking matzah or were behind the Black Death. Jews were considered aliens in their midst, and easy scapegoats for the root of problems. Falsifying history helped foster that foreigner narrative, and an evil one at that.

The foreigner label attached to Jews everywhere, including in Ethiopia where Black Jews were called “falashas,” which means “foreigners” in Amharic.

In small, cloistered communities stretched around the world, Jews were vulnerable. Their non-Jewish neighbors were able to cast their opinions onto this minority, and craft stories to enlist others to embrace their hatred. Jews were left protesting the absurd charges to an audience that was both instigator, prosecutor and judge at once.

The secular falsification of Jewish history is anchored in xenophobia, and a desire to expel the foreign bodies, whether they be the “unclean,” poor Jew, or the “powerful,” puppet-masters “behind the curtain,” exploiting the noble masses for profit.

1,000 years of Jewish expulsions

The unique nature of denying and falsifying Jewish history is embedded in Muslim and ultra-traditionalist Christian religious bias as well as anti-Semitic xenophobia. Holocaust education will not cure those ills.

A Whoopi Goldberg Teaching Moment: Jews, Race and “The Other”

Posted on February 1, 2022 by First.One.Through

Whoopi Goldberg, a liberal Black popular personality on television described the Holocaust of European Jewry as matter of “White people doing it to White People,” and therefore not a matter of racism. From her vantage point, the Jews were not an “other,” a people apart, but merely a group of White people that other White people didn’t care for. For Whoopi – and many Black people and liberals – Jews are White, and possess power and therefore cannot claim racism.

To set the matter straight, the Nazis did view the Jews as an inferior race. Here is just one section of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, in his introduction to the Jew:

“One day when I was walking through the inner city, I suddenly came upon a being clad in a long caftan, with black curls. Is this also a Jew? was my first thought. At Linz they certainly did not look like that. Secretly and cautiously I watched the man, but the longer I stared at this strange face and scrutinized one feature after the other, the more my mind reshaped the first question into another form : Is this also a German?

“As was my custom in such cases, I tried to remove my doubts by reading. For the first time in my life I bought some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few pennies. They all started with the supposition that the reader already knew the Jewish question in principle or understood it to a certain degree. Finally, the tone was such that I again had doubts because the assertions were supported by such extremely unscientific arguments. I then suffered relapses for weeks, and once even for months. The matter seemed so monstrous, the accusations so unbounded that the fear of committing an injustice tortured me and made me anxious and uncertain again. However, even I could no longer actually doubt that they were not Germans with a special religion, but an entirely different race; since I had begun to think about this question, since my attention was drawn to the Jews, I began to see Vienna in a different light from before. Wherever I went I saw Jews, and the more I saw of them, the sharper I began to distinguish them from other people. The inner city especially and the districts north of the Danube Canal swarmed with a people which through its appearance alone had no resemblance to the German people.“

The entirety of Hitler’s work is a screed against the Jews as an entirely alien being, vile in every form. His propaganda machine borrowed from the prior works of anti-Semites, and expounded upon them, riling up a continent to exterminate these foreign beings from their midst.

The matter of whether Jews are a different race is not the point. To debate that matter is to give air to noxious evil. The Whoopi comments which were broadcast to millions, must be considered for other insights:

Holocaust ignorance and denial on various platforms
Non-Anti-Semitic Black Perception of Jews

Holocaust Ignorance and Denial on Various Platforms

A few days ago was Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution against Holocaust denial. The resolution pointed out “the global and open nature of the Internet and the significant role of social media in spreading information,” but failed to discuss how the distortions about the Holocaust occur regularly in the mainstream media, both in the news and on popular shows like Whoopi Goldberg’s “The View.”

Various forms of anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortions are also becoming mainstreamed in American politics from the likes of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It is important to call it out everywhere and not pretend it is only promoted on social media.

Non-Anti-Semitic Black Perception of Jews

There are certainly a large number of Black anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, who attracts loyalists like Keith Ellison and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). Whoopi should not be dumped into this anti-Semitic camp.

