Rep. Jamaal Bowman has saddled up with some of the most violent anti-Israel Jew-haters in his New York district. They are now actively coming for Jews.
At the launch of Bowman’s 2024 congressional campaign, he featured Nada Khader who said before a cheering Bowman that Jews in Israel will only be safe when Palestinian Arabs “return to our homeland!” Until then, they can expect more October 7 massacres.
Nada Khader of WESPAC threatening Jews with more attacks if Palestinians do not get to move into Israel, with Rep. Jamaal Bowman cheering “Free Palestine”
Khader has taken her screed directly to Jewish schools.
On March 10, 2024, Khader and about twenty fellow anti-Israel agitators came to the Jewish Leffell School, where Jews gathered to discuss buying homes in Israel.
This seemed like an ideal time and location for Bowman’s supporters to tell Jews that they should be attacked.
Jihadist extremists carry banners in front of a Jewish Day School in Westchester County, NY on March 10, 2024
Khader and friends carried signs to “end the 75 year occupation”, meaning to destroy the Jewish State, as well as to “end Western complicity in Zionism” to rip any protections for Jews, so Muslim extremists can seek “Palestinian Liberation by any means necessary.”
Pro-Palestinian extremists are very clear what “any means necessary” means – more October 7 massacres with raping, beheadings and burning families alive.
NYC – these vile stickers are being spotted all around Union Square.
Khader’s charity, WESPAC, is somehow a tax-exempt entity despite calls for violence. It operates openly in the heart of Westchester County, home to 150,000 Jews.
Nada Khader with allies calling for the rape and slaughter of Jews in front of a Jewish day school on March 10, 2024
Imagine the danger to Westchester’s Jews if Jamaal Bowman prevails in the June 25th Democratic primary.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Rep. Rashida Tlaib shout “Free Palestine” before crowd after the October 7 massacre and mass rape of Israelis by Palestinian Arabs
‘The Zone Of Interest‘ is an unusual Holocaust movie. It shows the daily life of the head of the Auschwitz concentration camp inside his home abutting the vast killing factory. Living a peaceful life with his wife and children, the viewer is struck by the carefree life of the Nazi officer and his family, treating the annihilation of European Jewry as simply a normal 9-to-5 job which supports the family in the way they always desired.
Part of the funding for the movie was from the government of Poland, and its influence can be seen in directing the audience to see that the true evil actors were the German Nazis and not Poles, who were portrayed as trying to help Jews in some way, dropping apples around the camp for Jews who managed to escape. Modern Poles are shown at the end of the film, keeping today’s Holocaust museum at the site tidy for tourists who can view the Jewish possessions which were not seized by the Nazis and their families. The actual rampant Polish Jew hatred is invisible in the film.
Vile Jew-hatred continues today, as do new movies, shows and museums focused on the global scourge. Many contrast past antisemitism to modern Jew-hatred such as the remarkable play ‘Prayer for the French Republic‘ as well as ‘Leopolstadt’. Others are devoted just to the Holocaust like the new museum in Amsterdam. Some try to tie antisemitism into the Arab-Israeli conflict like the opera ‘Death of Klinghoffer.‘
Tragically, many of the works of art about noxious Jew hatred have become awash in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It would appear that Jews being cast as victims – whether with posters of kidnapped Israeli Jewish civilians, or a Holocaust museum – is too much for Palestinian Arab supporters who want to see the Jewish State crushed.
At the March 2024 opening of the new Holocaust museum in Amsterdam, hundreds of protestors gathered outside to shout “Free, free Palestine” and “Viva, viva Intifada,” screaming for the destruction of the Jewish State and murder of Jews.
Anti-Israel demonstrators at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam. Pic: AP
In the U.S., The New York Times published a grotesque opinion that compared Israel’s activities in trying to save its hostages and root out the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre to the Nazi family in ‘The Zone of Interest.’ Over-and-again it wrote of the “military siege of Gaza” and “Israel’s assault on Gaza” in a movie review about a Holocaust film.
NY Times lead opinion piece on March 9, 2024
The author, David Klein, could have stated his opinion about the War From Gaza without attaching his comments to a film about the systematic killing of 6 million Jews but he, and many like him, don’t want to. They want to strip Jews of any protection – offensive or defensive. The end of the article makes clear that he is against supplying Israel with weaponry to prosecute the Palestinian terrorist army of Hamas; appending his opinion to a Holocaust film is designed to also remove America’s shield for Israel at the United Nations and with resupplying the Iron Dome missile defense.
To make his refuse stink a bit less, Klein peppered the “AsAJew” line to protect himself from accusations of antisemitism.
Eli Lake penned an article in Commentary Magazine in March 2024 called “A Brief History of the ‘AsAJew’“. Lake sees this as a phenomenon of far-left diaspora Jews, as even progressives in Israel know that Hamas must be destroyed after the heinous barbarous attack which the terrorist group has threatened to repeat.
Lake described a long history of AsAJews during moments of Jewish suffering appealing to the antisemitic attackers to continue to persecute. He wrote that centuries ago, “the AsAJews of their day lobbied their hosts in the Diaspora to banish or convert the Jewish people to Christianity and to confiscate and burn the Talmud.” He details the story of a man in the 15th century named Johannes Pfefferkorn who converted from Judaism and helped fuel a mini crusade against his former co-religionists.
Times have changed some of the nouns in the anti-Semitic Mad Lib, but the story reads familiar.
Lake wrote, “In the Middle Ages, AsAJew converts were pawns the Church used to spread lies about the Talmud. In 2024, the AsAJews are not converts to Christianity. They are instead converts to the false prophecy of left-wing social-justice activism…. The anti-Semites of the Middle Ages needed AsAJews to provide credentials for the lies that justified their pogroms and expulsions. Today, Hamas and its allies in Iran need the AsAJews to persuade the Hague, European governments, and the White House to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense.”
I will add some observations on top of Lake’s. For centuries, antisemites including AsAJews, came for the Jews by attacking the religion itself. They concocted stories about Passover matzah in blood libels and the Talmud teaches black magic. Today’s cohort attack Jews and Jewish history, not the religion. They mock the Holocaust. They claim Jews have no history in the land of Israel and are “colonizers” who stole land from Arabs, and that Jews never had holy temples in Jerusalem so should be banned from prayer in a site that is solely holy to Muslims.
By ignoring religion, the modern day antisemites refuse to carry the antisemitic mantle because they are not attacking the religion, just bad actors who happen to be Jewish. The AsAJew allies provide a wide fig leaf for the charade, much as they’ve done for centuries.
Museums and films devoted to the heinous slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust, which would normally demonstrate the profound need for Jews to have self-determination, are being used by the alt-left and Islamic radicals to argue that Jews should be left to the wolves of Hamas. Some are not as shrill, and offer a tepid “both sides” support, blind to their echoing former President Donald Trump’s Charlottesville remarks.
‘The Zone of Interest’ Winning Best International Film on March 10, 2024, with callout to Israeli and Palestinian victims of terror
As antisemitism scales to terrifying levels around the world, the alt-left and Islamic radicals are turning works of art and remembrances of the deliberate mass butchering of Jews on October 7 and during the Holocaust into calls to attack Jews and the one Jewish State. Many progressive Jews are appalled and are abandoning their former partners-in-crime as now-revealed naked antisemites. But the AsAJews have remained steadfast and will share names and addresses of the Zionists, marking Jews as zealots who need to be punished for the good of mankind once again.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation on March 7, 2024 to discuss the state of the union. He discussed many points about situations abroad including Ukraine, Israel and China, and items on the domestic front such as immigration, abortion, education, the economy and crime.
President Joe Biden delivery State of the Union address on March 7, 2024
Biden put a very positive spin on the crime rate in the U.S. “All Americans deserve the freedom to be safe, and America is safer today than when I took office…. Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history, and violent crime fell to one of the lowest levels in more than 50 years.”
Sounds great.
But not for Jews.
Jews are being attacked and vilified on public streets and in schools. They watch university presidents smile when asked about calling for the genocide of Jews, and professors shout that they were exhilarated by the mass slaughter and rape of Jews in Israel.
In November 2023, Jewish Federations published a report that “70% of Jewish respondents said they feel less safe than they did a few months before [the Hamas war]…. Jews were twice as likely to say they worry very much about their personal safety compared to the general public.”
In February 2024, the American Jewish Committee released its own poll which found “63% of American Jews say the status of Jews in the U.S. is less secure compared to one year ago. In 2022, this number was 41%. In 2021, it was 31%.” The spike is found among the general public too in which “74% of U.S. adults say antisemitism is a problem in the United States today, compared to 68% who said so in 2022, and 60% in 2021.”
Biden knows about the tsunami of Jew hatred. In May 2023, five months before Palestinian jihadists butchered 1,200 people in Israel, Biden announced The U.S. Strategy To Counter Antisemitism. That document narrowly focused on the alt-right, with “Nazis” mentioned twelve times and “white supremacy” five. The more prevalent forms of Jew hatred from Islamic extremists, Blacks and the alt-left went completely unmentioned in the report.
The Biden administration was so blind to radical Islamic antisemitism that it put CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, on the antisemitism committee at that time. The administration only removed CAIR after the head of the group said how pleased he was with the October 7 jihadi massacre.
The unwillingness of the Biden administration to clearly call out every manifestation of Jew hatred – not just from the alt-right – has upset many Jews. According to a February 2024 Siena College poll, the majority of Jews, who normally vote Democratic, are switching to Donald Trump for president in November 2024, buy a margin of 53% to 44%.