Whoopi, as well as many Blacks and liberals, perceive of Jews as White, powerful “one-percenters.” They see American Jews and Israeli Jews as oppressors of Black and Brown people for profit, as stated by Tlaib to her loyalists in the Democratic Socialists of America. Marc Lamont Hill claims that only the powerful can be racists, both making it impossible for Black people to be racists, and that Jews cannot be the victims of racism since they’re White and powerful. This twisted logic has permeated the mindset of those who are not openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

The reality is that an average Jew in the United States is over 40 times more likely to be attacked than an average White person. Proportionately, Jews suffer more hate crimes than Blacks as well. These are plain facts.

Jews are marked as “the other” by White Supremacists as well as Blacks. It binds KKK leader David Duke with Ilhan Omar in their open hatred, but also blinds others like Whoopi Goldberg.

Black people insist on holding the mantle of Victims of Preference, and cannot let such security blanket drop for a moment, even when discussing the Holocaust on broadcast television.

Whoopi apologized for her Holocaust remarks that offended people but missed the opportunity to teach people about the common evil of racism and anti-Semitism: don’t turn your neighbors into “others” to demonize and despise. Jews suffer from “othering” around the world, and this Black liberal should educate her listeners to stop doing it to Jews themselves.

80 Years After Wannsee Conference, Arab/Muslim Anti-Semitism Dominates

Posted on January 23, 2022 by First.One.Through

On January 20, 1942, Germans met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to develop the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.” The persecution of Jews was already well underway, and on that day, the Nazi regime put into place a program to push the Jews to extinction. They succeeded in wiping out nearly all of the Jews in Europe, about one-third of global Jewry.

Since the end of World War II, the Arab and Muslim world picked up the fight to “the Jewish Problem.”

The Arabs in Palestine were successful in lobbying the British in impeding Jewish immigrants desperate to leave the Holocaust in Europe with the “White Papers”, likely causing well over 100,000 Jewish deaths. The remaining Holocaust survivors landing on the shores of Palestine after World War II were very vulnerable targets. The Palestinian Arabs enlisted the help of neighboring Muslim countries to complete the genocide of the Jews, killing nearly one per cent of the region’s Jews in the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. The Arabs then ethnically-cleansed all Jews from the lands they seized, and forbade Jews from visiting their holiest locations in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Angry at the survival of the Jewish nation, Muslim Arab countries purged their Jews. Roughly 99% of the region’s Jews were forced out, an estimated 850,000 Jews, a total which excludes the Jews who fled Afghanistan and Iran.

Algeria 140,000
Egypt 75,000
Iraq 135,000
Lebanon 5,000
Libya 38,000
Morocco 265,000
Syria 30,000
Tunisia 105,000
Yemen 55,000

Arab countries attempted to kill all of the Jews in Israel again in 1967, though they failed spectacularly. Stinging from the loss, the Arab League adopted the Khartoum Resolution which called for “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.” The Arabs soon launched another war against Israel – during Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur – in 1973, while pushing the noxious idea that “Zionism is a form of racism” at the United Nations under the watch of former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, who was serving as the UN Secretary General.

Meanwhile, Christianity rethought its complicity in the European Holocaust and declared in 1965 that Jews were no more responsible for the death of Jesus than anyone else, and declared clearly that Jews should not be persecuted. Less than 25 years later, the “Iron wall” in the Soviet Union crumbled and allowed thousands of Jewish “refuseniks” to leave the country to Israel and elsewhere.

But the bile in the Arab Muslim world did not let up during this time, even as Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The Palestinians declared themselves to have an independent state in 1988 on all of the land of Israel including the “West Bank” and Gaza, a move which was rejected by much of the western world. At the same time, Hamas introduced its foundational charter calling for the death of Jews and complete destruction of the Jewish State. The group (and other Palestinian terrorist groups) became immensely popular and received funding from Iran and Syria.

Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah, together with Palestinian Arabs, targeted and killed thousands of Jews around the world in the following decades. Iranian leaders have continued to hold Holocaust denial conferences, call for the destruction of Israel and pursue nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles.

On the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the United Nations approved a resolution condemning Holocaust denial, with only Iran standing in opposition. The story was covered by The New York Times and other media outlets which wrote about the resolution and described today’s prevalent “right-wing” anti-Semitism and completely ignored that the vast majority of anti-Semitism stems from the Islamic world.