Joe Biden seems to be banking on math, that Jews are a minority-minority who are unlikely to tip the scales in any state. Or perhaps he just decided to “love the one your with” and cuddle up to the insidious jihad taking over America, protecting vile antisemites if the are Muslims or Blacks, who make up a much larger swatch of “minorities.”
Now in the 2024 election, Biden has informed Americans that the country is extremely safe, and is unwilling to acknowledge the tsunami of Jew hatred by his supporters in the Muslim, Black and progressive communities. Should Trump win the presidency, those left-wing and jihadi groups will surely come for the Jews in even greater numbers and ferocity than they are currently.
Some far-left extremists have taken up the cause of Palestinian Arabs under the framework of being anti-colonialist, falsely believing that Jews have no history or connection to the land of Israel.
The bold lie is just the opening problem. They also protest blanketed in hypocrisy.
While standing firmly with Hispanic immigrants coming to the United States, the alt-left radicals demand that Jews “go back” to the concentration camps in Poland. As they demand full rights for gay people, they side with Gazans who execute homosexuals.
One such gay Palestinian was Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh. He was granted asylum in Israel – along with roughly 90 other Palestinian homosexuals – because he correctly feared for his life among Palestinian Arabs. One year before Gazans raped and massacred over 1,000 people in Israel, Palestinian Arabs decapitated Ahmad and dumped his torso on the streets of Hebron. The killers took a video of the murder and shared it on social media, much as they did with the butchering of Israelis one year later.
Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, 25, decapitated by Palestinian Arabs because he was gay
There is a sick evil ideology amongst Gazans who want to kill Jews, murder those who sell land to Jews, behead gay people, and stone people who convert from Islam. Yet the alt-left looks away from the Palestinians’ jihadi manifesto and shouts their support for those who despise everything in which they believe.
Well not everything. Palestinians and the alt-left both agree on death to Israel and death to America.
There used to be jokes about how to handle one’s racist uncle during the holidays. Now the question is how to deal with a person’s antisemitic niece.
While many older cisgender White men continue to be challenged by the changing nature of America, a large percentage of women aged 18-34 (and under 24 in particular) have a hatred for Jews that would make Nazis blush.
The results from the December Harvard/Harris poll about views of Israel and Hamas segmented by age were shocking. While well over 90% of people over 55 viewed the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion and slaughter in Israel as an act of terrorism, only slightly more than 70% of the 18-34 cohort believed the killing of 1,200 people to be terrorism. An estimated 90% of people over 55 thought there was no justification for the Hamas attack, but 60% of people 18-24 thought the massacre was justified.
Young people are evenly split on supporting Hamas and Israel, while almost every older person supports Israel. After the October 7 attack, 76% of 18-24 year-olds thought Hamas is a rational actor with whom Israel can negotiate while 87% of those over 65 believe Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Consequently, 84% of seniors oppose a ceasefire now that would leave Hamas in place while 67% of the youth think a ceasefire should happen immediately and leave Hamas intact.
In the aftermath of the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust, a majority of 51% of 18-24 year-olds think Israel should be dissolved and handed to Hamas and the Palestinians. Only 4% of those over 65 hold such views, with 71% preferring two states and 25% supporting Palestinians moving into neighboring Arab countries.
Lastly, the poll touched on gender-related violence. Two-thirds of seniors believe that human rights groups did not adequately condemn the rape of Israeli women, while 80% of those 18-24 thought that women’s rights organizations condemned Hamas sufficiently.
These findings confirm a January 2023 ADL poll which found “Young adults have more anti-Israel sentiment than older generations.”
The age divide is much the same regarding antisemitism in the United States.
An estimated 90% of people over 65 years old think that Jews face harassment on college campuses which drops to about two-thirds for 18-34 year-olds. Much of that disparity seems to do with whether words constitute harassment, as 92% of people over 65 think that calling for the genocide of Jews should be against university rules, while 53% of people 18-24 think students should be free to call for the genocide of Jews.
In addition to penalizing particular speech, one of the drivers seems to be driven by ideology. Roughly 81% of people over 65 oppose the notion that people should be viewed through the lens of White oppressors and non-White oppressed classes of people, while 79% of 18-24 year-olds support the ideology. Among those over 65, 91% believe that Jews should not fall into the White oppressor class while 67% of 18-24 year-olds believe Jews should be in the oppressor class.
What has driven the enormous disparity of opinions in which young people side with terrorists who slaughter Jews? What drives so many 18 to 24 year-olds to be so anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist?
A few ideas to review including a post-9/11 world, indoctrination in schools, race, social media and human rights groups.