Not only will Muslim anti-Semitism not go away by ignoring it, but it may enable the leading state sponsor of terrorism and Holocaust denial to obtain weapons of mass destruction to carry out another genocide of the Jews.

Hamas’s Willing Executioners

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

Reuters Can’t Spare Ink on Iranian Anti-Semitism

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority

New York Times Mum on Muslim Anti-Semitism

Posted on January 18, 2022 by First.One.Through

A British Muslim flew thousands of miles to take Jewish hostages in Texas in an attempt to secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a noted anti-Semite serving time for trying to kill American soldiers and plot a mass casualty attack in New York City. The hijacker, Malik Faisal Akram, yelled at the people praying on a Sabbath morning in synagogue, “Jews control the world, Jews control the media, Jews control the banks,” and said that the Jews “can call President Trump and he will do it [release Siddiqui] because Jews control everything.“

But The New York Times deliberately omitted that Akram and Siddiqui were Muslim or even the word “anti-Semitism” in its coverage. The Associated Press would similarly not describe the Jew hatred of Siddiqui in a long profile of her.

The New York Times article on January 17, 2022 about the hostage taking in a Texas synagogue. No Times article mentioned the word “anti-Semitism” regarding the hostage taker or the terrorist he tried to free.

The Times has an established track record of ignoring Black and Brown anti-Semitism for two principle reasons: the liberal paper does not want those communities to draw the attention of law enforcement which it thinks over-police those communities, and it seeks to label racism as a purely White and Republican phenomenon, in the hopes of securing more votes for liberals and minorities.

Those minority communities often believe that Jews have too much power – a common anti-Semitic trope – and the liberal press and politicians are feeding their base red meat. They do not report on anti-Semitic attacks and try to cleanse some anti-Semitism as merely anti-Zionism, which they consider an inherently racist project.

The left-wing media gives Muslim anti-Semites and anti-Zionists a platform, such as CAIR-San Francisco Bay Area Executive Director Zahra Billoo, who has been flagged by the Anti-Defamation League for comments like “pay attention to the ‘polite Zionists,’ … We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. …know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that they are your enemies.”

*Discussion by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on November 10, 2021 including popular anti-Zionist Linda Sarsour, seeking the release of Aafia Siddiqui*. Sarsour is a favorite of the Times who affectionately calls her a “Brooklyn homegirl in a hijab.”

The reality is that polls continue to show that Muslims are more anti-Semitic than non-Muslims. It is also true that criticizing Muslim anti-Semitism is not Islamophobia, any more than criticizing White supremacy Jew hatred is an attack on all White people.

But in the end, liberals have placed Muslims alongside Black and Brown people in the category of Victims of Preference. They will not disturb their protective shield around these groups, even if they commit heinous crimes.

That is why left-wing politicians call out anti-Semitism and lump it together with racism and Islamophobia – not because they think that Jews suffer like their Victims of Preference, but as a means TO PROTECT the VOPs, even as the Jews uniquely suffer.

What makes the absence particularly appalling, is that the liberal press did not have to make the statement itself, but could just have simply quoted Democratic President Joe Biden who said of the attack “let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate — we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country.” Instead, the paper just use a quote in an article on January 18 where he called it an “act of terror.“

*The New York Times quoted President Biden on January 18 as saying it was an “act of terror,” and not using his statements about anti-Semitism.*

The New York Times, the most popular digital news source in the world where over 90% of its viewership is Democratic, is educating its liberal readers that minorities cannot be racists or anti-Semites. It is part of its ‘2019 Project’ on White Supremacy, which is concluding that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class,” as Randi Weingarten, President of the powerful American Federation of Teachers union said. While Jews may be a numerical minority, they are in the one-per centers and in cahoots with the White ruling class, and are therefore an integral part of the problem. More succinctly, the alt-left is attempting to educate people that Jews are the only persecuted minority who actually deserve it.

“Tinge” Two. Idioms for Idiots

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

New York Times Finds Racism When it Wants

Mayor De Blasio is Blind to Black Anti-Semitism

The New York Times Thinks that the Jews from Arab Countries Simply “Immigrated”

New York Times’ Small Anti-Semitism

CNN Will Not Report Islamic Terrorism

Politicians In Their Own Words: Why We Don’t Support Defending Jews

Posted on January 16, 2022 by First.One.Through

January 15, 2022 saw another reminder of the threats Jews face in the United States. A man walked into a synagogue during Sabbath services in Texas and held four people hostage. Eventually the congregants escaped unharmed.

*Police deal with hostage situation at synagogue near Dallas, TX January 15, 2022*

The Jewish community is by far the most likely minority group to suffer a hate crime in the US every year, and over the past few years, the attacks have included murder. In October 2018, Jews were shot in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. In April 2019, Jews were killed in a synagogue in Poway CA. In December 2019 Jews were killed in a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, NJ.

These kinds of attacks are more common outside the United States where terrorists attack Jews in their schools, shuls, community centers and restaurants in France, Belgium, Turkey, Argentina, India and of course, in Israel. Knowing of the threat, countries deploy extra protection to guard against the anti-Semitic attacks. But there have been some who do not support providing Jews with protection in the United States for their own reasons.

Liberals Believe That Jews Hate Gays

A number of politicians have stated their opposition to providing Jewish schools with extra police protection and had the following to say when a bill came up before the New York City Council:

Rosie Mendez (D-Manhattan) “They charge tuition, they should pay for their own security. I was against having churches in schools. There should be separation of church and state. As a member of the LGBT community, I know that a lot of these schools discriminate against us and if the city is going to provide any kind of funding, the schools should not be discriminatory.“
Daniel Dromm (D- Queens) “Public schools have to come first. We are supposed to have separation of church and state. Where does this city funding for private schools end?” He added later “I know the same lobbyists for these private and parochial schools and yeshivas will be back again to rob the public-school budget of additional funding at some point in the future.“
State Senator Brad Hoylman “As a public official, we have to stay focused on taxpayer dollars funding public schools. There are shortages of security officers in the public schools.“
NY Civil Liberties Union “is strongly opposed to the use of government funding and services to support religion, including religious schools. This is an inappropriate use of city resources, and skirts dangerously close to government sponsorship of religion, forbidden by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.“
Allen Roskoff, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club “Religious institutions pushing this bill have a long history and present-day reality of discriminating against the gay community. Why should they be able to discriminate on our dime? Where is the concern for the safety of LGBT students and staff in these anti-gay religious schools? These Council members say they care about anti-gay bullying. How is a child being told by religious leaders that he or she is immoral for being gay not bullying?“
Bill Dobbs, Civil Libertarian “Religious freedom does not mean socking overburdened taxpayers for special treatment worth hundreds of millions. Religious freedom means don’t disturb religion, it doesn’t mean you throw your wallet their way.“
Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters “I see no evidence that there is a threat to these students. Surely they can afford to pay for their own security.“
Harvey Robins, a former director of operations for the city, said “For what the Council wants to spend on this, they could open libraries seven days a week.“
Teamsters Local 237 said “Every New Yorker should be outraged at this proposal. This is a giveaway of taxpayers’ money.“
United United Federation of Teachers President, Michael Mulgrew said this was “Crossing the line between public and private is something our forefathers were smart enough not to do.“
Ernest Logan, President of the American Federation of School Administrators said “I want to know who in their right mind thought this was a good idea to take city money and put it into the private industry when you haven’t taken care of the money that you’re required to for the public.“

Progressive Smear That The Jewish State Targets Palestinians

In the fall of 2021, several members of Congress voted to oppose helping to replenish Israel’s defensive Iron Dome missiles which it used to shoot down incoming rockets from the terrorist enclave of Gaza run by Hamas.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted “we continue to pay lip service to human rights, peace and a two state solution. Yet we also continue to provide Israel with funding without addressing the underlying issue of the occupation.“
Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) said “We shouldn’t be sending an additional $1B to an apartheid state’s military. Especially not when we are failing to adequately invest in the health care, housing, education, and other social services our communities need.“
Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) said “Israeli military’s operations that resulted in heavy Palestinian civilian casualties must be scrutinized.“
Rep. Rashida Tlaib said “I will not support an effort to enable war crimes and human rights abuses and violence. We cannot be talking only about Israelis need for safety at a time when Palestinians are living under a violent apartheid system, and are dying from what Human Rights Watch has said are war crimes.“
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) voted present according to the New York Times because of “influential lobbyists and rabbis.“