Post-9/11 World
Americans who were adults in 2000 and 2001 can easily remember the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the continued heinous killing of Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arabs from 2000 to 2004. The clarity about the jihadi extremists perpetrating the disgusting murders was apparent to all, so the support for the United States and Israel responding to the attacks was wide and deep.
For young people who do not remember the attacks but only the consequences – America’s 20-year long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Israeli Security Barrier which was put up to stop the flow of Palestinian Arab terrorists – the cause-and-effect is now inverted. Rather than see the Security Barrier as the effective reaction to jihadi terrorism, it is viewed as an obstacle to coexistence. Rather than appreciate the lack of mass casualty attacks in the U.S. over the past two decades, young people question why America fought wars abroad for so long.
Young people have come to believe that western powers are “imperialist” and wage wars to subjugate others. They have internalize the Iranian narrative of the US and Israel being “big Satan” and “Little Satan”, respectively, aggressively fighting Muslims and people of color for no reason.
When the 2014 Gaza War concluded around the same time as the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, the SJP chapters started to align themselves with the Black community in an effort of allyship. It created narratives of “Gaza to Detroit” and “Ferguson to Palestine” as if the two have anything remotely in common.
Muslims claimed it did – and latched onto the oppressor/oppressed narrative which has now become university doctrine over the past decade. Teacher union bosses pushed the notion into lower schools as well, that Jews should be seen as part of the elite “ownership class” who try to keep others down.
Coupled with this incorrect portrayal of American Jews as powerful is the mischaracterization of Israel as a European colonial project. In university departments focused on decolonization, Israel is being cast as a racist state which must be dismantled. There is no subtle debate about Israel/Palestine for young people; they have been taught that Jews are not indigenous to Israel and “stole” Palestinian land.
As toxic ideologies like this inevitably metastasize, the calls to actively be “anti-racist” compelled students to become vocal anti-Zionists. Elective courses on “anti-racism” in California universities soon became mandatory in high schools, infecting the minds of tens of thousands.
While older Americans were spared this indoctrination, many Americans under 30 have been schooled in antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
UN and Human Rights Groups Slander
Universities celebrated when Amnesty International published a report in February 2022 calling Israel an “apartheid” state. It gave credibility to anti-Zionists who had long defamed Israel at will – like The New York Times – using a third party’s definition rather than state personal bias.
The Obama Administration’s last middle finger to Israel as it departed was allowing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass which made it illegal for Jews to live east of the 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan, including in Judaism’s holiest location of the Old City of Jerusalem. While older people may recall that Jews have been a majority of Jerusalem since the 1860s, younger people have grown up where Jews living in Jerusalem is an act of evil colonization.
Racial Overview of Youth
Today’s youth is much more multi-ethnic than older generations.
America’s youth has many more non-White people while older Americans are mostly White. According to Pew Research, the most common age for Whites was 58 in 2019, and a much younger 29 for Asians, 27 for Blacks and 11 for Hispanics.
Among 70 year-olds, there are about 2.5 million White people but not even 1 million non-White people. However, among 20 year-olds, there are roughly 2.3 million White people and only slightly fewer, 2.1 million non-Whites, roughly an even split.
The multi-ethnic youth have come to see their White Jewish peers as part of the “White oppressor” class. They incorrectly assume that Israeli Jews are mostly White, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, White Ashkenazi Jews make up only one-third of the Israeli population.
Race In Colleges
The race of college students varies by the type of school. Overall, 42.3% of students are White, 17.4% Hispanic, 10.6% Black, 5.8% Asian according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The figures change dramatically when considering the type of school and degree.
At private, nonprofit four-year universities, 47% of students were white and 33% of students were Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). A similar mix was found at public four-year schools where 46% of students were white, 38% were BIPOC. Shorter associate degrees attracted more minorities, with private two-year schools, 38% of students were white, 44% were BIPOC and public two-year schools, 29% of students were white, 42% were BIPOC.
More people are opting to not attend colleges, viewing them as expensive and not worth the time or investment. White enrollment declined the most from 2018 to 2022, dropping by 17.4%, while Black and Hispanic enrollment declined by 13.6% and 3.6%, respectively. Men are skipping universities in greater numbers than women, with women now accounting for 8.3 million students compared to 6.1 million men.
Despite women and minorities making up a greater share of college students, the professors are still mostly white, with White men making up 39% of all faculty and White women, 35%.
While White people make up a plurality of four-year degree programs, the schools have made very direct actions to change their faculty and curricula. They have implemented DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs, which are getting a lot of attention after the resignation of Harvard’s Black female president who failed to clearly condemn antisemitism at a congressional hearing.
Universities are not simply deploying indoctrinating students in a new socialist ideology compared to past generations; they are preaching to a more muti-ethnic population who are embracing the theology.
Social Media
The socialist antisemitic educational system deserves part of the blame but social media has fostered the toxicity as well.