Alt-Left View That “Black Lives Matter,” But Anti-Semitism Should Only Be Condemned Alongside Islamophobia

While denying Jews and the Jewish State monies for defending themselves from anti-Semitic attacks, many of these same politicians won’t clearly call out anti-Semitism when Jews are attacked, and instead issue broad sweeping comments, as they did in May 2021 when Jews were attacked throughout America during the barrage of missiles from Gaza against Israel.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Idiot-VT) “We’ve recently seen disturbing antisemitic attacks and a troubling rise in Islamophobia.“
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “Antisemitism has no place in our country or world. Neither does Islamophobia.“
Rep. Cori Bush “The work of dismantling antisemitism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and every other form of hate is OUR work.“
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) “We’ve seen an increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate, in NYC and nationwide — hateful words, hate crimes, and other forms of violence.“

The broad brushstrokes of condemning all forms of hatred when Jews were being singled out was an echo of the orchestration of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refusing to censure Ilhan Omar for repeated anti-Semitic remarks and instead put forward a resolution which condemned ALL forms of hatred including “Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry.” Omar and fellow female Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were thrilled by the wording and said “It’s the first time we have voted on a resolution condemning Anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation’s history.” Rather than being scolded and embarrassed, Omar emerged as a proud victor.

The shocking matter of these statements is that they all come from one party – Democrats – home to the majority of Jewish votes for over 100 years. At least for now. The Orthodox movement has already shifted to 75% voting Republican according to Pew Research, and with the current alt-left movement away from basic protections from Jew hatred, more Jews may leave the Democratic party.

Mum on Black, Brown and Leftist Anti-Semitism

David Duke, Ilhan Omar and the Three Lenses of Anti-Semitism

Is the Southern Poverty Law Center Part of the Problem of Anti-Semitism?

Mayor De Blasio is Blind to Black Anti-Semitism

The Re-Introduction of the ‘Powerful’ Jew Smear

A Core Tenet of Zionism Is Combatting Anti-Semitism

Posted on January 12, 2022 by First.One.Through

Zionism has been defined as the “Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews.” Gil Troy, a historian and author of a new book “The Zionist Ideas,” expanded upon that definition and says Zionism has three principle components: that Jews are a nation; that Jews have ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel; and that Jews have a right to establish a state in that homeland, much like other people have rights to their own country.

That view of Zionism purely through a nationalistic lens enables many people to view Zionism as inherently racist. While Zionist advocates – like Troy – clearly articulate that Jews’ attachment to Israel does not mean that other people do not have attachments to the land as well, and that Israel welcomes the one-quarter of its population that is not Jewish with full rights, the anti-Zionists consider the core of the movement as exclusionary. The sentiment that nationalist populism inherently poses a risk “to the fundamental human rights principles of non-discrimination and equality” as stated in a 2018 United Nations report, puts Zionism in the crosshairs. The phrase “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” as once declared in UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1973, gets new air.

Zionism is more than the nationalistic movement of Jews reestablishing a thriving community in their homeland. It is a mission to combat anti-Semitism by providing a safe haven and a base from which to attack the noxious hatred.

Historic Zionism

Jews have always been Zionists. For thousands of years, Jews have prayed facing Jerusalem. Their daily prayers are replete with calls to rebuild their holy city. Jews have lived in and moved to the land of Israel throughout their history. The Jewish nation and religion are bound to the land. Jews were a majority in Jerusalem decades before the first Zionist Congress.

The connection of Jews and their Promised Land is a bedrock laid down in the bible and thousands of years of history. It naturally set the foundation for viewing the modern Jewish State through a three-part nationalist lens of people, religion and land. And it led humanitarians like Henry Dunant (1828-1910) to call for the rightful restoration of Jews to their homeland many years before Jewish Zionists articulated their vision.

But modern Zionism is more than the nationalist yearnings of thousands of years as articulated in Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, written in 1878. It is a clarion call to fight and end Jew hatred.

*Members of the Israeli Defense Forces “sing” Hatikvah in sign language in 2013.*

Modern Zionism as a Safe Haven

The man credited with founding modern Zionism is Theodor Herzl (1860-1904). While completely assimilated and secular, Herzl saw a world which only saw him and others like him as foreign Jews.

He was horrified at the conviction of a secular Jew, Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) in France on trumped up espionage charges. The anti-Semitism on bold display in the courtroom and media convinced Herzl that Jews would never be tolerated anywhere if they could not find peace in a liberal society like France. He said:

“The Jewish question exists wherever the Jews live, however small their number. Where it does not exist it is imported by Jew immigrants. We naturally go where we are not persecuted, and, still persecution is the result of our appearance.”

The pogroms in Russia (Ukraine, Poland) from 1881 to 1884 as well as Kishinev in 1903 and 1905 further cemented the opinion of Herzl and many other early Zionists that Jews would never be able to live in peace where they were treated as despised foreigners. Zionism was a tool to address systemic anti-Semitism. The principle was that only in a place where Jews governed themselves could they escape persecution.

The situation for the Jews in Europe and the USSR actually got worse after Herzl. On January 20 1942, the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Germany, developed the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem,” calling for their extermination. Nazi Germany and its supporters killed one-third of the global Jewish population. The horrors of the European Holocaust which confirmed the radical anti-Semitism prevalent in the world, most likely encouraged many nations to support the reestablishment of the Jewish State just a few years later.

Modern Zionism Fights Anti-Semitism

Today, Israel does not simply seek to be a safe haven for Jews but actively fights anti-Semitism and anti-Semites around the world.

In 1960, years after the Holocaust, agents of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, captured former Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.
In 1976, after Arab terrorists hijacked an Air France plane to Uganda, Israeli commandos flew in to rescue the innocent.
In 1991, when the situation of Ethiopian Jews became dire, Israel launched Operation Solomon which air-lifted 14,325 people out of the country and resettled them in Israel.
In 1994, after Iran and Hezbollah blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina killing 85 people, Israel sent a team to investigate.
In 2015, after Muslim terrorist targeted killing Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris, France, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed French Jews and said “any Jew who chooses to come to Israel will be greeted with open arms and an open heart, it is not a foreign nation, and hopefully they and you will one day come to Israel.“

The government of Israel has a special division for world Jewry called The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. A core mission of the office is “monitoring and treating the scourge of anti-Semitism.” No other government in the world has an office dedicated to its diaspora and to fighting the terrible hatred it endures.

Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Racism But Anti-Semitism

Using the false precept that all forms of nationalism are inherently racist and that Zionism is a particular exclusionary Jewish supremacist movement, schools are indoctrinating students that anti-Zionism is anti-racism and should be embraced. Similarly, the Black Lives Matter movement endorsed boycotting Israel, and the Democratic Socialists of America have all guns blazing with vile smears that Jews in Israel and the United States exploit Black and Brown bodies as a way to turn a profit.

When Zionism only portrays itself as the rightful national aspiration of Jews to self-determination in their homeland, it opens itself up to noxious attacks. A core tenet of Zionism is the fight against anti-Semitism which should be broadcast, as it makes abundantly clear that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.

The Anti-Zionist Lexicon – Vilifying Israel

To Answer the Question Tying Anti-Semitism, Understand The Two Types of Anti-Zionists

To Serve Jews, United Nations Style

Time to Define Banning Jews From Living Somewhere as Antisemitic

Decrying Anti-Semitism While Blocking Jews

Posted on January 4, 2022 by First.One.Through

The State of New York has the most Jews in the United States and the greatest number of anti-Semitic hate crimes.

Beyond the dense Jewish areas of New York City and Westchester County, lie more rural Rockland County and its neighbor to the north, Orange County. Many ultra-Orthodox (Hasidic) Jews live there in towns including Monsey (in Rockland), and Monroe and Kiryas Joel (in Orange).

Unfortunately, many of their neighbors do not like them, and the Jews are facing an increasing amount of anti-Semitic graffiti, attacks and insults.