While smartphones came to the world in 2008, the social media phenomenon on phones really took off from 2010 to 2015. Young people began to rely on news from influencers they followed (think sports stars, models, entertainers) rather than on professional news outlets. Young people fled to these idiots who offered opinions rather than facts, on platforms that pushed engagement via extremism rather than nuanced debate.
People like Kanye West, Kyrie Irving and Bella Hadid have many more people reading their drivel than CNN or the Wall Street Journal, especially young people. The youth get to enjoy the thrill of interacting with their stars rather than sit passively taking in boring news. Instagram became the simplest (fewest words) and most popular social media platform for young people while older Americans barely touched it.
And here also, race plays a part.
According to a May 2020 PRRI report, “young adults (ages 18-29) are notably more likely to use social media frequently than other age groups. Nearly half of young Americans (47%) report using social media sources frequently, compared to one in four (25%) Americans ages 30-49, about one in ten (11%) Americans ages 50-64, and only 3% of senior Americans (ages 65 and older).” It added that “Hispanic Americans (30%) are substantially more likely than white Americans (19%) and black Americans (19%) to be frequent social media user.”
According to Statista, Blacks are as likely as Hispanics to be active on social media, both much more than Whites. Daily use of social media is 46% for Blacks, 44% for Hispanics and only 34% for Whites. The gap in never-users shows the same contrast with only 18% of both Blacks and Hispanics never using social media and 30% of Whites never using it. So while 2.5 times as many Blacks and Hispanics use social media daily compared to never users, the numbers are almost the same for Whites.
So while over 70% of older Americans are White and not active on social media (and more inclined to use Facebook), the younger generation is almost 50/50 White/non-White and active on Instagram.
The Chinese company Tik Tok has a similar pattern. Roughly half of viewers are under 29 years old and 57% of all viewers are female. Almost no one over 55 uses the platform. Further, 80% of the content is made by people under 24 years old.
While the United States has the most viewers, it is followed immediately by Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. Almost all of the countries where the platform has the highest penetration are Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait, followed by Thailand, Qatar and Malaysia.
Antisemitism in Young People / Non-Whites
Aggregating this information leads to a real divide among older and younger Americans. Those 65 and over tend to be White, remember 9/11 and the Second Intifada, get their news from newspapers made in western countries and went to work believing in meritocracy. That’s in sharp contrast to Americans 18-24 who are are as likely to be non-White as White; have no recollection of 9/11, just the War on Terror; get their news from social media stars and very young people alongside the Muslim world and Russia; and receive an education that meritocracy is a myth and that they live under the thumb of a White patriarchy which imposes its imperialist whims on the Global South from where many of the youths’ ancestors originated.
Young people don’t comprehend that Jews were active in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and view Jews as part of the White elite. They don’t believe the FBI Hate Crime reports that Jews are the most targeted group of hate crimes, and they hold antisemitic views that Jews and Zionists are deeply racist who only care about money, power and themselves.
Older Americans are relatively homogenous and see a disappointing new generation which hates America and its ally Israel. They watch young people loudly cheering the mass slaughter of Jews in Israel, and call the young socialists and jihadists out as antisemites. For their part, the young see the older generation as impossibly out-of-touch White racists, unwilling to let the multi-ethnic future take the reigns of power.
Jews know math and their impossibly small numbers, and turn to the government and cling to law enforcement to protect them from the percolating tidal wave of hate.
For the last few hundred years, Jews inserted three lines after their penultimate prayer in their daily services. Right after Aleinu and before the final mourner’s Kaddish, a sentence from Proverbs and two from Isaiah are found:
Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
Al-Tirah
Roots Of Al Tira Prayer
Leaving synagogue was often a traumatic affair when Jews were scattered around the world. Inside of the synagogue, Jews were both together and felt connected to God; outside was a starkly different reality. Sometimes the local non-Jews would attack the Jews with pogroms and edicts, and at other times, Jews would be fortunate to find salvation.
Today, very few congregations actually recite the prayer despite its inclusion in prayer books.
I suggest that perhaps it is now time for all congregations to begin saying it.
Israel has responded to the Palestinian barbarity. It has killed and injured roughly one-third of the political-terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and has leveled much of the terrorist enclave. Hamas has claimed that nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed at this point, with children accounting for over one-third.
On top of the frozen state of terror of Jews from the ongoing antisemitic attacks since October 7 is the sadness of watching the destruction of Gaza. Why did Hamas do this and why does the evil group insist that Israeli forces continue to pound Gaza rather than release the hostages and surrender the terrorists?
Hamas has an evil and twisted ideology rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam that demands the destruction of the Jewish state, believing its presence is an embarrassment for Muslims. As it states in its foundational charter “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious… There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time… In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.”