The Republican party in Rockland County posted a video warning of a “takeover” by the Hasidic community in August 2019.
A man burst into a rabbi’s home in Monsey and stabbed several people, killing one, in December 2020.
A playground at North Garnerville Elementary School was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti in April 2021.
A man in Haverstraw said that he would gladly run over Hasidic Jews at a town public meeting in November 2021.

Several of these blatantly anti-Semitic events were condemned by State Senator James Skoufis, which was appreciated by the Jews in his district. However, many of those Jews may not be aware of the anti-Semitic controversies surrounding Skoufis himself.

As detailed in a lawsuit, Wagschal v. Skoufis, the State Senator has been aggressively fighting the Hasidic community’s desire to expand. Skoufis posted on social media in August 2018 that Jews seeking to establish a new hamlet was “nothing but a revenge-fueled attempt to inflict harm on the people of Monroe and Orange County,” and a “complete lack of regard for the broader community” as he promised to “fight every step of the way to stop this disgraceful, offensive proposal.” His post drew many cheers from anti-Semites who posted that the Hasidic community was a “CURSE,” a “cult,” “cancer,” and “bigoted“; with one user writing that new laws “need to be enacted [to] limit how many children [the Hasidim] actually have.”

Wagschal asked Skoufis to repudiate the vile posts on his Facebook page, which Skoufis did not do. Instead, he blocked Wagschal, which, in turn, led Wagschal to sue his State Senator. Skoufis did subsequently allow Wagschal to post on his page again.

Skoufis’s fighting the Hasidic community in his district would continue.

The Town of Chester in Orange County in Skouflis’s 39th district, had approved the development of a 117-acre site for residential development but then thwarted the project when the site was acquired by Jews. New York Attorney General Letitia James fought against the housing discrimination and won her case in June 2021. After the loss, Skoufis said “There is no place for discrimination — regardless of race, religion, national origin, sex, or otherwise — in our communities,” yet he would go on to fight Jews elsewhere in his district.

Skoufis sponsored a bill about “community preservation funds for the town of Blooming Grove” which sought to enable a town abutting the Jewish community to develop a conservation fund. New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed the bill saying that “there have been well-documented tensions in Orange County between local elected officials and members of the Hasidic community. Similar tensions in the nearby Town of Chester resulted in litigation. It would be inappropriate to sign this legislation at this juncture, while facts are still being gathered about the situation.” Skoufis said the veto was “extremely disappointing” and will bring the bill forward again in 2022.

*NY State Senator James Skoufis has been fighting ads that say he both supports and attacks the Orthodox community in his district*

The move of blocking Jews is not confined to Skouflis’s district. Just outside of the 39th district is the town of Airmont which has also been accused of discriminating against Hasidic Jews in zoning laws. Over the state border is Mahwah, NJ which gathered over 1,000 signatures in an online petition called “PROTECT THE QUALITY OF OUR COMMUNITY IN MAHWAH.” The comments on the petition would have made the infamous Nazi Joseph Geobbels blush.

The outright anti-Semites and blatant anti-Semitic acts are easily decried by public officials. But knowing their constituents’ prejudices, those same elected officials are pushing to change laws to block Jews from moving into neighborhoods. They know that if it can be blessed by such liberal icons as Barack Obama on a national level against the Jews in Jerusalem, it can certainly be accomplished by local politicians in New York.

The Nerve of ‘Judaizing’ Neighborhoods

Time to Define Banning Jews From Living Somewhere as Antisemitic

Westchester County, NY Should Adopt the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism

Spreading “Cheer” of Attacking Israeli Jews

Posted on December 27, 2021 by First.One.Through

Palestinian Arabs have a long history of instilling their hatred of Jews and Israelis into their children.

Palestinian Arabs are by far the most anti-Semitic adults, with an astounding 93% – almost every single adult – hating Jews. For years, they have been passing on their hatred by naming schools, public squares and tournaments after terrorists who kill Jews. The textbooks used in classrooms are replete with horrific depictions of Jews and Israelis. The political-terrorist group Hamas which runs the terrorist enclave of Gaza runs summer camps teaching children how to kill Israelis.

The lifeblood of Palestinian Jew-hatred has a companion, and that is the love of killing Jews.

Consider the Christmas cartoon published by a virulently anti-Zionist Socialist extremist site called Mondoweiss. They showed Santa wearing a kaffiyeh, running amidst burning tires and pelting Israeli soldiers with coal.

*Mondoweiss cartoon showing Santa Claus attacking Israeli soldier*

This is the message of joy for children – violence. Happiness isn’t peaceful coexistence but routing Jews.

Palestinian Arabs have long celebrated the murder of Jews by handing out candies and desserts after terrorists successfully kill Israelis. They have children stand on the street passing out the celebratory treats while the parents and children in Israel mourn for their loved ones.

Israel has tried to get the world to focus on the child abuse of inciting and teaching violence to youngsters, to modest success. Perhaps it was because some governments would like the Palestinians to have an independent state so they delude themselves into believing that Palestinian Arabs “resort” to violence.

But the anti-Zionist movement wants people – including children – to love the violence.

Mondoweiss, whose founders include radical Jewish socialists, is funded by tax-deductible donations. That means that your tax dollars help support the indoctrination of children to love acts of violence. Something to share with your elected officials.

The Veil of Hatred

‘The Maiming of the Jew’

Students for Justice in Palestine’s Dick Pics

Rick Jacobs Seeks Non-Orthodox Prayer Space on The Temple Mount

Posted on December 26, 2021 by First.One.Through

A Satire.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who serves as the President of Reform Judaism, took to the pages of the Jerusalem Post on December 23, 2021 to demand prayer space for non-Orthodox Jews on the Jewish Temple Mount. Long frustrated by the delay in implementing an egalitarian space at the Kotel, the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, Jacobs thought it was time to move on.

“We created a painful but fair compromise that would make the Kotel a place for all Jewish people, from the most liberal to the most orthodox,” but the Israeli government has yet to institute the agreed upon solution, as “Netanyahu capitulated to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox parties” wrote Jacobs. “Making space at the Wall for pluralistic Jewish prayer will proclaim that there is more than one authentic way to live a Jewish life of meaning and purpose,” but alas, Jacobs does not see that happening.

Jacobs noted that the current Israeli government is unlikely to push forward on implementing the compromise solution so he has decided to move on – to the Temple Mount itself.

Jacobs noted that the Orthodox Jews truly revere the Kotel and he is fine letting them have it. He is going up top, with specific rights for non-Orthodox Jews. He added “Orthodox will have sole control over the prayer space that they cherish. For the first time, the non-Orthodox will have a dignified space where we can pray,” on the Al Aqsa Compound. He called this divide a “Solomonic solution, teaching all Jews the power of compromise and unity, and fulfilling Isaiah’s bold prophecy.“

*Rick Jacobs (center) at the Kotel Plaza in 2016 advocating for an egalitarian prayer space*

When questioned whether he thought the Islamic Waqf would have an issue with non-Orthodox prayer on what Muslims revere as the Al Aqsa Compound, he was nonplussed. “The Waqf doesn’t want ‘settlers’ praying on the Temple Mount but the non-Orthodox worshippers will be tourists from abroad as there are virtually no non-Orthodox Israelis who visit the site.“

When pressed further about the Reform movement’s views on ‘settlements’ including the Old City of Jerusalem, Jacobs said that Reform Judaism “has a long-standing policy of opposition to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” and also opposes “eviction/displacement of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, [and] elsewhere in East Jerusalem,” but he doesn’t think there is hypocrisy in advocating for non-Orthodox Jewish prayer on the the Temple Mount.

“Let me be clear, the current Israeli government does not believe in religious freedom and equality for non-Orthodox Jews,” so it’s time to bring our case before the Islamic Waqf. He added that “Judaism and Islam stem from the same foundational idea that we are the Children of Abraham, descendants of our common patriarchs and matriarchs,” and is sure that the Muslims will welcome non-Israeli, non-Orthodox Jewish extremists to pray alongside them on the Al Aqsa Compound.

“Inshallah,” he added. That will really be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all. (Isaiah 56:7)“