For its part, Judaism has a different set of beliefs that stretches back thousands of years before the Islamic prophet Mohammed was born. It urges calm in the face of fear.
Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. (Proverbs 3:25)
Jews are carrying both the shock of October 7 in Israel and the sickening reaction of Hamas’s fans around the world. They are simultaneously witnessing the destruction of that enemy. It’s a lot to process – the “sudden fear” and the “desolation of the wicked” – and has led many Jews and Zionists to huddle together in synagogue, and hide symbols of being Jewish when they go outside.
Jewish Calendar And Numbers
The Jewish year 5784 is a Jewish leap year which adds another month, and the year 2024 in the secular calendar is also a leap year which adds a single day. Both the Jewish calendar and the secular calendars add the time in the winter to “correct” the calendar for the upcoming spring.
We are now in the first of two months of Adar. Jewish tradition holds that Adar is a month of happiness and when Jews defeated their mortal enemies who attacked the weakest Jews. The double month of Adar is meant as a moment of double celebration.
This year of 5784 is the eighth year of the 19-year Metonic cycle which marks leap years on the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth year. Just as 2024 is the eighth year in the cycle, so was 1967, when Israel reunified Jerusalem, as was 1948, the year that the Jewish State was reborn. From 1948 to 1967 was one Metonic cycle and from 1967 to 2024 were three full cycles.
Numbers have significance in Judaism. One is connected to the singularity of God in the Jewish monotheistic faith. Three symbolizes Judaism’s founding fathers, the sections of the Shema prayer, three holidays of pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the three groups of Jews.
Eight is also meaningful. Beyond the day that Jewish males are circumcised to join the Jewish nation, tradition is that eight connects man in the natural to the supernatural world. While God made the world in seven days and had seven branches on the menorah in the holy Temple, eight is the step beyond. The seven branch menorah was for the Temple, while Jews light an eight branch menorah in their homes and synagogues today to connect to the miracle.
Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. (Isaiah 8:10)
These months of Adar seem like important months to recite the oft-skipped prayer. A time to mark the third complete leap year cycle of Jewish control Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It is a time to remember that God is with us and he is the sole source of fear.
Amalek And Arms Aloft Together
When the Jewish people left slavery in Egypt they were attacked by the nation of Amalek. During the battle, Jews looked up to Moses who held his arms pointing to the sky with the assistance of Aaron and Hur who held the elderly prophet’s arms. The Jews were empowered when they saw Moses praying to God to vanquish the enemy, and prevailed as God enabled their success.
And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. (Isaiah 46:4)
Today, there is no Jewish leader like Moses to pray on behalf of the jews, and every Jew takes their own prayer book to talk to God. They gather in minyanim around the world to pray for Jewish soldiers fighting with weapons, and Jewish lay leaders who fight against Hamas’s supporters in governments, college campuses and everywhere.
Let us all recite Al Tirah together, holding the hands of the people to our right and left, and pray for God to deliver success in defeating all of our foes.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) has long had an antisemitism problem, flagged by groups like the Anti-Defamation League. He’s made the Jews in his district feel unsafe by calling Republicans “Nazis” and voting against a resolution condemning antisemitism. He would not even come to a rally in Scarsdale after Jewish stores were vandalized.
His anti-Israel stances like boycotting the speech of dovish Israeli President Isaac Herzog have gradually become more personal and militant, as he saddles up to jihadists in his quest for more money and power.
Bowman launched his reelection campaign with one of the leaders of the anti-Israel group WESPAC as a featured speaker. WESPAC supports a number of anti-Israel extremist groups, which defended Hamas’s October 7 brutal slaughter in Israel.
His constituents and his Democratic primary challenger were outraged.
“Let me set the record straight – my opponent takes money from those who endorse Hamas’ terrorism, those who try to justify the murdering of children, the kidnapping of civilian hostages, and the raping of women as acts of ‘resistance,’” Westchester County Executive George Latimer said in a prepared statement. “As a progressive Democrat, I find that horrifying and unacceptable.”
Rather than clearly denounce Hamas and the terrorist groups’ supporters, Bowman’s latest antic is to possibly sue his Democratic primary opponent for slander. He turned the entire episode on its head by claiming that Latimer stoked Islamophobia, saying, “His [Latimer] comments equating all Muslims to Hamas are textbook Islamophobic and put the Muslim-American community in real danger. He should not only retract this false statement he’s repeatedly made. He should apologize to a community he continues to vilify and endanger.”
Of course, it was Bowman who equated the two, as Latimer clearly specified the particular people who supported Hamas and its actions, and never mentioned their faith nor attacked the entire community.
Bowman takes the endorsements and the money of Hamas’s supporters, then plays the victim, and misquotes and attacks others. It’s classic Bowman theater, putting Jewish lives at risk in an appeal to anti-Israel donors.
And he relentlessly continues to wage this real and psychological war on his Jewish constituents.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), a 75-year old Jewish grandmother, put forward a bipartisan resolution condemning the rape and mutilation of Jewish women by Hamas on October 7. It gathered 200 cosponsors. But not Bowman. Not Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Not Rep. Ilhan Omar nor Cori Bush.
The race in the district is boiling down to anti-Israel voters versus anti-Hamas voters. People supporting George Latimer believe that Hamas must be neutered, whether by force or the leaders surrendering, to afford a chance for peace. People supporting Jamaal Bowman believe that Hamas speaks for the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian butchery of Israeli civilians was justified in the past and would be appropriate in the future, as the group has promised.
While Jamaal Bowman sharply criticizes White Supremacy, he is going all-in on with those who celebrate jihadists massacring Jews. It’s part of the insidious jihad taking over wide swaths of America, and it should alarm every American, not just those in New York’s lower Westchester County.
It surprised no one that attacks against Jews around the world spiked after the Hamas political-terrorist group invaded Israel and butchered and slaughtered around 1,200 people. The bold and not-so-out-of-the-closet antisemites had reason to cheer the death and mutilation of Jews and took to the streets to swear allegiance to the atrocities’ actors.
Slightly more moderate and less gleeful were those who adamantly declared they didn’t hate Jews, just the Jewish State. Francesca Albanese, whose title is “UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron who had decried the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. She wrote “The ‘worst antisemitic massacre of our century? No, Mr. President. The victims of 7/10 were killed not because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.” Perhaps she thinks that Gazans would have raped and burned alive Ottoman Turks and British civilians too when they ruled in Palestine.
Many people are calling for Albanese’s resignation, not because she’s pro-Palestinian but because she’s sanitizing antisemitism to the world. People can read, and the virulently antisemitic Hamas Charter is online.
Antisemitism continues to inch beyond the borders of Israel and the confines of self-declared Jew-haters. Even those who have historically done outreach to Jews are turning away from them now, while Jews around the world pray for the dead, the injured, the hostages and their families.
There is a restaurant in Barcelona, Spain called Xerta. It is a Michelin-starred restaurant since 2016, and once a week it makes its kitchen kosher so it can accommodate the dietary restrictions of Orthodox Jews. Jews around the world have come to dine at the famous restaurant, the only kosher Michelin restaurant in the world.
Until recently.
due to the current situation in Middle East, the Management Team has decided to interrupt the service, so no Kosher service is scheduled, at least at the moment
Xerta Restaurant, February 2024
What does kosher food in Spain have to do with a war between Hamas and Israel? Why should Jews in Spain suddenly lose the opportunity of dining in a fine restaurant? The establishment clearly made an effort of outreach to the Jewish community in the past, so why the shift in stance?
Possible reasons include:
Penalizing Jews for the actions of the Jewish State
Demonstrating to fellow Spaniards that they are so against Israel, that they would deprive Jews service even though they have nothing to do with Israel
Out of fear that the restaurant would be attacked by antisemites who make no distinction between Jews and the Jewish State
The managers of the restaurant are clearly not antisemites or would not have historically offered kosher food. But they have taken action specifically against local Orthodox Jews at this time because of activities 2,200 miles away.
Xerta Restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. Emptied of Orthodox Jews
The restaurant managers know that Spain is not like other western countries and Barcelona has a radical streak. While almost every western country stopped making voluntary payments to UNRWA after it was shown that many of its employees participated in the October 7 pogrom against Israeli Jews, Spain decided to INCREASE its donations. Just last year, the mayor of Barcelona severed the ceremonial “sister city” relationship with Tel Aviv because she said Israel committed “apartheid.”
Perhaps Xerta’s management watched the news about the spike in antisemitism everywhere with chants to “gas the Jews” and attack Zionists everywhere. Maybe they feared that their neighbors’ hatred for the Jewish State would come for Jews dining in its establishment, so it kept the kosher patrons away.
Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) would be ashamed. He knew his silence was complicity for Nazi atrocities.
Cold-blooded antisemites are killing Jews, and friends of Jews are abandoning them in the cold.
It’s an old lesson for this generation. Jews are being schooled on the fragility of allies and the antisemitism of adjacencies.
Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group has been called many things since its barbaric massacre on October 7. Due to the grotesque nature of the mass rape, slaughter and mutilation of people, people quickly thought of Nazis, as the killing of 1,200 Jews on a single day was the worst massacre since the Holocaust and committed with an intent to humiliate and torture Jews.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that “The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS,” and many government officials agreed. The radical jihadi group burned its enemies alive and broadcast it for the world to see as a recruiting tool, similar to the torching of Jewish families alive by Hamas fighters which they similarly broadcast.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas to Amalek, the biblical foe that sought out the weakest members of the Children of the Exodus for attack and slaughter, much as Hamas raped women and butchered children. Lawyers from South Africa have incorrectly argued at the International Court of Justice that Netanyahu’s comparison showed that Israel has genocidal intent to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza. The biblical passage actually calls for eradicating the emotional scar that Amalek left in the Jewish people which can happen in different ways: for Amalek it was to destroy them; for Nazis it was to defeat them and then have them accept responsibility and repent for their actions.
Israel has good relations with Germany today.
Hamas resembles all three groups. It is a ruling government like the Nazis, democratically elected to 58% of parliament by Palestinians. It rules over territory, much like ISIS and has a radical jihadi philosophy about killing Jews. Like Amalek, Hamas specifically targeted the most vulnerable Jewish non-combatants.
The foundational charter of Hamas is a noxious screed of antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control with calls to slaughter Jews and destroy the Jewish State. A sample of the invective includes:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” (Opening)
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” (Preamble)
“Moslems fight the Jews(killing the Jews)… there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him” (Article 7)
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time” (Article 13)
“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.” (Article 15)
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children… [Jews] attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money” (Article 20)
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates…. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.… fight with the warmongering Jews.” (Article 32)
The evil philosophy of Hamas was laid out in its carefully constructed charter by dozens of people over months in the 1980s, Palestinians voted them to power in 2006 and widely support them post-October 7 according to many Palestinian polls.
The very word “Nazis” brings to mind the most evil and sadistic murderers. Over the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, it was used to mark the worst antisemitic and racist White people. “Hamas” has earned that loathsome dishonor, for the most heinous and vicious antisemitic jihadists of the 21st century.
White people preaching antisemitism today are called neo-Nazis and their actions against Jewish targets bring convictions in courts for hate crimes. So it must be with Hamas supporters (neo-Hamasites?) who attack Jews and Jewish targets with messages related to the annihilation of the Jewish State.
Winter temperatures can drop to freezing in many parts of the world. When one factors in the strong winds that often accompany bad weather, the “real feel” temperature is often much lower. The wind chill effect is caused by the wind blowing the natural heat that our body generates to further lower our external body temperature, and over time, our internal temperature.
The same happens with antisemitic attacks and antisemitic vitriol.
Jews have always been the most targeted group of hate crimes according to FBI Hate Crime statistics, more than Blacks, LGBTQ and Muslim communities. An average Jew in the United States is six times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an average Arab.
“This is just the beginning y’all, this is just the beginning… AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbies in America. Well you know what we have got to say to AIPAC? Bring it on, y’all. AIPAC, bring it on, y’all! We are not scared of none of that! I’m from the streets of New York…. I was a middle school principal. Taught kids in the South Bronx. Hey y’all, this is New York. AIPAC, we’re ready for all of that. If you wanna support a corporate career corrupt pay-to-play politician, you go ahead and do that…. Our movement is much more powerful than they can even imagine!“
After blowhard-Bowman chillingly called his own constituents “they” as if they were and not Americans and New Yorkers, and frighteningly challenged local Jews essentially to a rumble as if we were living in West Side Story, the cold acts of hate hit Jewish stores.
Just a few hours later, at around 3:45am according to video cameras, a woman painted graffiti on a couple of Jewish-owned stores in Scarsdale, in Bowman’s district.
“Genocide Supporters” painted on storefronts of Jewish-owned stores
Word spread quickly in the Jewish community.
Hundreds of Jews came to the scene by 4:00pm, to support the Scoop Shop ice cream store and hear from politicians such as Westchester County Executive George Latimer who is running in the Democratic primary against Bowman, and State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin. Both told the crowd that while there is free speech, it has consequences and Westchester stands united against vitriol and hate of any kind.
Scoop Shop ice cream store packed with people supporting store owner
Jamaal Bowman has long made a reputation in congress as a toxic race-baiter. He accused Republicans of being too White and “lack[ing] the cognitive and emotional ability to recognize diverse opinions, when they talk truth to power.” He similarly thinks that a lobbying group made principally of Jews has too much power which must be railed against, even though he’s backed by a much more powerful lobbying arm, the teachers’ unions.
The antisemitic wind chill of Bowman’s caustic remarks and screaming challenge against the Jewish community hung in the air more than the sting of the vandalism.
Jews in Westchester closed ranks for warmth and comfort, and used the opportunity to get people to register to vote as they supported the victimized ice cream store and prayed the mincha service in the parking lot. The antisemitic wind chill felt less biting as they huddled and considered how they live in a time and place where an antisemitic storm can descend quickly with a toxic hail of words and actions.
By no means a natural storm. A storm manufactured and directed by their current governmental representative, Jamaal Bowman.
Owner of Scoop Shop after rally on January 25, 2024
First One Through 